Twisted Strands

by Lilia Moon

  I lay the twisted strands of dandelion-yellow silk across Matteo’s palms.

  His breath catches, but his eyes don’t open.

  I let go of a rope that has more of me in it than anything I’ve ever made and put my hands back in my lap. “You can look now.”

  My words are so soft that I wonder for a moment if he hears them. Then his eyes open, but he doesn’t look at the rope first. He looks at me. Deep into me, at all the flowers of who I am tonight.

  Then he looks down at the gift in his hands, bright yellow even in the dim light. His fingers close around it, enveloping the silk in his fists. He brings it to his cheek, and for a moment, his eyes close again.

  When he opens them, I can see that he understands. And I can see his joy.

  He doesn’t need the words, but I want him to have them anyhow. “Stay. I would like to know what we can be together.” I swallow. “I’d like that very much.”

  He reaches for me, wrapping my hands around the silk along with his. It’s not enough. I need to feel us staked together again, and I’m not ready for that much tenderness to be the talk of the eastern shore. “How do you feel about tapas to go?”

  His sunbeam grin nearly splits his face in two.

  Good enough. I turn my head to see if I can find Renee, and spy her standing in the shadows again—with a really large paper bag in her hands. She crosses over to our table, her eyes brighter than they usually are, and sets the bag down front of us. “There are three crème brûlées in there. Don’t let them get cold.”

  Cold is definitely not on the menu. I stand up, feeling almost lost and entirely found, and very wobbly on my feet.

  Matteo’s arm slides around my waist, strong and warm. His other hand deposits neat coils of yellow rope back into the drawstring bag they came from.

  That will be an interesting part of the story to explain tomorrow. Or not.

  Orchids get to have a few mysteries.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Liane

  I expected to be plastered against the wall inside my front door when we left the Black Salt Cafe, but somewhere on the ride home in his truck, the energy shifted. It’s not any less potent, and I’m very sure there’s some really fabulous sex in my immediate future, but something else is going on.

  Another fiber tucking itself in to tonight’s rope.

  Matteo looks over at me from where he’s tending to the newly lit fire. Ambience, mostly—it’s not cold enough to need one, and the sliding glass doors are open to the night behind him. I can hear the trees whispering and smell the cool, clear evening outside, and it somehow fits with what’s happening inside. He smiles and lifts up the drawstring bag he hasn’t let go of since we left the restaurant. It rode in his lap all the way home.

  Which touches something deep inside me. I spun that silk in the garden where I’m planted. Took him to eat food that all got grown within a hundred miles of here. And somewhere in doing that, I’ve realized I haven’t yet found all of the possibilities that live close to home. There’s more that I can let myself be, and he would welcome those things in me. Encourage them. Tie me up so I can’t just head back to the comfortable parts of my garden and cocoon there. I know I have a tendency to do that, and I already have two best friends and a nosy neighbor tasked with not letting me stay there.

  He would be different—but not nearly as incompatible with my life as I’ve been afraid he might be.

  I watch him idly scratch Trouble’s head as he moves a log closer to the flames. I know what wants to be part of this rope we’re making. I can feel it drafting, light and easy, adding itself to my twist like it’s entirely meant to be there.

  He stands up, kitten in one hand, drawstring bag in the other, and crosses the small distance that divides us. He doesn’t join me on the couch. He deposits Trouble in my lap and sits down on the floor at my feet instead, lifting them into his lap. His fingers run down the ties holding on my sandals. They’re a lot messier than when I first did them. Getting ropes to stay put is obviously an acquired skill.

  He finds the ends where I tucked them away and starts to undo the simple pattern of diamonds that took me nearly an hour and several helpful online videos to create. I let myself sink a little deeper into the cushions at my back. “Next time, you get to tie them on.”

  He chuckles, but there’s something vulnerable riding in his eyes. “I really like that there will be a next time.”

  The twist that has been building stops, the spindle absolutely still.

