by Ann Jacobs
He was a fantastic lover, skilled and as demanding as any Dom she could imagine playing with, but still considerate enough to see to her pleasure before taking his own. She couldn’t quite picture him playing with her at the Neon Lasso, though. He seemed too reserved for that, even if he had taken her over almost as thoroughly as she’d watched Doms do with their subs in club scenes.
The main difference between being dominated by him and by her imaginary Dom was that Les had controlled her without restraints and toys and in the privacy of a hotel room, far away from the heated gazes of eager voyeurs. No, he might not be a Dom but he knew how to ring her bells as well as any of the club Doms she had observed, who had fed her fantasies.
On the way home now, hoping to beat a threatening storm, she watched him handle the Cessna with efficiency and confidence. He hadn’t hesitated to take the controls of the unfamiliar plane when she’d admitted how much she hated to fly in the worsening storm. She had to admit he handled the plane better than she did and as well as Four or Bye would have, even though they’d all spent many more hours at the controls than he could have managed while qualifying for an instrument rating.
When his brow furrowed a little in apparent concentration, she took that as a sign of his strong sense of responsibility, not as an indication that he was anything but totally in command, fully confident in his ability to get them back home safely.
She studied his profile, wanting to capture it all in her mind—the classic features that reminded her of a Roman god, the slightly curly jet-black hair that could use a trim. His mouth. Oh, what he could do to her with that mouth, the full lower lip now compressed as he concentrated on flying.
He’d have a similar look on his face when he examined a patient, she imagined. Intent and focused. The man was responsible to a fault in a way she and Bye had never had to be because they’d always had Mom and Four to buy them out of whatever messes they’d made of their lives.
Les took responsibility seriously but still Deidre wished he’d lighten up a little, put the plane on autopilot and let her see to his pleasure.
That wasn’t going to happen. No more than he had risked distracting her by chatting as she’d flown them to Dallas. She had the feeling that no matter how much she begged and pouted, she wouldn’t be able to break his resolve. Still, she couldn’t resist reaching over and laying her hand on his muscular, jeans-clad thigh.
“Chéri, stop that. Be good, for God’s sake. The wind is kicking up now and I need to concentrate on flying. I want to get us back to the Bar C in one piece and I can’t think when you’ve got your hands on me.”
He’d attended to her sexual needs last night with equally single-minded concentration. She wasn’t used to being put off, but she didn’t mind it as long as she kept reminding herself the time would come for that as soon as he landed and taxied the plane into its hangar at the end of the Bar C’s runway. “Okay, as long as you promise you’ll take care of me once we get home.”
“It will be my pleasure.” He shot her a quick, promising smile, then turned his full attention back to the instrument panel before glancing out the window at the threatening clouds on the horizon.
Satisfied for now, Deidre sat back and followed his gaze. She watched fearsome clouds roll in from the northwest, grateful she could count on Les to get them home safely despite the worsening weather.
She had rarely had occasion to use the plane’s de-icing equipment except on short hops following the recent blizzard to drop feed to cattle. She doubted Les had either, since he’d told her he’d qualified at a flight school in south Texas, where it rarely dropped below freezing. When he scanned the controls and turned on the de-icers she realized he had learned more about bad-weather flying in a classroom than she’d picked up in years of casual wintertime flights under Mike’s watchful eye.
The wind was getting stronger, the ride rougher. She couldn’t have done any better than Les at holding the plane steady against the forces of nature. She probably wouldn’t have done half as well, she thought, as she watched him maneuver while the plane dipped and shuddered in the increasing wind. Snowflakes swirled around them, a horde of icy granules that pelted the windshield with fierce intensity.
Deidre wasn’t afraid because Les radiated an aura of competence and self-confidence.
A half-hour later he put the Cessna down smoothly on the Bar C’s runway, which Dave had apparently cleared of nearly two inches of snow judging from the piles on either side. The fluffy white curtain was now coming down so hard it was almost impossible to see the silver hangar with its green Bar C logo above the door.
