by Zoe Chant
Now, leaning back in the swing, holding onto the cold chains while Damien pushed her into the air until she felt like she was flying, Tawny had to marvel at how much he had changed her life in just the few short days she had known him.
The feelings he had awakened in her frightened her, but it was the giddy, breathless fear at the end of the arc of the swing, for a moment in freefall before the chains pulled her back down and right back up again.
Damien went back to pushing Trevor and Tawny let her feet drag in the gravel and slow her, still laughing helplessly.
“Four more pushes,” Damien promised Trevor.
Trevor made a noise of protest, but leaned into each arc as hard as he could to make the most of them. Tawny sat for a moment on her motionless swing to catch her breath and then stood.
As they wandered from the playground, Trevor complained that they hadn’t stayed nearly long enough, and couldn’t they stay five more minutes, and wouldn’t it be great if they lived here?
“You’d miss your bedroom,” Damien told him matter-of-factly. “And all your games are at home.”
“I could bring them here,” Trevor proposed. Then he was distracted by a chewed up tennis ball that some poor dog had lost, and he kicked it down the sidewalk in front of them.
Damien slipped his hand into Tawny’s and they walked that way into the tiny downtown block of Green Valley.
Tawny was keenly aware of his strong fingers twined in hers, and it wasn’t the walk that left her breathless. He was so tall and confident beside her, and looked so out of place in his fine shirt and tailored coat. Beards in Green Valley tended to be wild unkempt affairs, but Damien’s looked like he’d just walked out of a salon, every hair in place.
She could get used to the beard, Tawny thought. The box in her pocket tapped against her thigh, reminding her of the sparkling bracelet that Damien had given her.
She wasn’t sure she could get used to the easy wealth.
Tawny pointed out the local bank, Ted’s Hardware, and Gran’s Grits.
Shaun’s bakery was next on the tiny Main Street, and then the little brick library.
“This is where the book club is?” Damien asked thoughtfully.
“You don’t have to come,” Tawny reminded him. “I was only kidding.”
“I don’t have anything better to do,” Damien said.
From anyone else, Tawny would have suspected a dig about the small town with no entertainment, but Damien meant it sincerely behind his solemn expression; he honestly, astonishingly, could not think of a better way to spend his time.
Because of her.
In other circumstances, Tawny would have suspected a scam.
But she had no money to swindle, she was no conquest of note, and more than that, she could not doubt Damien’s attraction to her.
The way he looked at her, the heated gaze behind the cool face: he wanted her.
He was clearly not enamored of Green Valley, and Tawny was already familiar enough with his features to recognize the disdain he masked well when someone or something was just a little too ‘country’ for him.
But he was willing to tolerate its idiosyncrasies... for her.
None of this matched Tawny’s self-image, but the whole thing was so delightful and flattering that Tawny didn’t want to question it too closely.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Damien said, as they passed by Shaun and Andrea’s house and left Trevor to fly inside to share his new plan to live in the park and move all of his things there.
“Yes?” Tawny invited.
“Do you have an opening in your piano lesson schedule?” Damien asked.
“Sure,” Tawny said casually. “Do you know someone in town who needs them?”
“I’d like you to teach me,” Damien said, as if it were the most logical thing in the world.
Tawny stopped in her tracks. “You do not need piano lessons!”
“Why not? I learned violin as a child. Utterly hated it. But having music in one’s life is important, and you still won’t let me take you to dinner.”
Tawny stared at him, then frowned. “You’d have to practice,” she said archly.
“Shaun and Andrea have a piano,” Damien said loftily. “And Trevor could use a good example.”
“You’re... serious?”
“Utterly.”
Something about the intensity in his silvery eyes made Tawny think that he wasn’t really talking about piano lessons any longer. “Alright,” she agreed hesitantly, reminding herself that there was no gain for him to deceive her. “You can have the block after Trevor’s, if that’s convenient.”
They began to walk again, Damien’s hand in hers, and the rambling town tour concluded back at her front gate.
“It’s twenty dollars for a thirty minute lesson,” Tawny said professionally. “Pay for the whole month up front and it’s ten percent off.”
“I’ll have my secretary cut you a check,” Damien said decisively. “Tawny, may I kiss you?”
“Here?” Tawny asked with a squeak. Though no one was in view, she knew that there would be prying neighbor eyes, all up and down the block.
Damien was already cupping her face in one hand. “Well, I was thinking on the lips,” he said gravely.
Tawny had to chuckle, and nodded shyly.
If it wasn’t the hurricane/twister/force-of-nature kiss that he’d given her the day before, it was still a kiss that made her knees weak and set her belly on fire with need. It was a long kiss, full of tenderness, and somehow it didn’t seem nearly long enough when he was finally pulling back and Tawny was left panting and weak.
There was another kind of kiss to add to her list.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, with something like triumph in his voice.
“Tomorrow?” Tawny squeaked. Had they made plans that his kiss has erased from her mind?
“At the book club,” Damien reminded her.
“You don’t have to come to the book club,” Tawny protested with exasperation.
“It’ll be fun!” Damien said, in a voice that suggested he would force it to be fun.
