by Jenna Barton
At the crest of a final hill, there was a second, older set of pillars. A matching pair of weathered rectangular lanterns hung from a thick iron rod suspended in a patchwork of riverstone and mortar. Beyond them, atop the crest of another, smaller hill, was a house that looked like it had always been there, and couldn’t have made sense anywhere else. Under the ridges of the three steep rooflines I saw from the drive were a series of smaller peaks topping wide, lead-glass windows. A deep porch wrapped around the house, shaded by a slope of cedar shingles.
“What did their winter cottage look like?” I muttered.
Lucy snickered. “You should ask Tate. I think it’s on an island.”
“Island. Of course. All the fine people have islands for winter.”
“Well, thank your lucky stars, babysub. You know the wicked people now, and we have a mountain.”
The wicked people also had terraced gardens and something Lucy called a porte-cochère, as though everyone had one outside their elegantly rustic, one-hundred-twenty-year-old lake house that was really the size of a small hotel. I followed her across a cobblestone pathway toward a set of burnished wood French doors bigger than any I’d seen at Home Outfitters. Behind her, I paused in silence as she stopped to greet several couples whose state of undress rose as we got closer to the house.
“See Wanda?” I scanned past a cluster of people just inside the doors, craning my neck for a glimpse of him. “No, over there.” Lucy pointed to a stretch of gravel—and Walt, walking toward us.
It was ridiculous, it shouldn’t have happened, but my breath did catch and my heart did sound in my ears.
I saw Walt frequently, at least three times a week. He was familiar to me at this point, both in and out of clothes. But he was different here. There seemed to be more of him—if that was possible—taller, and not just because of the black-laced boots he wore or the way he ducked under a weathered arbor spanning the path.
He stopped a few feet from me, leaving the last echoes of gravel crunching beneath his boots in the soft early evening air. I wanted to be still and look irresistible, just as Lucy had commanded. The sudden chill skating over my shoulders made me fight hard for it, even though I’d stopped in a narrow shaft of slanting sunlight. And I desperately needed to look, down at my skirt or over my shoulder at the old-fashioned rose arbor or anywhere but at Walt, saying something to himself as he moved toward me again. He was so…much. Too much gorgeous and earthy and powerful to be believed. And this place—what was I doing at a kinky lake house party? The urge for fight or flight prickled at my neck, and I couldn’t look away from him—or anywhere but him.
“Thought Lu was gonna hide you away at her lair,” he said as he came to my side. He pulled me into his chest, his voice dropping low, and the sudden questions evaporated as quickly as they arose. “There you are. Hey.”
“Here I am. Hi,” I managed to say before his lips were on mine. After a long kiss, he drew away enough to nuzzle into my neck. I found the spot on his scalp that made him grumble contentedly when I grazed my nails over it and turned to his ear, whispering. “You know, your skirt is shorter than mine.”
“Not a skirt.”
“It’s a skirt if you’re wearing bloomers under there, Wanda.”
Walt’s head rose as he chuckled. “Hey, hands off, Lucifer. It’s a kilt.”
Lucy was relentless, quickly beside him so he couldn’t step away, and raising the yards of mottled brown, green, and deep blue plaid before he could tuck the hem away from her. Still snugged around my waist, Walt’s arm carried me along. I inserted myself between him and Lucy, taking the fabric from her hand before either of them realized I was there.
“Oh yeah,” I said, and razed my nails over the bare, muscular curve of Walt’s hip. “It’s definitely a kilt.”
Lucy’s eyebrow hovered, and finally her lips drew into a sly grin. “Well, I’ll take your word for it, Erin.” With a sweep of her gold hair, she turned for the house, calling back to us in sing-song. “See you two later, maybe.”
Walt’s deep laugh rumbled through his chest again. The sound of it, and the heavy, sure weight of his arm around my waist as his hand stroked my hip made me proud.
Erin. Not babysub.
Walt called in every favor and owe you and thanks, man he’d built up over the years to get rid of his DM shifts. Everyone wanted to experience Tate’s Solstice party without the yoke of watching over the other Enclave guests. Usually Walt was happy to sit on the sidelines so others could enjoy themselves at Tate’s parties, and lately he’d been grateful for the distance his responsibilities as a dungeon monitor gave him. But “usually” was before Erin.