Deidre let out the breath she’d been holding when Les taxied into the hangar and shut off the engines. “I’m so damn glad you were at the controls instead of me.”
When they climbed down from the plane Dave ran at them like a crazed man. “Thank God you’re back. Hop in the Jeep and I’ll take you up to the house.”
Deidre looked at the ranch’s pilot and plane maintenance man as though she thought he’d lost his mind. “I think Les’ car will make it. The snow’s not all that deep yet. What’s going on up there that has you chasing after me like a maniac?”
“They need Doc Fourchet, fast. One of the bulls gored Jorge Sanchez in the thigh about half an hour ago. The hospital in Lubbock can’t send its helicopter up in this weather and Doc Baines is on the other side of the county taking another call. By the time he gets through, he’ll probably be snowed in.”
Les looked at Deidre. “I’ve got a few supplies in the trunk of my car. They’re in a black leather bag. Would you mind getting it for me?” He dug his keys out of his pocket and handed them to her before giving the threatening sky a long look and turning to Dave. “It sounds as though Jorge may need to get to a hospital fast.”
He thought about the meager emergency supplies he had with him. “Can you fly him to Lubbock or is the weather too bad?”
“You ought to know. You just landed, and the storm is getting worse by the minute. It would be insane to take him up in this storm until the weather clears some, even in the Learjet. We’re having wind gusts at more than forty miles an hour and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Besides, there’s a good chance that the Lubbock airports are already closed. They don’t have a lot in the way of snow-clearing equipment.”
Dave’s assessment was the same as Les’ had been. He climbed into the Jeep, took his medical bag from Deidre and held out a hand to help her climb in before Dave took off.
She looked terribly worried. “Exactly what happened, Mike?”
“Apparently the wranglers who usually help Jorge with the bulls both have the flu. They stayed in bed this morning, and when the weather turned bad Jorge decided to go by himself to get the bulls into the barn. The last bull charged Jorge when he went over the fence and into the pasture.”
Les tried not to sound as concerned as he felt. “How long ago was that?”
“Less than an hour ago.”
Deidre clasped Les’ arm with surprising strength. “Omigod, poor Jorge. And poor Maria.”
“Maria?”
Deidre turned to Les, practically in tears. “Maria is Jorge’s wife. She’s our housekeeper. She’s been on the Bar C since before I was born, so long that she seems like part of the family. I bet Four is frantic.” Deidre held on tight as Dave pulled off the road and crossed a field in what Les assumed must be a shortcut to the ranch house he’d seen briefly yesterday while picking Deidre up for the ride to the hangar.
“Yeah. Bye’s none too calm either. He called me just before you two landed to see if we dared to take the plane up.”
“In some ways my brother is as volatile as our dad. Especially in a medical emergency, when he’s the only one on the ranch who has any more than the most basic knowledge about first aid now that Mom’s not here. Where is Jorge now?” Deidre bit her lower lip, a gesture that Les had noticed her make whenever she was upset.
Dave steered around another bale of hay and detou
red to avoid a pumpjack that was moving up and down, the drone of its motor making it momentarily impossible to hear.
“Bye had them take him to the big house.”
A few minutes later Dave pulled up in front of the sprawling two-story house constructed of white brick and native sandstone, with square pillars holding up wide balconies that circled the front and sides. “Go on, Deidre, take Doc inside so he can see what can be done for Jorge. I’m gonna head back to the hangar and get the Bombardier fueled up and ready to go in case the weather should decide to cut us a break.”
Les didn’t need to ask where his patient was. All he had to do was follow the sound of high, keening wails and listen to Four reassuring somebody that Jorge would be okay. He detected more than a little fear in the deep rumbling voice that was mumbling hopeful platitudes.
“This way,” Deidre said, taking Les’ free hand and tugging him past a curving stairway toward the back of the house. “It sounds bad.”
