Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

A very’s flight home had been smooth and without incident, which was good as she’d had trouble focusing on what she was doing. The plane touched down on the private airstrip that was shared by the housing development in which she’d built. Each house was on two very private acres, shared a landing strip amongst the ten homes and had its own private hangar. Avery had designed her airplane’s shelter so that it was large enough for the plane, her small helicopter, her Jeep, her motorcycle, and space to work on all of them. In addition to being a highly skilled pilot of both fixed-wing and rotary-winged aircraft, Avery was an excellent mechanic for anything with an engine.

The two-and-a-half-hour flight had given her time to think. There was no reason to believe that Thom had heard or even seen her. But even if he had, so what? He was keeping his own secret and she’d never betrayed him… why would he betray her? That was assuming it mattered to him what she did in her off time. He barely seemed to notice her as it was.

She really needed to stop thinking about him but, as usual, that was easier decided than done. Did he have any idea how many of her fantasies revolved around him? Probably not. He wasn’t at all like the usual ultra-alpha male types she’d gone for in the past. She shuddered when she remembered the last time she’d surrendered herself to a man. To say it hadn’t gone well was a gross understatement. She hated to think what might have happened if Noah hadn’t come through the door when he did. And while she was grateful for his intervention and the gentle care he’d given her while she recovered both physically and emotionally, the incident had put her off very dominant, ultra-alpha men, like Noah. But while intellectually she understood that her abuser had been just that—an abuser and not any kind of dominant at all—putting herself back in a situation where she had to submit was a lot harder than it ever used to be. So hard, in fact, that she had yet to be able to do it. Not with Thom, not with anyone. At least, not outside her fantasies.

Her wheels touched down and she taxied into her garage, as she liked to think of it. Unlike some of the other homes in the development, her place consisted of a stone and log home with a definite arts and crafts bent and then, of course, the large outbuilding that housed all of her motorized means of transportation. Between the two was a beautifully landscaped garden that contained a lap pool, cleverly disguised as a mountain stream, and her hot tub, which appeared to be a small pool at the end of the stream. Water circulated continuously, which not only kept it running through the filters but created a soothing brook-like ambiance that reminded her so strongly of a real mountain creek flowing somewhere out in nature. She loved that sound, and she especially loved that she could hear it not only in the garden but inside the house as well.

Pausing on her way inside, she closed her eyes long enough just to listen and let that burbling-brook sound wash away the aches of the day. Sadly, one particular ache stubbornly remained. While Thom might figure strongly into her fantasies these days—and especially these nights—she wasn’t so foolish that she didn’t recognize there could never be anything real between them. For one thing, they worked together. For another, she doubted if he knew she existed outside of the workplace. And for yet another, she’d sworn off dominant men. Not that he was all that dominant, but she was pretty sure if she ever did get into a relationship with Thom, she might actually be more dominant than he was, and that just wasn’t what she wanted. So there—four reasons. Four good, strong, solid reasons for why fantasy was better than reality and why she ought to just leave it all alone.

She was so messed up. Shaking her head at herself, Avery walked inside. What she wanted and what she needed were in such stark contrast to one another that she really had no choice. At work, she and Thom would be nothing but friends. Outside the firm… well, at least she had her own imagination. Tonight would have to be good enough to satisfy. After all, she’d gone one-on-one with Cowboy Crusher and come out on top. Her adrenaline was still kicking, still feeding into her natural state of arousal, and if she was going to spend the night thinking about Thom, the very least she could do was get a good orgasm out of it. She needed a few minutes to wash and service her plane; take a long, hot shower; have a nice dinner with a good glass of pinot noir; and maybe a long soak in her hot tub under the clear, cool, star-filled Sedona sky. Then, by God, Avery planned to let her fingers do the walking, her imagination do the talking, and let the Thom who could only ever exist in her dreams take her across his knee and finally treat her like the submissive she sometimes still ached to be.

T hom drove back to Sedona thinking about Avery. As they usually did, images of her blonde hair, curvaceous figure, and infectious laughter kick-started all of his fantasies. How he longed to hear her joyous laughter morph into the husky moan of a woman well sated by her lover. Avery had a voice that was like a fast-running stream laced with molasses. He longed to sup on her honeyed essence before driving his cock up into her wet heat. Thom chided himself. He needed to remember he was a long way from enacting that fantasy in real life… or was he? According to Zara, Avery harbored feelings for him as well.

His brain was firing at the speed of light. He imagined her face down over his knee with a bright red fanny as she cried. He wanted to hear her promises to behave. He really wanted to hear her call him Daddy.

