by Holley Trent
“I bet you like being the one in charge.”
He stepped up the single stair into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of plates from the cupboard. “That’s a reasonable judgment. I like for things to be orderly, or as much as they can be, anyway. I crave predictability.”
If Heidi’s coming-out hadn’t been the death knell for their marriage, they’d probably been heading down the path to dissolution, anyway. She was a loose cannon, and though he’d known that when he’d proposed at age twenty, he’d expected she’d mellow a bit as she got older.
That hadn’t turned out to be the case.
“What about you?” he asked. “Do you mind so much if someone else does the steering?”
“If I trust that he knows where he’s going?” She gave a half shrug. “No. I don’t mind. It’s comforting to have someone who you know is going to do things right and take care of you. Otherwise? No way. My sister says that I’m OCD. I’m not, though. I can let things go. Perhaps I do have what some people would consider an unhealthy obsession with perfection. But, I’m an architect. I have to be concerned with perfection or else things won’t fit together. When you’re dealing with time and money, it’s important that things fit together the first time.”
“This boat builder agrees with you.” He scooped out a square of lasagna for each of them, put some salad on both plates along with some thick chunks of reheated garlic bread, and carried the food into the sunroom. “I’ll get your wine. I think red is what you’re supposed to have with dishes that have tomato sauce, but I always drink whatever I’m in the mood for.”
She picked up her fork and scrunched her nose. “Ugh. Can I pass on the wine tonight? Something in the red gives me awful heartburn, and I drink white so quickly that I end up tipsy without trying.”
“Beer?”
“Got any?”
“Of course.” He preferred beer over wine and spirits, anyway. If he had his druthers, he’d serve Miller or Coors or something equally proletariat, but he didn’t want her to think he was completely classless. At heart, he was a country boy who cleaned up well. Sometimes, he, Clay, and Heidi hung out on the back porch at the old Dowd place with a case of cheap beer between them. They’d put their feet up on the railing, drink, and stare at the fields. No talking necessary.
It’d been a long time since he’d wondered if another woman could fit as well as they did on that porch.
Following his gut, he put back the dark lagers he’d grabbed from the fridge door and pulled a couple of cans of cheap shit out of the box, just to see what would happen.
He popped the top on hers and set it in front of her.
“Thank you.” She pulled it nearer and, upon closer inspection, rolled her eyes at it.
Well, I guess I know something about you now.
“There was this really obnoxious guy in college who drank this stuff,” she said, bringing it to her lips. “He literally reeked of it. I think he was sweating beer through every one of his pores. He was always hitting on me, and he was so gross about it.” She took a sip of the beer and sighed. “Every time I see this brand at the grocery store, I shudder because I think of him.”
Oh.
Hating it because of its association was a different thing entirely from hating it for its label.
“I’ll get you something else next time,” he said.
“I tend to drink Clover Light. Have any of that?” She took another slug of the lowbrow beer. “That’s what my grandmother drinks.”
“Your grandmother drinks Clover? That rank shit that costs something like a quarter a can?”
Her shoulders started shaking before her bell-like laugh pealed out. She could hardly catch her breath, and he wished he knew what she knew. There was some backstory there he was dying to hear. “For medicinal purposes, she always says.”
“Your grandmother sounds like an interesting woman.”
Valerie snorted and clapped her hand over her mouth. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”
He took his seat, smiling, too, and feeling light as a damn feather for the first time in forever. Being in Valerie’s company was just so easy. He hadn’t even paid attention to how hard he’d been trying to just be…human around people.
“The lasagna is amazing, by the way,” she said when her laughter fell off. “Sorry I started without you. It smelled so good.”
“It’s all right. Eat up. I’ve got an entire pan of it. I’d like to not have to reheat the leftovers, so eat it all, if you can.”
“What, your staff won’t eat it if you take it in?”
“I don’t want to spoil them. I think they’re overly pampered as it is. I couldn’t get rid of them if I tried.” He groaned. “And I do try.”
“Too much staff?”
“Nah. I think I’ve got just the right amount, but a few of them annoy the ever-loving shit out of me. I’ve got contentious relationships with them, but they’re good at what they do when they’re actually doing it, so I don’t fire them. I keep hoping they’ll get a better offer from somewhere else and just go away on their own.”
“I’ve worked with a few general contractors like that. Some of them really hate working with women and try to go behind my back to make changes to things the owners or developers have already signed off on. I’ve had to learn to be very aggressive in protecting my work. Nothing I include in my plans is wasteful or excessive, and I try to be considerate of every contingency.”
“No room for negotiation?”
“Oh, plenty of room. I’m not unreasonable. I would just appreciate if they would talk to me about why they want to make the change before they attempt it so we can make sure it doesn’t compromise anything else in the plan. Usually, there’s a good in-between solution, but sometimes…” She let out a weary breath. “They’re just wrong.”
He couldn’t put himself in her shoes and imagine what she dealt with at work, and especially in a male-dominated field. Nobody went behind his back and did shit like that. They wouldn’t dare to, and if they did, they expected to get dragged for it.
