by Selena Kitt
Thin beads of sweat began to gather along his brow. For a moment, he almost felt sick to his stomach. No matter how hard he tried to focus on her face, his eyes kept drifting, checking both ends of their street. Quiet yards. No street lamps. No tanks or insurgents, either, despite the reddish glare of fireworks reflected off a distant garage door.
She knuckled fists onto hips, irritation flickering across her features as she said, "You know what I mean."
Her irritation made his spark and flare. "If I knew, I wouldn't be asking for clarification."
He could smell the unmistakable odor of discharged gunpowder now. Every fine hair on the back of his neck was standing straight up.
She stared at him for almost half a minute without moving or speaking, before her expression closed to him with all the finality of a physical door slamming shut.
"Fine," she said and stalked past him. She went into her house, and then he was treated to the real deal. Her door didn't exactly slam, but there was a finality to the way she shut it just a little harder than normal behind her.
Nobody ever meant it when they said 'fine' like that. Drawing a deep breath, Nolan scrubbed his fingers through his short hair, sorely tempted to go after her, but he wasn't fit company tonight and he knew it.
"Fine," he agreed and turned for home. He only took a single step off the porch before her front door swung open and Tricia came stalking back out after him, angry pink flushing both cheeks and high temper filling her eyes.
"You know what," she demanded, her tone calm in spite of her anger. "It's not fine. Maybe one of us isn't being very clear about what they want. On the off chance that it might be me, I'll start."
The boom of a bottle rocket one block over made every knot in his gut tighten hard. He stared at her and didn't flinch, but he could feel his breaths. Each one dragged in and out of a chest so tense it hurt. His hands were fists at his sides. When she stomped two steps closer, coming toe-to-toe with him, he had the most appalling urge to swing at her. He popped his neck again, swallowing that urge back until he got it once more under firm control.
"I find you incredibly attractive," she said bluntly. "I would hope that you find me attractive too. I mean, I may not be a beauty queen, but I'm not homely, right? If what you're doing is taking it slow out of some grossly misguided attempt to give me time to get to know you, I'd like to stop now. While that might have been appropriate for the first week, we're going on three weeks now and, frankly, I'd like some serious sex right now. So, I need you to make up your mind, please. Is physical attraction a problem here—" She stopped, one hand rising to pat the empty air between them, her eyes widening as if not only were the thought only just occurring to her but also the most abhorrent she could think of. "O-or am I just n-not what you want, or—" she stammered and fell silent, staring up at him, unable to finish.
"Not what I want?" he echoed, hardly believing he'd just heard that come out of her mouth.
She shrugged, her anger dissolving rapidly under the tidal force of her rising uncertainty. "You want to be my Daddy, but…" She hesitated, shaking her head once. "But what about the rest of me? Not just the Little, but the Big, too. Do you want me, Nolan? Because if you don't… I need to find someone who does."
Another crackle of fireworks, just down the street now. So close that he could see the shower of multi-colored sparks through the cover of the maple trees that lined the street. This time he did flinch. He couldn't do this right now. This wasn't the kind of conversation a man could have when he wasn't in his right frame of mind.
She must have seen him jerk, or maybe it was his prolonged silence that she misinterpreted. Either way, when she stepped back suddenly they had a Grand Canyon's worth of space between them instead of a few weathered porch boards.
"Fine," she said again, softly now and without any trace of her former anger. Turning on her heel, she walked into her house. This time, when she closed the door behind her, she did it very quietly.
And Nolan let her go.
For all of three seconds.
He meant to turn on his heel, too. He meant to go home, wait out the night, and come back in the morning when he was calm, cool, and rational. Then and only then, when he knew he'd regained enough of his control to converse with her like a sensible person—instead of the anxiety-ridden time bomb he could already feel ticking down towards a Chernobyl-scale explosion—then he'd come back and he'd put her fears to rest.
Another bottle rocket burst, filling the sky above a rooftop four houses down with showers of silver, blue and yellow. It was like watching glitter fall twinkling and sparkling from the heavens. And he didn't know why that made him think of helicopters lifting off or fill his nose with not only the cloying scent of sulfur but the grossly familiar helmet smell of head-sweat and hot plastic.
