When the day started to ebb toward late afternoon, he at last reached a stopping point. She judged that he'd completed a couple of months' worth of projects in a single day. Even with his level of fitness, he was going to be aching tomorrow.
After he put away his tools, he didn't come back toward the house as she'd hoped. Instead, he headed for the trees. For Chris, the back-flanking forest had been one of the big draws of their rental house. He'd built a tree house just inside the tree line, big enough she could glimpse it from the rear of the house, since she knew where to look. Otherwise, the weathered wood blended into the canopy.
This was his home. She wasn't going to let anything drive him from it, even her or his own thoughts. She'd given him a whole day of space. If the mountain wouldn't come to Mohammed, Mohammed was going to the mountain.
She packed up a tote with snacks, a gallon jug of cold water and a small container of ice. Leaving the house, she crossed the backyard and chirped a greeting at the aviary birds before she went through the rear gate and into the woods. Technically the property wasn't theirs, but it was undeveloped land. Kids made bike trails through it and built dams in the creek, doing what kids had done throughout time, transforming wild places into their own imaginary world. She'd wondered if Chris had built a tree house goaded by that same impulse. He liked to build as well as plant, and had a knack for seeing what would integrate the best with his surroundings, rather than strip it of its natural beauty. The tree house was no exception.
The wide platform had four thru-holes for the trunks of the trees that supported it. The tree house itself was a box structure with geometric cutouts for windows. A hexagon, a star, a crescent moon. It had a roof, but he'd threaded thin branches into the treehouse under it, interlacing them along the ceiling and stringing them with a thicket of lights that ran on batteries and could be switched on and off. At night, in pitch dark, they could lie on their backs on the wooden floor and turn on those lights. It was as if they were looking up at the stars.
She paused at the base of the tree house. "Do I need the secret password?" she asked.
"Probably."
She pursed her lips. "Naked girls."
His half chuckle heartened her. "You know, guys aren't as easy as you think we are."
"Does that mean I didn't get the password right?"
"Didn't say that." She looked up into his face, peering down at her through the trapdoor. "Looks like you also brought provisions," he said.
"I did. I have Little Debbie oatmeal cookies, cold Pepsi and a few other things. Can I come up?"
At his nod, she handed up the items, and came up herself. He was there with a helping hand, ensuring she made the transition safely from the bolt hole onto the platform. The late-afternoon sun gave the interior a plush yellow light, reflecting off the golden pine. She'd hung some glittering silver stars from the ceiling branches and a couple of chimes. They made music from the breeze wafting in through the geometric cutouts.
Chris rarely looked tired. He looked a step away from exhaustion now, which concerned her. After he helped her inside, he took a seat on the boards, his back pressed against the wall between the hexagon and the star. He'd put his shirt back on. His knees were bent and splayed, his forearms resting on them, hands loose. His hair appeared as if he'd raked his hands through it numerable times, leaving the thick locks spiked. The late afternoon still held warmth, so he had sweat beads on his brow and neck. His brown eyes studied her.
Taking a seat across from him, she drew up her knees and clasped her arms around them, studying him right back.
She reminded herself she'd been brave enough to push Geoff, and he could be intimidating as hell. Chris wasn't the intimidating sort, not to her. Her hesitation had to do with being rejected, but even more than that, she didn't want to hurt him any more than she already had. After a long moment, she shifted onto her knees, closing the yard of space between them to slide between his large work shoes. She brought the container of ice closer to them.
Folding her legs beneath her, she touched his shirt, spreading her fingers over his chest. The cloth was damp from sweat. Rising on her knees, she grasped the hem, telling him with her body language she wanted to help him take it off. He didn't immediately comply, that intriguingly hard-to-read gaze resting on her face. Then he straightened, his hands brushing hers away, not unkindly, so he could pull the shirt over his head.
The sinuous ripple of muscle so close to the heat of her own body made her want to swallow, hard. But she took the shirt, folded it and put it to the side. After pulling open the container of ice, she withdrew a bowl from her tote, as well as a cotton washcloth. She poured some of the water from the gallon jug into the bowl, but she set that aside, instead reaching for the ice.
