by C. C. Gibbs
Her arms twined around his neck, she smiled up at him. ‘Just so you know, I get all sexed up when you’re demanding and moody.’
He had a pretty good idea already that she did, considering their time in Hong Kong, but he only said, ultra polite, ‘Thanks for the data point. I’ll keep it in mind. Now, what do you want to do?’
‘Really? My choice?’
He hesitated only a second before he said, ‘Your choice, babe. I owe you.’
She pointed at the bookshelf. ‘Show me some of the books you liked to read when you were young.’
Having anticipated a sexual request, he did a double take.
She gave him a wide-eyed look of innocence. ‘I’d like to know. Start with your favourite.’
‘Grant’s Memoirs.’ He slid off the bed and moved towards the shelf. ‘It’s a fucking good read.’ And coming back to the bed, he described his favourite scenes, the reasons why, how he’d first discovered the books when he was eleven.
She tried not to appear openly adoring, and asked questions with a nominal neutrality. She might have even succeeded in concealing her doting affection because, after a time, he turned his head on his pillow, his gaze open and warm, and said, ‘Tell me about your favourite book.’
He ignored the fact that he’d never asked a woman that question, never even considered a conversation about books relevant to male–female discourse.
When Kate said, ‘Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings,’ he smiled and said, ‘Of course.’
And when she’d finished explaining her love of the story, she sat up and said softly, ‘Are you OK with me here?’
There was a long pause while he stared at her, then he let out a small breath. ‘I want you with me. I’ll deal with it.’
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
His lips formed a little smile. ‘Baby, that’s too big a job even for your self-confidence. I don’t know how many therapists have tried and failed.’ His eyes glittered suddenly with suppressed rage and he dragged in a long, slow breath.
Crackling static shot through the room, as if forked lightning had hit. All the air seemed to disappear. Kate’s voice was faint. ‘How many?’
He took another deep breath, raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I lost count.’ He paused, then looked at her and smiled. ‘You’re being incredibly well-behaved. Don’t worry. I’m perfectly sane.’
‘You’re saner than anyone I know, Dominic,’ she said quietly. ‘Really.’
He looked at her from under the dark fan of his lashes, swallowed. ‘You sure you want to hear this?’
‘I like when you talk to me. I like to hear you talk.’ I like everything about you.
He nodded in resignation or weariness.
She didn’t dare breathe, fearful he’d change his mind and shrug himself back into his inaccessible habitat.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he said with a scowl.
She wanted to say, There’s nothing you can tell me that will change the way I feel about you. But she only shook her head. ‘I won’t.’
‘When I was a child,’ he began softly, a small frown settling between his brows, ‘my mother was under the impression I wanted to kill her. That didn’t mean I was going to do it, although there were definitely times,’ he said, his voice trailing off. He took a breath. ‘Anyway, she took pleasure in emotionally harassing me for some goddamn reason. And I fought back. So starting at age six, she sent me to one psychiatrist after another. When they each, in turn, realized she was most of the problem, she’d cancel my appointments and find another shrink. And so on and so on. I can’t tell you how many kind, or incompetent, or downright dangerous therapists I saw, how many thousands of pills I didn’t swallow. You get good at it. I could hold a pill in my mouth for however long it took before I was able to spit it out. Even if I had to open my mouth for them. Even if I had to drink a fucking glass of water in front of them.’
‘Jeez. Is that even legal? Giving drugs to a six-year-old? Especially like that?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘It is until you get old enough to find a way out. What I learned early on, though, was how to shut down in under three seconds. How to survive in a hostile world. Both have come in handy in my business.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Lemonade out of lemons, right? And Melanie was always there when I got home. She knew how to make me feel better, calm me down. Keep me from actually killing my mother.’
Kate’s heart was thumping in her chest. She was speechless.