And there it was, stark in his thoughts like the naked realization it shouldn’t have been, if only he’d been paying better attention to himself. He wanted to be Avery’s daddy dom, to care for her, nurture and protect her. He wanted to set rules and have her mostly obey them. When she didn’t, he wanted to be the one who lit a fire in her backside that she wouldn’t forget any time soon. He wanted to be the one who brought Wild Mustang’s confident, capable, sometimes reckless female pilot to her willing and submissive knees. He wanted his preferred brand of loving dominance to be her favorite source of arousal. He wanted to be the one man she let herself be vulnerable with. He already had no problem imagining his hand slipping between her trembling legs to play with her clit before spreading her labia and penetrating her most feminine core with his fingers.

Thom’s cock stirred, stiffening in a way it hadn’t done for anyone else, not in a very long time. Having Avery as his little girl was the heady stuff that dreams were made of. He ached to be in that kind of relationship with her. He longed to form a dynamic structured by rules with set consequences, some geared toward fun and sexy times, while others would be for her general safety and wellbeing. One thing was for sure, with him as her daddy, her days as Casey the Clown were over.

And on the heels of that came his second stark realization. Noah had mentioned Avery’s dreams and goals. In all the time that he’d worked with Avery, in all these years that they’d known one another, he couldn’t recall one instance in which she’d mentioned having either to him. Thom had no clue what Avery wanted, wished for, or someday hoped to achieve. In his mind, that became a sudden, insurmountable chasm between them as he thought of his friends and their women. At first glance, the public persona they all showed to the world would never lead anyone to believe that any of those women had a dominant man they submitted to. Noah was right; there wasn’t anything submissive about Zara, Finn, Willa, or Mandy, and yet each had found the right man, the right kind of dominant to whom they could happily commit.

But Avery… how could he have known her for this long and yet still know so little about her? She was as good at keeping secrets, it seemed, as he was, but not for much longer. Thom was determined. The thought of being Avery’s daddy resonated within him in a way nothing else had. He was going to find out what her dreams were. One by one, he meant to help her make them a reality, and if enough of those wants, needs, dreams, and desires lined up, then there would be no more question about it. The two of them could be very happy together, as a couple, for the rest of their lives.

He wanted that. God, he wanted that.

His cock throbbed against the side of his leg. Yeah, okay, so maybe he wanted that happiness to include a great deal of mind-blowing sex too, but nobody ever said those two end goals had to be mutually exclusive.

Thom continued to drive until he reached his ranch. Compared to many heritage farms, especially in this area, it was small, but it had been in his mother’s family for close to two hundred years. The vast majority of the original acreage had gone to pay his father’s debts and send Thom to school, but the lawyer that his mother had left in charge of the estate had scrupulously seen to it that the original ranch house and a small plot of fifty acres had been there and waiting for him once he matured, graduated out of college, spent some time in the United States’ intelligence community, and eventually joined the firm.

He’d had no interest in raising cattle, not as a young man and certainly not now. But purebred quarter horses, now that was a different game altogether. Over the years, he’d accumulated a small band of ten mares, which he selectively bred to outside stallions. Having developed quite the reputation for raising quality individuals, often his foals were sold before they were even born. Still, Thom liked to keep a minimum of three foals out of each year’s crop and raise them until they were at least two-year-olds, at which time their real worth could be assessed and then they could be sold for their true value. It took patience to do that, and that kind of patience could only aid him when it came to Avery.

That he also preferred to run his ranch himself, only hiring a farm sitter when work called him away, would help too. He liked doing the physical labor required to keep this place running. It kept him grounded, reminding him what was important and what was real—giving him a way to connect with the land, his horses, and his heritage and to imagine what the future might hold. Right now, he was imagining a future with Avery. That was important. That was real, and all he had to do was put in the work and the patience.

He meant to make Avery his own.

A very stood under the steaming shower and moaned; there was something incredibly pleasurable about being doused in streams of hot water. She closed her eyes and just let the pulsing water cascade over her head and down her body. Her hands followed the luxurious flow down the front of her torso. She cupped her breasts, pausing to tweak and rub her nipples before continuing over the flat planes of her stomach and pelvis. The sensitive buds had beaded up every bit as tightly as they would for the cold, or a lover’s caress.

Thom’s caress …

Turning, Avery leaned her back against the tiled wall behind the showerhead, arching so that the water pelted down the front of her body, stinging slightly in all the right places. Much the way she imagined Thom’s lovemaking might sting… just a little bit… in all the right places.