Nolan meant to go home.
But he didn't. Because now it wasn't just the fireworks making his skin crawl and his hair prickle and his nerves buzz with that fight or flight need to move—just fucking move; in any direction, it didn't matter—it was the sight of Tricia, with that half sad, half lost, and all angry look in her eyes as she walked away from him.
It was that look that finally scrubbed enough nettles across his ass to get him moving, and it was the next boom of an exploding—IED; he ducked—bottle rocket that covered the equally explosive sound of his hand hitting her door. He knocked it open so hard, it hit with a reverberating bang that knocked two picture frames right off her living room wall. One of the glass panes shattered; Tricia jumped.
She'd been standing not six feet in, motionless until that happened. Whipping around, her tear-filled eyes were huge and her face pale.
"It's the fireworks," she said shakily, stumbling back a step when he came towards her. "I didn't realize… I'm s-sorry… I-I-I didn't—" She stopped with a gasp when his hand caught her throat.
He meant to go home, but from the moment his skin touched hers, it became fireworks of a different kind, exploding not in the neighborhood around them but in the blood pounding through his veins, in his heart and in his head. He didn't know he'd pushed her until her back hit the wall. He had no idea he was going to kiss her until his lips were suddenly, hungrily, on hers, drinking in her gasp like it was the last breath he'd ever take.
Did he want her?
She latched onto his arm, tense with his hand on her throat, though she didn't try to pry his fingers away. When he took her hand and shoved it down between them, she didn't fight but pressed her open palm to his swollen, raging cock when he forced her to. That he was already hard as stone was just one more thing he hadn't known until that moment.
Did he want her to find someone else?
Were he a little less selfish, he might have been able to let her go. But he wasn't.
He kissed her like he'd never kissed anyone before her, and like he knew he'd never be able to kiss another woman again. His grip on her throat gentled. Though it had never been so tight as to cut off her breathing, he had scared her. He could feel it in the racing of her heartbeat, just beneath his fingertips.
He tried to make himself stop, drawing back from her as far as he could, bare millimeters of space filled only by the raggedness of both their breaths. He closed his eyes, wanting so much to apologize. He owed her that much, at least. But his chest was too tight and the words refused to come.
Her hand on his cock twitched, becoming the slightest squeeze of acknowledgement. She could have hurt him; he wouldn't have blamed her if she had, but she didn't do that either. She turned her arm until, very slowly, she pulled out of his relaxing grip. An instant later, her fingers came to rest as light and trembling as butterfly wings upon his cheek.
"Earth to Sergeant Nolan Anderson," she whispered, her thumb stroking his skin, burning him with her forgiving touch. "Come back. Come back to me."
Opening his eyes when he was this broken was the hardest thing he'd done since his discharge from the army. Looking her in the eyes when he knew how far removed he was from w
hat a true Dom should be, from what she needed him to be, wasn't any easier. Tricia's smile was as shaky as the rest of her. But then, he was shaking, too.
"For the record," he said, his throat so tense that it came out as little more than a growl. "I've wanted you from the moment I met you. But I don't know—"
Snatching her hand from his cheek, she covered his mouth instead, silencing him. "Come lay down with me, Daddy. We don't have to do anything, if you don't want to. I'd just really like it if you'd hold me for a while. Until I fall asleep?"
The pounding of his blood surged in his veins as he pulled out from behind her silencing hand. "If I lie down with you right now," he warned, "I'm going to do more than just hold you."
Another boom outside, muted though it was through the walls and windows of her home.
Tricia never flinched. "That's okay, too."
Epilogue
Nolan never would have thought he would have been able to sleep through that, but there was something to be said for distraction and the mind-numbing aftermath of really great sex. He awoke the next morning lying next to an angel, naked apart from the twist of the pastel pink top sheet about her waist. She lay on her stomach beside him, one leg drawn up, both tattoos as exposed as the finger-shaped bruises that marked her as his. From the backs of her thighs to the tops of her hips, he relived all the places he'd gripped her as she'd ridden him to pleasant exhaustion. One handcuff still dangled from her wrist, but it was her fingers that drew his attention. They were covered in glitter: red, blue, and silver, stuck there with flecks of dried craft glue and sparkling in the early morning light that shone through the drapes.