He gave her a sideways look. ‘Hey, it’s not so bad. I didn’t kill her, OK? And it was a long time ago. I rarely see either of my parents; the war’s pretty much over. Very little radioactive fallout.’ But the faint bitterness in his voice was apparent.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
‘Don’t be. It was a long time ago.’ Something tightened in his jaw, then he raised one of his heart-stopping smiles and held out his hand. ‘Come on, baby, you’re here so I don’t think about any of that shit. Tell me one of your stories about growing up with Gramps and Nana. Tell me something good.’
Her hand in his, she began talking, chattering, rambling on, making jokes, telling him about Nana’s still with the detail of a scientist because he seemed interested. Then about Gramps’s gun collection that had him asking questions. After that, stories about her dog and cat, about summer camps. Wanting to make him happy, wanting him to forget the frightened six-year-old at the psychiatrist, wanting him to smile and lose that strained look he’d had talking about his childhood.
Before long, the furrow between his brows disappeared and he seemed relaxed, almost content. He half lifted his head off the pillow, then sat up in the graceful flow of muscle that never ceased to electrify her senses, took her by the shoulders, dropped back down and pulled her into the warmth of his body. ‘You’re helping me more than you know, Katherine.’ There was no sharpness to his voice now, no edge, just a quiet softness. ‘You’ll have to send me a bill for therapy services,’ he murmured, closing his eyes.
She inhaled the scent of him, the sweet musk and cedar, took pleasure in the warmth of his skin under her cheek, the taut, supple muscle beneath the bronzed flesh – a body disciplined by a hard, disciplined mind. And she felt like crying for the little boy who hadn’t swallowed all those pills, for the child victimized by the cruelty of adults who owed him love and failed him. Who hadn’t just failed him but mistreated him.
They slept for a time and when they woke, they indulged their senses in amorous play, then prompted by a jet-lag lethargy, napped again. Eventually, Dominic coaxed Kate into the shower with promises of sex, then afterwards, driven by hunger, he found them robes to go downstairs. Dominic, Kate at his side, peered into a commercial-sized fridge contemplating the provisions within. Four of the shelves held covered dishes, each labelled with instructions for heating or not.
Kate pointed at a cling-film-wrapped salad that was marked: Do Not Microwave. ‘She’s not sure you know not to heat a salad?’
Dominic rolled his eyes. ‘I did once and Patty’s never forgotten. That I was stoned out of my mind at the time apparently wasn’t excuse enough for her.’ He pulled out a dish of enchiladas, a plate of Mongolian beef and the salad. ‘Take out that rice pudding, will you?’ He pointed with the enchilada dish. ‘You have to taste the best pudding in the world.’
‘There’s modest praise,’ she teased.
‘I kid you not, baby. It’s world class. Patty flew to New York and coaxed the recipe from a chef who’d refused my request. It’s an Afghani recipe with pistachios, cardamom and some other stuff. Anyway, I’m eternally grateful to Patty. And for those less enthusiastic,’ he said with a smile, nodding at a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of Darth Vader. ‘Cookies?’ His smile widened. ‘Silly question. I ordered chocolate milk too. Unless you want a beer or a drink.’
After heating up the dishes in the microwave, they carried their smorgasbord upstairs and spread it out on the bed, along with beer for Dominic and chocolate milk for
Kate. Then they fed each other Patty’s best efforts like lovers do when they’re aglow with feel-good sensations, when they can’t get enough touching, when bliss is lighting up their brains, and smiling seems a natural right.
It was a day of pleasure and content, of small bewitchments and off-the-charts rapture. But Dominic kept an eye on the clock and the time finally arrived when he gave Kate a kiss, climbed out of bed and said over his shoulder as he walked away, ‘We have to get dressed for Melanie’s party. I had some clothes delivered for you. So don’t sulk, OK?’
Kate gave him a dirty look anyway – or tried to, although she mostly just stared at him because he was standing splendidly nude across the room at the entrance to his walk-in closet and looking incredibly yummy. Damn, if she was going to make a reasonable case for her independence, she really had to ignore all that stunning maleness.
