Divine Solace

  An odd note entered his voice, defensive. She decided to leave that alone, since she was still teetering on the line of how intimate she wanted the conversation to go. But she supposed some basic, less personal information would be okay.

  "It's not so much because of the family thing," she admitted. "Asking Marguerite personal questions is always...problematic, and if I asked Chloe the questions I want to ask, she'd start pushing me to put on a corset, come check out a club, see it all firsthand. I'm more cautious about things."

  They were idling in another snarl of rush-hour traffic, backed up at a series of lights. He looked at her. "I'm sorry."

  "For what?"

  "For whatever happened to you that made you more cautious about things."

  She stared at him. "I didn't say anything did."

  He let a fingertip whisper over the outer corner of her right eye, following a track to the corner of her lips. "I saw a flash of it, in how you held your mouth, the way the lines along your eyes creased."

  His tone was gentle, his eyes even more so, delving into her and cradling her heart. So much for less personal.

  Fortunately, traffic started to move and he returned his attention to the road. The person who assumed not a whole lot was going on with this one because of his age or easygoing manner would be making a mistake. She reached out, touched his jaw.

  "When you said that, I saw it here too. You get it because you understand it. Yet you're not cautious. You don't seem that way."

  He shrugged. "I know what it's like for things not to turn out the way you want them to. We all do. We just handle it differently. That's a good thing, because if we were all dysfunctional in the same way, it would be a pretty boring party."

  "I feel pretty boring, next to Chloe and Marguerite. But I've felt safe that way, because they love me."

  She couldn't believe she'd said something that honest out loud. But he merely nodded. "Being accepted for who you are, there's nothing better. If you have that, everything else is possible." He hit the brake for a light and gave her a significant glance, one that wasn't easygoing at all. It swept her face, her throat, down over breasts to the nip of her waist, highlighted by his regard, even under the shapeless T-shirt. Then his gaze came back to her face, lingered there.

  "I don't find you boring at all. And neither did my Mistress."

  *

  Wow. That was news. If he'd left it at his opinion only, she might have retreated behind false cynicism, assuming he was positioning himself for a booty call, holed up as he would be at her place. But a woman having a blatant sexual interest in her was a new idea. On top of that, it was the first time someone had suggested--as if it was the most natural thing in the world--that two people might be interested in her that way. Not competitively. She got the impression--and maybe she was crazy--that he was implying they both wanted her. At the same time.

  She'd likely read way too much into those two sentences. As a result, she didn't say much the rest of the trip and Noah didn't push her for more, though he made affable comments about the traffic and their surroundings in a way that let her retreat back to her comfort zone, which worked for her.

  She had a little patio home in a neighborhood of five hundred houses that looked just the same. Hers was on a cul-de-sac, backing up to woods, which she liked since the developer had stripped most of the forest to put up the cookie cutter houses faster. Her small fenced backyard was shaded by pines and palms, a few oaks.

  In a three-bedroom, two-bath with small rooms, the two of them would be very aware of one another's presence, since her bedroom was across the hall from the guest one. She used the third bedroom as her craft room and kept a TV in there. There was a little one in the guest bedroom for the occasional overnight visitors, but her combination kitchen and living room had only a bookshelf and a French-door view of the comings and goings of the neighborhood for visual entertainment. Seeing it through the eyes of a relative stranger, a man, she worried he might be glad he'd only be here a weekend.

  But it was her place, her sanctuary, bought under good financing terms with her own money. It wasn't a rusted trailer with garbage in the backyard and a scrawny mother cat having litter after litter of kittens under the stoop until disease took her. The kittens always disappeared eventually. As a child, she'd pretended they found good homes, rather than getting sick, hit by cars or eaten up by the nearby marsh alligators.

  Her mother said getting the mama cat fixed was too much money and animals were meant to fend for themselves anyway. She'd felt much the same way about children. It gave Gen a quick flash of herself at seven, standing on a stepstool to fix oatmeal for herself at the old stove, reading the package to figure out how to do it.

