by Lilia Moon
Liane is trying to casually load up her waffle and refrain from casting worried looks. Matteo’s busy watching Liane, but he spares a minute to shoot me a glance, one that says I need to do my job and fix this. Which involves dealing with the woman with bright eyes and more berries on her waffle than any adult I’ve ever met.
The one who’s silently trying to stick a cork in a volcano.
I give Matteo a nod. I’ve got this, but not because he asked me to. This situation was engineered, and he’s the guy who drew the plans. He deserves whatever blows up on him, but it would fall on his lovely lady too, and while I typically believe people should deal with the consequences of their choices, I’ve met Matteo’s family. Whatever help she might have given Matteo’s engineering, she doesn’t deserve to go off with worry in her soul. The Ignatius clan are good people and excellent farmers, but they don’t understand Matteo at all. She clearly does, and it looks good on both of them, and they need to leave here with as much of that stockpiled as they can get.
Which means my inner romantic has just decided I’m going to take one for the team and try to play nicely with the volcano. I look over at India and the death grip she’s got on her fork. This might not be a scene she agreed to, but it’s one we’re in, and I’ll take any hints she can give me for where she needs it to go. “Want more whipped cream?”
She blinks and stares at me like I’m speaking Klingon. I hold up the bowl. Something has a fierce hold on her brain, and it needs to let the hell go.
Her exhale nearly rattles. “No, thanks.”
Volcano walkers can’t be chickenshits. I reach over to her plate, snag a huge strawberry, and pop it in my mouth. Then I give her a piece of my bacon. In the Clark family rules of inter-plate trading, that’s a solid exchange.
She eyes the bacon like it’s toxic waste, but she doesn’t stab me with her fork. I take that as a good sign and reach for another berry, a small, juicy purple one this time.
She gives me a look that could crack an ice floe.
I hold up my bacon payment.
Her freezing stare doesn’t waver, but I don’t miss the twitch in her cheek.
I give her my best friendly gnome eyes and hold up a second piece of bacon.
She’s got a damn good poker face, but I’ve never paid much attention to those. I can feel what’s happening behind the glaring dark eyes and the line of eyebrow rings gleaming in the sunlight, and it’s not harsh and icy and waiting to crack at all.
Behind that facade, she’s laughing at me.
I make a sad face and put my two pieces of bacon on my plate. Then I look over at our troublemaking hosts. They clearly have no idea what’s going on, and I don’t plan to enlighten them. Their intentions were probably good, and their aim is definitely interesting, but the rest of this gets decided between me and the fascinating woman slowly letting bubbles of silent laughter dissolve her volcano.
Just sitting next to that is the most captivating my life has been in a long time.
I pick up my fork, because whatever happens next, I’m heading at it with a full plate of waffles in my belly.
Which is when a strawberry lands in the middle of my pile of whipped cream and splatters little white drops all over my black shirt.
My laughter isn’t silent.
Bright Eyes 1, Gnome 0.
She holds out her napkin, all politely shocked innocence.
I grin at her. Two can definitely play this game. I pick up one of the slices of bacon I tried to offer in payment and take a bite, wearing the look I perfected to keep my grandma convinced I was her favorite, best-behaved grandson.
That earns me a strangled snicker.
A fuzzy, half-grown orange cat hops up onto the deck railing beside me and heads toward us like he owns the place.
Hands move to cover bacon. Not being a total dumbass, I eat mine.
India waves her fork at the newcomer. “I’m on to you, buster. Paws off my food.”
The overgrown kitten studiously ignores her. I grin at him. I know a kindred spirit when I see one. I also know better than to feed felines at the table, even ones who share my penchant for pushing limits.
Matteo reaches over and snags the cat off the railing. “Come on, you. You’re going to visit Lee for a week. He’ll probably feed you bacon if you play your cards right.”
Liane looks at me, shakes her head, and sighs wryly. “He has no manners because everyone spoils him.”