‘You never quit do you,’ she said. Then sighed. ‘Am I some toy for you to dress? Or are you ashamed to be seen with me in my ordinary clothes?’
He swung around to face her in a torque of sleek, tensile muscle and restive impatience. ‘Neither. Come on, baby,’ he grumbled. ‘Didn’t anyone ever give you presents? Maybe we should see some crazy therapist so he can tell you to knock it off.’
She marvelled at his capacity to so unflappably overlook the psychiatric blight of his childhood, so she answered with equal disengagement. ‘Or she could tell you to knock it off. ’Cause I’m right.’
His eyes suddenly creased with amusement.
‘What?’
‘Therapists don’t use words like right or wrong. They prefer grey, equivocal words. Repeat-what-you-just-heard-me-say compromises that aren’t really compromises but a form of apathy. Obviously, you’ve never been to one.’
‘No. Although I’d like someone to tell you that you can’t order people around twenty-four/seven.’
‘You may have noticed I’m having a little trouble with you,’ he said, drily.
She slid down lower on the pillows, did a motorboat sound with her lips, studied her painted toenails. ‘I’m probably overreacting to your gifts,’ she said evenly, still looking at her toes. ‘So I give up. Happy now?’
‘Let me get this straight. You’re saying you’ll wear some of these clothes? Hey, look at me.’
She looked up with calculated slowness so he didn’t think she was giving in on every little thing. ‘If you must know, you’ve exhausted me into capitulation.’
‘I like that word capitulation,’ he said with a twitch of his lips.
‘Don’t get used to it,’ she muttered.
He quickly put up his hands in surrender. ‘Understood.’
She gave him a faint smile. ‘You really are on your best behaviour.’
‘Yeah, well’ – a teasing grin – ‘I have plans.’
‘I think we both do.’ She was ten times, maybe a thousand times more susceptible to Dominic’s magnetism, to his charisma and allure in this bedroom where so much of his childhood and youth were on display: in the photos on the walls, the trophies on the shelves, the collection of tin soldiers in the glass cabinet, the shelves of well-read books. He’d allowed her into his life, into his home, casually offered up his sister’s friendship. Not that he wasn’t staking ownership as well, she understood – but with a slightly pained expression and a polite smile that only made him more lovable. She wasn’t sure her independence would survive against the full onslaught of his wilfulness.
But she loved him – anyway and every way.
Dominic wasn’t the only one who subscribed to a what the fuck philosophy.
Looking up, she took in Dominic’s raised eyebrows. He must have asked her something.
‘I’m done. Is that what you wanted to know? I’ll wear whatever you want.’
‘That’s not sarcasm?’
She shook her head.
‘Good. So first, thank you. I really like to buy you things. I like to show you off. I can’t help it.’ He smiled. ‘Really, thanks.’
She felt weirdly pleased when she shouldn’t, when the phrase show you off was seriously retro and against all her feminist convictions. ‘I understand feeling helpless.’ She half lifted her hand, searching for the right words. ‘I tell myself not to get involved. Yet here I am – involved. I’m letting you talk me into these clothes too. How’s that for helpless?’
With Kate in an accommodating mood – over and above sex, where she was almost always accommodating – Dominic decided to push his luck. ‘Could we put that in our exclusivity contract – that I can buy you stuff when we’re together?’
Her green-eyed gaze turned guarded. ‘What stuff?’
‘Just gifts.’
‘This argument’s never going away, is it?’
‘It’s a stupid argument,’ he said quietly.
‘Oh, hell.’ A sigh, a little bunny twitch of her nose, a grimace. ‘No jewellery, though.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too expensive.’
‘We’ll toss a coin.’
She gave him a jaundiced look.
‘You don’t trust me?’
‘Not exactly. I’ve got a pile of luggage full of clothes and jewellery in my living room in Boston as we speak.’
‘We’ll talk about it later.’
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed, sitting up and jabbing a finger at him. ‘You already bought me jewellery!’
‘Nothing grand.’