  "What a great place," Noah said. The sincerity caught her off guard, pulled her out of such memories. He'd brought in a duffle and placed it by the door so he could wander down the narrow hallway to look at the collages she'd placed on the walls. They were enhanced by the eggshell-colored paint, and she'd found good frames at yard sales. When she snapped on a light for him, the small track lights she'd placed over each picture provided enough illumination to navigate the hall, but turned the focus to the walls rather than the beige carpet she hadn't yet replaced with hardwood, as she intended to do one of these days. The kitchen was her first order of business.

  "This is awesome," he said. The collage he was studying was a garden of flowers, created with different scraps of paper, some solid colors, some patterns. Tiny knots of newsprint made up the background, as if the flowers were peering up from the colorless dark earth. She wondered if the earth ever resented being the womb, never the creation. Probably not. Even if the earth nursed such a petty thought, a look at what it had created would dispel it. At least that was the way it should be.

  "I made it after I bought the house." Her own personal celebration.

  "You made this? All of these?" At her nod, he gripped her hand as if he'd made a delightful discovery. It made her blush. Fortunately, he turned his attention back to the wall before she could embarrass herself further. The next one showed the silhouette of a sitting cat, the body formed by various images of a cat playing, sleeping. She'd interspersed those images with simple colors, making her into a calico.

  "Do you have a cat?"

  "Not yet. One day."

  He glanced at her. "A life still evolving. I like that."

  "You're a strange one," she responded, but she smiled. He made her smile. She liked that.

  He picked up his duffle bag. "Where am I at?"

  She pointed to the guest bedroom. "It's a full-size." She hoped his feet wouldn't hang off the end. "There's a small TV in there. I have basic cable."

  He waved a hand. "Doesn't matter. Lyda doesn't let me do TV. It makes my head hurt. Do you want to get started on anything tonight on the kitchen floor, or should I just fix you dinner?"

  She blinked at him. "I wasn't expecting you to--"

  "I'm here for you, Gen," he said seriously. "Let me make you dinner."

  While she was searching for something to say, he disappeared into the guestroom, returning without the bag. "No matter what, we need dinner first. Any particular requests?"

  "I have some leftover lasagna. There's enough for two, and some salad." She hoped there was enough for two, but he was a man. They could always order a pizza.

  "Sounds good. Why don't you do whatever your evening routine is, and I'll get dinner ready? If you do collaging after dinner, I can hang out with a book and watch, if you're okay with that. I'd love to see how you do this."

  He took her silence for assent, pressing her arm before he headed up her hallway. As he stepped into the kitchen and living area, she saw him give the latter a quick glance, then he disappeared left.

  Not sure how she was feeling about all of this, she went into her room to freshen up for dinner. She was used to men taking charge in the "I'm Tarzan, you Jane" way, not the "Okay, I'm going to take care of all your domestic needs, so you just relax, find your paper and pu
t your feet up" kind of way. It didn't feel like a role reversal, like he was trying to be a woman. Nothing about Noah said woman to her. In fact, she was a little turned on by how he'd done it, not taking no for an answer, determined in an relaxed way that made it pretty much impossible not to follow his direction.

  The weekend was going to be an experience.

  *

  She'd gone into her craft room and spent a little time setting up what she'd do after dinner. It was an exercise in self-restraint, since what she really wanted to do was hang over the kitchen counter and watch him doing whatever he was doing. Eventually that desire, and appetizing dinner smells, won out.

  Working for the tea room had given Gen such an educated and sensitive nose, she noticed aromas far more acutely, and it was impossible to ignore the olfactory temptation of spiced tomato sauce and bubbling cheese. When she came to the kitchen, she found more than one temptation waiting there.

  He'd set the table and was taking the lasagna out of the oven. The ribbed fabric of his dark tank showed his lean, muscled physique, as well as the bump of his nipples. When he bent to pull the lasagna out of the oven, she got a distracting view of his ass flexing under worn denim, his shoulders doing the same as he put the tray on the stove, turned it off, transferred the two pieces to plates.

