I yell. The fettling knife I’d been using to scrape and shape the form of the sculpted throat soars up in the air and tiny blobs of clay fly upward, like soft shrapnel, raining down over me.
“You scared the crap out of me,” I screech as I turn around and face Nate.
“I’d say you got your own back,” he teases, eying the fettling knife, which is quivering from its point an inch away from his booted feet.
“God, I could have hurt you. I’m sorry, babe, but you can’t sneak up on me here.”
“I gathered that, Marina,” he tells me dryly. “And I didn’t sneak up on you. I called you from the entrance, then from the corridor, then from the door to your cubicle.”
Dipping my hands into a bowl of water, I reach for a towel and begin to clean off the excess clay from my fingers. A few scrubs and they’re as clean as they can be without hot water. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you. What time is it?”
“Too late for dinner.”
Spinning around on my stool to face him, I reach up and lay my clean-ish hand against his cheek. “I’m glad you slept.”
“You should have woken me.”
“Trust me. You slept through my phone, me chatting in the bathroom and then when I sneaked out. You needed your rest.”
He grimaces. “I do feel better for it.”
“Good.”
“Who called?”
“Mona,” I tell him, my face lighting up with the pleasure I felt hearing my friend’s voice. “She called to check in. She’s moved in with her two guys and they’re in a farmhouse on Chesapeake Bay. We’ve been invited over there. Did you know Christmas is a week away?”
Nate chuckles at my suspicious tone. “Yes. I did. I take it you didn’t.”
With a shake of my head, I mutter, “Why aren’t there any decorations up to remind me?”
He frowns. “You watch the TV. All the studios are decked out. How the hell did you miss them? And you know the score. They don’t come out here until Christmas Eve.”
“That’s a tradition that needs changing. Send someone to put them out ASAP. Next year, we’ll do it the way my granddaddy did. First of December. Only,” I pull a face. “You’ll have to remember for me. I’ll just forget.”
Nate’s amusement is evident in his wide grin and the twinkle in his hazel eyes. He bends down over my shoulder to look down at my workstation. As he does, he murmurs, “Good girl. You didn’t shower.” He snuffles. “But you did overdose on the perfume. Christ, did you use the whole bottle?”
“Hey. I stink of sex. Better to smell like gardenias than that.”
He chuckles and says, “Show me what you’re working on.”
Feeling flustered and a little shy, I mutter, “You’ll think it’s stupid.”
“I won’t.” He clucks his tongue and grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Nothing you create is stupid. And I’m just relieved you’re settling in again. I know you found it hard to work in this place.”
“When I put the phone down after talking to Mona, I just had to come here.” I lift up the tiny sculpture, a piece that’s about the size of my hand.
“You did all that in a few hours?” There’s awe in his voice and I flush with pleasure at his pride.
“It’s nothing.”
“Like hell, it isn’t.” He takes the piece from me and studies it closely. “You’re going to put my bite on this, aren’t you?” he asks, his thumb lightly skimming over a tendon and down to the collarbone I’d just started to work on.
I smile at him. “That was a very memorable occasion.”
“You have to use my teeth.”
“I know. I was thinking of a way to do it. I’ll have to get a cast of your teeth and make a false set.”
“I want to place the bite mark, when you’re ready.”
“You do, huh?”
“Yeah.” His eyes flash up at me, then return to his absorption with the tiny rendition of my throat.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“It’s beautiful. It’s just a throat.” He grunts a little. “I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. But there’s something special about it. The way you’ve smoothed in the lines, the shadows. It will be perfect when you put the bite mark on.”
“I’m glad you agree.”
“Do you have a title?”
“No. Not yet. Something came to me for the series I want to do, though. I...”
“Series?”
I flush again. “Yeah. The moments that stick in my head...the really powerful scenes? I wanted to take their essence and imbue them into porcelain. Predator’s prey,” I blurt out, the title rolling off my tongue with a rhythm that just sounds perfect to my ears.
