by Cara McKenna
When he returned to his room, he stopped by the bed. He wanted to freeze this moment in time. His blanket and sheets, but this curious woman wound in them, dark hair draped over his pillow. He wished he had a camera. This would all feel like a dream a year from now, and proof wouldn’t go astray. Though a photo wouldn’t do justice to what her presence meant to him.
A miracle—that’s what this was. Astounding that her life should’ve intersected with his, here, of all lonely places on this gigantic planet. That she’d had reason to need him, and to linger. That she wanted him, and he her, that he’d revealed himself as he had, and that she’d liked who he was. That for once, both halves of his feelings for women—the desire for companionship and the desire to slake his strange appetites—were embodied in one person. His sexuality was whole with Merry. And he felt whole himself, for the first time in . . .
For the first time ever.
Glorious. He’d never been a religious man, but it made him wonder if perhaps he’d been sent this woman. As a reward for his abstinence? Surely he’d not paid enough penance to deserve this.
Perhaps a punishment. A taste of heaven, so he’d know exactly what he was missing once she was gone. So he’d recognize hell when he saw it.
Because you can’t follow her. If he did, the Devil would catch him and tip that bottle to his lips. Rob was lovestruck, but he wasn’t a fool.
Besides, this life wasn’t hell. He’d been to hell. He’d been a demon himself. Hell had been his old office, in the back room of his house in Leeds. Tired beige carpet under his feet, white blinds snapped closed, and a computer glowing, harsh bluish light filtered through clear liquid as he raised that bottle to his lips.
This life was peaceful and comforting, blessedly demanding. Neither heaven nor hell, but the terrestrial space between. He smiled at the angel who’d stumbled off course and deigned to brighten his little patch of the earth for these few, sweet days.
He was tempted to go back to sleep beside her, but he’d promised her a date. He wanted to see the delight on her face if she caught a fish, and they’d squander their chances if they slept in. So he swapped his flannel bottoms for jeans and pulled a jumper over his head, found clean socks. He gave Merry’s foot a squeeze through the covers.
“Mmmph.”
“You’ve got an hour before we head out. Get up now if you want a wash.”
“I want to slee-ee-eep.”
“I’m starting breakfast. Get up soon or you’ll be having cement instead of oatmeal.”
“Fine,” she huffed, and turned onto her other side, blanket pulled over her head.
Rob came close, lifting the covers and speaking a few inches from her ear. “It’s our last day together. I’d prefer an extra hour with you, grumpy and cross, than to miss that hour entirely.”
She opened her eyes and glowered. “Low blow.”
“But true.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then straightened, whipping the covers away. “Up, houseguest.”
“Oh, brrr. Jeez. I thought you were supposed to be submissive.”
“I guess you fucked it right out of me,” Rob said with a smile, and left her.
He was proud to be keeping that promise he’d made, not letting the cranky hermit return and reconstruct all the walls they’d torn down together.
“I prefer you cowering and obedient,” Merry called.
He laughed. “I’m sure I’ll find my way back there.”
“You’d better. I was enjoying wearing the pants with a guy for a change.” Her words were stilted, telling him she was likely dressing.
Rob had a pot of water heating and mugs at the ready when Merry emerged, finger-combing her hair.
“Want me to put the basin on? Won’t get warm by the time we head out, but it’ll take the edge off.”
“Nah. You promised me swimming. Let that be my bath.” She sat at the table, twisting her hair into a bun and snapping an elastic around it. She yawned broadly, making Rob’s middle feel queasy in the nicest way. All the things he’d told her, all the things they’d done . . . and here she was, acting so perfectly normal. Very likely feeling so perfectly normal.
“How long ’til we head out?”
“Long as it takes to cook and eat breakfast and pack a lunch.”
“Better get my butt in gear.” She stood, and he watched her hop around the back landing, tugging on her shoes. “When I come back next fall,” she said, “I expect an indoor bathroom.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She was joking, surely. But did she have any idea how thrilling such an idea was—her return? The possibility would keep him warmer than any fire, make the coming months pass like a decade—but a decade of the sweetest anticipation. Don’t go letting yourself even imagine it.
Merry disappeared out the back. She was gone for a long time, and when the oats were thickening and the second mug of tea nearly steeped, Rob slipped into his shoes to find out what was detaining her, a touch of fear souring his stomach.
It was unfounded, though.
Merry was sitting on the wood-chopping stump in a weak patch of sunshine with something strung between her hands and clenched thighs, fingers working.
“Tea’s ready. What are you up to?”
She smirked, eyes on the project. “Come here and find out.”
Christ, just hearing her issue an order had his pulse quickening. If she did indeed miss his obedient, submissive side, she needn’t have worried. He crossed the yard.
What she was working on, he discovered, was the most lascivious craft project in history. She’d unwoven a length of his old utility rope, and was replaiting the hemp into a flat cuff.
“Give me your hand.”
Heart suddenly thumping, he offered the left one, palm-up, and watched, rapt, as she wound her creation around his wrist.
“Hold that there,” she ordered, broiling a few more of Rob’s overheated brain cells.