  "You could have used the microwave."

  "Oven keeps it warm longer. Makes it bubble better."

  Yes, it did. She preferred to do it that way herself. He'd put the salad in a bowl with tongs, arranged the dressing options next to that. He'd even toasted some of her sliced bread. The smell suggested he'd added a light layer of garlic and butter to them.

  "I'll gain weight with you around."

  He gave her an amused glance. "My Mistress makes me work out with her sometimes, though it pisses her off that I can bench press more than she can. Claims God is an insecure, sexist bastard. I tell her she's too competitive."

  He pulled out a chair and gestured to Gen to take a seat in it. As she approached, she caught his scent, distinct from the dinner aromas. Some of the molasses-wood Ceylon tea fragrance had lingered, but it was mixed with that seawater smell and his own unique blend, something that made her want to inhale deeper, press her nose against that pocket between his collarbones, the base of his throat. Some of it might be Lyda, an intriguing mix. She remembered that combination of female sweat, soothing moisturizer, lip balm.

  Maybe Noah wore one of those male body sprays that included pheromones. That was the excuse Gen gave herself when, instead of putting her hand on the chair, she put it on him.

  It was just his side, beneath his arm, but when she felt the firm flesh beneath the thin tank, her fingers tightened on him. Her gaze fluttered up to his, and suddenly her throat was tight. What was she doing? This man...technically he belonged to another woman, right? Yet the signals they both sent...it was confusing.

  A hell of a rationalization, wasn't it? All she had to do was open her mouth and ask the question, but asking the question meant she had a reason for asking it. Caution first. Always. She didn't want to ask anything. She wanted to touch. Just touch. That was okay, right? It wasn't like she was touching anything...wrong.

  Okay, another rationalization.

  One he allowed her, because as her hand tightened on him, he straightened, squaring his body more with hers. Studying her face, he reached down, retrieved her other hand, and placed it on his other side. She stared at her hands, resting on his upper abdomen. She spread out her fingers, her thumb following the line of the lowest bone on his rib cage, then up to the one above it. Cotton fabric, so soft and thin, molded his shape. She could gather it up in her fingers, touch bare flesh.

  As if he could read everything in her face--or maybe he wanted to be touched--he put his hands between them, took the hem of the shirt up and over his head, getting rid of it. A simple movement, no excessive flare to startle her into thinking this was about to accelerate to an act she didn't want to commit. It just gave her more access to what she wanted to touch. Now she was staring at his chest. He was about half a head taller than her, but she kept her chin tilted down, still looking at her hands, resting on bare skin. He had no tattoos on his front, but she expected he had them somewhere. All men under the age of thirty seemed to these days.

  He had a light mat of brown chest hair that tapered to a bold arrow between his defined abs, headed for his groin. She didn't let her eyes go that far. She couldn't believe she was doing this.

  "Noah, I shouldn't... Lyda."

  "I'm here for you, Gen. She gave me to you for the weekend."

  Whoa. Stop. Back up.

  She did so literally, stepping away from him, though her palms itched with irritation at her, wanting to be right back where they'd been. "What?"

  "There's no obligation to it, Gen," he said carefully. "I'm here to be whatever you need. Tile your floors, paint your walls. But if you need me other ways...I'm willing to be that as well."

  "She just...loans you out?" Gen's shock turned into something far different. "You don't even know me."

  "No. It's not like that." His voice was instantly resolute, eyes reflecting the spark she'd seen when he and Lyda had their exchange about his stubbornness. It reassured her, somewhat. He paused, sighed. "I'm sorry, Gen. I'm used to being around Dommes. Mistresses. Those who understand the boundaries, the way this works. I should have brought it up earlier, maybe in the car when it was more neutral, but until you reached out to touch me like this, I wasn't sure if it was going to be an issue. But I could feel...something, when you looked at me. You intrigue me, as much as you do my Mistress. Like I said."

