by Karina Bliss
She took a deep breath. “I’m going to be tender.”
Chapter Sixteen
Seth honestly hadn’t thought he had a glimmer of real amusement in him tonight, but holy hell, Dimity found it. He laughed.
Her earnestness faded and she dropped his hand. “Fuck you.”
“I’m sorry.” He tried to look contrite.
“This is a big deal for me, you should be more appreciative.”
And wasn’t that a trigger word for the anger simmering inside him. “I’m tired of being appreciative,” he said bluntly. “Tired of being grateful. And bloody tired of considering everyone’s feelings while they stomp all over mine…” He ran a hand over his face. “Honey B, I’m not in a good space for this.”
“You want to be the one taken care of for a change,” she said.
“Hell, yeah.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s what I’m offering.”
“Tenderness?” If he was up for sex tonight, it would be for the sex she preferred. The savage marauder kind. He felt rubbed raw and so angry.
She shrugged, awkward suddenly. “I’m not saying I’ll be any good at it,” she said. “But I’m willing to give it a try.”
This was hard for her, but she was concerned for him. Concerned enough to go public. Cared enough to offer what she thought he needed. Who the hell had done that for him lately? Perversely, he resented having to consider anyone else’s feelings tonight. He wanted to brood over his family’s sins and pick at the scabs. But this was a big deal for her.
“I am appreciative,” he began.
“Good.” She reclaimed his hand and continued to her room.
He went because he couldn’t be that much of an asshole.
Her bedroom, like his, was all about the view but the overcast night had removed it. The picture window reflected the room, whose spartan bareness was enlivened with kitschy seaside-themed touches.
Dimity’s laptop sat on the battered dresser which had drawer pulls of rope, artfully tufted on the ends. A lifebuoy hung above the double bed and shells lined the sill.
It was easy to see what stuff was hers and what wasn’t. Clothes lay scattered in heaps of silk and expensive fabric on the seagrass matting, indicating someone used to a housekeeper. Creams and lotions in fancy bottles crowded the bedside table, gold and silver chains and rings glittered on the bedside table.
“I thought we’d start with a massage,” she said.
Maybe this could work. His neck and shoulders were knotted with tension. He stripped off his T-shirt, took off his watch, and placed both on the floor. “Where do you want me?”
Dimity picked up a small tub from the dresser. “Sit on the end of the bed and I’ll scoot behind you. We don’t want coconut butter over everything…wait, let me move this.”
The bed cover was a pretty quilt made of colorful fabric squares, and she folded it carefully to one side. He sat.
Cloudy, the night sky was so black he could see Dimity clearly reflected in the window. Hitching up her floaty dress to mid-thigh, she knelt behind him—and the view of her smooth knees either side of his jean-clad hips changed the direction of his thoughts.
Sex with a beautiful woman wasn’t the worst way to end a shitty day.
She opened the jar and hooked out an opaque glob. The scent of coconut butter filled the room as it melted on her palm, but her first touch made him shiver. “Your hands are cold.”
“Uh…sorry.” Briskly, she rubbed them together. “Let’s try this again.”
It occurred to Seth that she was nervous. She went to work, her strong fingers finding the sore spots. The massage hurt like hell but he could feel his tight muscles uncoiling. And at least pain kept him from thinking. Her thumbs dug into the hollow at the base of his skull and suddenly there was pleasure in it. “How do you know how to do this?”
“I get tension headaches…this always works for me.”
She dipped her fingers in more coconut butter and reached over his shoulders, gliding her hands over his collarbone, from his pecs to his belly. Her reflection sat back. “I don’t want to get oil on this dress. Can you take it off for me?”
“I can do that.” Things were definitely looking up.
Twisting, he eased it up and over her head. The heat of her skin was still in the silk. She wore a scarlet lacy bra and matching panties. His body responded. “Want to share some of that massage oil?”
“No.” Planting her hands on his shoulders, she faced him forward. “You don’t get to touch. This is all about you.”
“So I can’t take control of my own fantasy?”
“No. Stop trying to turn around.”
Amusement bubbled through the primordial mud of his black mood. “I’m not hearing much tenderness.”
Dimity’s reflection rolled her eyes but her tone was sweet. “Please?”
Another bubble. “Or feeling it either.”
She leaned forward. He felt a careful kiss on his neck. Frowning, her reflection wiped off the excess oil with the back of one hand.
“That’s nice,” Seth encouraged. “Do it again.” Maybe he was into S and M.
But she was too smart for that. “Why don’t you lie down?” she suggested in honeyed tones. “Make it easier.”
And he’d really liked where her hands had been heading. “I wouldn’t want to mess up the sheets.”
“I’ll get a towel.” Climbing off the bed, she went into the adjoining bathroom.
He grimaced at his reflection. Serves you right, smartarse.
She returned and laid the towel over the sheets, patting out the wrinkles with all the fastidiousness of a nurse delaying giving an old geezer a bed bath.
Seth said with the sincerity of God, “I’m loving all this tenderness.”
A muscle around her left eye twitched.
He had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to keep a straight face.
