by Selena Kitt
"Thank you for the coffee," he said, while Tricia placed their take-and-bake pepperoni pizza order.
"No," Kay replied. "Thank you for your service."
Ten minutes later, pizza in hand, they headed back to his truck. He held the door for Tricia to climb up. "Friendly town."
"Scio's a small place," she said with a smile and shrug. "When everyone knows everybody else, it pays to be nice."
Chapter Three
"Not that I'm opposed to bright bordello red or anything, but wow," Tricia said, methodically moving through the kitchen while she taped off the brand new cabinets, granite countertops and molding. He still had the floors, light fixtures, and electrical outlets to replace, and the new stainless steel appliances hadn't yet been delivered. Once he was finished, it would be a complete remodel job. The only remaining item on his checklist: these serial-killer inspiring, deep crimson walls. "What were the old owners thinking?"
"They weren't afraid of color, that's for certain." Once more lying flat on his back (under the kitchen sink this time—a dual sink that was, as of about ten minutes ago, complete with garbage disposal), Nolan finished tightening the new hoses on the new faucet he'd just installed. He'd been living here a week now, camped on his sofa in a sleeping bag because every single room in this house needed work and he didn't see any point in spreading out if that meant he was going to have to constantly be moving his stuff from room to room. Fortunately for him, everything he owned fit, literally, in one tiny corner of the massive living room. Unfortunately for him, every single thing he owned fit in one tiny corner of his new living room. He really needed to get more stuff, something Tricia had commented on the second day she'd simply shown up on his porch with a brand new broom, mop and bucket, and an entire carrying caddy chock-a-block full of cleaning supplies. All of which had been presented to him, complete with red ribbons artfully tied into bows.
"Kinda makes it feel like Christmas, doesn't it?" she'd asked with a self-satisfied grin.
He had to unwrap everything before he could use it. Except the broom. He left its ribbon alone. It made sweeping seem more… cheerful, somehow. So did imagining Tricia, dressed only in red-ribboned zippers made of clothespins. Yeah, that mental image had resulted in a week's worth of cold showers.
"What color are you thinking about painting in here?" Tricia asked, checking the cabinets to make sure they had fully dried. Scrubbing them all down had been her first job that morning. Sanding had been the last thing she'd done before going home last night. So far, she'd been here every single day. Within a half hour of her arriving home from work, he'd hear those footsteps skipping up his porch steps and then would come that by now familiar knock.
She had an unusual knock. Most people only rapped maybe two or four times, relaxed and casual. Cops knocked three times, high, strong and authoritative. Tricia, on the other hand, knocked in a sharp, fast series of ten or twelve. He'd tried to count once, but the longer it went on, the faster she tended to knock, making it hard to tell if she was doing it out of happiness or urgency. He honestly didn't know if he liked it or not, but it was hers and it was unique. And it didn't matter anyway because he was getting used to it. Worse than that, he was starting to look forward to it. To the point that he found himself watching the clock, anticipating not just her arrival but that moment when she walked into his house on such a wave of happy energy and enthusiasm that it was damn near tangible. The kind of tangible that made a guy want to reach out and touch it.
Or her.
Down, boy, he told himself wryly, staring up at the underside of his dual sink and feeling that (by now, also familiar) throbbing sensation burning low in his abdomen. Living in a state of near constant arousal was becoming a way of life for him.
A shadow crossed his chest, blocking out what little light he had to work by. Not that that meant much, since he'd finished tightening down the hoses almost ten minutes ago. He was pretty much just lying here now, building on the crick in the small of his back, staring and thinking.
"Earth to Sergeant Anderson," Tricia sang, and the next thing he knew she had dropped down, squatting over him in a way that straddled his hips. She was very careful not to let her shapely bottom rest on him, but it was a damn close thing and when she bent over him—two thin inches of empty air being all there was between him and her lying on top of him, belly to belly, her jean-clad hips hovering directly over his suddenly straining zipper, and the gorgeous mounds of her breasts glimpsed so far down the 'v' of her low-cut tank top that he could actually see her bellybutton—all he could feel were all the parts of him that she wasn't actually touching.
