Divine Solace: 8 (4 page)

Before knowing Brendan’s orientation, Gen had accepted the
same BDSM stereotypes as most people did. She’d assumed a man who wanted to be
ground under a woman’s stiletto was a pushover, or nothing better than a child.
Noah defined himself as under the control of a woman, but he refused to let
Lyda pay for his accommodations and he’d jumped right in to help with closing.
Then there’d been that spark as he’d met Gen’s gaze over the teacup.

So even if she couldn’t form any definite conclusions about
Noah, she could about Brendan. Watching him with Chloe, it was clear he defined
his primary job as caring for his wife. Yet Tyler had the same opinion toward
Marguerite, and he was clearly the top Dominant in their unusual relationship.

Gen had married two men who, by any standard definition,
would be considered testosterone-laden alpha males, and all they’d wanted her
to do was take care of them. Domestically, sexually, financially.

Chloe had said they were all different, but it still made
Gen’s head spin. Unfortunately, not in a way that turned off her curiosity. The
idea of a man wanting to take care of a woman, in the ways she truly needed his
care, wasn’t her typical experience with men. If she tried to idealize
something she knew nothing about, she’d be doomed to disappointment. Yes, Noah
was helping her with her kitchen, but if he put his feet up on her coffee table
and had a beer afterward while she cleaned up the mess caused by tiling, that
was fine. She’d be content with the donation of physical labor.

Though he really didn’t really look like the beer type.

“Anyone else would have said something by now,” she
observed, shifting in her seat. “Filling the silence.”

“I figured if you wanted to talk, you would have.”

“Maybe I can’t think of anything to say and am hoping you
will.”

Noah gave her a sidelong glance. “I don’t know about that.
The silence felt pretty comfortable, both sides. What do you usually do on the
drive home?”

“Listen to music, think about the day, think about what I’m
going to do that night.”

“Which is? If it’s not too private.”

She was kind of pleased he’d asked, though she knew the
truth was probably yawn-city to most people. “I can’t tell you about my second
job as an international spy, but I can tell you what I do when I’m not needed for
top-secret missions.”

She was rewarded with the full, toe-curling grin. “Okay.
Tell me what you’re doing when you’re not chasing down terrorists or defusing
bombs.”

“I read, watch TV. I like to do crafts.” She could tell him
about her collages, but she bit that back. Did she want to sound any less
exciting? “How about you?”

“Is it okay if we talk more about you first? I’m interested
in what you read and watch.”

“Nothing you’d like. Romances. Biographies. Poetry.”

He shifted lanes, checking the mirrors with a quick flick of
his gaze. “I get why you think I wouldn’t like romances, but why wouldn’t I
like biographies or poetry?”

“Well, I guess I meant the type of biographies and poetry I
read. Stories about strong women, the kind that came from hard situations and
still managed to do great things with themselves. The poetry is more romantic,
girl stuff. Not Edgar Allan Poe.”

He gave her an ironic look. “I like strong women, Gen.
My…Lyda has me read to her. I’d be happy to read to you if you like. She says I
have a good voice for it.”

He did. He had a masculine tenor, infused with inflections
that would make him a good dramatic speaker. Underneath all that was a lazy
touch of Southern. Listening to him talk was like listening to smooth jazz.

“If you want to call her whatever it is you normally call
her, that’s fine.” At his quizzical glance, she added, “You keep hesitating
over it. I do know about Marguerite and Brendan, the kind of things…people,
they are. Sorry, I’m not really sure what the correct thing is to say. I don’t
want to offend you.”

“You couldn’t possibly,” he said, with a genuine kindness
that made her feel better. “My Mistress likes me to read…romances to her.”

At his hesitation, she lifted a brow. “Erotic romances?
Spicy stuff?”

He chuckled. “Yeah.”

She thought about Noah reading a steamy sex scene to Lyda.
Would she lounge in the bed with him, her wearing nothing but a filmy negligee
that revealed all that fair skin? Or maybe, given their relationship, she’d
have Noah in a chair across the room, out of touching distance. She’d tell him
he couldn’t lift his eyes from the page and, as he read, she’d put her hand
between her legs, stroke herself…

Up until today, Gen hadn’t asked many questions about all
this, not wanting to encourage Chloe. Yet though she’d always told herself BDSM
wasn’t her thing in reality, Gen had imagined quite a few scenarios about
Marguerite and Chloe with their respective husbands. It made it way too easy to
get caught up in fascinating visions now of the gorgeous, intimidating woman
and undeniably hot male next to her, both of whom had more than a few
intriguing layers. A Mistress and a submissive. Her mind ping-ponged,
considering them separately, together. As a threesome…

Leaning forward, she adjusted the air to a cooler setting.
“So, are you sure you’re okay with helping me out with this for no pay? I was
budgeting for a laborer to do the tilework.” In another month, she’d meet that
goal, so she could pay one. If Noah was as good as M implied, she had no
problem with him getting the money.