She was proud that her hand was steady as she put the cube against his collarbone. She slid it in a slow arc along that line, watching it make a sleek track through the dirt on his skin. He had gleaming dark hair on his chest, and she combed her fingers through the rough-soft feel of it, sliding the ice along the same path. His skin shuddered under the touch of the ice, even though his hands had returned to rest on his splayed knees as he watched her closely.
She'd used sexual triggers to motivate Geoff to action, but even with that she wasn't the type of woman who believed a man could be led by his cock. Nor would she want to treat either man that way. With Geoff it had been the right timing, a sincere message sent, and his response hadn't been mindless in the least. Sex could soothe, heal and open communication, if both parties were willing to let it. When they were, it wasn't manipulative or wrong. Which was why she was taking her time, letting Chris decide what he would welcome or rebuff. As she continued to move the ice against his body, his heat and energy pulled her in, so the nervousness receded in favor of pure joy at touching him.
Taking the ice down his pectoral to the nipple, she watched it bead under the cold. His fingers flexed. In this position, the camo pants were stretched across his groin so she could see the intimate shape of the man beneath. When he reached beneath his waistband and grasped his growing erection, adjusting it to a more comfortable position, the blatant eroticism of his doing it in front of her with no self-consciousness spiked her blood pressure, making her fingers twitch on him. He returned his hand to that dangling position on his knee, his eyes still fastened on her as she moistened her lips in involuntary response.
Geoff was sleek and polished, a dangerous Dom lover like a leopard, whereas Chris was all earthy sensuality, basic and primal. Sexual tension hummed off him like the distant thunder behind a mountain range.
The ice was melting against the heat of his skin, drops of water rolling down his chest and the sectioned muscles of his stomach. She picked up another piece, running it over his shoulders and behind his neck. To do that she had to stand on her knees, and his breath touched her breasts through her thin T-shirt. He still hadn't moved his hands.
"Touch me," she murmured. Could she command him? She'd sensed something between him and Geoff, a deference that had made her wonder if Chris nursed some submissive tendencies, but she'd only seen it come out around Geoff, in ways so fleeting she wasn't sure if she'd imagined it. But she could test it now, couldn't she? It wasn't her thing, but she wasn't necessarily averse to the idea of having a big, strong man at her command for a short interlude.
She moved the ice down his arm out to his hand, then back up under the arm, teasing the armpit. Then--
He captured her wrist with the opposite hand, holding it up between them. Dipping his own hand in the container, he came out with a handful of ice and put it in her palm, closing her hand over it. As she felt the burn of the ice, he met her gaze. "Think you can order me around, Sam?"
She saw licks of flame in his brown eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Can I?"
"No. You can't." He opened her fingers, letting the ice drop with a clatter to the wood planks. Bringing her cold palm against the heat of his body, he warmed it without flinching, without moving his attentio
n from her face. The man was arousing her with nothing more than how he was looking at her. With hunger, with a need to take, held back only by his own restraint, by whatever thoughts were moving through his mind. "Tell me what you want," he said.
"I want to wash you."
Surprise flitted through his gaze. He'd need a full shower to be clean, but she had a different purpose from cleaning. All she needed was his acquiescence. "May I?"
He didn't agree or disagree, but he didn't stop her. After a weighted moment, she sank back to her heels and untied his work shoes, removing them and his socks, fingers caressing his arches before she rose to her feet. "Will you stand for me?" she asked.
He did so, a big man in a small space, though he'd made the sloped roof so he could stand up straight, even with the interlaced branches above him. Hooking her fingers in the rings of the canvas belt of his camo pants, she pulled it free and unbuttoned the top of the pants. She left them that way as she bent and retrieved the washcloth. As she did, she stilled, for his hands slid over her hips, catching her belt loops as he did earlier, only now his touch slid lower, cupping one buttock. When she straightened, his hand stayed on her hip, fingertips curved into her back pocket. The other captured her breast, thumbing her nipple through the thin T-shirt.
