Page 2 of Sadie's Little Christmas

The force of her sobs dwindling, her breath hitched as she shook her head.

He had no business prying, not that that stopped him.

“Because you don’t have anyone, or because you don’t want them to know?”

She sniffled. “Both,” she rasped dully.

“Do you want a police escort to take you home?”

She stared out the window, silent for so long, he had about decided she was going to ignore that question when her breath hitched again.

“I just m-moved in w-with him!” She crumpled again under a whole new rush of tears. “He was m-m-my r-roommate! I’ve t-talked to him for months!”

Jared kept his kernel of hot-burning anger stamped down deep inside. This wasn’t about him. He could be pissed all he wanted about this later, but for now, he needed to keep his tone soft and in control.

“Did you tell the detectives?”

She nodded, hiccupping and sniffling.

“Good girl. Where do you work? Do they know you’re not coming in today?”

“I’m still interviewing,” she squeaked, her voice cutting in and out of sound. “I only got here two days ago.” For the first time, she looked directly at him. Her eyes were a wounded shadeof brown, shimmering with unshed tears. “What am I going to do?”

A woman’s shelter was his first instinctive answer, though he didn’t say it out loud. The waiting list for anything more than a cot at night, and only if she showed up on time, would be impossibly long. He’d never forgive himself if so much as one person there echoed anything even close to what the detective had.

That’s when he thought of it—the one place guaranteed to offer her more than just a cot for the night. Rawhide Ranch, run by a good friend, was the only place he knew for sure could guarantee her the safety, security, and understanding to hopefully heal her from what had happened.

Squeezing her hand, Jared told her, “You’ve got no reason to trust me, sweetheart, but I promise you, you’re going to be all right. I’m going to take care of it, okay?”

She only looked at him as he got up and left her room, even if only long enough to make a phone call.

“If ever you owed me one,” he said instead of hello when Derek answered, “I need you to do me a favor.”

Chapter 1

“Welcome to Rawhide Ra—”The woman coming down the snow-dotted steps of the massive log-cabinesque resort hotel froze with that well-rehearsed welcome speech on her lips the instant Sadie pulled her duffel bag out of the back of the cab that had brought her here and turned around. Sadie expected the look of shock that blanched across the other woman’s features, bugging her eyes and dropping her jaw. She supposed she should have expected the gasp. She knew what she looked like.

It had been four days since the lawyer Jared Stark had walked into her room in the hospital and pretty much decided to change her life. In that time, she’d waffled back and forth, wondering if she ought to let him or... That’s about as far as she got in her thought process. While she hated—absolutely hated—to be a burden, she honestly couldn’t think of anyplace else to go.

She’d quit her job in California to follow what she’d thought was her dream. Coming out to Montana to visit someone she thought was her friend had been every bit as exciting as her first trip to Disneyland. Not that he’d ever be more than a friend. She’d known almost from their first exchange of emails, they weren’t compatible in anything except the one area thathad induced her to quit her receptionist job, sell everything she couldn’t afford to pack, and move to Montana. He was a member of an actual, bonafide BDSM club and promised to take her to her very first dungeon party. Finally, she was going to get 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 heowned, 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.

---