‘Anything that’s not from Walmart is grand to me.’
‘You have to broaden your horizons, baby. No shit.’ Then he changed the subject because he was willing to settle for one victory at a time. He’d talk her into the jewellery later. When they were having sex.
She was a pushover after a few orgasms.
And some of the jewellery was for sex play.
He smiled a few moments later when she answered his question with categorical left-brain indifference. ‘You decide what you want me to wear. I don’t care.’
‘Now you’re talking. And by the way, it’s a real turn-on dressing you.’
‘Ditto here – turn-on-wise.’ If his spending vast sums of money on her could be ignored, the hands-on activity of him dressing her was flagrantly arousing.
Her smile was really hot and sexy. He almost gave in to temptation until he glanced at the clock. ‘Are you going to get out of bed or should I come get you?’
She patted the bed. ‘Why don’t you come here.’
He reluctantly shook his head. ‘No can do. We don’t have that kind of time.’
‘When do we have to be there?’
‘In fifteen minutes.’
‘You mean we could have been making ourselves happy in bed instead of arguing? Why didn’t you say something?’
‘It’s hard to read you sometimes, baby. I’m doing my best.’
‘Humph.’
‘We’ll be back in a couple of hours. Or if you get hard up we can go into one of Melanie’s bathrooms and lock the door.’
A wide-eyed look. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Just saying.’
‘I hope you’re not saying you’ve done that before at your sister’s.’
His face was impassive. ‘I’m just trying to be helpful.’
‘It might be more helpful if you put on some clothes. You look too damn scrumptious standing there.’
He dressed in under three minutes, like he did, all male practicality and resourcefulness: pulling on boxers, black jeans – zip, button – shrugging into a black cashmere V-neck sweater once it was over his head, then jerking on socks and black suede lace-up boots, smoothly tying them with a few economical twists of his fingers.
She didn’t know if a dressed Dominic was any better. It was almost impossible not to drool at such awesome sexiness. He was extraordinarily handsome dressed all in black, dark, intense, sensual, a graphic novel kind of hero, unequivocally hard-edged and powerful. His longer hair was the same style he wore in most of the surfing photos that cluttered the room. One huge co
lour photo covered an entire wall. Dominic was in the pocket of a powerful wave, riding the face in a fluid turn, the white-capped lip so high it dwarfed him, and even from a distance, even racing against the thundering blast of water churning behind him, you could see his beautiful, wide smile.
‘You surf much now?’ she asked, pointing to the photo. ‘Or is that in the past?’
‘I do when I have time. But that was one of my more awesome days,’ he said, grinning. ‘In Hawaii. The beach had been blackballed because the waves were so dangerous. But that just means you have to ride the wave hard core, no fear. Everyone crashed that day except me. I iced that kamikaze wave; a friend of mine caught me on camera and there it is. One of my better memories.’
‘You look young.’
He pursed his lips for a second. ‘I must have been fifteen or sixteen – no, sixteen: I was living here already. I bought this place so I could be near Melanie. I helped babysit her first two kids before I went to college.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘What?’
‘Live on your own at sixteen.’
He shrugged. ‘I never asked. Melanie signed for me. It worked out.’
As Kate bit back the dozen prying questions crowding her brain, Dominic tapped his watch. ‘Enough memory lane shit,’ he said. ‘We should get you dressed.’ He held out the clothes draped over his arm. ‘Although, if you want, there’s still enough time for me to give you a little prize for being so nice.’
She smiled. ‘Am I nice?’
‘Nicer than anyone I know,’ he said softly, his eyes half-lidded, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
A hot current of need ran up her spine. She’d seen that look before. ‘Tell me I don’t have to talk to your mother,’ she said quickly, rising from the bed, her heart fluttering against her ribs. She refused to melt into a puddle of lust on cue.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said calmly, as if he hadn’t registered her reaction. ‘I don’t want you talking to my mother. She’s troublesome,’ he added in vast understatement.
