13. Yes, Sir

Afew hours later, Sarah set a supper plate in front of Blaze with a vegetable-laden quiche and salad with berries piled high. The sun was falling toward the horizon outside the window, turning the honey-stained wooden table rose gold.

Blaze summarized his day as he dug in. "So, money is not a problem anymore," he said. "My phone-wallet has several hundred grand deposited from a friend. The house has been reinforced with plywood over the windows and two-by-fours that can be set in place to bar the doors, and firearms will be delivered tomorrow."

Sarah nodded as she sat around the corner from him and loaded her fork. "That sounds good."

The salad was cool and crisp in her mouth as she chewed. Her garden grew good food from the Iowa soil.

"The mission objective is your eventual safety on this farm," he said. "I don't know how long it'll take to deter the White Russians or the next stage of our mission, but we don't have the luxury of time."

She nodded, her mind filling with military jargon like bees buzzing in her garden.

"After this attack, whether they retreat or are neutralized, this won't be over. We'll have to take the fight to them in some form."

The concepts of neutralizing people added to the droning in her head, the bees becoming a swarm.

"The ultimate objective is your safety on this farm, and I'll return to Chicago without further interference or demands. It might take a while. You should be prepared for a war, not a battle."

The bees in her head condensed around one word, Chicago, their random flights swirling into a dark funnel cloud. "You're planning on going back to Chicago, then?"

He sighed and impaled salad on his fork like it was a bayonet. "I understand that you have a connection to this farm and the community here, but I don't. I'll grant you it's idyllic, but hiding on a farm is not for me. I have plans for a veterans' center in Chicago. My lawyer emailed me that a property is available, and I need to look at it. My life mission is to help my brothers-in-arms, not farm corn."

Roaring wind filled her soul. "So, all those faceless veterans, the ones you talk to on the phone and never hear from again, they're more important than—" Me. "—the farm."

"You wanted to come with me," he said. "Raising funds for the center will involve attending galas and meeting with the rich and powerful. We'll help a lot of people, and it would be quite a life."

And nothing like bees, fresh strawberries, corn, horses, and her lifelong friends in Kalona. "I just can't, Blaze."

He examined the food on his plate, lifting a piece of her homemade pie crust with his fork as if the answer lay under it. "Can't, or won't?"

"Can't," she said, biting down on the word to make it sound firm even though her heart wobbled like a bubble in a breeze.

Blaze ate another bite of her quiche without looking at her, chewed and swallowed, and then said, "You said my veterans could camp out in your cornfield and barn when they arrive."

So the topic was changed.

Good, because the comfortable farmhouse she'd lived in every day suddenly felt rickety, like even a strong wind would blow it over, let alone the tornado that had just swept across her heart.

But the veterans, and the barn.

The manure hadn't been shoveled since they'd left. "I can clean out the barn—"

"No need. That stack of hay bales is more than adequate. We've all slept rough. They should start arriving after noon tomorrow. Maybe three o'clock."

"How many people?"

"A dozen, maybe more. Maybe twenty."

That was a lot of people to be walking around her farm.

Sarah's measly garden was already getting picked over feeding the burly Navy SEAL, but the early tomatoes should start ripening within the week. "Oh, wow. And should I plan to cook for them?"

He waved as he finished chewing a bite of salad and then said, "Again, no need. The University of Iowa's catering department will deliver meals, and a truckload of shelf-stable MREs will arrive tomorrow morning. An army travels on its stomach. We have supply lines."

"Okay."

An armywas coming.

And the bratva's killers were coming. They might be driving on the highway or on an airplane right then.

And they were speeding closer every hour.

Sarah toyed with her supper, teasing a few shreds of spinach from her summer shade garden from the egg and cheese filling.

Blaze chewed a heroic bite of the pastry, swallowing hard. "Look, I don't mean to pry."

Oh, Lord. "That sounds ominous."

"You said you had a will after your parents died. Is it up to date?"

"Nothing's changed."

The thought of her will ran around her head, too.

"And just so you know, you and I will sleep in the barn with my friends. The bratva will doubtlessly hit the house first, probably a frontal assault with AK-47s."

Shock ran through her, but Blaze didn't seem to be perturbed. "AK-47s?"