Her reaction to his touch spiraled out, sending electric tingles throughout her upper torso. She made herself focus, though, sliding the washcloth over his shoulder. The excess water rolled down his chest, his back and arm. She moved the terry cloth in slow glides over that same terrain, and when she moved closer to him to run it behind his neck to get the sweat and grime there, he obligingly dipped his head. His large hand descended even lower, his firm hold pressing into the seam of her jeans at the base of her ass. A tiny breath escaped, a shudder going through her. As he curved over her, she ran the cloth over the widest part of his back and he shifted his grip to clasp her buttocks in both hands.
The way he was looking at her made the space much smaller and more charged with heat in a blink. She thought he might finally have a few more things on his mind than being mad at Geoff or her. It made her dare to ask him the next question.
"Do you want me to take anything off?" Her voice wasn't much over a squeak.
After three long heartbeats, he reached out to finger the hem of her T-shirt and tug on her jeans waistband. "Everything but the panties," he said roughly. "I want to watch you wash me in just those."
His manner wasn't as overt as Geoff's, yet he took her over just as powerfully. Chris was more like a strong undercurrent that ran below the surface, arousing her with how it teased and tugged at her submissive side, while giving her more freedom to play around him and explore.
"Like a slave girl washing her Master," she said, though her lips couldn't quite curve in a smile, especially when he didn't smile back. He waited.
She pulled off the shirt and shimmied out of the jeans, shoes and socks. She was wearing thin white panties with a touch of lace, and she was sure the front panel was as damp with her arousal as his shirt had been with sweat. His gaze slid there, then back over her stomach, her quivering breasts. His arousal was growing thicker and more insistent beneath the camo pants. The pants were now half-unzipped because of the strain being put on the fly.
Bending, she dipped the washcloth into the bowl again. She ran it over his chest and arms, moving around him to do his back. Rivulets of water slipped down his lower back and beneath his waistband. After rubbing the cloth over his arms and down to his hands, she rewet the cloth so she could do an even better job cleaning the dirt from his palms. She pulled out a fresh washcloth and dipped it into the ice container, enough water there to dampen the cloth. Back on her toes again, she wiped his face, passing it over his eyes as they closed for her. Then the bridge of his nose, his lips and cheeks, the strong jaw.
A higher stretch let her reach the back of his neck once more, and his broad shoulders. His arms slid around her, hands taking possession of her ass again, though this time there was nothing between the heat of his palms and her flesh except the thinnest barrier of silk. He fondled her with obvious male enjoyment as she swayed, her lips parting.
Taking the cloth from her, he dropped it on the floor and leaned back against the wall, bringing her closer so her breasts pressed against his chest, her cheek to his shoulder. He held her that way, his hand holding her skull and his other hand stroking, rubbing and fondling her ass. The position put her mound against his thigh, his erection against her abdomen, and she wanted to rub, to entice.
She expanded the fantasy in her mind. Maybe he wasn't her Master the prince, but the royal gardener who loved the slave girl. The gardener would tell her he wanted her to wash him the way she'd wash her Master. He wanted her to show him it wasn't money or royal power that commanded her obedience, but the nature of the man.
When Chris split her legs open by insinuating one of his muscled thighs in between them, he seated her right against that flexing muscle. She grabbed his biceps for balance as he began to work her against him, creating explosive friction.
"Chris," she gasped. His hand tightened.
"I want to hear you come, Sam. I want to hear you come without that vibrator you use. No pillow to muffle those sexy moans you make."
Her gaze snapped up to him, color suffusing her cheeks. His jaw set. "I've jerked off listening to you, the bumps and creaks of your bed," he said roughly. "I want to hear you come for me, because of what I'm doing to you, how I'm touching you. Not because of . . . anything else."
"Anything else, or anyone else?"
She meant it as a gentle tease, because his hesitation implied the word as clearly as speaking it. A blink later, she wished she'd let the powerful arousal gripping her keep her from speaking at all, because apparently it was the wrong thing to say if she'd wanted them to keep going in the direction they were headed.