For a second, he considered adding, “I can’t wait to kiss and cuddle afterward.” But that would give the game away.
“Lie down,” she invited. Propping herself on her elbow, beside him, she palmed the day’s light stubble on his jaw, less a caress and more of a carpenter testing woodgrain before sanding it.
Dimity kissed his temple, then peppered some staccato kisses along the curve of his cheek to the corners of his mouth before lifting her head. “Am I doing this right?”
“Maybe more here.” He touched his finger to his mouth. “Lots more.”
She planted one on his lips.
“A little lighter, Honey B. We’re not date-stamping an envelope.”
“You really like these wimpy kisses?”
“Oh yeah, but if you’re not into it…” He sighed.
“It’s your fantasy.” She kissed him again—lighter—and Seth noticed how very soft her lips were when they weren’t firm with resolve. Her mouth moved against his, slippery with a trace of coconut butter, and he opened his mouth before she slid off altogether.
Dimity’s tongue touched his, withdrew as if uncertain before touching again.
Slowly, very subtly, what began as a kiss of counting steps changed and became smooth and fluid, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, perfect. And Seth stopped wanting to laugh.
Her sweetness invaded him, pumping through his blood like a drug.
She started trembling. Her arms had to be tired, holding her weight above him. He opened his eyes to change position and saw hers wide with panic.
“Hey,” he touched her cheekbone. “What’s going on?”
With a despairing expression, she flung herself onto her back. “I’m crap at this tender stuff!”
This woman was gifted in so many ways—he wouldn’t let her give up on the softer emotions. He tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “What’s my name?” he asked.
Confusion entered her blue eyes.
“Because you’ve made me forget it.”
“Idiot.” But some of the tension left her body.
“Ye
ah.” He brushed his thumb across her lingering frown, then stroked her lids shut and kissed them.
“Kissing eyelids, really?” Her tone was indulgent.
“Really.” He did it again and her long eyelashes tickled his nose. “I could use your eyelashes on my snare drum.”
“They’re extensions.”
“I figured.” He rubbed his nose against hers to get rid of the tickle. “This is also a traditional Maori greeting to visitors.” He did it again, solemnly this time. “It’s called a hongi, and by exchanging the breath of life we’re confirming that we’re friends, not enemies.”
Her eyes opened and stared into his, mere inches apart, cautious and curious. Their breath mingled. And he experienced the strangest sensation, as though there really was something vital and sacred about this moment.
He understood suddenly why she preferred her sex combative, why she liked to be taken. She only let herself feel if she could pretend there was some element of coercion. She didn’t want to need touch and closeness and tenderness. It broke his heart. “Honey B,” he whispered. “We can do this.”
Tilting his head, he captured her mouth, returning the sweet tenderness she’d given him. And she let him. Welcomed him. Responded to him. Her fingers massaged his scalp, careless now of the oil.
Time fell away under dreaming, narcotic kisses, each one savored and lingered over. They stopped kissing only long enough to remove each other’s clothes, and there was no other foreplay. All their bodies wanted was to replicate what their kisses were already doing, creating magic. They flowed together like water and their energy had a peace to it that was balm on Seth’s bruised soul. He had enough experience to know that what they were creating between them was extraordinary. Dimity probably thought of it as heartburn, which made him smile, want to kiss, protect, and shake her. All at the same time.
As he eased into her welcoming body, he couldn’t stop smiling. She smiled back, easy and wide, surrendering to the intimacy, and something shifted and changed in him forever. As they made love, she kept her eyes open, fearless, and he drowned in them.
Dimity would never love him back, never let him close probably. She was a complex, contradictory woman, casually cruel, implacably kind, blisteringly honest, and the queen of denial. She’d put up a wall a mile high between them tomorrow. She might even be ashamed of what they’d shared tonight. It was dangerous and foolhardy to fall in love with a woman who knew a thousand ways to leave a man.
And he did it anyway. Knowingly, instinctively, deliberately. With no regrets.
He loved Dimity because of who she was—vibrant, unpredictable, fierce and vulnerable.
He loved her because she needed him to, because someone had to be man enough for the job.
He loved her because she left him no choice.
He loved her without conditions, or expectations…hell, she wouldn’t meet them anyway. Likely didn’t consider herself capable of meeting them. With her history, he’d choose safety, too.
He fell in love with Dimity for the same reason he’d turned his back on his old life and joined Rage—because he had to answer the call.
And let that be enough.
* * *
“This bed is too small for two,” Dimity said, thirty minutes after the bravest and most dangerous sex of her life. “Maybe you should go back to your own room.”
“Okay.” Seth rolled away from her and swung his legs off the mattress. His back still gleamed with coconut butter, and the sheets were fragrant with it.
He pulled on his boxers, then his jeans, picked up his T-shirt and shoes, and she watched him with a hunger she couldn’t understand, given how thoroughly physically satisfied she felt right now. He turned to face her and she pulled up the sheet, suddenly self-conscious. She must look a mess, a greasy, sticky mess. Her hair was so tacky it stuck to her shoulders.