  The sudden, very male look of awareness coursed through her blood, but Gen pushed it away, trying to get a handle on this. She wasn't sure why she was so agitated, but she was. "So you're her Welcome Wagon? Or her bait? Works out well for you, doesn't it? I mean, what guy turns down getting laid as often as possible?" She took another step back. The lasagna was likely getting cold. They should eat.

  His flash of chagrin made her wince at herself. He'd been nothing but kind and respectful. But she had no frame of reference for this except a history of men who looked out for their own interests, especially when it came to sex.

  "I'm sorry, Gen. I'll go. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable." He spread his hands, a conciliatory motion. She sensed no resentment or passive aggressiveness in his tone, nothing but a sincere apology. "If you want, I'll come back tomorrow and help you with your kitchen. I'll just stay somewhere else."

  "You can just switch it on and off. Nice for you."

  In response he stepped forward, snagged her wrist. She tried to back up a step, but he followed her. The stove was warm against the backs of her legs. She shook her head at him, but then he put her hand right below his belt. Beneath the jeans where she hadn't allowed herself to look, she felt a very substantial erection.

  Her gaze shot up to his face. Immediately, he moved her hand to rest in a half curl on his bare chest, his own fingers loosely clasping hers before he let her go and stepped back to the other side of the table, as if he thought she might perceive what he'd just done as a threat, since he was a stranger in her home.

  Yet she hadn't perceived it that way. Just a very confusing signal that fired up her already aroused libido.

  "No. I can't switch it on and off," he said. "But I'm a submissive, Gen. It means that no matter how aroused I become, I act only on the commands of my Mistress. Or the woman she is allowing to command me. You can touch me however, whenever you wish. You can make me walk around your house naked the entire weekend. I might be literally dying to fuck you, but until you want that, demand that from me, I am only what you want me to be."

  Whatever he saw in her face started him back around the table. She watched him come, emotions warring inside her. His voice had become huskier during the explanation, and now his breath was warm on her face, his mouth close to hers again. "The more you deny me, hold yourself back, the hotter I get, the harder I work t
o please you. I want to please you."

  Like all women, she'd been the recipient of creative come-ons, where the male tried the "this is really all about you" kind of lines when they all knew it was about getting himself off. This wasn't that. This was beyond description, the way Noah's body canted toward her, yet she could feel the aura of self-restraint. Her will alone held him back.

  "How many..." She had to lick dry lips to talk. Leaning away from her, he snagged one of the glasses of wine he'd poured and offered it to her. She took a sip, then a swallow. Three of them. When she set it aside, her hand went back to his chest, the other resting on his hip. Her fingers hooked on his jeans waistband. She told herself it was just a place to put her hands while he waited for what she'd say. "Is it just any woman she cares to share you with? How do your feelings figure into it?"

  "Rather significantly." He seemed relieved she'd gone from attack mode to wary curiosity. "Mistress Lyda has never shared me outside of a club setting, Gen. Even inside it, it's directly under her supervision, and mostly foreplay type stuff." He met her gaze. "Sometimes I'll take a strap-on from one of them, but since I've belonged to her, she's never wanted me to actually fuck, I mean, have sex, with another woman."

  She should have brought Chloe and Brendan home with her as well. She could have said the kitchen was a two-man job and Brendan would have been happy to pitch in. The three of them could have had a slumber party on her living room floor, with her as a safe fly on the wall, listening and learning. Rather than being right in the crosshairs of this discussion, expected to respond intelligently to things she knew nothing about.

  "Sorry. I handled this badly." He was watching her face. "We can rewind all the way back to you coming into the kitchen and start over if you like."

  She shook her head. His distress over upsetting her was enough to bring some balance back. That and his forthrightness about it. She had no doubt he was telling her the truth. In fact, she suspected when Marguerite had told her he would answer anything honestly, she'd meant he was incapable of lying. Pushing away an uneasy feeling about that, she got a grip on herself.

  "Okay, so she's never given you to anyone else. Why me? Why this weekend?"