Tawny had no argument for that, and drifted helplessly into her house on the aftermath of his kiss.
Chapter 12
Damien arrived at the book club meeting the next evening promptly at six, and found a circle of folding chairs had been set up in a coat closet marked ‘conference room.’
The librarian, a middle-aged woman like vulture, led him to the room, shook her head, and wandered out.
A table in one corner had a coffee pot and a half dozen stained mugs. The sugar container was empty, and the coffee had clearly been made last week.
Damien decided that discretion was preferable to caffeine, no matter how his sleep had suffered in Shaun’s spare bedroom, and chose not to pour himself a cup.
He claimed the most sturdy looking chair, and put his jacket over the back of the one next to him, folded his hands in his lap and waited.
After a few minutes, an older woman with a long salt-and-pepper braid wandered in. She gave him a long look, poured herself a cup of coffee into a mug that declared ‘I are writer’ and took the empty chair on the other side of him.
“You must be Tawny’s young man,” she said matter-of-factly. “Trevor’s grandfather.”
“Damien Powell,” Damien told her formally, though it hadn’t been a question.
“Marta Fredrickson,” she introduced herself. “You’re certainly a fish out of water.”
Damien blinked at her. “Yes, ma’am, I suppose I am,” he growled.
“I’ll say,” Marta agreed. “You should know that we’re all very fond of Tawny around here. You treat her poorly, and you’ll have us to answer to.”
Damien looked at her in astonishment. He was used to veiled threats from high powered lawyers and swearing from angry contractors. He was not used to tiny old women who clearly didn’t care what he thought.
A second gray-haired woman appeared i
n the doorway and stopped dead at the sight of him. “Oh my!” she said in surprise, and giggled. She was carrying a box of cookies that she put down next to the questionable coffee, and then she came and sat across from Damien very cautiously, exchanging a shy look with Marta, who introduced her.
“This is May. May, you’ve heard about the senior Mr. Powell. Ah, Tawny! Your boyfriend beat you here.”
Tawny paused in the doorway where she had just appeared and blushed beat red. “Oh, he’s not, I’m not, we’re...”
She looked enchanting, all flustered and flushed. She was wearing a sundress and a sweater, both a bright, cheerful yellow, and she was carrying a cotton shopping bag overloaded with books.
She wasn’t wearing the bracelet.
Damien turned to Marta as he lifted his jacket from Tawny’s chair. “You find it acceptable to embarrass Tawny and yet you warn me to treat her right? I see that your friendship is as sour an apple as you clearly are.”
He used his smoothest voice, and a tight smile that showed just a hint of teeth, the threat obvious but carefully veiled.
For a moment, the room was silent, and Damien was aware that he had their full, undivided attention. He gave Marta a long, challenging look, then turned back to give Tawny a softer smile and pat the chair behind them.
“Oh my,” said May, giggling nervously. That seemed to be her only conversational contribution.
“It’s not, you shouldn’t... it’s...” Tawny looked desperately uncomfortable and Damien regretted taking the strong hand with Marta.
Then Marta gave a bark of laughter.
“Oh, Tawny, you can pick them! I like this one! He’s easy on the eyes, and he’s certainly not going to be a doormat.”
Tawny’s rosy color had not faded. “I’m so glad you approve,” she said faintly. Then, more firmly. “Now that we’re all here, our book this week was Fahrenheit 451.”
As Tawny had promised, the topic did not stay on the book for long. It devolved quickly into current politics, as reflected in the themes of the book, then gave up even that attempt at relevance. Marta grilled Damien unsubtly about his political leanings, his religious background, his taste in food and music, and his intentions towards Tawny.
Tawny attempted to deflect Marta’s attention a few times, but gave up when Damien squeezed her hand and willingly met Marta on the battlefield.
May largely giggled shyly and agreed with anyone who offered an opinion, trying not to stare at Damien too obviously.
Chapter 13
“You really didn’t have to come to my book club,” Tawny told Damien as the heavy door to the library closed behind them. “I told you it wouldn’t stay on topic.”
“I was actually quite disappointed,” Damien said coolly.
Tawny looked at him in dismay and then saw that there was a smile twitching beneath the tidy whiskers of his beard.
“I didn’t get a single casserole recipe,” he explained.
Tawny could not keep from laughing in relief. He was so hard to read; there had been times during his clashes with Marta that she was not sure if he was really feeling insulted, or merely giving as good as he perceived he was getting.
Marta had certainly enjoyed herself, and Tawny now suspected that Damien had as well, a suspicion confirmed when he drew her hand into his elbow told her frankly, “I like your friend Marta. She’s... spicy.”
“She would like that characterization,” Tawny said as they swung out onto the sidewalk. “Where are we going?”
“I am seeing you home,” Damien explained. “As a proper gentleman would.”
They walked a block in companionable quiet, then Damien said what Tawny had been dreading. “You’re not wearing your new bracelet.”
Tawny almost tripped. “Oh, Damien, I love it, it’s beautiful, and so thoughtful.”
“But?” Damien prompted.