  I stay in the pause for a breath, letting the wisest part of me feel the truth of what I’m about to say. “I don’t take a lot of B&B guests over the summer. Stay here.” I can feel the quivers in my smile. “I want these moments in between the dates too.” The ones with a cat on my lap and a guy building my fire and the sense that sunshine could happen at any moment, even in the dark.

  He looks at me for a long, still moment.

  I need him not to question this. “You’re hereby nominated as chief cat sitter. I also nominate myself as chief cook so that we don’t die.”

  His fingers resume their job of unwrapping my legs, but his eyes never leave mine.

  He’s still waiting for something, and I have no idea what. “I want this, Matteo. I know I wobble sometimes, and I can’t promise that won’t happen tomorrow or next week or next month when I discover you don’t know how to use a vacuum or wash clothes either, but the idea of having you here feels really good.”

  He gives me an entirely sheepish look. “I can wash clothes, but I might need lessons with the vacuum.”

  I laugh hard enough to jiggle Trouble on my lap. “Did your mother never give you any chores growing up?”

  He snorts. “Yes. If you have any plans to add pigs or chickens or grow wheat in your backyard, I’m your guy.”

  I grin at him. “India has chickens.”

  He chuckles and slides one sandal off, which is an amazing feeling, especially when his thumbs find the parts of my arch that are aching from the strange footwear. I rub Trouble so that he purrs too. Spreading the love around.

  Matteo’s thumbs find a spot that makes me squeak, and then whatever it was relaxes and my foot turns into happy goo. I tip my head back against the couch and groan. I could get really used to this.

  He sets that foot down and picks up the other one. “Let me get both your legs naked and then I’ll give you a proper foot rub.”

  I manage to crack an eye open. “I think more than my legs should get naked.”

  I meant him, but from the appreciative hum he makes as he skims his hands up my legs, I don’t think that’s the way he took it.

  I wave my still sandal-clad foot in the air. “Focus, mister.”

  He flashes me a totally unrepentant grin. “You said ‘naked.’”

  Note to self. Don’t interrupt future foot rubs with sexual innuendo. I make a pouty face. Not a mature response, but he got my orchid tonight. He can have my inner five-year-old too.

  Chapter Fifty

  Matteo

  She’s like climbing a tricky rock face, one with tiny holds and breath-snatching views and random flowers growing out of impossible cracks. I move her feet out of the way long enough to relocate to the couch beside her, helping myself to a long, amused kiss on the way.

  Which mostly gets rid of the pout.

  I bring the drawstring bag with me. I have plans for that, as soon as I recover the breath she snatched away with her offer—the one that’s now covered in light joking and no less potent for having a layer of life dusted on top.

  I could stay. Here. Where I would build a rope obstacle course for a kitten and learn how to vacuum and feel my way into true partnership with a woman I’ve only known for three days. That should be the first sign we’ve both lost our minds, but it absolutely isn’t. I know how to do things slowly, and there will be days in this walk ahead of us where that will likely be a good and useful skill. But this sense of comfort stealing over me right now—it’s the gift of fast. Of
one swift tug on a line, and it wasn’t my hand on the rope.

  Liane’s roots make her careful, but they also let her paddle a wildly tippy canoe out onto a lake, and I somehow missed the lesson of that until now. I run my hands up her warm thighs, slipping under the dress that hasn’t gotten nearly enough appreciation tonight and probably won’t now either. It’s doing too much to cover up the wondrous woman underneath.

  She shivers under my touch, and not from the cold. “I forgot that there are some upsides to not wearing pants.”

  I grin, because I love this wry sense of humor of hers. I’ve seen it before, but she’s not using it to push me away this time. She’s using it to ply us together. “Better access. I like it.”

  Her snort morphs into a quiet, pleased sigh as my thumbs rub circles up her inner thighs.