He put his tools down and looked at her, a crooked smile answering hers as she braced her hands upon the floor to either side of his ribs and leaned as far into the cabinet as she could without her breasts brushing him.
"Yes?" he drawled, but in his head one thought and one thought only reigned with absolute certainty. I am going to fuck this woman. His cock pressed hard against the zipper teeth of his fly, as if it could feel the heat of her hovering just above him.
"Are we going to paint today?" she asked, walking two fingers up the middle of his chest to give him the smallest, most beguiling tweak upon the chin.
One good tweak deserved another. His fingers itched, but he left her nipples unmolested.
"Yes, we are," he replied, and if she noticed his voice was a little huskier than normal, she didn't say anything.
Her eyes sparkled; she'd probably noticed. "What color did you get for the kitchen?"
"A nice, soothing off-white."
She made a face, screwing up her nose. "White? Yellow is cheerful. Why can't we paint it yellow?"
"Because I got white. Tons and tons of white."
She was still smiling, even as her face screwed up that much more. Making it clear exactly what she thought of his color palette. "But why?"
"Because everything goes with it. I can decorate how I choose and not have to worry about color clashes. It was also on sale."
"Clashing with what?" She laughed. "You barely have furniture!"
She made no effort to get off him, so Nolan made himself comfortable lying half-in and half-out from under the sink. He folded his hands, tucking them under his head to keep himself from succumbing to the ever-intensifying urge to cup her bottom and pull it down into firm contact with the straining of his cock. "That doesn't mean I want what I do have to be mismatched. I just got the 70s orange and teal nightmare the hell out of here. We're not going to replace it with a whole new modern-day mess."
"Pity." She play-pouted. "It just so happens that on my way into work this morning, I passed an old wire spool and thought of you. It would have made a perfect coffee table."
More than his fingers were itching now. His whole hand had taken up the song, joining the urge to cup and mold his palms to her curvy ass with the now even stronger temptation to add a well-placed swat or two (or six) along with it.
"I don't need a giant spool coffee table," he told her dryly, resisting those urges only by supreme effort of will. It was the military in him. He had a lot of will and did so like to stay in control.
"But you do need something."
"I'm not the only one."
Those soft laughing eyes of her lit even brighter. "You're right. I could totally do presents right now. What would you like to give me?"
That was a loaded question if ever he'd heard one. Nolan laughed, every inch of him knowing better that to answer that, and yet when he opened his mouth to tell her so, what came spilling out was as startling as it was intoxicating. "Stand up, and I'll go get it."
So much for staying in control.
"Seriously?" Her surprise mirrored his own, but was slower to recover. She blinked twice. "You got me a present?"
"Do you want it or not?"
She straightened above him, then stood up altogether to un-straddle his hips so he could stand. "If you're going to send me into the bathroom with a cup of Pine-Sol and a toothbrush, I'm tel
ling you right now, I don't scrub other people's toilets."
He looked at her as he, brushing his hands off on the seat of his jeans, walked out of the kitchen. His smile must have been cryptic, because she followed him as far as the living room doorway. There she stood, tapping her fingertips together while she watched him pick through the neat stack of boxes to find one marked, 'Fun and Games'. Hello, darkness, my old friend, he thought as he pulled it out of the pile.
Tricia tipped her head, curiosity sparking in her eyes as she watched him set the box on the arm of the sofa. "Are… we going to play a game?"
"Of sorts." Nolan pulled his pocket knife from the sheath on his belt. Cutting through the tape, he opened the top flaps and reached inside. One of two things is going to happen, he thought, as he closed his hand on the straps of the big black duffel bag resting on top of the other contents. Either he was about to seriously overplay where he thought he and Tricia were heading, or he was about to open flood gates on a way of life he hadn't indulged in over seven very long, dry years.
