Divine Solace: 8 (22 page)

When she asked, teasing, how Lyda’s cats would react to
boating, Noah gave her a slow smile. “It depends. Farclaws will lie in the
birdbath on hot days. Sleep there, even. I think it just has to be their idea.
They’re a lot like their mistress in that regard.”

After about an hour of sailing, he maneuvered them into a
quiet cove and loosened the lines, letting the sails flap and slowing them to a
drifting halt. “Okay, let me show you the basics of handling her yourself. When
you’re comfortable, we can go back out again where you can really put her
through her paces. Then we can park and have some lunch. This is a nice
secluded place to relax and take an afternoon nap.”

“Okay.” It occurred to her, the things that could happen
during such a siesta, but there was no innuendo to the friendly suggestion.
This time there’d been no instructions, no indication that Lyda was “giving”
him to her. Caressing his abdominals was one thing, but more than that? She
could ask him, of course, but felt shy about it. Maybe because if Lyda had said
no, it would feel like rejection.

Noah touched her collarbone, bringing her attention back to
him. “Take off the lifejacket. You need to put on some more sunblock, because
you’re turning red in a couple places. Lyda
and
Marguerite will have my
ass if I let you get burned.”

She unclipped the jacket as he retrieved the tube from
stowage. When he proffered it, she met his gaze. “Will you put it on me?”

“Sure.” He gave her that look that made her stomach do a
somersault like a happy squirrel. “Hold your hair off your neck.”

She turned her back to him. As those capable hands started
smearing the block on her skin, a deep sigh welled up. Part pleasure, part
other. “I don’t know what’s allowed, Noah.”

He paused. “What do you want to be allowed?”

She looked at glittering water and green shoreline. A heron
fished in the shallows of the cove. “I want to do whatever I feel like doing
with you. But I don’t want to do anything to offend Lyda. Or take advantage of
how you are.”

“And how am I?” His teasing tone reassured her. Then he
slipped the back strap of her bikini top. When she caught the front, he tapped
her gently between the shoulder blades. “There’s no one here but us. A lot of
women get burned at the edges of their swimsuit because they put the block on
while they’re wearing it and they don’t want to get the swimsuit messy. You can
do the front part if you like, or I can do it.”

She shook her head. Spoke with a catch in her voice. “I want
you to do it.”

His breath was on the back of her neck. Without saying
anything further, he released the neck strap as well. Reaching under her arm,
he slid his fingers beneath her grip to give the top a gentle tug, telling her
he wanted her to let it go. She did. It left her sitting in her shorts and
bottoms only. She heard him squirt more of the sunblock into his hands. The
faint quiver of the boat suggested he was rubbing his hands together, making it
less cold. She was still holding her hair up on her neck, and now she added the
other hand, moving both arms out of his way.

He slid up behind her, adjusting so one leg was aligned with
her hip, the other angled so his foot dangled off the boat, though his thigh
pressed against her, keeping her between his legs. When he leaned forward, his
bare chest brushed her back, making her aware of the faint stickiness where the
sunblock was drying.

As his hands closed over her bare breasts, she drew in a
breath. They rose in his hands like bread dough responding to heat. Chloe,
their passionate baker, would laugh at that comparison. Gen looked down at his
brown hands against her pale flesh. He rubbed the sunblock into the area the edge
of her swimsuit would follow. The deliberate omission of the area closest to
her nipples made them tighten, beg for touch.

“You didn’t answer my question, about ‘how I am’,” he
murmured against her throat. She laid her head back against his shoulder, turned
her face so her nose brushed his jaw. He was gazing down, eyes intent on his
task, on her breasts.

“I’m still learning everything a male submissive is, and
Chloe keeps insisting you’re all different. My exposure has been to Brendan.
Doing things Marguerite or Chloe ask him to do brings him pleasure, the
service. But I think there’s a tendency for a woman to think it means…that she
can treat you like an unpaid prostitute.”

His hands stilled. “I know that’s not what you are,” she
added quickly. “But I would be really,
really
upset if you let me do
that anyway, simply because you knew I was too ignorant or driven by my
hormones to know better.”