  I study the dress, and the kitten in her lap, and the drawstring bag at my feet. It’s time to make some adjustments. I scoop up Trouble, who has the best sense of timing of any feline I’ve ever met. He’s nearly drunk on sleep, and barely stirs as I resettle him on a small, fuzzy rug in front of the fire.

  Liane doesn’t stir much either, other than a lazy smile as I return to where I left her. I’m tempted to move us closer to the fire too, but for what I have in mind, the couch has her positioned very nicely. I pull a red leather ottoman over and straddle it facing her. I lift her legs and set her feet down in front of me, her knees bent and together. She nestles into the leather cushions behind her, a woman who thinks she’s getting a foot rub.

  I don’t say anything. I just hold up the bag that contains nine meters of yellow silk rope and an unmeasured amount of Liane Granger’s heart. “Let me tie you up, beautiful.”

  Awareness slides into her eyes—and worry. “There’s not very much of it.”

  “There’s enough.” Art isn’t about quantity.

  She nods, almost shyly, but there’s no hesitation. I let her nerves steady mine. I know how to do this. Hands and ropes and trust have been my tools for a long time, and I want to use them to honor what she’s offered this night.

  I slide the rope out of the bag, marveling at its pliant softness. There are good reasons silk isn’t used for most rigging, but for what I’m imagining in my head, it’s exactly right. And my hands, which have a deep fondness for the sturdy feel of hemp and jute, are entirely entranced by what they’re holding. I take the rope out of the bag, settling the loose coils on one knee.

  Time to tie a set of shiny yellow roots.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Liane

  I feel the rope wrap around my ankles once. I wasn’t wrong about its ridiculous softness. Then again, it’s not hard to beat the quality of what hangs out in my canoe’s rope safety bag. One day I’m pretty sure we’re going to laugh about that.

  I jump a little as the rope slides around my baby toe. Not where I was expecting this to go.

  A wrap behind my ankles, and then my other baby toe gets in on the action. It feels strange. Unbalanced.

  His hand smoothes up the side of my calf. “Give me a minute to get the rest of the lattice in place. Then it will feel like it should.”

  I’ve got nowhere to go—and my curiosity has decided against taking a nap after all. I sit up carefully and perch on the edge of the couch with my arms wrapped around my knees, the better to see whatever it is he’s doing with my feet.

  It takes me a moment to catch on, but it’s a simple weave. Twist around the center line, loop around a toe, a turn around my ankles, and repeat on the other side. The rope still feels a little peculiar between my toes, but my eyes are enchanted by the pattern he’s creating. My feet get more sun than the rest of me, and yellow silk over dusky skin is beautiful.

  I sigh out quietly as he wraps my big toes, one at a time, and cinches the lattice tight. I have a moment to be a little sad it’s done, and then his hands are moving again, circling my ankles, one doubled loop after another, laying down a cuff of yellow in their wake.

  I let my fingers trail over the wide band and down to the latticework over the tops of my feet. It has echoes of the tie he did on my arms the day we met, and that finds somewhere soft and sweet to burrow inside me.

  He covers my hands with his, warm and steady and strong. “Your job is to keep this in place.”

  It seems like it will do a very good job of that all by itself—right up until he swoops me up and deposits me back down on the couch again, neatly turned ninety degrees. My feet, which are apparently thinking faster than the rest of me, figure out what they need to do to keep tension on the ropes. Moments later, he has them resting on the slope of the leather arm of the couch. He tucks a couple of pillows under my head and shoulders, and then his hand glides down my belly, over the silky fabric of my dress, and tips my knees gently left until they hit the back of the couch.

  Which is when my brain figures out that this setup is about far more than just my comfort.

  He confuses me when he gets up off the ottoman and walks away, but he’s back a moment later, carrying a bag I totally lost track of. The one with our tapas takeout in it. He smiles at me. “I have it on good authority that there’s a lot of crème brûlée in here and we shouldn’t let it get cold.”

  I reach up, because when there’s flamed-kissed custard on the line, I have seriously grabby hands.