Trailing her hands up over her wet, silky skin, she pinched her nipples, rolling them the way she imagined Thom would roll them, making that pool of desire swell and throb within the folds of her dripping sex, and igniting her molten core.

Who’s a good girl , her imagination whispered in Thom’s voice as she manipulated her pebbled tips.

Did she want to be a good girl, or did she want to be a naughty one? Running her hand back down the front of her body, she slid her fingers between her legs to touch her clit. The hard nub was swollen, pulsing beneath her circling caress as she imagined longer, more artistic fingers than her own doing the fondling.

She closed her eyes, moaning as she imagined Thom’s hard body climbing into the shower along with her. Her breathing quickened, the fire of her arousal racing through her veins as she reached up to grab the handheld showerhead from its holder.

Naughty. She was definitely naughty. She turned the setting to a hard, pounding rhythm, but it was Thom’s fingers, not hers, that parted her folds, exposing her now distended clit. His touch focused the pulsating jets of the showerhead directly onto the sensitive nub while her whole body arched, her hips fighting not to buck and squirm out from under the unyielding intensity of the spray.

Her ragged breath hitched. Her noises became whimpers instead of moans as her orgasm came crashing down on her far faster than she thought possible. This wasn’t the first time she’d used the shower to pleasure herself or even the first time she’d imagined that it was Thom’s hands forcing her to the ride the hard, drumming pulse of the water. The difference now was that she’d just seen him riding two different top broncs to a great score. His body had arced and strained as his muscles and skill kept him in the saddle. There was no stopping herself from imagining how he’d use that same tensile strength as he rode her, the pounding of his cock hammering between her legs like the water was now.

Her hips bucked, helplessly striving to match his pumping rhythm as the water and his fingers rubbed and pounded, tugged and massaged at her pleasure nub. Her legs shook and her gasping breaths turned heavily ragged. She could feel her own pleasure hurdling her toward the abyss of an earth-shattering climax as she imagined Thom preparing to mount her.

How many times at work had she surreptitiously eyed the front of his jeans, marveling at the unmistakable bulge of his endowment? How many times had she envisioned running both her fingers and her lips over that tribal tattoo that covered his entire left shoulder, pectoral muscle, and scapula? At work, that tattoo was hidden by the professional white linen shirts he wore, but she’d seen it once while he’d changed a torn shirt and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Now, in the steamy heat and spattering spray of the shower, she couldn’t help imagining hot, soapy drops slipping over his inked skin as he bent her into position.

On her knees… on her back… how would he take her?

She turned to face the wall, laying her forehead against the hard tiles, spreading her legs and offering back her hips. She repositioned the showerhead, the sharpness of the pleasure intensifying almost painfully as the force of the spray caught her clit directly. Thom would make her take it though, and so she kept it there, gasping and mewling, her legs shaking as she took it for him. A naughty girl once more being brought to heel.

She slipped her hand back between her legs, thrusting two fingers into her core, imagining them to be his as she plunged them in and out. It only took a few strokes, combined with the pulsating water, to push her over the edge. She cried out, arching to the intense quakes of pleasure that her orgasm released. It would have been so much better if only it had been Thom’s pounding cock now wringing every last quiver out of her, but beggars couldn’t be too choosy. Wilting, her heartrate and ragged breathing coming gradually back to order, she hung the showerhead back up and changed the water from the pounding pulse back to a rainfall. Her legs still shaky, she rinsed her body one last time before turning the water off and stepping out.

With a large fluffy towel, she dried herself. Shaking her head, she wondered at her imaginings. Thom saw her the same way as the rest of the guys—either as a little sister or just another one of the guys. And even if he didn’t, Avery doubted he was capable of providing her with the level of dominance she craved. Thom was such a nice guy. Not that the other guys weren’t nice, but Thom was different—smarter, leaner, less typically alpha male. She was pretty sure he was straight up vanilla sex and she was… well, okay, she was a showerhead up against the bathroom wall kind of girl right now, but under the right conditions, she was kinky-ass unicorn sex with whipped cream, wrist restraints, and sprinkles.

All the sprinkles.

So why had she run from the arena instead of standing her ground? Why hadn’t she marched right up to Thom, let him see her for who and what she was, and…

And what? See what happened next?

Neither Thom nor any of the rest of them was in a position to hold her accountable, much less give her any kind of disciplinary consequences, for her risky side job. Why would they? She wasn’t in that kind of relationship with any of them. Well, except Noah. Noah wouldn’t care what kind of relationship they had. Not only would he take a dim view of her bullfighting activities if he knew about them, but he was just the kind of guy to say something about it. And then he’d do something—sternly and repeatedly, all over her backside, first with his hand and then with his belt until she was howling and so sore that she couldn’t even sit afterward.

