“I just didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“You didn’t. Mary Lisa should know better than to try to monopolize you the way she was.”
I rub the back of my neck uncomfortably. “She wants me to call her.”
“Do you want to call her?” Emily peers at me.
“Not really, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings, either.”
“You shouldn’t feel obligated. Mary Lisa has a daddy. She doesn’t have any business flirting with you when she’s already committed to her daddy.”
Thinking of the women who used to hang all over Logan, without any apparent commitment on either side, I shrug. “Is she? Maybe they have an open relationship or something.”
“I don’t think so.” Emily gives me another searching look. “Do you like Mary Lisa better than Cynnie?”
“I barely know either of them, Em.”
“Mary Lisa’s a?—”
“Emily,” Logan growls from across the entire great room. “Are you gossiping?”
Emily’s lip seal together like one of those Zip-lock bags. I can’t control a chuckle.
“It’s okay, girlie. I know what Mary Lisa is.” High maintenance is what Mary Lisa is. “It’s Cynnie who’s coming over for dinner tonight. Thanks for that recipe.”
She stretches up to plant another kiss on my cheek before she waves me off to follow Logan into the basement.
“Don’t let Emmy bully you, mate,” Logan says as he leads me down the stairs.
“She really wants to hook me up with Cynnie, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah. She just wants her friends to be happy and I’m good with that but take things at your own speed. It’s a lot to ask for you to start dating someone newandfigure out how to be a Daddy-Dom at the same time. I had a hell of a lot of training before I tried to top anyone I was dating.”
“Uh, how’d you train if it wasn’t on the job?”
Logan turns at the bottom of the stairs to look at me. “I trained in a brothel. That one in Bangkok where Sneaker tried to order me a rim job, remember?”
“Jesus, really? I didn’t know you went back there.”
“Yeah, I spent six months learning how to be a dominant from the madam there. So don’t rush yourself. Take it slow. Your instincts are solid, but there are things that will pop up and surprise the shit out of you. Still happens to me with Emily.”
“Yeah?” That surprises me. Logan seems like he’s in complete control of Emily.
“A submissive’s not a doll, as much as we might like to call them our fuck-toys.” He flashes white teeth at me. “They’re independent adults outside their relationship with us. They have freewill. Sometimes they’re unreasonably fucking stubborn. And you’ll never know them perfectly, so you’ll never have complete control over them. That’s what keeps dominance interesting.”
“But I’ve never seen Emily refuse to do something you told her to do,” I say as Logan hands me a weight belt and straps one around his own waist.
“She’s used her safe word.” Logan rubs his hands over his face, and I gather that’s a bad memory. “That’s the closest she’s come to outright refusing to do something I told her to do. And I’m glad she did. That’s why we have safe words. But I hate that we got to that point. That I put her in a situation where she felt so unsafe she had to use her safe word.”
Remembering what DirtyGurl told me about using her safe word, I ask, “Does it bother you when your submissive uses her safe word?”
“When Emmy does it, yeah. Fucks me all the hell up. I’m her daddy. I’m supposed to keep her safe. If she feels so unsafe she’s needed to safe word, I’ve failed her.” He sighs as we sit down on the mats under his weight bench to stretch out. “Being a daddy is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, mate. I’ve never been happier than I am with Emmy. But it’s also the heaviest burden I’ve ever borne outside of leading men into battle. It’s more than Emily’s life I hold in my hands. It’s her soul. I’ve never been entrusted with someone’s soul before. I can’t let her down.”
I pull my right arm across my body, clamp my elbow with my forearm, and pull until I feel the muscles of my shoulder and upper back open up. “Lo, I don’t feel ready to take that on.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to right away. Don’t ask that of yourself. Take it slow. You need space to make mistakes. And to forgive yourself for them. I’m not very good at that, I’ll admit.” Logan drops his stretch to rub his hands over his face again. “Emmy and I are okay now, but we’ve had a really rough couple of days. I’m still beating myself up about it. I left Emily with Miranda for an hour. I came back before they expected me to and they were going at it. Mir said some unforgivable things to Emily and instead of walking away like she knows she’s supposed to, Emmy stood up for herself. I don’t blame her for that, but I hate that she had to.”
I stop stretching to give him my full attention. Seeing them at the playgroup, I never would have guessed there was a moment of discord between them. The strain on Logan’s face, entirely apart from his injuries, says otherwise. “Is she okay?”