  He chuckles and moves it out of my reach. “Nice try, sweetheart.” He talks over his shoulder as he heads into my kitchen. “I’m going to get a spoon and then I’m going to feed it to you. If you’re good.”

  That seems like a bad idea. “We need household rules if you’re moving in. Number one is no crème brûlée withholding.”

  He pops back out, a small earthenware pot in one hand, a spoon in the other. “Fine. All the crème brûlée you want. I’ll withhold orgasms instead.”

  I’m uncertain which of those should be rule number one, but they definitely both need to be on the list. “We can talk about that once my feet aren’t tied together.”

  He grins as he sits back down on the ottoman. “That will be a while.”

  I kind of figured that. He has a look in his eyes.

  He dips the spoon into the pot and comes out bearing the food of the goddesses. I open my mouth like a baby bird. I don’t know why he’s feeding me, but so long as the crème brûlée arrives in my belly, I’m not going to argue about the delivery system.

  It’s still warm, the earthenware pot having done its job well. Not quite as crispy as at the restaurant, but I’m not burning my tongue eating it, either. It takes three heaping spoonfuls before I find my manners. “You can have some if you want.”

  His eyes twinkle. “All yours. I don’t actually like crème brûlée.”

  I stare at him.

  He chuckles. “Will that get me kicked out of the clubhouse?”

  I pretend to contemplate. “It depends how fast you learn how to vacuum.”

  His laugh turns rueful.

  I pop open my baby-bird mouth again. If I have three of these to eat, I need to keep focused.

  He spoons in more, cooperative guy that he is, and more than the taste of delicious dessert makes its way into my belly. There’s another glow growing there too, tucked in alongside the burnt custard.

  Simple, laughter-infused happiness.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Matteo

  It’s her feet I tied up, but tonight is as much about my roots as hers. The kind that find themselves growing, mildly astonished, in a warm, airy living room open to the night, with a kitten snoring by the fire and a woman who clearly loves crème brûlée more than any other person I know lounging half-naked by my side.

  I dig her out another bite, carefully scraping up the crusty bits on the edges. They look like almost-burnt cheese, which is one of my favorite food groups, and judging by the way they make her moan, they’re on the same scale of delicious.

  I had plans for after I tied her up. Ones that involved languorous orgasms and then some inventive sex with her feet tossed over
my shoulder. Which might still happen, but interesting parts of my anatomy are voting for spooning on the couch in front of the fire instead—and if my cock happens to find a nice silky, warm place to hang out, that would be just fine.

  I set down the pot, which is as closed to licked-clean as I can get it with a spoon, and set a hand on her belly. Then I push at the cushion on the back of the couch. If it’s detachable, this spooning business might actually work.

  She gives me a look that isn’t nearly as crème-brûlée drugged as it should be, and then she crosses her arms, takes hold of her dress, and in one amazing shimmy, pulls it off over her head.

  I stare, because that was one seriously sexy move—and because she’s gorgeous, and other than a scrap of lace over her mound, totally naked.

  My hands head for her breasts, clearly deciding the rest of me is a little slow on the uptake. Spooning can happen later. Much later.

  She laughs, which turns into a hissed moan as I give her nipples a squeeze.

  I lean over and give her a kiss as I squeeze again. “I’ve missed these. I haven’t gotten a chance to touch them all day.”

  “I went to Nelson.” Her cheeks turn a pretty, dusky color in the firelight. “I needed a dress. And shoes. And underwear.”

  I run my fingers down to the scrap of lace. “I’d say you did very well on all three counts. If any of those were for my benefit, I’m deeply grateful.”

  She sighs as my fingers slip under the lace. “I won’t deny you might have been on my mind.” She closes her eyes and snickers quietly. “I don’t know how you’re going to get the underwear off, though. I like them, so no pocketknives.”

  I like them too. I trace the leg opening the long way around. “Preserving sexy underwear can be a house rule.” So can fucking her while she wears it. I slide two fingers into her pussy as prelude.