I smile at her. Everyone loves him. That’s different.
Matteo stands up and kisses Liane’s forehead. “I’ll go deliver Trouble to his new digs for the week and swing back around for you.”
She kisses him good-bye and holds on to her unflappable serenity just long enough for him to disappear around the side of the house. Then something else lands. Worry, mostly for the guy who just went around the corner, but some for India too.
I take aim at the one I can maybe do something about, and hope it provides a distraction for the rest. “You’ll like his family. They’d enjoy your place here.”
Her exhale is a little shaky. “Okay. Thanks.”
I’m not done. “They don’t understand him. It will be really good for him to have you there.”
She stares at me for another long slow breath—and then something in her solidifies. She nods at me, gratitude in her eyes. A woman who has found the job that will keep her steady.
“Go.” India adds the words softly. “Ride with him. I’ll clean up here and lock up.”
She waits until Liane disappears around the corner after her man, and then she looks at me, squaring her shoulders. “That was a nice thing you did. Thanks.”
I look at her. I’m not the only one who knows how to make sacrifices for a friend, and I’m pretty damn sure the one she’s making is a lot bigger. I just don’t know why yet. “No big deal. I’ll help you clean up.”
She raises an eyebrow, but something that’s been rough since the moment I arrived has smoothed a little. “I’ll do it. You sit out here and enjoy the view.”
I’m a veteran of a thousand family dinners, and none of them involved sitting around while other people worked. “I’ll wash.” It’s either that or try to figure out the mysterious filing system other people have for their kitchens, and I have enough tricky things to navigate for the moment.
She gives me a strange look. “Okay.”
I start stacking plates and keep most of my attention on a still-venting volcano. It’s going to be an interesting week.
Chapter Five
India
I don’t want him in my garden or in my house or in the small collection of buildings we optimistically call a village, but particularly not in my garden. He’s not overtly pushing on me, in fact, he’s remarkably well behaved other than with his food, but I know Doms.
They push. It’s who they are. And I have weaknesses in me that let them push too far. Which means he needs to stay in the garden shed and far away from me. I yank open the white picket gate that drunkenly guards my domain and take the rusty iron key off its hook on the side of my house.
Rafe eyes the hook with a mix of fascination and incredulity.
City boy. “We don’t lock up much around here, but if you have anything precious, I can put it in my studio.” That isn’t locked up to keep out thieves, just curious kids. Someone could totally poke their eye out with any number of things on my workbench.
He shakes his head and takes the key. “I assume Matteo’s office locks, and nothing else I own needs to be put in jail.”
That’s the kind of answer I get from penniless artists, not guys who work corporate jobs and fly here in their own airplanes. “Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.” I lead the way through my garden, knowing I’m being brusque and trying not to care. I need boundaries in my life, and my garden is full of thorns for a reason.
It’s bad enough he’s a Dom, but he also laughed when I plopped a strawberry into his whipped cream like some disgruntled ten year old. I can feel t
hat working on my insides, trying to open me up.
I crunch through the fall leaves that never stay where I put them and shove open the door to my garden cottage. “It’s small and pretty self-explanatory. There’s a notebook on the table with some general tour-guide information and wide-ranging commentary from other guests who have stayed here.” Which, given the kind of people who usually find their way to my shed, ranges from collage art to erotic poetry. “I have work to do, but my studio is on the main floor of the house. Knock on the back door if you need anything.”
A hand lands on my shoulder. “I don’t bite, India. You tell me what you need from me and you’ll get it. Including space, if that’s what you really want.”
Bitterness rises in my throat. What I need isn’t something I’m always good at figuring out in time, but it will be a cold day in hell before I tell him that. I turn around to make some crap excuse about my workload, and run into his eyes before I can put the lie together. He’s watching me. Studying me in the way that the very best Doms do, but he’s also clearly trying to keep a lid on it.
