by Tina Donahue
“Nat, Red and Junior get up this early during their time off?”
“I don’t know. I meant the guys who’re working today’s shift. I can catch up with what’s been going on with them, then do my laundry and—”
“Bring it to my place tonight.” She pulled back on the road. “We’ll do it together.” She leaned toward him and murmured, “After our next training session.”
Once he got back to the barracks, Daniel was so deep in thought he didn’t notice anyone around until he literally bumped into a guy. “Sorry.” He backed up. “Didn’t see you.”
The man was bigger than a tank, probably close to three hundred pounds. He scratched his cheek and nodded amicably. “No problem. I’m still not awake either. Fucking stupid schedule, huh? Have a good one,” he called out.
Daniel was already well down the hall, ducking into his tiny room. He paced it for several minutes, unable to keep still, his dumb feelings for Alexandra making him jumpy and needing to work it off.
Unfortunately, the only gym was in the community center, which wasn’t open at this hour. Too bad he couldn’t run himself ragged on the frozen tundra.
He hauled his duffel bag to the laundry room, stuffed everything into one washer, then went to grab that coffee he’d lied to her about.
Sipping it, he turned the corner to return to his room. Junior and Red were coming his way, talking about something.
Red saw Daniel and stopped. “Hey,” he said, “didn’t know you were back.”
Daniel wondered how many of his crew knew he’d spent the last couple of nights at Alexandra’s.
Junior’s face turned cherry red as though he’d broadcasted it. Or he was recalling Daniel tearing into him that evening, threatening all kinds of hell on the job if Junior didn’t leave the cabin pronto.
It wasn’t like Daniel to pull rank or to be unfair. When it came to Alexandra, he’d found that behavior was getting all too easy.
“Guys,” he said in greeting.
Junior blurted, “We gotta go.”
At this hour? Nothing in the village was open.
“Where?” Daniel asked, figuring neither of them had better say Alexandra’s office. He didn’t want them bugging her. Hell, he didn’t want them anywhere near her ever again.
“Dining hall,” Red said, then added, “for breakfast.”
Right. Clearly, not everyone had Alexandra on the brain. Daniel nodded and went in search of Nat. They could kill some time. Talk. Not about Daniel’s feelings. No fucking way. But general stuff. Women. Why they screwed up a guy’s head.
Nat wasn’t in or near his bunk.
Daniel carefully bypassed Alexandra’s office and checked the area where he and the other guys worked, Nat’s cubicle next to his. Not there either, though Nat’s computer was on. Daniel walked past it, then stopped and looked back. He leaned in and read the report he’d compiled for upcoming work. Given what Daniel saw, Nat was rechecking the calculations. Why?
Nat came around the corner and stopped short. “Hey, hi.” He put down his cup of coffee and pulled up his screensaver. “Didn’t know you were back.”
Obviously. Daniel frowned and spoke quietly so the men at the far corner of the room wouldn’t overhear. “Why are you rerunning my calculations? We’ve already been through them numerous times. Something happen that I should know about?”
“Nope.” Nat sank into his chair. It squeaked as he turned the seat from one side to the other. He spoke softly. “Just heard about a new vendor and wondered if he might be better than Adamson.”
“Adamson. The guy with the sterling reputation that everyone loves.”
“Hey, he’s not God.”
“Until he fucks up, he is to me.”
Nat lifted his hands in surrender. “It’s your show, Daniel.”
Exactly. Which made it even stranger that Nat was suddenly eager to replace vendors.
Daniel waited for Nat to explain himself further or change the subject, ask about Alexandra. Not details, but an overview. Something along the line of “how’d it go after you kicked us out”.
Nat didn’t.
“I just ran into Junior and Red,” Daniel said in a near whisper. “Junior looked like he was about to have a stroke when he saw me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Think I was too hard on him at Alexandra’s?”
“Do you?”
Plainly, Nat wasn’t going to talk about anything to do with her. Weird. Daniel wondered if Alexandra had had a word with Nat and figured she must have. “Don’t waste your time on the reports. They’re done. Watch some porn. Play with yourself.”
Nat pushed back in his chair. It squeaked in protest. “What are you going to be doing?”
Waiting for tonight. Wondering where all this might lead.
Lucius hadn’t left one message or email. Being free of his constant griping lifted Alexandra’s spirits immeasurably, until she worried again about his health. That maybe he wasn’t mellowing but was decaying faster than he should because of his shitty attitude.
A quick call to his housekeeper put everything into perspective. In the background, Lucius’ gravelly voice boomed.
“These damn eggs aren’t soft boiled. They’re hard enough for me to bounce. Who buttered the toast? I want the butter all the way to the edges, not an eighth of an inch away, not a sixteenth of an inch, but all the way to the crust. My juice isn’t properly chilled either. The glass goes into the freezer for precisely two minutes before you pour anything into it. My instructions are quite clear about—”
“He’s fine, really,” Mrs. Gonzalez muttered into the phone, blocking his continued bellyaching. “Unhappy as always, even at this ungodly hour.”
It was barely seven a.m. in San Diego. Lucius liked to get up early to seize and strangle the day.
“You deserve more money for putting up with his crap,” Alexandra said.
“From your lips to Satan’s ears.”
Satan was Mrs. Gonzalez’ pet name for Lucius. She’d been with him for nearly a decade and no longer expected him to grow a heart.
“I’m sure he’ll be screaming at you later,” Mrs. Gonzalez sighed.