Nate bends down and rubs his lips over my jaw. “Perfect,” he unknowingly repeats my own sentiment. “Just like you.”
At that, I snort. “Now I know you love me. I’m anything but perfect.”
He shakes his head. “That’s because you don’t see what I do.” He looks down at the sculpture and returns it to the desk. “If you’re finished for the night, I think we should raid the kitchen for leftovers.”
“Yeah, I’ll just cover this, and I’m good to go.” I grab a small towel of hessian, dampen it in the dirty bowl of water, wring it out and rest the moist fabric over the piece. “It’s only for practice. I just wanted to see what it looked like. If it would be as clean as it was in my head.”
“Fire it, won’t you? Don’t throw it.”
“No, I won’t,” I tell him, eying him with a slight frown, knowing that I’ll give him all the small tester pieces as a present if they affect him like this. A thought pops into my head and I grin at him. “Did you think it was all talk? My skills?”
His smile is sheepish. “No, but I didn’t think they’d be a punch in the gut. Although in fairness, I knew nothing about your skills as you phrase it, until you told me about them. I didn’t know what to expect. Whatever it was, I just didn’t think I’d feel something, when I saw them.”
Jumping off my stool, I reach for his hand and tug him out of my cubicle. As we head down the corridor, I ask, “What do you mean? Feel?”
“I can sense your submission. I think that’s what threw me off-kilter. I don’t even know how you did it. It’s only a little bitty thing. A molded bit of clay. But I did. You imbued it with you.”
Touched at his description, something that didn’t come easy to him if the pauses and stilted sentences were anything to go by, I pause in the corridor and reach up to press a kiss to his lips. “Thank you.”
His chuckle is low as he runs his mouth up to my left cheekbone where he presses another kiss. “Come on; let’s go get something to eat.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
An open, honest relationship. Where the flaws of each person are known, where silence isn’t uncomfortable and a dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and canned soup feels like a banquet.
I never thought I’d have a relationship like that. Even before the Russians ruined my big city life, I never dreamed Nate and I would be able to make a go of it. I knew love was on the cards, but I had too many secrets, too many lies, too much tucked away inside to share.
Now, it’s all out in the open. His past. Mine. And we’ve survived it.
The thought fills me with happiness and I return to my self-appointed chores with glee. Because I handle the administrative side of the commune, anything from dealing with the bills to thinking about updates, I don’t usually deal with chores that get my hands dirty. I sit in my office, dealing with paperwork and I only pop out when my day is over.
Today, after last night’s working with clay, I wanted to work with the soil. I don’t know why, the desire just overcame me this morning. I always loved the vegetable patches, the herb gardens and the flowerbeds. As a child, I always wanted to tend them. To work on the garden, but my parents wouldn’t let me. Told me it wasn’t my place.
It’s horrible, but I’m glad after my father’s death, my mother decided to take off. I don
’t think I could be happy with her here. My childhood is a part and parcel of this place. Sometimes, I come face to face with something they denied me as a kid and it makes me so mad I could burst.
If she were here, I’d want to shout at her. Yell at her. Demand to know why they denied me so much. I sound like a poor, little, rich girl, but in many ways, I was.
Is it any wonder I doubted anyone could love me, when my parents couldn’t?
The thought makes me stiffen, but I shrug it off. Nate loves me. He didn’t need to be persuaded. He knows the worst about me. He knows what I’m capable of, and still, he cares. I don’t repulse him. He knows the score of this plan I’ve concocted for Greta; I thought he didn’t but I was forgetting Nate’s own smarts.
Of course, he knows what the consequences will be, yet the worst traits in my character don’t push him away. I can be myself with him, and if I was a religious person, I’d get down on my knees and thank God for that. Nate is a gift. I know that, and I intend to show him how appreciative I am every single day of my existence.
And yeah, I plan on it being for a lifetime.