He shook his head. “You’re giving me a place to stay. This
is my way of paying for it.”

“For what tile guys are paid, you could stay in a suite at
the Marriott for a week.”

“Yeah, but the company wouldn’t be as good.”

“I’ve never had someone try to charm me into letting them do
my home improvement.” She could accuse him of indulging his masochistic
tendencies with the hard and tedious task, but she wasn’t sure what was
appropriate teasing when it came to BDSM. Plus, she didn’t know if all of it
was about pain. She couldn’t imagine Chloe beating Brendan.

Noah eased up on the brake, accelerated through a light,
changing lanes with a hairsbreadth between him and the cars fore and aft in the
heavy traffic. He did it so smoothly, she didn’t feel nervous in the least. She
wondered where he’d acquired his urban driving skills.

“Better not thank me yet,” he said. “I haven’t done tilework
in a while. You may have to pay someone to fix what I screw up.”

She sincerely doubted that, since Marguerite wouldn’t have
recommended him otherwise. “I’ll report you to Lyda if you do a shoddy job. She
seems like the type to demand perfection.”

His eyes slid over her face before they returned to the
road. “She has a way of demanding a lot from everyone around her. Things you
don’t think you have inside of you, but it makes you a better person to find
out they’re there, if that makes sense.”

She thought about the way her day had gone since Lyda had
crossed her path. How Gen had reached out and touched Noah in a way she’d never
spontaneously touched a man. When he’d been washing cups and busing tables,
she’d felt a thrill every time she thought about him coming home with her. But
that had connected to Lyda as well. It was as if, by letting Noah stay with
Gen, Lyda was sending her some kind of secret message. Gen couldn’t deny it
gave her a tiny yet equally strong thrill, like being passed a note at school
by a secret crush.

I’m being an idiot.
“Does she always come off so
overwhelming?”

That grin reappeared. “Actually, that was Lyda way toned
down. Her inside voice, if you will.”

“Geez.”

He laughed, a pleasant sound that caressed her senses. Then
he gave her a thoughtful glance. “You know, if you want to ask things about
being a Dom or sub, it’s okay. I’m used to talking about it. If you don’t want
to talk about it, that’s okay too. I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t
ask. You seem like you maybe want to ask some things.”

Great. She’d been able to rein herself back under the
illusion of respecting his privacy, but he’d just removed that barrier.

“Oh, that’s okay. I can always ask Marguerite and Chloe that
kind of thing.”

He changed lanes, a quick glance over his shoulder and at
the mirrors. She liked watching him drive. His focus on the road let her study
him at her leisure, those attractive details that a woman didn’t get to study
as closely when a man’s attention was on her. The flex of his forearms as he
adjusted his hold on the wheel, the shift of thigh when going from gas to
brake. When she next sat in the driver’s seat, her backside would be nestled
where his nice tight one had been. Crazy, silly thoughts. That was why it was
safer not to talk about these things. She was only foolish to herself, so the
pleasure was undiluted.

“Chloe said you haven’t ever asked anything. She figured
that either meant you aren’t comfortable with BDSM and prefer not to talk about
it, or you have Family Syndrome.” At her look of puzzlement, he elaborated.
“You’re like family, so you don’t really want to know about each other’s sex
lives. The
Ewww
factor. Chloe’s term and description.”

“I guess it could be that,” she hedged. “I don’t know enough
about BDSM to be intolerant of it, so I’ve never really had that issue. I knew
Marguerite quite a while before I knew the other stuff about her, but she’s the
type of person, once you find out she’s a Mistress, it’s like…”

“So incredibly obvious it’s a ‘well, duh’.” His eyes
sparkled. “Another Chloe term.”

“She has her own language.” Fondness for the girl welled up
in Gen. “And even if I did have a problem with BDSM, it wouldn’t matter. M and
Chloe could bury bodies in the garden, and all the good things I know about
them would outweigh that. I’d just assume the
True Lies
Arnold line.”

“‘They were
all
bad’,” Noah supplied, making her
chuckle. “You’re loyal. That’s a nice quality. One of the best, no matter what
people think.”

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.