by Holley Trent
“You could have your loving loudness.”
“Maybe I could.” She wanted it so badly. She just couldn’t see how having it was possible yet, if ever. “I could have it, but at what cost?”
“Mmm.” With that non-committal sound, he leaned forward and picked up a piece of prosciutto.
Maybe she’d said too much, but she couldn’t take it back. He had to understand that she didn’t want to give everything up. Maybe those words would help him understand.
She hoped someone understood.
CHAPTER TEN
At what cost?
Tim gave his rye and cola a little shake to make the ice settle and set the cup on the seatback tray. He didn’t usually drink while flying, but his brain was a mess and he was desperate to suppress all the futile wondering.
It didn’t matter how busy Tim made himself on that plane. He couldn’t stop chewing on Valerie’s words. He knew a little bit about giving things up. Sacrifice was part and parcel of being an adult, but he wondered if sometimes people were too quick to martyr themselves.
If he’d understood her right, she wanted the same things he did—a house with some kids who took up a bunch of space and made a lot of noise. A home, really. And he couldn’t help but picture what having that with her would look like.
“You’re in a shitty mood. You need to deal with that.” Heidi pushed her sleeping mask down over her eyes and slipped more cozily down into her first-class seat.
“I’m in the same mood I’ve been in for days.”
“And like I said—it’s a shitty one. What are you stressed about? Your dad’s going to keep an eye on Kevin while we’re away on business, and I’m only going to be in Bermuda for a few days, anyway.”
“I wasn’t worried about Kevin, for once, but thanks for planting that seed in my head.” Tim closed his hand around his drink and stared at the dark liquid, unseeing.
He didn’t get that kid of his. Not at all.
Before he and Heidi had driven to the airport in Norfolk, Tim had tried to sit down with Kevin and ask if he wanted Tim to move the trip back. Tim would have if Kevin wanted him to—if he wanted to try to connect and break down some walls between the two of them.
Kevin’s response had been, “Who cares?”
Tim’s dad had told him to just go, and that he’d try to make sense of Kevin. Tim half hoped he’d fail just so he could be assured that it wasn’t only him having a hard go of it.
“Do you know what usually helps to improve my mood?” Heidi asked.
Tim laughed, probably for the first time in a day. “If it were as simple as having sex, I’d ask you to endure me long enough for me to alleviate the frustration.”
“Ha ha.” She put her head against the window and grinned. “I could probably talk myself into it, though. Just give me some warning so I can get into the right headspace.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
“Whatever happened to the last chick you were…” She let the words fall off, and probably for good reason. Even in First Class, alternative lifestyles couldn’t be discussed without horrifying the folks in the neighboring rows—not even in veiled language.
“That I was seeing?” he provided.
“Right.”
“I saw her once.”
“Oh. Like the others, then.”
“It was an interesting four hours in her acquaintance, but suffice it to say, I didn’t feel much of a click. She was too enthusiastic. Too…plastic.” He liked having his cock sucked as much as any other guy, but usually, women weren’t so giddy when asking to do it.
“Sounds like my last one,” Heidi said.
“What went wrong?”
“I just got the feeling there was more curiosity than intent to make something of it.”
He grunted.
That was one of Heidi’s biggest problems when it came to dating. She was a beautiful woman. Finding a woman to take home wasn’t too arduous a task. Her companions were all perfectly willing to be with her for a night or two, but when it was time to go out and actually date, they’d all say they really wanted to find a nice guy to settle down with.
“Clay says he could set me up with someone,” she said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, he could probably shake someone out of his extensive network.”
“I was hoping my next relationship would come together a little more organically.”
“You stealing my potential dates is what you call organic?”
Heidi’s teasing smile was thousand-watt. “I can’t help that I have more swagger than you.”
“Then remind me to keep you away from the lady I have in my crosshairs right now.”
She lifted the eye cover and gave him a how-dare-you glare. “Who is she and what does she look like?”
“Like a ghost. She’s not sticking around.”
“I thought you preferred it that way.”
“I thought I did, too.”
Heidi sat up straighter and removed the mask entirely. “You found someone you like. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I guess I am.”
“Well, damn. Tell me about her.”
“I don’t know what I can say except that she’s transient. Moving on to the next thing as soon as she can.”
“What is it about her that appeals to you?”
Good question.
Tim had been operating more on instinct than logic and hadn’t really tried to put Valerie’s allure into simple words. His gut had just been telling him, “Fuck yes,” and he never ignored his gut. Brainstorming the situation with Heidi wasn’t the worst idea ever, though. He thought maybe she could help him make sense of how to approach Valerie.
“I think it’s the passion she has for what she does,” Tim said. “She’s got something of a one-track mind for success, and that’s so fucking raw and relatable, you know? But that’s the same passion that’s going to keep her from sticking around. I have no idea how she would react to knowing about you or meeting Kevin, but I haven’t let myself put the cart before the horse.”