She was very cognizant of how he cradled her breasts, simply
holding them, but she forced herself to focus on the importance of the topic.
“Your feelings are important to me, and I can’t get a grasp on them. Or Lyda’s,
for that matter, in a lot of things. It’s hard to get a handle on anyone when
you’ve just met them, let alone two people who are part of something I really
know so little about.”

“You know everything you need to know. In your head and
heart. In your body.” He put his mouth to her neck, shifting his grip so her
nipples pushed into his palms. The contact made her moan, a soft sigh.

“Lyda thinks you’re good for me, Gen,” he said. “And I like
being with you. All you have to do is follow your own needs and desires. You
don’t have to think about it more than that, because I know you have a good
heart. I’m not worried about what you’ll do to me, only about what you’ll allow
yourself.”

Nothing in life was ever that simple. Yet when he resumed
massaging the cream around her breasts, she couldn’t think of anything else to
say. Not when he occupied himself with kissing her neck, slow, sucking kisses
that awoke erogenous zones all the way to her curling feet. Her backside
pressed into the fiberglass in tiny, coital movements.

“If we don’t start sailing, there’s going to be a lot of
bare places on me where you’ll need to apply sunscreen,” she muttered.

“You say that like it’s a problem.”

She chuckled and wiggled to put some space between them,
despite the incredible difficulty of finding the willpower. She retrieved her
swimsuit top and gave him a narrow glance. “I was promised sailing lessons.”

He smiled. He also helped her put the swimsuit top back on,
fastening the back and the neck piece, smoothing his hands briefly over her
breasts, solemnly informing her it was to ensure everything was covered
properly.

When he finally began her sailing lesson, she realized he
never really had answered her question, unless deflecting it back on herself
was an answer. The man was like the sunlight glittering off the water. He
wasn’t the water or the sun, but some sparkling reaction between the two, part
illusion, part reality.

He shifted gears well, though. After about forty five
minutes, thanks to his excellent teaching skills, she could handle the mainsail
lines while he handled the jib of the small craft. She had them tacking well
together, leading them in the duck beneath the boom. He’d been right about the
privacy of the cove. They were undisturbed.

“Only shallow craft can get through here,” he explained.
“With it being off the main channel, a good distance from the marina, only your
most experienced sailors navigate to it. Plus it’s a weekday. Ready to try the
channel again?” he asked.

“I’m not ready to solo yet.”

“We’ll do it together until you tell me you want to solo.
And I’ll be right next to you when you finally do that. We’re going to practice
capsizing as well. In here,” he added at her alarmed look.

They were at rest again and he’d turned fully toward her,
one leg bent, the other doused in the water up to his knee. “Aren’t we supposed
to avoid doing that?”

“Yes. But if it happens, you need to know how to right the
boat. Say if I was hit on the head, or whoever you were sailing with was less
experienced, you should be prepared. But you should never sail alone.”

“You do.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I really
don’t ever want you to sail alone, okay?”

“Okay.” She responded to the determined look in his eye, but
she couldn’t help asking. “Noah, do you care what happens to you?”

For the first time since they’d met, she saw a shutter close
fully behind his eyes. He lifted her hand, brushed his lips over it. “I serve
my Mistress’s will. I know it’s important that I care for her. And you.”

She didn’t know how to push it further than that without
ruining their day. As Lyda had warned her, he could be stubborn. Proving it, he
didn’t let her pursue it, instead getting them back to the sailing.

The wind had built and the tide had turned. Going out into
the stronger wind and current of the channel, she discovered the exhilarating
speed of a small craft, especially in the company of an incredibly experienced
sailor like Noah. They made a good team, her following his direction to the
letter about when to let off or draw in, shift weight. At one point they were
both stretched out at a forty-five degree angle, the boat heeling enough to
have them skimming over the water like a bird. She tipped her head back, her
hair whipping over her shoulders, and laughed at the feeling of it. His eyes
shone with the same feeling, making everything just perfect. A perfect moment,
no matter what came before or after. She’d learned to treasure those rare
gifts.