Marina Joy Denison contemplating a ‘til death us do part’ kind of relationship. Who’d a thunk it?
As I dig out a weed, a big grin creases my jaw. A shadow falls over me, and I ignore it, content to stick to my work. All throughout the day, I’ve had people gawking at me. Christ, you’d think I was Queen Elizabeth, squatting down in the vegetable garden, the way they’ve reacted to my presence.
“Guardians don’t do manual labor.” I was told this morning, by one of the younger members of the commune, Sarah Davis, a rather gifted cellist.
“Well, this one does,” had been my retort, and after that, most people had left me alone. Although, every now and then, the back of my neck still tingles from being at the center of people’s attention.
Hell, I just wanted a bit of peace and quiet. Something non-paperwork related. And now, because I’m the boss, I can do whatever I want.
Well, to a point. Theoretically, Nate’s my Master, but he can’t tell me not to work in the garden. Like my mother and father did. Like my mother would, if she was here.
Hallelujah, she isn’t.
I dig out another weed, still ignoring the shadow, but this one dares to talk. More’s the pity.
“Cytisus scoparius, hard to believe it’s a weed, when it’s so pretty.”
“Donald, I’m not in the mood for a chat about weeds.” Not only did I recognize his voice without looking, but I can smell the scent that radiates from him and has since I was a child. Licorice.
Jimmy, my husband, was Donald’s son. And I’m still pissed off at him.
When I returned to Blue Ridge, he’d been away at a conference in Europe. The day he arrived, he sought me out, and in a roundabout fashion, I discovered he thought I was ashamed of Jimmy. Me. Ashamed. Ha.
I told him to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine and haven’t spoken to him since.
As Jimmy’s confidante, I knew all about his relationship with his parents. Who, while they loved their son—something in itself that was always fascinating to me, especially with a family like mine—were disappointed by his lack of intelligent flair.
Jimmy, once he’d been legally classed an adult, would have had to leave Blue Ridge. His IQ hadn’t been high enough to live here. When we married, if he’d survived cancer, he’d have only been allowed to stay on here because of me.
Actually being invited to Blue Ridge and being able to live here permanently isn’t easy. In fact, it makes getting a Green Card look like adding two and two together.
“That’s good, considering I don’t want to talk about weeds.”
I sigh and tilt my head to stare up at him. The weather has taken a definite turn for the worse so I can look at him without having to squint at the sun. We’ve been fortunate. No snow spells and actually enough sun for us to have some flowers in the yard. Normally, we clear out the flowerbeds and replace them with winter vegetables. Not this year. We’ve had fresh flowers for far longer than usual.
Global warming rearing its ugly head, I guess.
Although, I’d never actually say that aloud. Global warming has been known to cause arguments and debates of international proportions at Blue Ridge.
“Well, I’m not in a talking mood. I don’t want to talk about weeds or anything. I came out here to relax.”
“Strange how working with your hands can do that, isn’t it? You’ve made quite a stir this morning, you know. You’re the talk of the commune.”
My sigh is so gusty, it makes the Broom weed in front of me quiver. “Then there’s obviously little else to gossip about. I’d have thought Greta’s eviction would have been enough fodder for a few weeks or so.”
He sniffs. “You’re kidding me? Most people are happy about it. We’ve been waiting for her eviction for a long time. Never could understand why your father accepted her. He always went on about her brilliance as a computer scientist—I never saw it myself.”
I wouldn’t class myself as a gossip. Anything but. In this instance, I’ll spread shit to get Greta’s back up. “Don’t get me wrong, I can’t prove this, Donald,” I hesitate and look up at him, tilting my head to the side and catching his gaze, making sure he’s aware this is conjecture. “But I believe the few advances she made in her science were stolen.”
His brows draw together. “You can’t be serious. From who?”
“John Kelly.”
Eyes widening, he shakes his head. “That’s going back some years, Marina.”