She walked out of the shadow of a hemlock, looking like a puff of cream wrapped in black satin. Before he got to her, he knew from the pink flush rising on Erin’s neck her heart was racing. He could see from the shallow breath making her chest rise and fall that Lucy had bound her up in that corset a hairsbreadth away from too tight. Good thing Luce knew when to stop. Erin’s tits looked spectacular.
Erin’s everything looked spectacular. She was spectacular, as quiet and graceful as the big house towering behind her.
“So this is The House, hmmm? ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree’? It really is like a hidden world.”
Walt watched, too stupid with the sight and feel of her to make his mouth work. Her eyes darted around, taking in the people and the gardens, and even twinkled a little when she spotted a couple of members putting the last touches on a temporary rope frame rising in the center of the rose garden.
Smiling, she nudged him with her elbow. “What’s that? A gallows?”
“It’s for rope suspensions. Tate invited a couple of riggers from Atlanta. They’ve got some kind of show planned for sunset. Lit-up hula hoops and fire jugglers, too.” Erin didn’t answer. He looked down and caught her making a very determined effort to not notice an older couple passing by. Once they passed, her shoulders dropped.
“Part of the show?”
“No, they just do pony play when they come up. It takes a lot for him to get into his gear these days, so I think they save it for special occasions.”
“That sounded really horrible, didn’t it?”
He pulled her close again and kissed the top of her head, hoping it would distract her before the self-criticism rooted in. “You’re just a little edgy. I won’t tell.”
She’d been edgy for the past week. Erin blamed work, and from what she told Walt, the guy she managed continued to test her, almost every day. It was hard to hear her blame herself for not having the right soft communication skills—whatever the hell that was. Nearly as hard as it was to keep convincing himself Erin wouldn’t appreciate it if he took care of the situation with the hard kind of communication this Alan guy would understand.
Erin still watched the rope people from Atlanta setting up. “Do you—is that one of your things?” She tipped her head toward the span of wood and steel bolts.
“Rope? Not really. Between Scouts and the military, I know enough knots to keep a girl in one place. That’s all I care to know.”
“Hm. Really?”
“Yes, really. Why would I mess around tying fancy knots when I’ve got a real, live girl to play with?”
“Um, yes…why, indeed.” She ducked her chin away from him, exposing the color rising on her neck again. He brushed his knuckle over the pink skin and was rewarded with one of her little shivers.
He cleared his throat, taking his hand away. “I should probably show you around, introduce you to a couple of people.”
“Okay.” The little crevices between her eyebrows said it wasn’t. He couldn’t resist sweeping his hand over the taut silk covering her back as he leaned close to her ear.
“Luce’ll kill me if I have you out of that thing this early. She just got you into it.”
She was quiet for an extra second. Considering. “That’s between you two. I’m going to behave myself,” she said finally, turning to him
. That damn coy little smile she gave him when they teased like this was bait he should ignore.
He took her hand. “Claire’s been asking where you are. We’d better show her Lu actually brought you before she spins her harmonies into another vibration or whatever it is she talks about.”
Walt held the door open for Erin and stood aside so she could enter the house. Across the mudroom, Tommy Blackwell didn’t bother to hide his surprise—or his interest, blatantly giving Erin a long, appraising once-over. Along with Tate, both of them had probably earned their reputations as the welcoming committee down at the club in Charlotte and occasionally with the odd guest at the Enclave.
“Hey,” Walt said, sliding his arm around Erin’s waist. Her head rose to his, and Walt drew her in for a kiss. He let himself take an extra second’s slow, deep taste of her and drew away. “Need to check a bag, buddy?” He cast a flat stare across the space to Tommy.
Do we understand each other?
Tommy hefted his toybag and turned for the kitchen without a second glance at Erin. “Nah, man. I’m headed downstairs.”
Once his lanky frame faded into the far end of the kitchen, Erin looked up at Walt over the rims of her glasses, barely keeping back a laugh.