"It's the preferred weapon of mass murderers in the United States. If they're professionals, they'll set up under ghillie suits in the cornfield like I did and pick us off with sniper rifles, but I'm not optimistic about their professionalism here."

Bullets were going to rip through her house—the house she'd grown up in, the house she'd taken ownership of when her parents passed, the floors she mopped and the shelves she dusted—and everything would be shredded by gunfire.

Just like she and every other kid of the millennium had grown up being taught to fear every day of their lives at school.

Blockade and hide.

Run and escape, or evade if you can't.

And if the worst happened, play dead.

Several children had survived school mass murders by pretending to be dead.

Blaze said, "You should evac Muffintop to your friend's place. She won't be safe here. Considering the weapons Mary Varvara Bell wanted from me, they might already have drones."

Even the air above the ceiling beams and roof menaced them. "Okay."

"Charlie and HowNow should be returned to the neighbors. Military-grade ammunition travels three hundred meters or more. Even if they attack the house, the bullets fly, and the animals are large targets."

"Right." She shouldn't have brought them home. "It seems real now."

He reached over and took her hand. "Yeah. Combat is scary when it gets real."

"It felt like I was back home, on the farm that I own, on my land, where I pay the taxes and everything is mine, but now it feels like they're invading my country."

Her house shrank, the walls melting inward, and the floor under the table floated and bobbed.

Blaze asked, "You okay?"

"No,"popped out of her mouth before she could stop it.

"Sarah?" he asked, standing up from his half-eaten plate and stepping toward her. "We can still leave. I'll send the word to have everyone turn around, and I can cancel the supply orders while you drive. We can go now."

No. No, they couldn't. "The animals."

"We can drop them off on our way out of town. You drive your pickup with them in the trailer, and I'll follow you to Abigail's place."

"The corn."

"We can take your computer with us to monitor it."

"My farm."

"It's not worth your life."

"It's worth everything."

"Sarah, if you want to be a farmer, I will buy this farmland from under you, and you can buy another one elsewhere. We'll set the deed up with shell companies so the White Russians will never find you."

Everything he said was logical. Everything he said told her to run. "But my roots are here."

"Livingplants grow roots. You can put down new ones, but you have to be alive to do that."

She glared up at him, watching his pale blue eyes. "Don't tell me how to grow plants."

His gaze sharpened as his eyes narrowed, and he appraised her, surveying from her eyes to her mouth and back.

Blaze's chin dropped a notch like an engine's flywheel clicking into place. He asked, "And you can't leave?"

"No!"

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Sarah, staying here while you are in danger won't make you a good girl."

"But I have to."

"No, you don't have to, and I won't let you. We're leaving. I am taking you away. There will be no more discussion. I will tie you up and throw you over my shoulder if that's what it takes. As a matter of fact, I can't think of anything I want to do more."

He covered her hands with his warm one.

His voice lowered. "From what Logan said, we can wait to leave until tomorrow morning. You can have one last night in the house, and thenwe will leave."

"I shouldn't."

His voice was dark with the promise of dominance. "Little kitten, you will do as I say."

"No. I won't."

He stroked one finger under her jaw and lifted her chin to look into her eyes. "Oh, yes. You will."

With one sweep of his arm, she was off the chair and sitting on the floor. "Hey!"

Blaze sat in his chair and glared down at her. "I've been too lenient with you, little kitten. It's time to be firm. No talking." He reached over to her plate and loaded her fork with quiche. "Open your mouth. Eat."

"We have to talk about—"

"Open your mouth for your supper, or I'll use your mouth for myself."

Dear Lord, Sarah was depraved because his warm flesh and slight earthy scent filling her mouth and throat didn't sound like punishment at all.

Nevertheless, she opened her mouth, and Blaze forked the bite in.

Sarah closed her lips around the fork tines and looked up at Blaze. She kept her lips closed while he slowly withdrew it from her mouth.

His eyes caught fire, watching her.

He reached over to her plate again, used her knife and fork to carefully fold salad leaves into a neat green package on the tines, and held it out to her. "Open."

Sarah dropped her jaw and took the bite. While she chewed, Blaze fed himself a few bites and then offered her another.

With every bite she took from him, his eyes darkened.

When he was looking away, she popped open the top button of her blouse and then leaned forward to accept her next bite of food.