He leaned back and sipped her beer, just watching her eat for a while. She was probably used to taking care of herself, but he liked the feeling he got when he did things for her. Feeding her, driving her around. Pleasuring her.
Maybe the satisfaction was intensified by her not expecting anything from him. Not his money, and certainly not his attention. It seemed she could take that or leave it.
His ego was healthy enough, though. that he wanted to make her a little less ambivalent in that regard.
“So,” she said, wearing a sly smile, “what happened with the boat builder who gave you that job as a strapping young man of eighteen?”
“Why?”
“Just curious. I guess I thought about it last night when I stepped off your boat and then saw that other Dowd craft at the wharf. Being a local, you must do pretty brisk business in the area. I imagine it must be harder for smaller outfits to compete.”
He grunted appreciatively. The question was an intelligent one. No date had ever asked him about his occupational origins before. They were more likely to ask him numbers questions—how many boats he sold or how much money he earned for them. They asked him personal questions that toed the line of rudeness, and those questions revealed a lot more about his dates than his answers told them.
“He’s not in business anymore,” Tim said. “I bought him out when he was ready to retire.”
“Oh, well that’s not so bad. I was hoping you didn’t plow him under.”
“There you went again, thinking I’m some sort of soulless shark.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I may be a shark, but—believe it or not—I do try to be considerate of the people around me. Sometimes, being conscientious is bad for business, but I’ve got to be able to live with myself.”
“Here, here.” She held her beer can out to toast.
Obligingly, he clicked his against it.
“Conscientiousness is why I
push back so much against some of the really bad designs that get foisted on me for projects like Shora,” she said. “My rule of thumb is not to promote any design I wouldn’t be comfortable with having built for my grandmother. My objections slow down construction timelines pretty frequently.”
“But you’re right, usually?”
“Yeah. I guess that’s why I haven’t been fired. Nobody else speaks up. I guess that’s hard to do when you have your head shoved up your boss’s ass.”
“Ah.” He leaned back in his seat and swirled the contents of his beer bottle around. “You don’t believe in playing the employee politics game?”
“I don’t have the personality for it. I guess I’m too hung up in believing that people should be rewarded based on merit, even when I know real life rarely works that way.” Her pretty smile collapsed, and her gaze fell to her plate.
He wanted to put that smile back. That gentle curving on her lips was his green light to proceed. Her dejected, downward stare meant Caution. He wanted her to feel safe with him.
Setting down his beer, he leaned in and nudged her foot under the table with his own.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “Didn’t know I was in the way.” She glanced under the table, adjusted the position of her feet, and then picked up her fork.
He grunted and nudged her foot again, this time keeping his bare foot pressed gently on top of hers. “I’ve got plenty of room. I just wanted to touch you.”
She seemed to be at a loss for words, opening and closing her mouth twice wordlessly and furrowing her brow.
“Yeah, I’m forthright,” he said. “I can’t help what I am.” He lifted his foot and also his fork.
She looked down at her plate but gave him a sideways glance before scooping up more pasta. And then came the tickle from her toes along his shin as she calmly chewed.
She made delicate swirls against his calf and around his ankle, so gently that the tickle made the hairs on his legs stand on end and his balls drew in tight.
He sank lower in the seat and widened his legs, and she found the bottom edge of his shorts in no time at all and brazenly snuck her foot inside and tickled his thigh. She withdrew the foot and calmly sipped her beer.
“You like that?” he asked quietly. “Teasing me?”
She pressed the beer can against her lips. “Mmm.” She rimmed the edge of the can with the tip of her tongue and put her foot back between his legs, this time massaging his balls with her toes and occasionally exploring his other thigh, against which his stiffening cock lay and that she hadn’t yet found.
She took a long sip of beer and lashed her tongue slowly across her lips to clean up the drips.
He’d tried picturing her again and again on her knees with his cock between her lips, but the image wouldn’t congeal. He needed some visual stimulus—some that he’d never forget, even long after she was gone.
“If you’re waiting for an invitation to unzip my shorts,” he said, “consider this your summons.”
She took another long sip of beer before setting down the can and swallowing what was in her mouth. No gulp of scandalization. No gasp. No cheeks flooded red with the shock of impropriety. Just a sultry scoff that made his nuts ache even hotter. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because you want to see my cock and touch it. And apparently, you need something to do with your tart mouth. That’s a good place to put it.”
She pulled her lush, bottom lip between her teeth and stared at him through a narrowed gaze for a few seconds. Then she pushed her chair back, too.
She walked over to him, leaned her hands onto his thighs, and met his gaze.
The dark intensity in her stare had probably knocked countless men back a few paces. It was a stare that telegraphed that she’d be brokering no bullshit.
That was fine with him. He got so bored with games.
“So, you get sucked off and peace and quiet for as long as my tongue is on you? What do I get?”
“Doesn’t work that way.” He spread his legs a bit more and dragged his finger along the bit of naked collarbone her sleeveless shirt left exposed. She had such beautiful skin, and he wanted to see every inch of it. The anticipation could very well kill him. “There’s not always going to be an equal trade.”