“Does that happen often?”
“Damn,” he said, wincing, and shook his head at himself. “That obvious?”
“Walt, I’m around men all the time. I might be new to this—” she gestured around the mudroom, smirking “—but I’m not entirely oblivious to testosterone asserting itself. I appreciate the gesture.”
“It’s no gesture.”
Her features softened. “Okay.”
“Okay, then.” He reached for her hand.
Walking through the main floor rooms, Erin’s shoulders eased down with each fact he gave her to file away. Every introduction that came and went made her falter less over her words, made her hand let go of a little more of the filmy black material from her skirt she’d tucked into her fist.
Claire called to them from across the kitchen, waving from the door of the butler’s pantry, promising to find them once the final adjustments to the evening’s dinner were complete. Behind her, Tate emerged from the dim room, carrying a wooden crate full of glassware.
“Hell, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to turn up sometime this afternoon, Walt. So who is this poor lady you’ve attached yourself to?” Tate slid the box to the wide kitchen island and turned back to them.
“Erin,” she said, offering her hand. “Erin’s fine. I’m…um…”
Walt linked his fingers through hers. “She’s with me.”
“Oh is she? Well, it’s poor lady for sure, then.” He offered his hand to Erin. “It’s nice to meet you, Erin. You might hear me called Tango among other things around here, but I generally answer quicker to Tate.”
Walt stepped aside as Tate rattled off more about the Enclave’s history to Erin. Claire motioned him over.
“Can you give me a hand, Wally?” Glancing past his shoulder, she drew him into the butler’s pantry. “Well? How’s she doing?”
“Okay. Settling down. Lu had wound her up pretty good before they got here.”
“That snot.” Claire rolled her eyes indulgently. “I told her to behave herself. What happened?”
“Just Lu being Lu from what I could tell. Probably poking her, mostly, about us, and then poking me a little to wind Erin up more.”
Across the kitchen, Erin gestured over her head, unaware she was giving Tate a glimpse down her corset as she pointed to the original handcarved woodwork above them. Snickering, Tate glanced in Walt and Claire’s direction, lifting his eyebrows. Nice tits, he mouthed before gliding his attention—and well-bred host’s gameface—back to Erin.
“Looks like Lucy’s not the only one doing some poking,” Claire said as Walt huffed over her giggles.
“You too, Claire? All right, everybody’s had a piece of my ass this afternoon. Before I have to bust Tate’s, why don’t you find me something heavy to move? You’re too sweet to be mad at, and Lu took off for downstairs before I could deal with her.”
Laughing, Claire took his hand and led him toward the butler’s pantry. “Relax, grumpy bear, nobody’s going to steal your honey. Come on, I need someone to carry plates for me.”
Tate was magnetic. Everything about him commanded attention, from his artfully disheveled hair and wrinkled, yet beautifully made linen shirt, to his broad, booming voice. Burnished, I told myself, as he answered another question I made up just to distract him so I could watch him talk. His hair and tanned skin looked like gradients of gold. His body was muscled in the lean, narrow-waisted way of a swimmer, and he was nearly as tall as Walt.
Walt. Who was wearing a kilt and flexing his arms around two wooden crates and scowling at us from across the giant kitchen in the most adorably annoyed way. He caught my eye as he slid the crates on the wide marble-topped island, and it started. That…something. The new something that made my cheeks heat as the sensation of being seen by him zinged over and under my skin. His eyebrow quirked a little and he turned, chuckling to himself as he moved across the kitchen.
“Well, aren’t you two like a basket of puppies?”
“I’m sorry?”
“No, I am. That was good to see. I like seeing my friends happy.” Tate leaned against the big marble-topped island, grinning. “I forget sometimes what it must be like to show up the first time and be shoved in the deep end with us, treating each other like we’re at summer camp instead of acting like grown people at a play party.”
I began to tell him it was fine, because it was, and how much I appreciated being part of the cast for once, instead of trying to figure out who to deliver my lines to. As I opened my mouth, a bluster of satin and tulle passed me, paused in front of Tate, and then continued toward the mudroom.