“At our ages, I don’t think pondering the what-ifs is avoidable.” Heidi tweaked her face into its familiar thinking configuration and tapped her chin. “Well. You’ll just have to figure out some way to make her stay, or at the very least, promise to come back.”
He scoffed and took a sip of his drink. “I’ll solve the problems of world hunger and poverty while I’m at it.”
“You could start with expensive gifts and see where that gets you.”
“I doubt that would work on her. She doesn’t seem to care one way or another about my net worth.”
“Seriously?”
“Dead serious.”
That said, before leaving for the airport, he had arranged for a special surprise to be delivered to the business office in Shora. He could only hope she didn’t throw it in his face the next time she saw him. Assuming there was a next time.
Kevin was obviously begging for attention and there were only so many ways Tim could divide his time.
He swirled his drink and watched it circle around the plastic cup. “I keep wondering if I should go ahead and put this thing on ice now. To not get too invested in something with a low probability of panning out.”
Heidi squinted at him. “You don’t mean the drink, do you?”
“No.”
She sighed. “Tim, no. You deserve to be happy, and if there’s even the smallest chance you’re going to click with someone, you should pursue her aggressively.”
“I thought the same thing, but it seems like a potentially futile endeavor.”
Valerie wasn’t a woman who needed anyone. For that matter, he wasn’t that kind of person, either, but sometimes wants were as important as needs. Wants fed happiness, and Tim would take happiness wherever he could get it.
He hit the call button for the flight attendant to get another drink and finished the one in front of him. “Say you’re right that I should go after her. The problem is that
I’m not comfortable with—”
“With being selfish for a change?” Heidi interjected. “Is that what you were going to say? Don’t lie to me, Tim. I know you better than anyone.”
He grunted. It was true that she did. “Yeah, that was what I was going to say.”
“Put things in the proper context. Kevin’s not going anywhere, but that lady is, huh? Two weeks probably isn’t going to change how much he hates us, so you might as well try to make something good happen.” She put the sleep mask back into place and pulled her blanket up to her neck. “We’re going to figure Kevin out. I promise. But don’t let the fact that we haven’t yet get in the way of forging other relationships. That’d be like deciding not to feed one pet because the other one doesn’t want to eat.”
The analogy was a little far-fetched for Tim, but maybe Heidi had a bit of a point in there somewhere.
___
Valerie was at her desk in the office at Shora trying to work out an unexpected land-grading problem when the parcel delivery guy stepped in.
He set a box on her desk and thrust his package scanner and stylus at her. “Sign that, will ya?”
“Who is that from? I wasn’t expecting anything.” She scribbled her signature in the electronic field and handed the device back to him.
Packages containing fixtures, tools, and forms turned up all the time but those usually came in the morning on the big truck. This delivery guy was the one she rarely saw because he generally made residential deliveries.
“No idea, but we’re pretty certain it doesn’t contain any explosives…so, there’s some good news for ya.”
“Well, that’s something.”
He grinned and shifted his weight a bit.
She pushed up an eyebrow at him. Usually, the guys were in a big hurry to get moving. They had time quotas for their deliveries or something, so he had to be standing around for a reason. She hoped he wouldn’t be the fifth person in two days to ask her what he needed to do to get a special “early buyer” discount on a house in Shora. That was Carine’s bailiwick, not hers. “Need something else?” Valerie asked, wary.
“Nah, I just…I wasn’t going to say anything, but since there’s no one around…”
“What?”
“That was you at Clay’s last week, right?”
Fuck.
Valerie closed her eyes and let her head fall back. “God.”
I knew it. Sneaky shit always bites me in the ass.
“I mean, I’m not gonna say anything,” he said in a voice tinged with adamancy. “I can’t say anything. I’m trying to keep this job, and the grapevine shakes way too fast around here.”
No kidding.
“I didn’t even go inside,” she said. “How did you see me?”
“Oh, I know you didn’t go in. I saw you in the morning when Carine couldn’t get her car started. I was looking out the window.”
“Ah. Serves me right for trying to help people, I guess.” Valerie straightened up and took the guy in. Tall, tan, and smooth as a baby’s ass. She would have bet her laptop that clean shave he’d managed on his arms and legs was just as careful on the places his clothes covered. Valerie happened to prefer men who had hair in all the places God intended.
“So, whose pet are you?” she asked.
He cringed, obviously at her candor, but quickly smoothed his expression. “No one’s, at the moment.”
“I doubt I’d know them anyway, so your secret’s safe with me.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “You interested?”
“In putting a collar on you? Nah. I’m too lazy to be anyone’s master. Besides, I’m out of the scene now.”
“How about a pity fuck, then?”
She laughed. “I’m flattered, but no thanks. I’m trying to be good.”
“Too bad. Let me know if you ever change your mind.” He gave her a wink and went on about his business delivering parcels with friendly, speedy service.
“Jeez.” She grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk drawer and shook her head as she cut through the tape. She’d worked in enough small towns that she wasn’t surprised about everyone being connected in some way, but she hadn’t thought it’d be so easy to run into people who liked to explore kinks on the down-low.