He looked at Tricia, watching her confusion melt into uncertainty. Her thoughts mirrored as plainly as words on the page of a book—had she pushed too far, too fast? That, more than anything, gave him the courage to pull his bag out where she could see it. Setting it on the couch, he beckoned her closer before reaching into the box again. Revealed now that the duffel bag no longer rested on top of it, he grasped the top of the bright blue and yellow stool and pulled that out next.
She stopped coming the minute she saw it: a tri-legged, dark blue stool with the word 'Naughty Seat' both carved and painted in canary yellow letters a good two inches high.
"Do you have a favorite corner?" he asked, as her eyes shot wide open.
"I have to go sit in the corner?" Tricia cried, her face registering more shock and incredulity, and perhaps a bit of mild disgruntlement, than hurt. "That's not a game!"
Wordless, he held out the stool and continued to hold it out while she picked and chose her way through whatever mental minefield kept her pretty pink sneakers rooted to his living room floor.
"Mm," she growled, her eyebrows crashing down in a show of Little displeasure. But eventually she came to him, shot him only the briefest of dark glares, and finally took the chair. She looked around the living room with the same degree of reluctance that Jesse had once used while surveying her choices before cutting a switch off the willow tree in their old yard. Selecting her corner, she started toward it.
"No windows," he told her.
Changing directions mid-step, Tricia retreated all the way across the living room to the only corner where windows were not viewable. Setting the stool down, she gave him another pouting frown before turning that look on the water-damaged sheetrock. Finally, sighing, she sat.
Hot twists of wanting gripped him as Nolan stood a moment, simply watching her. Her obedience, as grudgingly as it had been given, was as adorable as it was heady. It was a good thing he didn't have any other chairs or he'd have given in to the near overwhelming desire to sit himself down just behind her, and pull her adorably sulky Little body into the comfort of his own. Some disciplinarian he was. Not that she'd done anything to deserve punishment, he mused. This wasn't really that. He was simply testing the waters; laying down some ground rules; testing his authority and her willingness to bend to it.
He really wished he had another chair.
But he didn't, so he did the next best thing. He gave her a good minute, sixty of the longest seconds of his life, before walking up behind her. Lowering himself onto haunches, he brought his mouth in just behind her ear. Softly, he said, "This is Daddy's house. Daddy will paint his walls whatever color he wants. Isn't that right?"
Head bowed, she picked at her fingers. Eventually, she nodded.
"I know you were only teasing, Tricia, and that's why this is not a punishment. Only a reminder; the first brick in the many ground rules we're going to lay down together. If that's even what you want. No." He stopped her when she started to turn on that stool. "Think before you answer. I don't know about you, but I have never in my life offered my dominance to anyone after so short a time as we have known one another. So, this is what I want you to do. I'm going back into the kitchen and I'm going to start painting. If you want me as a neighbor and a friend, that's fine. I can do that. But if I haven't grossly misread the situation and if what you want instead is me as your Daddy, then I'm going to need you to tell me so. Openly, plainly. No more chance of misunderstanding. Take all the time you need to think. I'll be ready for whatever you decide, when you decide."
And that, right there, had to be the biggest lie he'd ever told in his life. What if he had misread things? He didn't feel ready at all.
His heart skipping all kinds of beats, he walked back into the kitchen. He moved as far out of the doorway as he could get, deliberately refusing either to let himself obsess over what she might be thinking or, if she caught him looking, to let his hovering presence influence her decision in any way.
She was going to want to stay, the devil on his shoulder assured. She had been too flirtatious and bubbly and nobody came over every single day, working like a dog on someone else's fixer-upper, unless what they really wanted was to be closer to that special someone. She had to want him. She had to want what he'd just offered: Himself. Someone to make that tattoo on the backs of her thighs be something more than just a pretty decoration.