“Pardon me one second, please, Erin,” he said. His words were still on the air between us and he was already gone, following a woman of nearly cartoon-proportion curves, outfitted in a searing hot pink corset and tulle skirt that barely reached the top of her thighs. Under perfectly applied, doll-like makeup, her porcelain skin looked like creamy velvet. It was the first time I’d actually seen a mouth worthy of being called a Cupid’s bow, and she’d dressed it in the deep claret of a pomegranate’s flesh.
Adjusting a set of black kitten ears behind her sculpted bangs, she rolled her eyes under a thick fringe of sooty lashes when Tate’s arms went around the deep curve of her corseted waist.
“Don’t come near me, Tate. I do not have patience for your bullshit today.”
If my corset had pushed my breasts into pillows, hers were tuffets. And Tate—since he was, as Lucy and Walt had said, lord of the manor—apparently took his pleasure from their comforts. His broad shoulders hid just what those attentions actually were, but her scowl was melting by the second. Head rising, he spoke in a private voice just for her, saying something that made her giggle and squeal a little. Finally, her arms tucked over his shoulders, and she wound the strands of sandy hair falling at his neck through her black-tipped nails.
And Walt was nowhere to be seen. Claire, too. Standing by idly and waiting for people to finish kissing was not unfamiliar to me, but my sister had put me in that situation enough for the rest of my life. I cleared my throat.
“I can not believe you. God, Tate, you have no manners at all,” she said, a little breathy, and adjusted her kitten ears. Pressing her round shoulder past Tate’s arm, she offered her hand to me. “I am so very sorry. I’m Gala Apples, Tate’s current pick of the crop.” And she winked, so much the living embodiment of a vintage pinup, a Castro diva would have applauded.
Stepping forward, I reached for her hand. “I’m—”
Gala squealed again, this time a little louder, as Tate’s hand connected—hard, judging from the sharp slap echoing through the room—with her backside.
“Tate,” Walt called. His head appeared around a doorway. “Watch your han—Oh, hey, Ga
la.”
“Oh hey, Ranger,” she cooed, wiggling her fingers in his direction. “This your little muffin?”
“I’m Erin.”
“She’s Erin,” Walt said, lifting his eyebrows twice. “I’m the muffin—the stud muffin.”
“Damn, Walt, that’s tired, even for you.” Leaning over Gala’s shoulder, Tate sank his mouth into her ample cleavage again. With a toss of her cherry-red hair, she pushed him away.
“You be sweet, hound. And you, Erin, how very nice to meet you.” When her hand extended toward me, I stammered, shocked to still be a participant in the conversation. “If you need a break from these two boys and Doma Lucia and all their constant one-ups, you come find me.”
“You’ll be occupied.” Tate hooked his arm around her waist, nearly purring into her ear. “Very, very occupied.”
“We’ll see.” She blew Walt a kiss and wriggled out from Tate’s arm.
Once Gala sashayed away from us, Tate steered me through the kitchen, so frustratingly close to Walt I caught a whiff of his warmed skin.
“No, no. You two leave each other alone for three-and-a-half seconds. Claire needs the brute squad if all these guests are going to have dishes for their supper, and I’m going to show you my reading room.”
Shrugging after Walt’s grumbled bastard, I followed Tate back to the wide foyer. “This isn’t anything like showing me your etchings, right?”
“Entirely honorable.” Tate covered his heart with his hand and then grinned. “Unless, of course, you ask otherwise.”
Usually blatant flirtation like this sent me scattering. From someone like Tate, I should have been lost. I had no reference point of my own, only years of watching Danielle lob innuendo after innuendo at receptive boys—and then at men. But oddly, I felt at ease around him. Maybe even more so than Walt, in the early moments of our relationship. There was no sense of evaluation, and his actions didn’t prickle my skin, making me aware of his nearness.
Tate turned down a corridor where the recessed lights were noticeably dimmer. That and a gorgeous, heavy wooden chair in the center of the hall said clearly—but elegantly—keep out. He noticed me gazing down at the chair’s thick, curved arms.