Not wanting to wake her, he eased up amongst the pillows and tangled bedding to get a closer look.
"Coffee," she groaned, feeling the bed move but not opening her eyes.
Snorting laughter, Nolan untangled himself and rolled out of bed. Pulling on yesterday's jeans, the bathroom was his first stop; the coffeemaker, his second. Leaving it to percolate, he wandered back through the house to fetch the paper in from the porch, stepping over a scattering of Crayola markers and a few yard stakes that he couldn't remember falling over last night. This morning, however, they were scattered over every inch of available rug, from sofa to television.
"You need to pick up your toys when you're done playing," he called back through the house. Opening the front door, he stepped out to retrieve the paper… and froze mid-bend when the sign staked to his front lawn caught his attention. It was plain white poster board, swept with an arching rainbow of patriotic stars and stripes and huge black felt-marker letters that read: A Veteran Lives Here. Please Be Kind. No Fireworks.
Another sign was staked in Tricia's yard, still just as highly glittered, though it read differently: Thank You For Your Service. Fireworks Free Zone.
Stapled to a nearby tree, sans glitter or any decoration apart from a smiley face, was a third sign: Please take one. There was nothing but grassy lawn beneath it.
There was, however, a glittering sign staked in the yard directly across the street from him. And another in the neighbor's yard to his right. He didn't even know those people by name, though he sometimes remembered to wave if he was driving past and they were outside. There were, in fact, signs all up and down this street, in more yards than not, whether he knew the residents or not. He counted nine in all. Nine out of ten yards with one of Tricia's glittering signs, and he couldn't put a name or face to even half of them.
"Are you mad, Daddy?"
Nolan turned to find Tricia standing in the doorway, dressed in nothing but a handcuff, his shirt from yesterday, and her Little's most worried look. Her eyes were big. Her fingers tapped as she waited for his answer.
"How many signs did you make?" he asked.
"Twenty," she admitted. "I'd have done more, but I ran out of poster paper."
Nolan turned and stared again at the yard across the street, at the neighbor to his right, and finally at the sign she had made specifically for him. "You did that for me."
She ventured out onto the porch, but only half a step. "Daddies aren't the only ones who take care of things. Sometimes they need taking care of, too."
Dropping the newspaper back on the welcome mat where he'd found it, Nolan came back to her. He put his hand on her throat, a much gentler hold than last night's had been and yet, no less passionate in the desire he felt welling up inside.
"Coffee," he said. "Blueberry pancakes. And all the orgasms my Baby Girl can handle. Go."
Grinning, Tricia gave a hop and a squeak when he swatted her, and scampered back into the house.
He looked back over his shoulder at the yard signs.
God, he loved her.
The End
Maren Smith
Fortunate enough to have married my Dominant, I am a wife, administrator at two local BDSM dungeons, resident of the wilds of freakin’ Kansas (still don’t know how I ended up here) and submissive to the love of my life. I have penned more than 120 novels, novellas and short stories, and am the author of the Masters of the Castle series, of which Kaylee’s Keeper reached #1 on all Amazon.
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Don’t miss these exciting titles by Maren Smith and Blushing Books!
Masters of the Castle:
Book 1, Holding Hannah
Book 2, Kaylee’s Keeper
Book 3, Saving Sara
Book 4, Sweet Sinclair
Book 5, Chasing Chelsea
Book 6, Owning O
Book 7, Maddy Mine
Corbin’s Bend:
Last Dance for Cadence (Season 1, Book 8)
Have Paddle, Will Travel (Season 2, Book 7)
A Few Other Titles:
B-Flick
The Great Prank
Jinxie’s Orchids
Life After Rachel
The Locket
The Mountain Man
Something Has To Give
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