She missed that.

Because she was crazy.

Fortunately, Noah had his hands full with Zara and was living in London. And he was still too dominant for her tastes, even if she was prone to forgetting that fact whenever she got horny. Like she was now. Her body still wet from her shower; her nerves all deliciously humming from the way ‘Thom’ so expertly and forcefully took her; her crazy submissive tendencies trying so hard to convince her that she ought to feel sorry for herself because no one was standing here with his sleeves rolled all the way up to his tribal tattoo, ready to take her across his knee and paddle her backside until… what? She felt loved and cared for?

That was crazy. She didn’t need a spanking to feel that. She was better than that. Stronger. She was the most capable now that she had ever been and she was proud as hell knowing that none of her team would ever need to worry about whether or not she could do her job. With or without a certain muscular bronc rider giving her that stern look that clearly said he was all done putting up with her shenanigans. With or without all his chiseled good looks, perfect hair, and soulful brown eyes that were just too urbane for her motorcycles and rock and roll background. He was Mozart; she was ZZ Top. He was a computer geek; she was a pilot. He wasn’t dominant; she was absolutely submissive and she desperately needed to stop fantasizing about how it would feel to have him rolling up his sleeves as he stalked toward her, dark eyes flashing, handsome mouth soundly scolding her before grabbing her arm and toppling her face down over his hard thigh for a bare-bottom spanking.

Her nipples tightened, peaking all over again. Trickles of moisture spilled through her folds, tickling her nether lips.

Cursing under her breath, Avery dropped the towel. Climbing back into the shower, she reached for the showerhead and turned the water back on.

T hom unloaded his horse, grateful that his part-time ranch hand had all the other horses taken care of and the stall he used for the horse he’d taken to the rodeo ready to go. He made sure Patrick had made the trip in good health. Five hours wasn’t all that long for a horse used to being hauled, but Thom liked to hang out in the barn until he was sure of that.

As he brushed the horse down, he thought over and over again how he wished he’d been able to see past Casey the Clown’s disguise sooner. Not that he was the only one who’d been fooled. As far as he knew, until today no one on the pro rodeo circuit had known that Casey wasn’t a man. After all, Thom didn’t know anyone who, having looked up to see almost a ton of angry, snorting bull bearing down on him, would give two fucks over something as little as the gender of the clown currently trying to save his life. Thom shook his head, trying to drive away the image of Avery’s luscious body, hidden in her bulky bullfighter’s disguise as she flipped over the goring horns of bulls every bit as big and mean as Cowboy Crusher, before delivering her signature smack on the rump with her floppy clown hat.

Someone needed a smack on the rump, all right. The problem was how to move them from friends and co-workers to lovers with a daddy dom/power exchange component that would justify his taking her, naked and quivering, across his knee for the kind of spanking his hand right now itched to deliver. As quickly as that image came to mind, so did one involving his parting those same rosy butt cheeks to mount her from behind. His cock swelled at the thought of plundering either her pussy or her bottom hole, whatever she needed to remind her of his dominance and commitment to her.

It had been a while since he’d enjoyed the intimacy and physical release that a man could only get from a woman he loved. And there it was… at some point, Thom had fallen in love with Avery. Giving it a name was liberating and empowering; it was also terrifying. It was if he’d been living enveloped by gloomy, dark clouds, only to have them parted by the bright Arizona sun, casting a light that illuminated a path to his new life. Thom smiled. He meant to follow that path, but he didn’t mean to travel it alone; Avery would be at his side.

He thought fleetingly about the information Noah had shared—that both Christian Reid and Fariq Abdal had raised their ugly heads from the ashes of Fariq’s international arms business. Thom had been working for a couple of months trying to unravel what had happened. Why it had happened and who was behind it all. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together had been difficult as both Fariq and Christian seemed inclined to stay off the grid, but one thing was certain—to stop them, the team would need to tackle this storm head-on. Danger and conflict were coming, and Thom would bet every dime he had that it would involve not just the team itself, but Croft’s and Noah’s girls, Finn and Zara.

He was going to have to move fast if he wanted to make sure it didn’t involve Avery, too. Not that Fariq or Christian would care about her the way they did the other women, but Wild Mustang’s intrepid pilot would not appreciate being treated as if she were too fragile to battle it out with the rest of them. It was past time that a certain daddy dom made his intentions known to his very special, very stubborn little girl.