“Yes.” She took a breath. “I’ll do anything you tell me to do.”
Emotion kindled in those blue-green eyes, telling her she’d struck a spark. “Wait for me upstairs,” he said.
She nodded. She managed not to say “Yes sir,” given that her remark had probably already raised the curiosity of the father. Regardless, she hoped Dale saw her desire to address him properly. From the tightening of his jaw, she expected he did.
—
While she waited on him, she made his bed, washed those couple of dishes, straightened up. The clothes were still going in the dryer, so she sat down in the chair, listened to the rotation in one ear, and his voice rumbling below in the other. From where she was sitting, she could see him finishing up the adoption. When they loaded the dog in the car, the boy sitting in the back with the happy canine, Dale lifted his hand in farewell. She saw the dog pause, look back at Dale, suddenly realizing what he’d known was changing yet again. The boy tousled his ears, reassuring him. The father also twisted around in the seat, giving the dog a pat.
As the car disappeared around the curve, Dale turned, using the crutches to get to the stairs. Once there, she heard the vibration through the apartment’s thin walls as he maneuvered up each step. When he approached the top, she rose to open the door for him, pushing open the screen so he didn’t have to manage that with the crutches.
“You don’t have to open the door for me,” he said shortly. “I do it all the time. Sit down.”
“I don’t mind.” She retreated as he moved into the kitchen, taking it over with his size and presence. “They seem like they’ll be very good to him.”
“Yeah.” He paused, looking at her. She’d sat down when he’d told her to do so, and now her fingers curled in her lap. It was an effort not to fill the silence, but she made herself wait on him. “It’s a good adoption,” he said at last. “I don’t adopt to kids. The adult has to want the dog for himself. That’s so when the kid starts getting into cars, girls, soccer, whatever, I know the dog doesn’t become a piece of the furniture. Bert—the dad—picked Rusty out. Reminds him of the dog he had when he was a kid.”
He shifted. As the silence drew out, Athena rose. “Well, I guess I should be going.”
“Why did you come today, Athena?”
She drew her brows together at the almost accusatory tone. “I thought it would be fun to surprise you with lunch. We seemed to be developing the kind of rapport that would welcome that. I was mistaken. I’m sorry.”
“You already apologized. You don’t need to do it twice.” He noticed the dishes in the drainer, and his lips pressed in a thin line. “And you don’t need to do my goddamned dishes.”
She blinked. “I was occupying myself while waiting, being helpful. Serving.”
His gaze snapped to her. She wasn’t sure what was happening here, but she was obviously missing something. “I’m going,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come. Perhaps all of this has been a mistake. I obviously . . . I’m making more of this than it is, which suggests I’ve let my emotions run away with me like a schoolgirl. I wanted to see you. That’s all. I wanted to make you lunch, to do something for you. Watch you during your normal day, be a part of that day before I have to return to work and be who I am for everyone else. I’ve intruded where I’m not invited, and I’ve made you uncomfortable. So I’m going.”
She was being repetitious, but an ache was growing in her throat. There was too much pressure behind her eyes. She picked up her basket, but Dale was in front of the door. She’d just slip past him, was all. There was enough room to get past.
She’d almost made it when his arm snaked out, caught her waist, bringing her to a halt. She went rigid. “Please let go of me.”
He shook his head. Stared straight ahead and just held her there. His fingers flexed against her lower back, his arm pressed under her breast. She closed her eyes, amazed at how strongly her body reacted to his merest touch, how she wanted to melt against him, put her fingers against his strong throat and reach up on her toes to kiss him with all the heated passion she’d been imagining when she drove up to the gate.
To hell with it. She dropped the basket and lifted a hand to his face, drawing his gaze to hers before she used the strength of his arms, the way he’d planted himself in the floor like a tree, his one leg and the crutches braced against both their weights, to lift herself up against him. She buried her fingers in his short hair, nails scraping his nape.
She kissed him with longing and need, with desire and pure pleasure in the heat of his mouth, which increased as he began kissing her back, muttering an oath against her lips. He smelled like grass and soil, old rusty cars and a little bit of dog and Old Spice.
His hand dropped to her ass, pulling her to his front so she was fully against him instead of locked to his side. Her lower abdomen contracted at the pleasure of his hard response pushed against her there.
He let the crutches fall, gripped the sink edge and pulled them both the necessary step to it so he was leaning against that, the better to keep an arm around her waist and put the other hand to her head, taking over the kiss. His fingers slid along her jaw, down to her throat. She made a needy sound there, vibrating beneath his fingertips. He was just as hungry for her, in a raw, undisciplined way that she embraced, all her earlier uncertainty driven away before it.
Before they could get too out of control, he broke the kiss, his chest expanding from the effort of drawing a deep breath, even as his hands remained clamped on her. “I’m sorry, Athena. You shouldn’t be apologizing because I was being a bastard.”
She didn’t care. She just wanted him to keep kissing her. But he tightened his grip, keeping her still. “I’ve never Mastered a woman without two legs to stand on. I wasn’t prepared to be that exposed.”