For just a second his grip constricted on her hard enough to bruise, then he released her and straightened. He moved her off of him decisively enough it sliced into her heart. Bending, he scooped up her clothes and handed them to her. He fastened his pants, retrieved his T-shirt and pulled it back on before he gave her an even look, his expression wooden.
"I told you it was better to leave me alone," he said gruffly. He picked up the bowl, dumped the water out the window and stuffed it and the washcloths back into the tote. "Put your clothes back on and come back to the house."
He didn't wait for her, though he took everything she'd brought with her so she didn't have to navigate them down the ladder. When she was alone, watching him stride back toward the house, the tote on his shoulder, Sam stood there, holding her clothes against her tingling skin despite the chill settling over her. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't.
This was just a bump in the road. She wouldn't turn it into a huge life-or-death drama, no matter the size of the jagged lump in her throat.
Even so, it took her a half hour to find the courage to return to the house. When she entered, she hoped he was there as much as a craven part of her wished he wasn't. The shower in their shared bathroom was steamed up, telling her he'd used it, but he was in his room, the door shut, his TV on. She didn't bother knocking or trying the door, knowing it would be locked.
She should have gone to work with Geoff.
*
"Not all Doms are obvious alpha males, and many alpha males are not Doms."
Her friend Flo had told her that. Flo was a Domme herself, so she'd know. Lying on her bed in the dark, Sam thought that through. Geoff was alpha with a capital A, automatically assuming leadership of any situation. A strong overachiever in college, he'd finished at the top of his class.
But Chris was no less resolute than Geoff on the things that mattered to him. When he'd told her to strip for him, the look in his eye told her he wasn't necessarily acting on whatever understanding he had of Sam's submissive desires, but pursuing interests of his own. Chris was always his own man.
Several years ago, a string of hurricanes had h
it the coast. Chris had come home with enough money to start his own landscaping company. Yet as usual, he banked it and went back to tending yards in Charlotte as part of Esteban's crew. He wasn't lazy, not in the least, and he was entirely self-sufficient. He just seemed to prefer working for someone.
Esteban was really good to him, because the company owner was no fool. Chris was a rare find. A twentysomething who worked hard, had a natural talent for landscape design and could be trusted with any task, large or small. Chris was smart enough to run all aspects of the operation when Esteban took a vacation, but he had no obvious desire to make that situation permanent.
The only time he and Esteban had had a disagreement of any seriousness had been when a new homeowner wanted a tree taken down because she didn't want the sprawling maple blocking the street view of her house. She felt the tree detracted from the house's curb appeal. Chris had explained it was nesting season for a great many animals and birds. If the owner insisted on killing a perfectly healthy tree, she should at least hold off until later. The customer disagreed.
The tree came down while Chris was on a lunch break, but when he returned and found Esteban and the crew about to cut up the branches and trunk, he shouldered them aside and fished through the branches until he found three nests. Two of them still had live birds. He gathered up the tiny bodies of three that had been thrown from the nest and hadn't survived the tree's fall. He also found a nest with squirrel babies.
The customer's eight-year-old daughter had been playing in the yard, and Chris's discoveries horrified her to tears. Chris had comforted her, letting her help him carry the nests to a neighbor's house, who'd agreed to let them put the nests back up in his trees, where the babies would be close enough their calls might bring the parents. Chris camped out in his truck on the street until he verified the parents returned to all but one of the nests. That one he brought home and handfed the babies until they could be released.
Esteban never again agreed to take down a healthy tree so readily, and never during the spring. The attention Chris's actions drew from surrounding neighbors, as well as the embarrassment of the homeowner when she had to deal with her daughter's dismay over the dislodged nests, even inspired Esteban to change his company's brand. Cortez Landscaping was now promoted as an environmentally conscious and wildlife-friendly operation. Chris was his "expert" advisor to the homeowners on the best way to live in harmony with nature and still have a beautiful yard.