The moment Les stepped into the room he focused on the middle-aged man laid out on a bed near the window. He looked unnaturally pale, his eyelids scrunched up and his mouth tight with apparent pain, though he seemed to be unconscious—no surprise. It registered with Les that Jorge was in a hospital bed, not the regular sort of bed people usually had in their homes but a model he’d seen in the VIP suites at the Houston hospital where he’d done his residency.
Four stepped back from the right side of the bed and turned back the covers. Les knew right away why everybody seemed practically in shock. The linens were soaked with blood in spite of the tourniquet somebody had applied—correctly, thank God—above the wound in Jorge’s thigh.
“His blood pressure is eighty over sixty and his pulse feels weak to me. He wasn’t running a fever when I checked him a few minutes ago. The tourniquet has been on for five minutes since I loosened it for a minute.” Standing next to the other side of the bed, Bye draped the stethoscope he’d been using around his neck. “From the way the blood was spurting I figured the bull horn had nicked an artery, so I applied the tourniquet. I’ve been loosening it every ten minutes because I was afraid leaving it longer than that would cut off the circulation completely.”
Les checked the tourniquet and nodded. “You were right. I’ll loosen it again as soon as I take a quick look at the wound.” God help him—or rather Jorge. Les didn’t carry around IV fluids or surgical trays. He had precious little in his bag that would be much help in this situation and he doubted even the best-equipped of home first-aid kits would offer much of what he’d need.
“Will he lose his leg?” A middle-aged woman he assumed was Jorge’s wife looked down at Jorge then met Les’ gaze. Tears ran down her plump, ruddy cheeks. “Dios, it will kill him if he cannot work with the bulls.”
Les couldn’t promise anything. “I’ll do my best. We’ll need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible. Mrs. Sanchez, I think you should go outside. Deidre, please take her out while I examine Jorge.” One quick glance at Deidre told him he’d most likely have another patient if she stayed—and the last thing he wanted was to have to treat his lover.
When the women had left and he uncovered the wound, Les had to hold back a curse. Jorge’s thigh was opened up practically to the bone, muscles and tendons shredded by the animal’s undoubtedly sharp, thick horn. Blood oozed out from all around the wound field despite the tourniquet, which would have to be loosened shortly or Jorge would certainly lose the leg if not his life.
“Can I get you something?” Bye had Les’ bag on the bedside table and was opening it up. “Looks to me as though fixing Jorge’s leg with what you have here is gonna be a lot like trying to take down an eight-point buck with birdshot.”
Les already knew that. “I’m afraid you’re right. Hand me that bottle of Betadine and a pair of sterile gloves. I’ll do what I can with what I have. Somebody needs to go find more towels and some water—distilled if you have it. If you don’t, regular will have to do. Might as well get me the suture pack—it’s in the white wrap at the bottom of the bag.”
His only other experience with treating wounds anywhere near as serious as this had been in the emergency room during his rotation there last year. He tried to calm his nerves as he snapped on the gloves and probed gently at the mangled flesh, searching for the source of the heavy bleeding.
“The femoral artery is intact.” If it hadn’t been, Jorge would already have been dead from loss of blood. “Here. One of the bull’s horns ripped the obturator artery. I’ll suture it, but it will need to be redone at the hospital later. I don’t pretend to be a vascular surgeon, and I don’t have the type of suture material that’s usually used for work on veins and arteries.”
An hour later Les was covered in sweat but the artery had finally stopped spurting blood every time Bye loosened the tourniquet. Saying a silent prayer, Les removed the loosened tourniquet after cleaning the wound and suturing torn muscle and skin. Exhausted, he pulled off his gloves and dropped them into the basin where he’d discarded the used supplies.
Bye had proved a more than adequate helper, which surprised him since he’d heard several comments around town to the effect that the Bar C heir was a playboy more interested in partying than in doing anything useful. “Thanks, Bye. Four, I believe that if somebody watches him 24/7 until you can get him to a hospital, Jorge will eventually be okay. He needs IV fluids, plasma, antibiotics and more pain medicine, which I can get from the office and bring back out here, assuming the road is passable.”