His lids lowered like he could hide the darkness swirling in his mind. "Good idea, kitten. Take it all off. I like it when you sit naked at my feet."

Oops, Sarah had started something and hadn't realized where it would lead, but she was too far into his game to stop now.

She pulled her clothes down her arms and legs, folding and laying them on her chair because that's who she was, and the cool breeze from the open door feathered across her damp skin.

Blaze watched her with an impassive expression, but the laser-sharp focus in his eyes betrayed his intense interest in what she was doing. "On your knees, kitten."

He fed her the rest of her dinner while she was naked and waiting for his touch, and then told her to follow him upstairs.

She followed him to her bedroom, the bare soles of her feet padding on the old farmhouse's wooden floor, braided rag rugs, and steep stairs as she carried her clothes up the staircase and dropped them in her hamper by the door.

"You still sleep here with the single bed?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It's my bedroom."

"And even though you're the only one living in the house, you didn't move your clothes into the primary bedroom or the guestroom with the larger bed?"

"There wasn't any need to."

"Right. You do like things to stay the way they are. Lie down on the bed. I'll be right back."

Sarah turned down the bedspread and did what he'd told her to, even though this was the first time she'd ever laid naked on her own sheets.

Blaze came back, holding ropes. "Roll over and spread your legs, kitten."

She struggled to flip over and waited, her hands trembling as she turned her head to the side on her pillow.

The mattress bent behind her as he kneeled between her knees and then leaned to bind her hands together above her head, flipping the rope around the slats of the headboard. Her elbows bent around her head.

Blaze's presence in her family's farmhouse—his enormous, muscular body, his military bearing, his kink—was sacrilegious. Sarah's mother had kept a God-fearing house, plain and simple, and he was everything else.

His hand dragged down her spine as he leaned backward and whispered in her ear, "You don't want to make the decision. Fine. I will. We are leaving tomorrow morning, and you will be a good girl when it's time to leave. If not, I meant what I said. I tie up naughty girls, paddle them until their bottoms are too sore to sit on, and then throw them in the trunk and drive away."

"Naughty girls, plural? Are we expecting company?" she griped.

A sharp crack on her bottom made her gasp.

His voice was deep like he was speaking from his chest. "Keep being naughty, little kitten. I love spanking your round, soft ass and making your skin burn."

His big handprint did indeed burn on her backside like a reminder of his power.

His grip closed around her ankle and yanked it aside, loops of rope joining his fingers before pulling tight, and then he tied her other foot to the bottom of her bed.

When he was finished, she was stretched on her bed, her hands overhead and her legs spread, and he placed one knee between her legs, his thigh pressing the sensitive places between as his arms caged her head. Near her ear, he growled, "You've been naughty, little kitten. Now you're mine for the night."

The deepness in his voice scared her, and yet her skin seemed to reach for him.

"It looks like I have to teach you again to say yes, sir, to anything I ask, to everything I ask. All night, you will say yes, sir, or I won't let you come. If you aren't a good little kitten, I will use your body for my own satisfaction, and you will have no relief. I promise you will be a sobbing wreck by the end, begging me, and I will let you have nothing. Do you understand?"

Sarah's legs felt like she needed to shake them. "Okay."

A harder swat stung her bottom. "Ow!"

"When I ask you a question, you will say yes, sir," Blaze growled.

"I—"

"Say it."

"Yes, sir."

Pressure formed at the entrance between her legs.

She couldn't move. She couldn't close her thighs because he'd tied her legs apart.

His insistent touch tunneled into her, an invasion that became a stripe of pleasure inside. His thumb stroked over her clit, joining the slow rub of his finger in her channel.

He whispered, "You're so wet, like this is exactly what you want. You have to be forced to do the very thing you want most, whether it's my cock buried balls-deep inside you or leaving the farm so you will be safe. We'll do that first one right now, but when it's time to leave tomorrow morning, you will say yes, sir."

Her breath was already coming in shallow sips as his breath warmed her neck under her ear, and her body was tightening around his hand between her legs. She grew more sensitive, her attention concentrating on the subtle, sensuous movement inside her—

Until he stopped.

His thumb lightened from her clit, and the delicious tightening trembled, hovered, and began to dissipate.

A confused sob bubbled out of her body.