I sigh. I’m being a totally shitty host, and he doesn’t deserve my wrath. Matteo might, but that’s next week’s problem. “I’m sorry. I don’t actually have guests very often, and my social skills clearly haven’t gotten any better since the last ones.”
His lips quirk. “Polite isn’t really my thing.”
This would be a lot easier if he was a jerk. “I’m not like Liane. No fancy breakfasts or anything, and most of the people who stay here are just as likely to get lost in their work as I am, but if you bang on the door when you’re hungry, I’ll feed you.”
He steps past me finally and walks into the cheerful dim of the cottage. I stay in the doorway, but I know what he sees. A couple of really comfortable chairs and the kind of book collection you get when a bunch of itinerant artists pass through. A long table that used to live in someone’s dining room and now bears the scars of a dozen different kinds of artmaking. A tiny counter with a hot plate, sink, and kettle, and a small fridge tucked underneath. A ladder that isn’t quite as rickety as it looks, leading up to a sleeping loft. And everywhere else, trinkets and bits, left behind by the people who have stayed here. Some of them are stunning, and some are ugly as hell, but all of them are art that spoke to me.
Everything else gets put in the freebie box by my front gate.
Rafe reaches out a hand and touches the one thing on the wall that was made by me. “Is this yours?”
He’s either psychic or a stalker. “Yes.”
He turns, but his hands don’t leave the twisted metal sculpture. “It feels like you.”
Okay, that’s even creepier.
He grimaces. “Sorry. I pick up things sometimes. I didn’t mean to intrude. This whole place feels like you, but that in particular. I’ll do what I can to turn it off.”
That would be a really damn good idea, but I bet he can’t. Being some kind of art-fondling psychic probably doesn’t have an off switch.
Neither does being a Dom.
Chapter Six
Rafe
I take my hands off the sculpture. It’s complex and beautiful and I want to know more about the woman who made it, but right now she’s a grenade and I’ve stepped on the pin, or whatever it is that idiots do to set off explosives.
Which I very much need to fix, because it’s really obvious this garden is her safe space and I’m an unwelcome intruder. “Look, I know you didn’t choose this. I’m happy to go stay in a hotel in Nelson. I’m sure the guy at the campground can hook me up with a boat to go back and forth for a few days.”
She seriously considers my offer for about ten seconds. Then I see in her what I see in the sculpture. Someone who never chooses the easy way. Never lets herself weaken. Never cuts herself a break. “It’s fine. Unless you want swankier digs, you can stay.”
They aren’t just words. She means them, no matter how uncomfortable she is. I take a casual look around at the cottage and shrug. “I like these digs. I think I’ll stay.” Then I reach over my shoulder, grab the neck of my shirt, and pull it over my head.
By the time I can see again, India’s gaping, which was the desired effect. Matteo teaches people how to make new rules. I help them blow the existing ones all to hell. I don’t know why India’s exist, but the only way to avoid tiptoeing through this next week is to find another playing field—one where both of us can wear our boots and not break things. I grin at her. “Does your place run to a washing machine? I managed to get whipped cream on my shirt at lunch.”
She’s still gaping, but I don’t miss the amusement that flashes in her eyes.
I let her look. I know what she sees. A guy in a threadbare tank and more ink than most people expect, and a body I keep in the kind of shape that’s meant to do things. One that’s had the desired effect on the prickly artist watching me. New playing field, activated. One that has more heat than I expected, which is interesting, but hopefully has a lot fewer eggshells.
Or so I think until she meets my gaze, swallows hard, and drops her eyes.
Fuuuuuck.
I close the distance between us in an instant, because I don’t know what else to do. I finally know what lives under the prickles, and I didn’t expect it, and I’ve just entirely screwed things up in my ham-handed attempt to lighten things up. It would have worked with the woman I thought she was, but she’s someone else entirely and I have no idea how I missed it.