Four cleared his throat. “Bye, take my SUV. It has four-wheel drive. You’ll probably need the extra traction if the snow keeps coming down the way it’s doing now.”
“I’ll take him. Bye needs to stay here and do what he can for Jorge.”
Les hadn’t realized Deidre had come back into the room until she spoke. He turned and saw her looking wide-eyed at the bloodstained dressings in the basin next to Jorge’s freshly bandaged thigh.
“Okay. But I want you to let Les drive.”
Les remembered Deidre mentioning how overprotective her father was of her. Apparently she hadn’t imagined it. “You trust her flying a plane but not driving a car in a snowstorm, sir?”
“Yes, I do. I still was damn glad you were with her while you were coming back from Dallas. I knew you’d take care of her.”
* * * * *
Deidre was still fuming over Four’s attitude as she sat in the passenger seat of his Escalade and watched Les maneuver around a snowdrift on the outskirts of town. Yeah, Les was responsible to a fault, if that were possible. She couldn’t deny it after watching him get them back from Dallas in the worsening weather, never once panicking. He’d stayed calm and brought them home while the wind had tossed the Cessna around as though it had been a toy airplane. She was certain she’d have panicked and crashed in some desolate field if Les hadn’t been with her.
Once safely on the ground again, he’d calmly addressed a medical emergency that had everybody on the Bar C wringing their hands, not knowing what to do for Jorge. He’d calmed everyone down, even Maria, and he’d patched up Jorge’s leg with nothing but what he’d had with him in the small leather bag that hadn’t even strained her back when she’d brought it to him from his car.
Deidre reminded herself that she didn’t want responsible, she wanted exciting. Fun. She wanted a Dom.
But it was true that dominance took many forms and not all of them had to do with BDSM sex play. Being a dominant male didn’t only mean taking control of a submissive and bending her to his will. Even Deidre knew that much.
When the SUV came to a stop in front of his office she glanced over at Les and recognized the determined look on his face. Whatever it took, he’d get the supplies he needed and get them safely back to the Bar C so he could take care of Jorge until the weather cleared enough that they could get him to the hospital.
He looked at her as he opened the driver’s side door. “I’ll leave the engine running while I go inside and get what I need. I
want you to stay warm.” He didn’t wait for a reply but got out and strode over a pile of newly fallen snow that the wind had piled up in front of the sidewalk. She watched him until he disappeared inside the office he shared with Doc Baines.
While she still couldn’t imagine Les playing BDSM games at the Neon Lasso, Deidre had to give him credit. He’d shown her he could take command when it mattered most—when lives were on the line.
Besides, when she looked back on their lovemaking last night, she had to admit Les had led her. He certainly hadn’t shown the slightest hesitation in taking her over the top not once but several times before they’d slept—and again this morning before they’d headed home.
Of course the sex had been pure vanilla, no toys or restraints or any of the accoutrements she’d always thought she needed to spice up the game. But he had made sure that she came each time, unlike some past lovers who had focused only on their own pleasure.
Les wasn’t stodgy—just vanilla.
Being vanilla is not a sin, Deidre. It’s just that you’ve always thought you’d prefer chocolate, or better yet Rocky Road.
But maybe Les wasn’t vanilla after all. She’d been with him less than two complete days. Not too many guys, even Doms, would go out on a first date and drag the woman to a dungeon or surprise her with his collection of dildos, floggers and handcuffs. And not all Doms looked the part, not even Bye, who took Karen to the Neon Lasso at least once a week but who came across in public as normal—even a little bit on the conservative side.
Unlike Jack, whose high-and-tight haircut and authoritative manner gave more than a hint that he was into BDSM in a big way. She’d have known even if Karen hadn’t let it slip that of all the players at the Neon Lasso, Jack was the most hardcore. Liz seemed to love the way he controlled her, even getting a tattoo on her mound that matched the ones on his arm and above his cock. Bye had mentioned that the slave collar around Liz’s neck was secured with a lock to which Jack held the key.