Her spinning world came to an abrupt stop. She stared up at him. “You thought it would matter to me?”
Apparently seeing her utter lack of comprehension did him a world of good. The set of his strong jaw eased significantly. “Yeah, I did. That’s what I assumed when you started acting so funny, talking about leaving the lunch instead of sharing it with me.”
Oh, God. She was such an idiot. It made so much sense she almost started laughing at herself, at both of them, even realizing that would be entirely inappropriate.
“I was acting that way because you were being so remote. You looked like a storm cloud.” She put her hands on his face. “Dale, you’re not dealing with a child. I was married for over twenty years, which is plenty long enough to realize a man’s character lies in his heart, his soul, not his body. Though your body packs more than enough fantasy for me. If you had a second leg and smelled like brownies, you’d be too perfect. I couldn’t wait to be with you again. With . . . my Master. And now I am being a little schoolgirlish, but if you’re going to be insecure, I get to take a turn, too.”
That and the brownie comment made him chuckle, dissipating her worries. He put his forehead down against hers. “Fuck, I made a mess of that. I thought I was long past this kind of thing. Turns out all I had to do is get stupid about a woman again and all that old bullshit tried to pile back on.”
Get stupid about a woman again . . . It was amazing how few words a man actually had to say to capture a woman’s heart and earn her total forgiveness. “Seems like only a brief relapse,” she said. Lifting his palm to her lips, she met his gaze as she shifted against his body, rubbing her stomach against his still-turgid response. His fingers tightened over hers.
“Are you trying to misbehave?”
“No sir.” But she smiled.
“So what you said outside. That you’ll do anything I tell you to do.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell you to do my dishes or make my bed.”
“No,” she admitted. When he waited, obviously expecting more of an explanation, she lifted a shoulder. “It’s lik
e the submissives who do the bootblacking,” she said, referencing the particular segment of the D/s community who took great pride in the art of shining their Master’s boots. They could spend an astonishing amount of time discussing how to keep them in top form. “Or the one who always brings her Master his drink from the bar. The sub who folds his Mistress’s clothes precisely according to her specifications before she has him kneel before her, service her with his mouth.”
“You’re not here to be my maid or my nurse, Athena.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t think they do it for that reason, either.”
“I know you didn’t. I’m telling you to keep the distinction in mind.” He nodded to the dryer. “Hang up my clothes, then come down to the yard. We’ll have lunch after you help me with the dogs. They’re raring to get out a little bit, since they’ve had to be in the kennels this morning for Rusty’s adoption.”
Using admirable muscle control and balance, he picked up the crutches and fitted them under his arms. “I liked hearing you call me Master.”
Leaning down, he pressed his lips against hers for another lingering kiss. She barely breathed, hands closed into balls against his chest in the small space between them. He hadn’t given her permission to touch him, and the order he’d just issued had switched her mind to the submissive mode, waiting for his cues and direction. Whereas so much of the past few minutes had felt wrong, precarious, now things felt right. She badly wanted to straighten her fingers, touch him, but waiting for his permission to let her do so just made the wait all the sweeter.
“There’s a lotion in my bathroom. It’s not sweet smelling like yours, but use it, since you washed my dishes. I expect my sub to keep her hands soft, and that dish soap will strip tar off paper.”
He moved past her, back out the door. She tried not to worry or hover, though after he started down the steps, she did watch him through the blinds. He managed the stairs by putting the crutches in the opposite hand, taking hold of the railing and hopping down each stair so capably she could tell he’d done it plenty of times. Just as he’d said.
When he returned with six of the dogs, she noticed how they maintained a couple-foot buffer around him, more than they did when he was walking on the prosthesis. Part of it was what he was, of course. With their enhanced faculties, animals could detect a lead alpha with little difficulty. It resonated off Dale such that even the comparatively handicapped senses of humans couldn’t miss it. Even so, the dogs’ extra attention when he was hampered by the lack of the prosthesis made her love them even more. She was going to help him find every one of them a wonderful home.
After she hung his clothes in the closet, she couldn’t help moving back to the bed and lifting his pillow to her face. She inhaled a deep scent of Dale before she adjusted sheets and cover again. Even with his bed unmade, his blanket had been folded at the end of the mattress, suggesting he slept only under a sheet. He also had the windows open. The junkyard was filled with metals and gravel surfaces that absorbed the heat of the Louisiana sun, so she expected he received more than his share of warmth from that, but he didn’t seem dependent on a controlled climate, regardless. She found an air-conditioning unit in a closet.
When she came back outside and descended the stairs, only one dog remained with him. The others probably had dispersed with the “free” command, so he could give this one his undivided attention. It was a mixed golden retriever with three legs.
“This is Perry,” he told her. “Lost his leg because somebody shot him with a BB gun. It was too infected to save when he was rescued. My hope is that karma kicks in threefold and all the shooter’s appendages rot off.”
She considered that. “Wouldn’t threefold mean he loses three limbs, not all four?”
“The rest would be a bonus,” he said. “And if he lost all of them, it would be five.”