I catch her arms just as she spins to leave. “No way, beautiful. Not now. Not until we talk.”
She steps back hard, yanking herself out of my grip, her words propelled from a nail gun. “I don’t talk to Doms.”
I believe her. I can hear the violent truth in every word. “I’m sure this feels like a setup in every way, but it wasn’t. Matteo didn’t tell me you’re a sub and you hide it very well. I’m sorry. I would have taken far more care if I’d known.” I sure the hell wouldn’t have flexed my naked muscles in her safe space just to see if I could shake things up a little.
This time her eyes make it all the way up to mine. “I’m not a submissive. I was once, but I wasn’t a good one, so don’t you dare walk into my vanilla life and tell me what I am.”
I curse Matteo quietly under my breath. I know why he invited me to come visit now, and this prickly, unpredictable, fascinating woman is clearly at the center of it. But he could have given me a fucking clue.
Or, given who she is, maybe he couldn’t.
I don’t put labels on people that they don’t want, so I won’t call her a submissive. And she’s far more than that anyhow. She’s volcanic. Elemental. She works with metal, something her soul recognizes it as a kindred spirit.
Me, she just recognizes as danger.
I back up and find a chair for my ass, giving her all the cues I can that I’m not the guy in charge right now, or the one who wants to be. “That sounds like an interesting story.”
She makes a face, but it doesn’t hide the sadness—or the guilt. “It’s not something I talk about. It was a long time ago.”
It’s something that’s still getting in her way, and that pushes every button I have, ass in a chair or not. “Talk to me, Bright Eyes. Who are you?”
Her disgust is palpable. Her amusement is much better hidden. “Someone you don’t get to call cutesy nicknames.” She walks over to the little half-fridge, bends over, and takes out a bottle of water. “There’s beer in here, some crazy-ass juice Bee makes that has beets in it, and a couple of cans of soda. Nobody ever drinks those, though, so I’m not exactly sure how old they are.”
My Dom radar is vibrating, because as annoyed and sad and tangled as she is right now, she hasn’t left. Which means that no matter what she’s telling me, she hasn’t made it all the way to vanilla.
And she’s got a level of emotional honesty with herself that isn’t very common.
To Rafe Clark, guy born overly sensitive to the flows of energy in the universe, that’s as sexy as it gets. I
study her as she gives me a look that says the contents of the fridge aren’t that exciting and I need to pick something to drink before she gets old and dies. “Water’s good, thanks.”
She tosses me a bottle. “Good choice, but Bee will drop by to see if you drank her juice, so if you don’t want to wrangle with a retired opera singer, that plant over in the corner drinks a lot of weird shit and seems to survive.”
The plant in the corner is a beautifully trellised piece of art climbing toward a skylight. “Good to know.” I unscrew the top off my water and nod at the chair on the other side of the tiny table. “Sit with me for a while? I’ll offer you half the snacks in my duffle bag.”
She snorts, but she’s still not heading for the door. “You just ate a huge plate of waffles and bacon, what, ten minutes ago?”
Probably an hour, but my stomach’s never had any idea what a clock is. “Sit and watch me eat, then.”
She throws her ass in the chair with a sulk that would do a teenager proud. “Are you going to be this high maintenance all week?”
Only if she wants me to be, but I’m pretty sure that’s not an answer either of us is ready for. Matteo might be a meddling asshole, but he knows me really well. The woman sitting across from me wearing a pout accented by gorgeous jewelry has my cock standing at attention and the rest of me entirely intrigued.
Which means we need to get the hard stuff on the table. If I set off any more grenades, I want it to be on purpose. I tap my water bottle against hers. “Tell me why you have an allergy to Doms, beautiful.”
Chapter Seven
India
I should be in my studio making weighted nipple piercings. I have four orders, and a hundred more would sell if I tossed them up on my online store. Instead, I’m sitting here with a guy who thinks he deserves my life story just because he’s got nice muscles.