He pinched it in place as she married the loose ends. Tight enough to stay on, but loose enough to shift. To rub. To drive him fucking insane in the most delicious, devious way. Every tiny rasp and tickle of the hemp was a shock, a zap of the darkest excitement.
She let his hand go and glanced up. “I want you to wear this. Until I tell you to take it off.”
His cock stiffened, her words rubbing him as surely as the hemp. “You may as well tell a man you intend to fondle him all day. I’ll be a quaking mess.”
Merry grinned. “I know.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Evil creature.” Evil, sadistic, fucking miraculous creature.
He rolled his wrist, and the friction licked its way through his skin, up his arm, down his spine, and through his belly. The friction, and the cruelty. And this sense of being tethered. Owned. Of being her mistreated pet. Jesus, he was fucked-up. Yet he was suddenly grateful for it. She’d been right—twisted properly, his desires ceased being burdens, and became something far different. Gifts, nearly.
And there was something else . . . something odd.
His sexuality had always been a cringing sort of presence, both in its nature and because of his resulting shame. But Merry made him feel things he didn’t think he ever had toward a woman. She made him feel that playful, hungry sort of attraction, the kind that made a bloke want to grab a girl around her middle and tackle her onto the nearest piece of furniture, smothering her in sloppy male kisses.
God, she was so many things.
Made him want so much. To have his kinks indulged, yes, but companionship, too, conversation, and romance—a romance that resembled the stuff peddled in films. He’d come out here really only feeling he was two-dimensional, at best. But she brought out so many sides of him. Ones he’d never even met before himself.
He flexed his wrist, blood coursing quicker. Christ, I could love you
. So easily. If only you’d stay. “Thank you.”
“You thank me now,” she said loftily and got to her feet. “I’ll have you begging for mercy before the day’s through.”
“I’ll thank you for that as well.”
She grinned and gave his cheek two gentle swats, sashaying past, headed for the back door.
“Oatmeal’s just about done,” he called after her. “We leave in twenty minutes.”
“We leave when I feel like it, man-slave.” The door slapped shut at her back.
He stood squinting in the morning sun, twisting his wrapped wrist, torn between arousal and awe.
“Bloody evil, marvelous creature.”
Chapter Eleven
Merry cinched her drawstring day pack and slipped her arms through its loops. As she expanded her collapsible walking stick, just feeling its rubber grip, she registered how much she’d missed the hiking. How eager she was to get moving again.
Not that she hadn’t made perfectly good use of her new body the last couple evenings. She smiled at the thought. If you could see me now, old Merry.
Rob emerged from the cottage with his own equipment—a long tube that held his fishing pole, presumably, and a small canvas folio.
He began marching down the hill, and she followed.
“No waders?” she asked. “No floppy hat covered in lures?”
“No. We’ll be wading properly—barefoot, with icy water up to our knees.”
“Works for me.”
Yes, standing side by side with this interesting man, earning herself yet more outdoorsy cred. Bring it on.
It was a gorgeous day. The previous one had been gorgeous, too, despite the weather, and in far darker ways. But today the sky was a wide, deep blue, clouds stretched in the distance like cotton batting, the air sweet and fertile from the rain and the encroaching autumn. Everything was glorious, she thought, as her stride and Rob’s found a common pace. Her hiking pole clicked against the odd rock, and the dog appeared and followed them for a time before veering off after curiosities unknown.
They were headed northwest, to a loch not included on Merry’s scenic route.
Rob had made a thermos of coffee while she’d assembled their picnic lunch. Celebration coffee, he’d told her, for if they caught anything. She hoped that was a bluff—how cruel to come back fishless and be denied caffeine. Consolation coffee was equally valid.
As they tramped up a small hill, a thought struck her. “What day of the week is it?”
He laughed. “I haven’t a clue. I only check before I head to town for supplies, to make sure the shops will be open.”
“How long have I been with you? Is this the fourth day?” Been with you. Goodness, why did that sound so significant?
Rob looked pensive, then surprised. “Yes, fourth. Goodness. Feels like far longer than that.”
And after four days, she knew this man well enough to be sure he meant it kindly.
“It’s my mom’s birthday today.” She’d planned it that way, hoping she’d wake up on her mom’s sixty-fourth in her birth city. She’d imagined finding a bar with a juke box that had that Beatles song, savor enough Glen Ord to tap her courage, then dance like a fool for the world to see.
“Happy birthday to your mum, then.”
Merry hummed the tune for a minute or more. “When I’m—sixty—four, bum bum.”
“That’s how old she’d be today?”
“Yeah.” She said it with a sigh, picturing her mom dancing around the kitchen, singing along to “Raised on Robbery” or “Carey,” cooking those big Sunday fry-up breakfasts. Man, that’s what this place was missing—music.
“Moms are awesome,” she said wistfully.
Rob made a face. “I suppose.”
Her grin wilted. “Was yours not? I know you said you weren’t close.”
“My mum was . . . cold. Still is. She’s always kept me at arm’s length, since I was little.”
