Free Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel) by Delphine Dryden Page B

a.m., it had seemed inevitable. The naked Mindy in his mind preceded him, knelt under the spray, waited for him to give it up in her mouth—which he did in an embarrassingly short time. That was just his life now, he guessed, jerking off to thoughts of Mindy the Actual Submissive.
    For all that, he really would have been fine—if Mindy hadn’t been saddle-sore.
    She kept wincing , was the thing. And putting a hand to her ass when she thought nobody was looking. And avoiding sitting down. And the whole thing was so exactly like the way a sub would act the day after a heavy scene that Logan wanted to react just as he would in that scenario. Specifically, he wanted to walk up behind her and pinch the hell out of that sore flesh and relish every gasp and whimper she tried to stifle. He wanted to find the exact spot that hurt the most and press it when she couldn’t get away. Then remind her of all the wicked things he’d done the night before to make her that sore, and how clearly he remembered every single bruise and welt, no matter how modestly she might be dressed at the moment. If, that is, he’d been the one to cause the pain, instead of a horse.
    Even worse, the worst of all, was when he realized her surreptitious ass pats weren’t an attempt to massage the pain away. She was pushing her fingers into the flesh and leaning into the pressure, and at least once he caught the expression on her face when she did it. Rapt, blushing, all but biting her lip. Then looking around, making sure nobody had noticed what she was doing. She liked the pain itself. Seemed—unless Logan’s radar was completely broken—to be getting off on it.
    Nobody noticed. The whole crowd—five guests, with Ethan breaking trail ahead of them—were focused entirely on the wildlife. It was a birding-and-wildflower-spotting hike, and everybody else was actually watching the birds and looking at the foliage. Mindy was lost in her own world of furtive pain-slut gratification, and Logan was having trouble paying attention to anything other than Mindy’s butt as she struggled up the rough trail. He was bringing up the rear, but his focus was definitely on only one rear in particular.
    Robert and Diego, manning the coolers and grill at the “campfire” destination the guests had been hiking toward, might have had a clue. But they appeared too busy to care that the newest unofficial staff member only stayed at the picnic table long enough to devour a burger, then jumped right back up.
    Soothing ointment. That was probably what Logan ought to be offering her. Some Epsom salts for her bath. Some more Tylenol, maybe. Normal things.
    Nope, no use. He wanted to apply the soothing ointment himself , with Mindy naked, facedown, over his lap. After some additional beating. And probably with no soothing ointment, because really, that would be defeating the purpose. She clearly wanted the pain. He wanted to give her more of it. As much as she could take.
    A service-oriented submissive who was a pain slut? With an ass straight out of his dreams and a smile he couldn’t help but find adorable, no matter how hard he tried? At least as far as the kinky side of things was concerned—and he couldn’t think past that side right now—she was everything he’d longed for and more. All the things he’d been missing.
    He lasted all the way through finishing his burger and throwing his paper plate in the garbage bag hanging from a tree near the grill. On the other side of that tree, pretending to consult her laminated quick-reference guide to Central Texas wildflowers, was Mindy. With one hand in her back pocket.
    Gripping .
    Too much. It was too damn much.
    From where Logan stood, a few feet away from Mindy, he could see that the tree trunk and his own body would provide all the shielding he needed. He scanned the handful of guests. Ethan was entertaining them with a story, and they all seemed enthralled. Sufficient distraction to buy him a few seconds.
    It would be