She turned her head slightly and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. “But you said there’d be carnal favors in exchange for me looking at your house.”
“You’ll get them when I’m ready to give them to you.”
She pulled back a bit and breathed out that nut-stirring defiant scoff again. “Oh, really?”
“Mm-hmm.” He let his fingers track down her chest, between her breasts, and down her belly. “You don’t get to dictate the terms of payment.”
“And why not? I’m providing a valuable service.”
“So am I. Why don’t you get on your knees and say hi? It’s waiting so patiently for you to pay attention.”
Her eyes narrowed even more, but down she went, balancing herself using his thighs as she lowered herself. She kept her gaze locked on his until her knees touched the floor, and then she looked down at his crotch with an expression of Now what?
Good girl.
He brushed his thumb along her jaw and cheek and slipped his hand around to her neck. “Unlike you, I’m all about easy access. Unbutton. Unzip. It’s right there for you and waiting for your mouth.”
She unfastened him slowly as if she were trying to come up with some reason not to, and of course she wouldn’t. She wanted his cock in her mouth, and he wasn’t going to deny her of that.
At her soft expulsion of air and the snap of his freed dick against his belly, he looked down.
He was hard as a rock and slick with a glistening slick of arousal at the tip. He ached for her touch, her tongue.
He’d been half-hard on and off ever since he’d seen her that first time at Clay’s. All he had to do was think about the way her plump lips curved. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so preoccupied at the thought of a woman who’d never be anything more than a fling.
He ran his hands down her naked arms and reveled over her delicious little shudder as she leaned in.
He wanted to free her hair and run his fingers through the thick mass as she drew him into her mouth again and again, but the bun looked too complicated. He’d have to ask her not to do that with her hair next time so he could touch it, just like how he’d ask her to wear a skirt or a dress so he could explore her when the mood struck.
And it would again. He knew it. It was pointless to try to fight it.
Her tongue lashed out and softly probed around his cock head. It felt good but wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to be devoured.
“That’s nice,” he said, rubbing her neck. “That’s real nice. Pull the head into your mouth now and suck it. Taste it good and tell me how you like it.”
She pulled him tight between her lips and rolled her gaze up to him as she sucked.
He stroked her cheek encouragingly. “How does it taste? Do you like that, pretty girl?” He didn’t give her much room to respond. He thrust his hips and guided her down to take more of him into her mouth. “That’s right, open wide.”
Eye contact was impossible at that angle, but Tim could communicate with her in other ways—teach her his signals, make her learn the cues. She seemed to be catching on quickly enough that he didn’t think it would be a problem.
She formed a tight vacuum with her mouth around his cock, pulling the skin taut and making his head—both—prickle with anticipation. Up and down, she sucked, alternating gentleness with roughness, switching between licks and bites, and keeping him so wet while she worked.
She was making it damned near impossible for him to stay in control.
She closed her fist around the base of his shaft and took as much of his length into her mouth as she could.
He tipped his head back over the chair’s top and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to stop but had to. If she
didn’t get up, he was going to want to see her there again—down on her knees with those tantalizing lips around his shaft. She could be habit-forming, and they’d already made clear that there would be no attachments.
“All right, pretty girl,” he whispered as he gripped her chin gently and backed her off.
She looked confused and oh-so-lovely with her flushed skin and moistened lips.
Fuck. He tucked his cock away, zipped up, and stroked her cheeks. “You should eat.”
“I…”
“Busy night. You said you had to take measurements, right?”
She furrowed her brow and stared at him for a while, maybe a minute, as if she were waiting for the punchline.
No punchline, pretty girl. Just insanity.
“Would you like another beer? I’m going to get one for myself.” He helped her to her feet, turned her toward her chair, and walked to the fridge before she could respond.
Maybe that blast of cold air would do him some good.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Valerie stared after Tim’s back when he excused himself from the kitchen to take a phone call.
Scoffing, she picked up her fork and gave her head a shake. “That man is going to get me into trouble.”
She didn’t know any men quite like him, but she thought she knew exactly what he was. She would have bet a small fortune that he was a dom. Not just a dom, either, but a charismatic one. It was no wonder she hadn’t been able to ignore him.
Staring out the window at the river, she chewed thoughtfully on the lasagna and drummed her fingertips atop the wooden table. Tim had a motorboat pulled onto a trailer in the backyard. Nothing big, just functional. Nothing like the big monster he had tied down in Elizabeth City—the boat that hadn’t seemed to suit him at all for its grandeur. From what she could tell, he was a simple, straightforward guy, and a boat with all those bells and whistles didn’t seem to be something he’d want to keep.
But maybe she should stop making assumptions about the man. He was going to keep her on her toes, and he’d already flipped that “Submit” switch in her without knowing it.
“Damn,” she muttered around a mouthful of noodles. Of course, she was going to want to play. If she had to play at all, she wanted it to be with someone who knew what he was doing. Experienced doms knew how to separate sex from everything else. Their attachment ended when the sensuality did, and that was what she wanted. No strings, no commitments. Just discreet, satisfying, not-spending-the-night sex.