“Bummer. Is that an English thing?” Merry’s mom had told her the Scots could be much the same. Bunch of frosty Northern miseries, every last one.
But Rob shook his head. “It was a me thing, I’m afraid. She was perfectly loving with my brother.”
She blinked at him. “You never said you have a brother.”
“I do.” He kept his gaze on the ground—scanning for rocks, or avoiding her eyes? “Older by three years.”
“You didn’t mention him when I asked if you missed anyone you’d left behind.”
“I didn’t, no.”
She frowned at him, heart twisting. “You stopped speaking with your mom and your brother?”
“I did, yeah . . . But I do miss him, actually. He was my best friend, when I was younger. My only friend, practically.”
“What happened? Bad blood?”
“Yes, that’s a way to put it. We fell out. Same as I did with so many people.”
“How sad. About that, and about your mom, treating your differently.”
He shrugged. “There’s nothing to be done about it now.”
That’s not necessarily true, she thought, but chose not to make a sermon of it. “Well, my mom was awesome.”
He smiled. “I believe it.”
“I miss her,” she said, that old pain gnawing. “So much. Every day.”
“I wish I could have met her. I’d have told her, ‘You raised a hell of a daughter.’”
Merry’s sadness dissipated. “You think?”
He came closer and took her hand in his. “Absolutely. Brave and kind and beautiful. And special.”
Oh, for swoon.
She bit her lip. “Special, huh?”
He looked very shy suddenly, attention fleeing to their feet. Adorable. “Yes. Very.”
“How? Tell me how. Flatter me, Rob Rush.”
He met her eyes squarely. “You’re the only woman who’s ever looked at me and . . . I don’t know. Seen inside me. Met the real me, I guess. Brought him out.”
“You mean the fetish stuff?”
He pursed his lips, blinking for a moment. “More than that.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know how to explain it. Being out here, I feel more like myself than I ever have in my life. And being with you, as that man . . . and yes, plus the sex . . . In every sense, no one’s ever known me as you have.”
“Not even any exes? Not the one you were with for five years?”
He shook his head. “No. No one, ever.”
“Wow. I don’t know if that makes me deeply sad or incredibly proud.”
“I’ve made enough people sad,” he said softly, and squeezed her hand. “Let it be the latter.”
“Okay then. I’m very proud. Smug, even.”
The loch appeared as they mounted the next rise, a rippling expanse of blue-black, shaped like a peanut. A stand of trees cradled it on the far side.
“We’ve still got a bit of shade,” Rob said with approval. “We’ll lose it in an hour or two, so I hope you’re a quick learner. I pissed away far too much time this morning, nagging certain parties to get out of bed.”
“I wouldn’t have been that sleepy if we hadn’t stayed up so late.” They must have lain awake until one or two in the morning, idly touching, joking, chatting. Kissing.
“Which was your fault,” Rob said. “You and your endless pillow talk.”
She swung her hiking pole around to whap him on the shoulder.
He batted the end away, laughing. “Oi, watch the eyes. I was only joking.”
“You loved every minute of my pillow talk,” she said haughtily.
“I did. Just don’t tell the other stroppy hermits so. I’ve got a reputation to defend.”
She smirked at him. “You’re different today.
”
“Oh?”
“I really did fuck the shell right off you, didn’t I?”
He colored at that, pale cheeks glowing pink. “I believe you did. Please keep it up.”
She eyed the rope braided around his wrist. Oh, I will. Don’t you worry.
They trundled down the hill to the water’s edge and dropped their supplies. Merry stole a sip of coffee from the Thermos while Rob was screwing the segments of his fishing pole together. She was supposed to be in Inverness right now. Quite possibly savoring a cup of coffee. Though looking around them, she knew there was no café in heaven that could touch the perfection of this place.
Rob unfurled his canvas folio on the pebbly ground, revealing a rainbow of feathered lure-things. “I’m assuming you’ve never fly-fished before, correct?”
“Nope. My dad used to take me fishing off the pier, but that was just regular fishing, with worms. And I wasn’t very good at it.”
“This is quite different,” he said, selecting a fly. They were called flies, right? Or did fly-fishing refer to the swoopy way you whipped the line around?
“It looks hard.”
“Yes. Takes ages to get the casting down, and I’ve never attempted to teach anyone. So if you’re rubbish, blame your instructor, and we’ll just hope we luck our way into some supper.”
“Deal.”
Rob was right—the casting was incredibly tricky. It required coordination and rhythm and a physical intuition Merry couldn’t cultivate in a half hour’s lesson—but she had fun trying, and didn’t manage to lose any of his flies. It also felt good simply being out here with him, with their pants rolled up to their knees, standing stock-still in the cool water with the sunshine warming her shoulders and hair, smooth pebbles under her bare feet.
On his fifth cast, Rob got a bite. It was a speckled brown fish, close to a foot long, and he deemed it big enough to keep. It flopped in his grip as they sloshed to the shore in their now wet, heavy pants, and Merry looked away while he did whatever he did to end its suffering and stow it for the trip home.