“I know.”
“You say you have no proof. How did you figure that out?”
“I contacted someone at MIT. Asked them to look at some of John Kelly’s notes and run a comparison between his work and the code Greta created back in the late eighties. I mean, that code was the only reason my father let her stay on here. I remember him and mother arguing about it.”
“And your contact confirmed it?”
“Yes. I can’t use it as admissible evidence for fraud; not without John here. It’s enough to evict her though.”
“I can’t believe it. John didn’t make any complaints at the time and when she was working on motherboards, he was still alive.”
“Exactly why I can’t use it to prosecute her for lying. It wouldn’t be enough for an eviction if she hadn’t done it again. And this time I do have proof. I’ve a copy of John Kelly’s diary, with all his calculations on a particular algorithm that makes the bionic arm Nate’s wearing work.”
“Holy hell,” Donald breathes. “Well, I can’t deny you’ve shocked me. At the same time, it doesn’t come as a surprise Greta’s capable of something like that. She’s always been a troublemaker. A fly in the ointment as it were.”
“You’ve no idea,” I tell him with a snort.
“I didn’t actually come over here to talk about Greta or to talk about the stir you’re causing. People stopped expecting the guardians to interact with them when your granddaddy died.” He shakes his head and continues, “I wanted to apologize about before.”
“I’m not saying this to hurt you, Donald. But it’s too late for that. I’m not the one you hurt.”
He sucks in a sharp breath. It whistles through his teeth. “No,” he chokes out. “I guess not.”
“He knew you loved him, though. If that’s any consolation. Especially after we got together and he saw how little my parents cared. I think he realized how lucky he was that both you and Molly loved him, even though he was what Blue Ridge considers defective.”
“I’m glad he did because Molly and I would have done anything for him.”
“I know that and so did Jimmy.”
“It’s not fair to make children grow up with that label, Marina. You said it yourself; defective.”
Rubbing my forehead with my forearm, I mutter, “I know and while there are things I can change, Donald, that isn’t one of them. I wish I could, but the Eugenics project is the fundamental root of the com
mune. Without it, we’d just be a group of people, living and working together. As it is, we’re breeding the next generation of geniuses. We don’t have to agree with it to accept the importance of what we’re doing.”
“No, I know. That’s why I’m still here.”
“And let’s face it; Jimmy never had to endure any cruelty from other kids. Or from their parents. He was accepted, he just couldn’t be an integral part of the commune. I know that hurt him, but again, he knew he was fortunate.”
“I made you cry before. I didn’t realize Jimmy’s memory still had the power to do that.”
“I loved him for a long time, Donald. He shaped me and in ways he probably wouldn’t like. He changed me, and it’s a shame, but it wasn’t in a very good way. If he’d lived, then I’d be different.” I shrug, feeling a very large weight on my shoulders. Guilt. “He wouldn’t have wanted that, but without him, I just lost it. Talking about him, even now, hurts.”
“I think you’ve done his memory proud, Marina. Neither Molly nor I expected you to grieve this long. You were just children when you married. We didn’t think it would last between you, even if he had come out of the hospital. I’m sorry we doubted your feelings for one another.”
My smile is gentle as I murmur, “Now that’s one apology I’ll gladly take.”
“Friends again?”
I nod. “Friends again. I hadn’t fallen out with you; I was just mad.”
“I could see that,” he tells me wryly. “Now, a question for you. Is what you told me about Greta a secret?”
I grin at him and our mutual dislike for the woman has both of us sporting the same satisfied smirks. “No. It isn’t.”
* * *
Master strategist I might be, in this instance, my plans have gone awry. Three days on, the need to do some shit stirring is upon me, because nothing has happened. Nothing.
There is little time left for Greta to make her move, and if I’m honest, if I can faze either James or Alexei enough to make them cave, it would be even better.
Sinfully Mastered: Naughty Nookie Page 37