He murmured as he kissed her shoulder, his thick finger, motionless still deep inside her, "Yes, little kitten. I can giveth, and I can taketh away. You should be punished for at least an hour for being such a naughty girl when I told you it was time to leave. If you take it like a good girl, maybe I'll let you come."

Sarah's head was turned to the side on her pillow, and she watched as his lips peeled back from his teeth where he had been kissing her. As he lowered his head, the kiss turned to a nip, and then a bite scraped her skin that stung.

A small part of her was absolutely terrified, but the trembling in her hands felt like excitement.

He pushed down with his hand on the middle of her back as he sat up, and his hand between her legs yanked away from her, leaving her body empty. Soft noises, clicks and jangling and the rip of plastic filled the room, silent except for their breath and heartbeats.

Sarah tried to crank her neck to see what he was doing, but the pillow forced her head up too high. She couldn't see over her own bare shoulder.

Blaze's strong hands grabbed her hips and lifted them, yanking her backward so her arms were stretched straight over her head. He moved her legs, too, so she was kneeling with her bottom in the air.

He circled her clit with his thumb, and a thicker pressure, two fingers, pushed inside her.

Sarah grabbed her pillow with both fists and rested her head on the mattress, pushing back and trying to feel more because her body was spinning again, tightening, nearing an apex.

And again, he stopped.

"No."

"That's not what you're supposed to say, little kitten. You only say yes, sir, and I'll keep teaching you that lesson until you learn it."

A thicker, blunt force pressed inside her this time, a hardness that slipped inside and filled her with a dull ache.

With only a few retreats to allow Sarah to inhale, Blaze's hips pressed against her bottom and he groaned, his fingertips digging into her hips.

Even the soreness inside her made her legs shake and her body tighten around him, threatening to break her into a thousand flutters, but once Blaze was so deep inside her, he didn't move.

He held her body sheathed on him, filling her and yet allowing her no release, until the tightening that was driving her to the brink of madness began to recede like a tide.

And then he pulled back and pushed slowly inside her again, his erection sliding inside her and igniting a fuse that never detonated.

He commanded her full attention, holding her trembling on the precipice until she began to fall apart, and then with a stroke on her clit and pound inside her, he brought her right back to dangling over a cliff she could not fall over.

Sarah was whimpering, then screaming, then sobbing as he did it over and over, each release snatched from her like a betrayal. Minutes stretched into hours stretched into the rest of her life stretched into eons of her soul shredding away, him tuning her body to a taut string without ever playing it to a crescendo.

"Now, what do you say?" he growled.

Sarah sobbed, "Yes, sir. Oh, God. Yes, sir!"

"That's my good girl."

He twisted, and her legs were untied.

His body pulled away from hers, leaving her ragged and empty and pleading, but he was flipping her over on her back and crawling up her body, fitting himself inside her again.

Her back arched because her hands were still tied over her head, but now with each stroke, his body rubbed her clit as he pushed inside her.

The tension rampaged through her, building and swelling like never before, an ache and sparks of pleasure and crushing silence that detonated and blinded her and she felt herself screaming through the wild ecstasy.

And he didn't stop.

As she fluttered and fell back together, her body coalesced and then tightened again, squeezing around him as he dug deeper into her, his hips crashing into hers and destroying her once again, an explosion and scattering of herself that rained her body as she fell to Earth and opened her eyes to see Blaze moving above her, his bare chest slick from sweat-sheen and thick muscles popping from exertion as he pounded into her, his eyes sharp from passion as he breathed through his gritted teeth and absolutely railed her, her legs wrapping around his back as he slammed inside her again and again, her body straining and blown apart as another orgasm rocketed through her, the world and sound ceasing to have meaning as the pulses shook her like an earthquake.

When she couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't think from the repeated assaults on her very soul, Blaze gasped, his thrusts turned urgent, and his body strained. The pulses inside her set off another wave of ecstasy that rolled through her body.

Blaze's gasps were harsh in her ear, and when she glanced to the side, his fist was clenched around the side of her pillow. His voice grated in her ear, "Now, what do you say, little kitten?"

"Yes, sir," she whispered with the small amount of air still left her body. "Oh, my God. Oh, Lord. Yes, sir."

"And we will leave tomorrow morning on schedule without a fuss."

"Yes, sir."

"Good girl," he growled.