“Greta should be here in ten minutes. It was the only time she had today, so I took an early lunch.” He grinned. “Gotta love nooners.”
“Do you mind if we use your observation room? This sub needs to see what submission truly means.”
“Sure. I think you’ll find Greta has been both an apt and eager pupil.”
Tara tried to leash her curiosity as they entered the observation room. The tiny space was dark, dominated by one huge window that overlooked an unfamiliar play room. A futon, the only thing in the room, stood in the shadowed corner, allowing occupants some comfort while they watched. It could also be pulled into a bed at a moment’s notice.
“What was that about, Logan?”
He shut the door behind them, enclosing them in the small space. The wall trapped her on one side, Logan on the other as he turned to her in the shadowed room. “You want to know why I allowed Jason to see you naked.”
“Encouraged it, even.”
“It’s not about him, and normally, I wouldn’t share you. But you’re going to have to be comfortable with your own nudity on this mission, regardless of who’s around. I’ll be testing you until you overcome your discomfort. It’s a telltale sign of an untrained sub.”
And that’s probably what had gotten Darcy made and abducted. Tara’s past, both distant and recent, with Logan didn’t matter. Training to succeed at this mission did.
“Will you genuinely prepare me to go undercover? No mind games?”
“I’ll make sure you’re prepared for any situation you encounter.” He sent her a serious stare. “But mind games come with the territory. Domination and submission is one giant mind f**k.”
“As long as I’m prepared to hold my own, I can live with that.”
“You’re good with firearms and hand-to-hand?”
“Yeah, but I’m sparring every night to keep myself sharp. That’s one thing Robert is damn good at.”
“York is never going to be a convincing Dom.”
Exactly as she’d feared. “Maybe Axel can keep working with—”
“Never,” Logan underscored. “And that’s something I’m going to talk to Thorpe about. Starting tomorrow, Axel and I will both be checking in with your boss, Bocelli, daily. If York can’t pull this off, we’re going to be brutally honest.”
“You can’t have Robert yanked off this case. It will take too long to bring someone else in. We’ve already invested dozens of hours in—”
“Let us worry about that. You have enough on your plate, learning to be a convincing sub in seven days.”
“But—”
“For the next week, who is your Dom?” Even in the dark, she discerned his raised brow, his more aggressive stance.
“You are.” When he threw her a pointed glare, she sighed. “Logan.”
“What does any Dom desire above all else?”
“Obedience.”
He shook his head. “Trust. With that, obedience naturally follows. And underneath all that tough-girl FBI training, that’s who you are. I realize trust is going to be more difficult with our history, but I need you to understand that I would never do anything to put you in jeopardy. Ever. I’d make myself bleed first.”
Wow. The gravity of his emphatic tone confused Tara, like he had some hidden message beyond his actual words. She frowned. But she wasn’t here to get personal with Logan, so she wasn’t touching that statement with a ten-foot pole.
“Tell me about Agent Miles’ disappearance,” he said into her silence, switching topics.
It was a command—one Tara found easy to comply with. “Darcy was sent near Key West to attend a singles’ weekend at a resort that caters to dominance and submission. That’s where Darcy and two other women have gone missing. Darcy reported in during her first two days at the resort to say that she’d attended lectures and demonstrations. They paired her up with a few Doms, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Then she said she’d been invited to a special demonstration by the resort’s director, Lincoln Kantor. Three hours later, we received eight seconds of distress signal from her before the transmission ended abruptly. We haven’t heard from her since. That was seven days ago.”
“And now you’re against a ticking clock.”
Tara nodded, worry twisting her stomach in knots. “I know I’m supposed to train with you for a week. I’m not sure Darcy has that long.”