She chuckled at that. Dale smiled in return, and she thought he looked very fine and masculine, standing there with his eyes squinted against the sun. When he reached out, touched her face, she could feel her eyes softening on him. His expression relaxed further. They were all right. She supposed they’d weathered their first fight, of sorts.
“You said you wanted my help working with the dogs?” she asked, before she embarrassed herself.
He nodded. “With Perry specifically. Ball throwing helps him keep his muscles in shape. He gets the basics of it, but he starts to gets a little distracted after two or three tosses.”
“No ADHD medications for dogs?” she asked.
He snorted. “No, with dogs we do it the old-fashioned way. Instead of using drugs, we teach them to pay attention. In SEAL training, facing a few hundred push-ups or additional boat drills in fifty-degree water if you fuck up tends to focus you. I go with a bit nicer approach with dogs, but repetition works for them as well. Anyhow, speaking of attention”—he gave her a narrow look and she tucked her tongue in her cheek—“if he doesn’t go for it, you run and grab it. Make it seem like bringing it back to me is the coolest thing ever, so he’ll start competing with you to go get it. When he brings it all the way back to me, we both make over him like crazy. Goldens thrive on approval, but his confidence has been shaken. You okay with that?” He gave her a critical look. “You look like running’s part of your workout regimen.”
His eye for detail continued to impress her, and the veiled compliment was bolstering. “Yes. And swimming. I haven’t done my workout today, so this will catch two birds in one net. Right, Perry?” She bent down and tousled his ears, and Perry laughed up at her, mouth open and eyes bright. Even so, she saw a wariness in his expression that most well-loved goldens didn’t have, evidence of the confidence problem Dale mentioned.
“Just don’t throw it over the fence, Mr. Overachiever,” she teased Dale. “I don’t scale barbed wire.”
“Don’t worry. My throwing is a bit hampered” He wiggled the crutches under his arms. “Though I can throw it far enough to enjoy the way you run after it. If you get rid of that shirt, I’ll enjoy it even more.”
She laughed, but then his expression changed, making the sound catch in her throat. He nodded. “I mean it. Take it off, Athena.”
Her blouse was a rose-colored flowing fabric that hid the fact her bra was a pale pink satin thin enough to show the shape of her nipples, especially if they were aroused. The sheer upper panels of the cups were wide enough to give him a hint of areola. When she shed the blouse, his gaze lasered in on that area. She didn’t know a straight man alive who had an attention disorder when it came to breasts.
He directed her to hang the delicate garment on a hook inside his truck, parked beneath the apartment. As she moved back toward him, he was fondling Perry’s head, but he tilted his own toward her.
“That’s right, Perry. She’s all ours. It’s a good day, isn’t it?” He put out a hand and entwined his fingers with hers. “God, I’d love to see you run without the bra, but I’m not a total sadist. Most days. You dressed up for me. The panties match?”
“Yes sir.”
He nodded. “All right, then. Let’s see if we can give Perry a good workout.”
Now familiar with the dusty gravel of the junkyard, she’d switched from heels to canvas sneakers in the car. She was glad she had, since she wouldn’t have been suitably prepared to help him otherwise.
Perry went after the first few balls enthusiastically enough. When his attention started to flag, she began to race him. Just as Dale had predicted, he embraced the competition. She had to be quick footed, because he’d even try to trip her to get to the ball first. She accused the dog of foul play, even as she laughed and dodged around him, trying to outwit his three legs with her two. Sometimes she encouraged Perry to jump at the ball, try to wrestle her for it. She was going to have to use her sticky roll in the car to de-fur her skirt, but she didn’t care.
Despite the frivolity, she never
forgot the deceptively lazy regard of the man watching them. Each time she and Perry ran back to him, and she saw his attention sliding over her body like sun rays, it spiked her adrenaline.
Dale finally called for a water break. He offered her a bottle from a cooler he had next to the steps and directed Perry to a bowl under them. As Perry lapped enthusiastically, she twisted her hair up on her neck, held it there while she fanned herself with the other hand. The position necessarily tilted her upper body and when Dale turned toward her, his blue-green gaze sharpened. She realized she wasn’t the least exerted by her competition with Perry. Her body was fueled and vibrating, needy for Dale.
The object of her lust crooked a finger at her. As she came to stand before her Master, he slid his knuckle down her sternum, into the damp cleft of her breasts. “I think that will do for the day,” he said. He snapped his fingers, bringing Perry to his knee, then lobbed the ball out over the cars. “Perry, free. Go play.”
Perry took off, barking joyously. He was answered by dogs from various parts of the yard, so he headed off toward whatever adventures they’d found. Dale slid his touch to the small of her back, hooking his thumb in the waistband of her skirt so his fingers traced the elastic of her panties beneath.
“Turn your head away from me, Athena. Hold your hair off your neck.”
Some tendrils had escaped, so now she scraped those together, held them up against the heavier mass twisted on the back of her head. His lips pressed against her throat, making her sigh with pleasure. When his thumb slid over the satin cup of her bra, over the nipple, she rocked against him.
“What do you want, Athena?”
“Whatever my Master desires.”
Unrestrained Page 16
