Free Her Tender Tyrant by Elizabeth Lennox

she turned pink, “you’re the one eating the banana and not taking my mind off of sex. I asked you what you were working on but you wouldn’t tell me. So my mind drifted to more salacious topics. So don’t blame me for where my mind goes. I’m a guy. We pretty much always thing about sex. Especially with a gorgeous woman sitting in front of me with perfect curves that I badly want to explore.”
    Juliette froze with his words. Gorgeous woman? Had he really said those words? About her? And what perfect curves was he talking about? She’d googled him. She’d seen the types of women he escorted and they looked nothing like her!
    She sighed, thinking that it would be nice to have a bit of space from him. “Fine.” She swung back around to face her computer, but was still wary of his closeness. “My thesis is a comparison of horses, the dynamics within a herd, to different human social settings.”
    “It won’t work,” he told her, even before she explained her argument.
    Juliette blinked. “What do you mean? I haven’t told you anything.”
    He shrugged, dismissing her argument anyway. “Horses are ruled by strength and power.”
    She turned back to face him, more than ready to defend her thesis. “So are social groups.”
    “Not the same,” he replied, shaking his head as he leaned back against the cushions again. “A horse, the king of the herd, will use brutality to control the herd.”
    Juliette dug deep for patience. He was certainly opinionated when she hadn’t even given him her full argument. “I’m just saying that social groups all have their power struggles. They might not use brute strength. But at a basic level, everyone is struggling for survival.”
    He crossed his arms over his chest, a classic sign of wanting to separate himself from what she was saying. “Go on,” he encouraged.
    Despite his body language, she leaned forward. “The king, or the most powerful horse…”
    “Or the most dominating,” he interrupted, correcting her.
    She blinked. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
    “Definitely not.”
    She tilted her head, fascinated despite her irritation at his arrogance and earlier sexual innuendos. “How is it different?”
    “Go on. I’ll explain after you’re finished.” His smile told her that it was sexual. Again!
    Juliette didn’t like the sound of that but she didn’t have a choice if she wanted to make her case. “Anyway,” she continued, “I’m saying that the king of the herd rules the group through actions of power, such as kicking or nudging, loud noises and things along that nature.”
    “And you think that social groups do the same thing?”
    She flushed at his cynical assessment. “Not exactly. I’m saying that there are always signs of power within every social group. For instance, in a group of high school boys, the symbol might be the one who is captain of the football team,” she stopped and looked at his broad, muscular shoulders. “You were the captain, weren’t you?”
    “Yes. But I don’t really consider that to be a symbol of power. I was just the fastest to learn the plays.”
    That was a curious answer but she’d come back to that. “In a group of high school girls, the power symbol is more likely to be a brutal verbal attack, intimidating the other girls. Some will flock to her, eager to be around her in the hopes that she won’t cut them and others simply stay away. Exactly how things work in a herd.”
    “Except there’s the brutal part of it.”
    She crossed her arms as she looked up at him with a cynical lift to her eyebrow. “You’ve never been on the receiving end of one of those comments from the head cheerleader.”
    Marcus acquiesced to that. Cheerleaders rarely showed him a petty side. He was more used to them luring him to a dark corner where he could have his wicked way with them. “Perhaps when those groups grow up, the dynamics change.”
    Her eyes brightened. “Actually, that’s my point. The dynamics don’t