Picking up his mess under and around the sink, he ran a hand over the new black and white marbled granite countertops without really seeing them. What if he had misread things? What if she chose…
The click of the front door opening pricked his ears. The even softer click as it closed again felt like a hammer's blow to the middle of his chest.
For almost three full minutes, Nolan stood in his kitchen without moving. So. He had misread the situation.
Fuck.
Gripping the edge of the sink, Nolan bent. He breathed deep, shaking his head once at his own stupidity. That was an army man for you—always all or nothing. A bull in a china shop. Never doing anything by halves, even when halves was the smartest course of action. He should have asked her out for dinner first, taken her to the movies or dancing or something. But no, he'd stuck her in the corner on the Naughty Stool and, instead of taking it slow, told her he wanted to be her Daddy. He should have waited, been patient, tested the waters a littler, done a better job at determining whether she was really interested or whether she was (as had just become painfully obvious) just trying to be nice to the new guy on the block.
Well, great. This was going to make living next to her for the next forty years of his life somewhat awkward.
He had no idea how long he stood there, staring at his brand new sink and the old ratty linoleum between his equally ratty work shoes, before a soft rap on the front door broke him from his dismal thoughts. Four light raps. Probably the delivery driver with his new hardwood flooring and deep blue bedroom carpets.
"Idiot," he accused himself and shoved back from the sink. Feeling every inch the fool, he went to answer the door, and for the second time felt that hammer slam into his chest. Tricia hadn't used her standard knock, but there she stood anyway, having apparently gone home long enough to change her clothes. She stood before him, nervously tapping her fingers, still in her sneakers but no longer wearing jeans. It was mid-June and ninety-eight degrees in the shade and yet, here she was, wearing a thigh-length black trench coat, belted at the waist, with the skirt flaring out from her hips like a dress.
She took a deep breath of her own, bending her head a moment as she took cautious hold of her coat's belt and timidly untied it. Her fingers trembled, fumbling just a little as she opened both halves of the trench coat to show him the baby-doll dress she wore underneath. It was frilly, pink and white cotton, with lacey hems and a Victorian-style apron decorated with assorted Disney princesses—Cinderella, Snow White, a smiling Beauty without her Beast, and Ariel with legs instead of flippers. She'd put her ha
ir up too—twin pigtails gathered high on top of her head, the hair ties crowned with sparkling, blue-glittered marbles. The curling tips of her hair just barely came down far enough to tickle at her shoulders.
"Would…" Tricia hesitated, her grey eyes full of uncertainty. "Would it be very wrong of me if I-I said I've been thinking about it ever since you asked if I was married?"
"No." For the first time, some of that tension melted out of his chest. "But I do think that dress is far too pretty for helping Daddy paint his new kitchen." Stepping back, he held the door a little wider for her. "Come on. Let's see if we can't find a grubby t-shirt you can wear."
Nervousness giving way to a tentative smile, Tricia came in off the porch.
And Nolan realized the truth behind that old adage: Things worth having are things worth working for. From here on out, he was going to take it slow.
Chapter Four
"Remind me why we're doing this again," Tricia panted.
"Sex swing," Nolan grunted back.
"Since that implies at some point we might actually have sex, I won't complain too much," she good-naturedly complained. "What I don't understand is why we can't put it in the living room."
"Sex swings belong in dungeons." He marked the wall with two red X's, one for each of them, about shoulder high. "Dungeons belong in basements."
"So do spiders."
"We're putting it in the basement."
"Fine." She scrubbed a wrist across her brow, leaving a swath of clean through the thin layer of dirt that covered her face. Grimy or not, it was still a lovely face.
It had taken two days for the brand new sump pump to empty all the water out of the basement. Three industrial high-powered fans running three days straight had dried things out enough for him to dig—quite literally, he'd bought a wide-mouthed snow shovel for the job—the basement out from under a good inch of the residual muck that more than a year's worth of flooding had deposited. And throughout it all, Tricia had been there.