She loved watching his mix of concentration on the sailboat
and their surroundings, his appreciation of all of it. Another cliché
discarded, the idea that a submissive male avoided situations where he was
completely in charge. He handled the sailboat and her direction as crew with an
impressive mastery she found arousing, mixed as it was with those conflicting
signals in his personality. But she loved running Tea Leaves, and yet she’d
submitted so willingly to Lyda, hadn’t she? What had Lyda said?
A strong sub
needs and deserves to be able to surrender…

When they finally sailed back in the cove, she was wired
with the pleasure and excitement of the day, but ravenous. They disembarked on
the strip of beach, setting up an impromptu picnic under the canopy of trees
hanging over the bank. She’d made four thick sandwiches and brought cookies,
chips and fruit. Noah provided the bottles of water and put away two and a half
sandwiches easily, complimenting her between bites. He grinned when she reflected
men had a relationship to food in general the way a woman did to chocolate. Yet
he ate his share of the cookies too. From the discreet way he eyed the rest,
she expected he was hoping she’d only want a couple.

She extended one of hers to him. “Here. I’m stuffed. At this
rate, we’re going to have to wait on teaching me how to right a capsized boat.
I’ll sink if I go into the water now. You too.”

“We can take a little break.” He bit into the cookie,
stretching out on the wet packed sand and folding an arm behind his head to
gaze up into the trees. Because she wanted to do it, she stroked his chest to
his stomach, and back up again.

“I love touching you,” she said. “You’re so pretty.”

When he gave her a pained look, she laughed. “I didn’t mean
that in an unmanly way. You’re beautiful, Noah. It’s not just a physical thing.
There’s something about you; it’s really kind of mesmerizing. Like a drug, but
not. More like a feeling of happiness. Like being out on the sailboat when
everything is working right. You’re a living, breathing, perfect moment.”

He propped himself up on his elbows, staring at her so that
she colored a little. She wasn’t in the habit of stating things so out front
like that. But that was part of his magic, as well. Anything could be said to
him, without judgment. No games, no embarrassment. He’d simply accept it. Like
talking to the trees or wind.

“Lyda was right, about your poet side. Thank you,” he said
with sincerity. “You’re a gift, Gen. I wish everyone you’ve loved realized
that.”

He was also good at touching past scars and making them feel
better, even as it also made them hurt. It pricked at tears that had never been
shed, because they required the right stimulus to bring them to the surface,
purge them. Stimulus she tended to avoid. “It’s water under the bridge. And I’m
here with you today, probably because of some of those things. So that’s good,
right?”

“Right.” His gaze remained serious. “I want to make love to
you, Gen. Right here. Okay?”

“I… Okay.” She whispered it.

He put his hand on her jaw, fingers curving around the side
of her neck, pressing against the tripping pulse there. Drawing her down onto
his chest, he guided her hand so it spread out there, over his nipple, the firm
pectoral, as their mouths met. His other hand framed her face, holding her. He
focused first only on her mouth, his tongue teasing hers, his fingers sliding
into her hair, releasing the clip so it spilled over his hands, down against
his face and shoulders. He traced her lips with his tongue, sealed his lips
over hers again, taking the kiss even deeper. He moved his mouth to caress her
cheekbones, the bridge of her nose, her eyelids.

Dropping his hands to her waist, he opened the cutoff
shorts, pushed them off her hips. When she kicked them away, he shifted her on
top of him, his stiff cock pressed against her belly, her knees pressed into
the sand between his thighs. He cupped her buttock, fingers sliding beneath the
edge of the swimsuit to play as his other hand held her, keeping her still
while he suckled her throat, bit. She dug her fingers into his biceps, her
pussy throbbing already, needy for him. She rubbed against his hardness,
transmitting her desire.

But he let the feeling build, until she didn’t care if the
cove was private. A cruise ship could have come through with a legion of
camera-snapping tourists. Everything was Noah. His hands, his mouth, his body.
Then he destroyed another idea she’d had about a submissive male. He reversed
their positions, turning her so she was beneath him and he was pressed solidly
between her legs.