Forget about seven degrees of separation—she didn’t even think there were two there.
Once the tape was sliced, she tossed the scissors onto the desktop and pushed back the flaps of the short, wide box. It was filled to the top with pretty lavender tissue paper, which she removed and tossed into the waste bin beside the desk. Then she stared down at the four rows and four columns of plastic-covered silk.
“Is…this…”
She pulled out a sheer black bud from the center and turned it to find the lacy top and the gold embossed sticker that sealed the product.
“Stockings?”
They were stockings, and apparently in every color imaginable. There was black, of course. There was also a white pair, nude ones, bright ones, and some with elegant patterns and saucy seams.
At the bottom of the box was a heavy lavender-and-gold striped cardstock envelope sealed with the same sticker as the hose rosettes. She slipped a finger under the flap and removed the laser-printed card.
Do you need garters, too?
It was signed simply with “-T.”
“That bastard. The nerve of him.” Reflexively, Valerie started to crumple the card to trash it, but then she stopped. She was on autopilot and about to trash a perfectly useful gift out of sheer stubbornness.
Why am I mad?
Tim was a dom. He’d done what doms did. He’d sent her something he wanted to see her wear—and he’d probably insist she show him and expect a proper thank-you for it. It wasn’t an excessive gift, though it was a bit personal, and that made her wonder. Would he have sent those to any other woman in nude hose who’d caught his fancy, or was she a special case?
She carried the box upstairs to her bedroom and hid it in the closet. Out of sight, out of mind. She couldn’t devote any energy to pondering what Tim must have been thinking when he’d ordered those or what he hoped would come of it. Instead, she needed to be figuring out how to compensate for the big boulder in the way of a Shora house’s basement excavation. The rock needed to be removed either by dynamite or an act of God, and she didn’t have either of those things in her budget.
She returned to the office downstairs in time to grab the ringing phone off the cradle. “Valerie Lawson,” she said into the handset.
“Val, it’s Carine. I’m bringing some folks out to tour the models. They’re driving me. Can you take me home afterward?”
“You know, you could just stay here, right?”
“Do you mind?”
“Nah.”
“Thank you so much. That’ll save me the drive out there tomorrow morning. Give me a couple of hours.”
“Take your time,” Valerie said with feigned sunshine in her voice. “I need to deal with a rock.”
___
It took Valerie almost two hours to decide that the rock had been there since the Earth had cooled, probably, and so she’d allow it to stay there a while longer. She had some autonomy on the site, so she was going to scrap the unfinished basement and put the house up on a foundation like most homes in the area. That close to the river and sound, she didn’t like the idea of basements, anyway, but the developer had pushed for that model home to have one. Valerie suspected potential buyers would prefer to have a bigger garage and a nice, elevated, wrap-around porch than a basement, but she was used to being overruled. Common sense wasn’t so common amongst the executives at Lipton Properties.
Carine blew into the office with her jewel-tone green blouse clinging to her chest from sweat and wisps of hair stuck to her cheeks. “Lord, have mercy. Those folks had me standing outside in the burning hot sun for twenty minutes deliberating on how large of a lot they needed and how close to the manmade pond they want to be. After all that, they barely had approval fo
r a loan on a house back in the damned woods with no electric and sewer connections.”
Valerie cringed. “Sorry they wasted your time.”
Carine set down her briefcase and flopped into the chair by the file cabinets. “Might not be a total waste. The lady wants to move her mother in with them to watch the kids, and the mother might actually have the money for one of those houses with the in-law suites. I’ll make the sale, eventually, but slow to come to fruition.”
“Ugh.” Valerie scrunched her nose. “I couldn’t do your job. I like my income to be reliable.”
“Me too, but, what else am I gonna do? I’ve got a mostly useless college degree for a field that basically dead right now, so I picked up real estate as a fallback plan. I knew what I was getting into when I started the real estate training. Everyone told me the money was going to be slow to come. The first couple of years I did this, I had a part-time retail gig, too. I might go back to retail for a while. I’ve been at this for five years, and I’ve been enduring a lot more famine periods than feast ones.”
“The market is turning around, though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but you know places like this are the last to see the trickle-down. I think the success will depend a lot on how they’ll promote this place and who’ll look for homes here. Have you seen the marketing collaterals from the developer?”
“I haven’t, but my understanding was that they were trying to market the place from folks out of the area moving from places with higher costs of living. They’d basically come in and pay in full with the cash from the sale of their previous homes. They’d be folks who wanted to be near the coast and didn’t need to commute to work.”
“Huh. I haven’t seen any of those folks yet, but that’s not surprising. I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing any of those big spenders until the last of the models go up.”
“That’ll be next month, and then you’ll have a frenzy of construction.” Valerie grinned. “I won’t be here to see it.”
“Boo.” Carine fanned her damp shirt.
Valerie cringed at the sight. That fabric had to feel gross. “Feel free to root around upstairs and see if you can find something dry that’ll fit you. Be forewarned that I’ve got a T-shirt shortage. Leah steals them all whenever she visits me.”
