Sadie's Little Christmas - Maren Smith Page 0,2

to experience firsthand all the sexy things she’d been fantasizing about since she sprouted boobs and discovered she had a sexual side.

Things like spanking.

Things like being held down during sex.

Things like having her breathing controlled, her nipples pinched, her orgasms given or withheld, and every inch of her body devoured by the heated pleasure and bites of pain that made her climax—at least the ones she gave herself—so much hotter.

Well, look how that had turned out. Her wild first night in a real BDSM dungeon had ended in disaster, but not for the same reasons everyone who knew seemed to think it had. She’d been assaulted, raped, strangled, and left for dead in a ditch, all at the hands of someone she’d thought was her friend. Yeah, okay, that all sounded bad, but what no one but she knew was she’d enjoyed it—not the being left for dead part. Her roommate was an idiot, and she could only imagine that he’d panicked when he thought he’d killed her. Most of the damage to her face must have happened when he’d smuggled her out of his apartment, dumped her into the trunk of his car, dropped her over the side of a bridge before deciding that wasn’t hidden enough, then finally just left her in a county ditch in the snow. But everything else… she’d enjoyed it deeply.

The spanking had been everything she’d ever dreamed it would be—soft at first, then harder and harder until he was using paddles, and she still couldn’t get enough.

The flogging had been beyond heaven—she couldn’t get enough of that, either. He’d gone through every implement he owned, progressively whipping her harder until at last, he’d used his belt, and she’d come.

She came when he’d whipped her.

She came when he’d wrapped the rope around her neck, cutting off her air for longer and longer periods of time as he fucked her—he wasn’t supposed to have done that, but she hadn’t cared at the time. In fact, she’d loved it at the time. She’d been flying so high, the ecstasy so unbearably beautiful, she’d come hardest of all just as she was passing out.

She regained consciousness for the first time to the smell of gas and sweaty sneakers in the trunk of his car, still unable to breathe quite right because of the choking rope and the way he’d folded her to get her into the tight space.

The second time she’d regained consciousness, she was being lifted out of the snow onto a gurney, then loaded into the back of an ambulance.

So… yeah. She’d been assaulted… kind of, although it had started out consensually enough. And she’d been raped… kind of. She hadn’t agreed to that part and never would have let him do it had she not been flying so deep in subspace. She had also very nearly died… because she’d been stupid, and everyone knew it.

So now, here she was.

Sadie hugged her duffel bag to her chest and did her best to paste on a smile she didn’t feel.

“Hi,” she greeted back, which finally made the horrified woman who’d frozen on the steps abruptly clap her mouth shut.

“Uh…” she said, so startled she’d forgotten her spiel. “Uh, welcome to Rawhide Ranch.” She winced an uncomfortable smile. “I’m Erika Lane, and I’m, um… here to show you… to sh-show you…”

She ought to just get back in the cab and leave again, Sadie thought sadly, which was when she suddenly noticed the tall, broad man who’d come out of the resort and stood at the top of the steps, his broad shoulders bare inches from brushing the evergreen Christmas wreath decorating a porch post, watching them. When her gaze landed on his, he came down to greet her.

“Thank you, Erika,” he said as he neared them. “I’ll take over from here.”

How she hadn’t noticed him before now, Sadie didn’t know, because the man was nothing if not noticeable. Unbelievably tall, he filled out the jeans he wore like a cowboy straight out of a movie. They weren’t tight, but they weren’t loose, just like his white, long-sleeved, button-down shirt. It wasn’t tight, but it wasn’t loose. It fit him as if it had been molded to his broad, muscular frame, and she was more than a little embarrassed at herself for the way she kept staring. But with each sauntering step he took to close the distance between them, blossoms of embarrassing heat unfurled in the pit of her belly like a slow blush. One would think