Tawny chewed on her lip. “It’s not very practical for Green Valley,” she finally said, feeling wretched and ungrateful.
Damien was quiet as they walked and Tawny felt her heart sink. Had she offended him?
Finally he made a noise that Tawny wasn’t sure was a laugh. “Fair enough,” he accepted. “I think you will find your next gift considerably more practical.”
Tawny stopped, and Damien stopped with her. “You don’t have to get me things,” she said firmly.
“I like to get you things,” Damien said, frowning at her.
Why? Tawny wanted to ask, but a dog came barking ferociously out at them from the next yard.
“Darigold, you idiot, come!” the owner hollered from the porch, as Damien angled himself in front of her protectively.
“It’s just Darigold,” Tawny assured him. “He likes to come out and say hello.”
Darigold skidded to a stop on the sidewalk in front of them, took one look at Damien, and turned away to flee back to his own yard.
“Good dog! Sorry, Tawny!”
Tawny waved cheerfully back, and she and Damien resumed their walk.
She was relieved when he slipped his hand into hers, and wondered what her neighbor would tell the rest of the town.
The sunset cast long shadows over everything, and stained the trees and houses in pinks and oranges. The air was sweet with new green things and fresh-cut grass, and it wasn’t long before they came to her front gate.
Tawny didn’t want to let go of the moment. “Do you... want to come in and have a cup of coffee?”
“I would like to come in,” Damien said gravely.
Tawny was unlocking her door before she recognized that he hadn’t agreed to the coffee. “I might have a bottle of wine in the pantry...” she suggested as she led him in and turned on the light.
Damien kicked the door shut behind them, and growled, “Tawny, may I ki—”
Tawny didn’t let him finish, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing herself up onto his mouth and against his body. It had been an entire day since he had last kissed her, and longer than that since he’d really kissed her.
And he could really kiss.
“Tawny, may I...”
Tawny didn’t let him finish, but walked backwards to her bedroom, dragging him with her as she slipped her sweater off. Her mouth must have been getting used to his beard, because the burn was less on her lips and more in her loins. She wanted him, and she knew, from pressing up against him, that he wanted her no less.
“Tawny, may I...” He was fingering the buttons of her sundress.
“Please don’t,” she said breathlessly, and he froze in consternation.
“They are only for decoration,” Tawny explained. “There’s a zipper in the back. And yes, you may...”
Then he was sitting behind her on the bed, drawing her close up against him while he unzipped the dress and drew it off over her head. For a moment, Tawny was afraid to turn, afraid to let him see her in only her underthings. But it wasn’t like her face was promising anything her body couldn’t deliver, and Tawny took a breath and faced him.
All of her worries dissolved at his expression.
His silver eyes were full of hunger.
Hunger for her.
“Damien,” she whispered, savoring the name in her mouth.
She was standing very close to him, and it wasn’t close enough at all. “Damien, may I...?” She fingered his collar, and the buttons that kept her from his skin at last.
She wasn’t sure how he managed it, but with clever fingers and perhaps a few lost buttons, he was shirtless at last, and his chest was everything that Tawny had suspected it was underneath, dusted with silver curls.
“Tawny, may I kiss y—”
“Yes!” Tawny said quickly, desperately.
Then he was kissing her again, and it was even more than before, more skin contact, more of his beautiful, big arms around her.
“Tawny, may I...?” He had a finger in the waistband of her underwear, and he was kissing the side of her neck. She was not entirely sure where her bra had gone. Had she taken
it off herself, while he was juggling buttons?
“Yes!” Tawny gasped, trying to figure out his belt.
He took pity on her, and stripped off his own pants rather than making her solve them herself, and then they were naked, and standing, vulnerable, together.
“Tawny,” he said, running big hands down her shoulders. “Tawny,” he said, cupping a breast worshipfully. “Tawny...”
She had never loved her name so much as she did when he said it.
He was fully, impressively erect, and Tawny had to ask, “May I?” and touch him when he hissed a desperate agreement.
For a long moment, they simply caressed each other, gently, full of wonder and anticipation.
Then he asked again, “Tawny, may I?”
And at her wordless, eager agreement, he was laying her back down on her bed and climbing to cover her, kissing her neck as she arched to meet him.
He paused before he entered her, a tease of pressure at her wet, eager entrance. “Tawny, may I?”
“Yes!” she cried, and she continued to say so again, and again, long after he had stopped asking, as he brought her to places she’d never imagined.
Chapter 14
Damien opened his eyes to find a pair of unblinking emerald eyes fixed on him.
“Good... morning,” he said in surprise.
Lady Gray fluffed up to twice her resting size, then hissed and fled.
Damien’s lion chuckled.
There was sunshine spilling into the room through gaps and edges of the curtains around the window. Overstuffed bookcases lined every available wall, and a small pile of books with library tags was on the white painted bedside table. Most of them had bookmarks in them.
The closet door was wide open, revealing a selection of hanging blouses and a handful of simple dresses and broomstick skirts. The shoe caddy at the bottom had three pairs of sneakers, winter boots, flowered rubber boots, and one pair of white heels that looked like they had never been worn.