“Goodnight.” Seth bent forward to kiss her and she tensed. “I’m all oily and needing a shower.”
Ignoring her, he nipped her lower lip. Hard.
“Ouch. What was that for?”
“I’ll tell you when you do it,” he said, so casually she figured it for a joke.
“So, we’re playing this cool, remember?” she cautioned as he walked to the door. “No mushy stuff in front of the others. Friends by day, lov—boink buddies by night. I don’t mix work and pleasure. Don’t expect touches or hugs or kisses…and no looks.”
She didn’t much like the one he was giving her now—it had too much resigned stoicism about it. As though she was predictable.
“I’ll respect your boundaries,” he said. “As long as you respect mine. I don’t want you contacting my father, or trying to fix this for me. My family is my business. Promise me.”
His ‘don’t-fuck-with-me-on-this’ intensity made her squirm and turned her on at the same time.
“Your mother and I had a lunch date tomorrow.” Gayle wouldn’t let her leave the house without committing to another get-together.
“Cancel it.”
“Sounds like she might need some reassurance, Seth.”
“I don’t care.” But she could already hear his conscience in his voice.
“Let me have your back,” she said. “I can buy you another day’s peace.”
He shook his head. Forgetting her nakedness, she climbed out of bed and wound her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. “I swear I won’t try to fix this. Your mom and I are meeting in town, I won’t even see your father.” The bastard. There was manipulation for good and there was manipulation for evil, and Frank definitely fell into the latter category. “I’ll reassure your mother you still love her, then change the subject.”
“And if she wants to talk about it?”
“I’ll say you’re out of bounds.”
“If you didn’t need a normal mother,” he muttered.
“It’s true,” she said. “I’m crushing on your mom. And her screw-up in not telling you only makes her more accessible.”
To Seth, Gayle might be all too fallible, but she was still everything Dimity had yearned for as a pre-pubescent girl—warmly interested, even a little interfering. A nurturer. Helena was both more sophisticated and more charming—when she wanted to be—but she’d forever be a child in an adult body.
“Stop lobbying. We both know I’ll forgive Ma—”
“Only not yet,” she said gently.
“I’m so fucking tired of being the understanding one.”
“I know.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “Fine, meet her. But first, give me that promise.”
“Scout’s honor, no interfering.” Resisting the impulse to drag him back to bed, she released him. “See you in the morning.”
He left, shutting the door quietly behind him. She showered, stripped the oily towel off the bed, turned the pillows over, and burrowed under the sheets on the side Seth had just vacated.
She’d been as limp as a piece of overcooked spaghetti immediately after sex, but now her whole body thrummed. She didn’t want to think about what she might have revealed to Seth; didn’t want to remember how much she’d needed what he’d given her.
She tossed and turned until five, then rose, dressed and switched on her laptop, grateful that in much of the northern hemisphere people were up and working. As she waited for it to boot up, she saw Seth’s watch on the floor by the bed and placed it on the bedside table, to give to him tomorrow.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed with the laptop, she responded to a couple of scheduling requests for Elizabeth and brooded over the fight she’d walked in on earlier. Like the clowns on that tightrope years ago, she was full of public bravado while privately feeling the strain. And very, very conscious of walking a fine line.
Or was exhaustion making her pessimistic? The only time she’d slept well in months was with Seth in her bed—not that she’d tell him that. But she wouldn’t be encouraging sleepovers. If she detected any hint of dependency in herself, she’d have to give him u
p. And she wasn’t ready to. She returned her attention to the task at hand. Zander had as good as admitted tonight he wouldn’t have made this choice if Elizabeth didn’t exist.
Having spent time alone with them both, it was obvious neither had any sense of self-preservation when it came to each other. Only fools would jeopardize their careers for someone else. Elizabeth wasn’t a fool and she was doing it anyway, with her eyes wide open. As for Zander, he’d more than proved he’d lost his mind. Someone had to stop the lunatics from taking over the asylum.
Ditching her laptop, she climbed off the bed and found a piece of paper and a pen. Whenever she was really stuck, she resorted to handwriting her options. Looking at the blank sheet, she asked herself the critical question. How far am I prepared to take this? The first thing to do was review the success of her game plan.
1. Talk Zee out of it.
Well that didn’t work. Dimity crossed it out.
2. Get Elizabeth to help me talk Zee out of it.
Another cross-out.
3. Play on Elizabeth’s fears to convince her to talk Zee out of it.
She wrote in brackets beside it.
(Still in play).
4.
She chewed the end of her pen, unable to fill in the logical next step. The one she kept suppressing like whack-a-mole, because her strategic brain made no moral judgments in the options it threw up. It won’t get to that.
Clinically and dispassionately, she reviewed the facts.
Zander was doing the wrong thing. It would screw up everything for many, many people. It would make him miserable. Ultimately his misery would alienate Elizabeth—if he didn’t push her away first.
Rage was the only family Dimity had. All Seth had, all Moss had. Recognizing emotion creeping in, she beat it away.
I have to protect my tribe. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost. No one else has the skill, or the will.
She forced herself to fill in the blank and stared at what she’d written.