All day, Alexandra waited for his next attack. Didn’t come. With anyone else, she would have relaxed, figuring the fight was over. With her grandfather, Alexandra wasn’t so sure.
She thought back to the last time they’d argued…when she’d brought up her dad. It was the first time she’d done that. Given how Lucius had fallen to silence, Alexandra wondered if she’d hit a weak spot with him. If he did blame himself for her dad’s suicide, as any normal parent would, wondering what he might have done to have prevented it.
Could be she’d finally gotten through to him, and he’d decided to play things differently with her. Not that he’d be a pussycat but he’d at least be willing to give her a little space, not to push so hard.
Given his unnatural silence, it was the only thing that made sense.
With him out of her hair for the time being, Alexandra focused on Nat. She called his cell phone repeatedly and kept getting voicemail. He didn’t answer her pages. Not that she blamed him. This was his downtime. However, she needed to know about the reports.
Shortly before five in the afternoon, he finally picked up her call. “Hey,” he said, quiet and cautious.
Crud. He’d found something that would cost even more money and time, dooming all of them. “Ah…hi.” Bracing herself for the worst, she pulled in her elbows, then said what she had to. “Did you look at those reports? I’m not rushing you,” she added quickly, “but have you had a chance to review them?”
“Yeah, I have.” He lowered his voice even more. “As far as I can see, the only thing we could change is using another vendor instead of Adamson.”
No way. “He’s the best. Fair. Reliable.”
“That’s what Daniel said.”
The candy bar Alexandra had just devoured threatened to come back up, along with the rest of the snacks she’d indu
lged in today, including two Twinkies. “You discussed this with Daniel even though I begged you not to? Still, you did?”
“Hell no,” Nat whispered. “This morning, when I got back to my cubicle with a cup of coffee, he was staring at my screen.”
“You left it on for everyone to see?”
“I didn’t think he’d be here,” Nat shot back. “I thought he’d be with you, like he’s been for the last couple of days.”
Made sense. Alexandra wondered if Daniel had told Nat anything about the training sessions, her screaming orgasms, and figured he hadn’t. That wasn’t the kind of man Daniel was. Now, Junior…
She spoke as softly as Nat had. “Wasn’t Daniel curious as to why you were looking at the reports?”
“Actually, he seemed pissed.”
Shit. Alexandra lowered her head to her desk. “You guys fought?”
“Of course not. I told Daniel he was in charge, which he is. That ended it.”
Uh-huh. Apparently, Daniel liked being a Dom at work too. Everyone bending to his will as she had.
Well, maybe not that much. Images of her naked, bound, spread-eagle in the steam room warmed Alexandra more than the space heater near her feet. She rolled her forehead over the pitted top of her desk, recalling how Daniel had whipped her, the decadent crack of the belt against her damp skin, the burning sting and delicious relief that followed.
She moaned.
“What was that?” Nat asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
Thankfully. “Where’s Daniel now?”
“Ah…” He didn’t continue.
“Nat?”
“Yeah. Glad we connected. Talk to you later. One of my coworkers just came over.
“Be with you in a sec, Daniel.” Nat said, his voice muted, telling Alexandra he’d turned away from the phone. “Bye,” he said to her. A second later, he killed the call.
Not the greatest performance, but Daniel couldn’t possibly know Nat had been speaking to her about the reports.
Alexandra relaxed until she considered Daniel asking her about them. If she’d put Nat up to rechecking the figures.
She’d lie of course and pretend everything was fine. The same way she’d done this morning when Daniel had started acting so odd. They’d been doing great, then suddenly he’d wanted out of her SUV, claiming to need a cup of coffee.
He could see as well as she could that the grocery store was closed, along with everything else in the village. Still, he’d been prepared to brave the glacial temps rather than stay in the toasty vehicle. Alexandra didn’t want to think about what had been going through his mind at that point.
Not once during the day had he come to her office. She’d stopped by his room several times. If he’d been inside, he hadn’t answered the door or responded to her saying his name. Nor had she found him in the dining hall, his cubicle or the laundry area. A quick check of the grounds, lit by the murky twilight, told her he wasn’t taking a stroll or building snowmen outside.
The remainder of her day dragged on endlessly, worse than when she’d been a kid forced to endure her grandfather’s lectures. She had her artic gear on at a quarter to six. By 5:59, she was sweating pretty damn bad, and not from her two tons of clothing. Daniel hadn’t said whether they’d meet at her office or her SUV and drive to the cabin together. Nor had he indicated whether he was going to take his own vehicle to her place.
Damn. They’d left too much up in the air.
Alexandra paced, then stopped at how stupid she was behaving. Like a lovesick twit. Even in middle school she hadn’t been this unglued when it came to a guy.
Of course, none of those scrawny boys had looked like Daniel.
She ordered herself to play it cool, and would, just as soon as she called his cell phone and they made their plans for—
His voicemail answered. Damn. Didn’t anyone pick up anymore?
She shuffled to her SUV, her construction boots too freaking heavy to pick up, the constant glaze of ice a hazard. Oh crap. She’d forgotten to pull out her car keys. With her teeth, Alexandra tugged her right glove off and dug in her coat pocket. Headlights cut across the gloom. Squinting, she glanced over and smiled. Hell, she grinned. Daniel was behind the wheel, his pickup pointed in the direction of her cabin.
As sluggish as Alexandra had been a second before, she moved at top speed now, watching Daniel as much as possible in her rearview mirror. All Alexandra could see was the outline of his head, his hair less disheveled than it had been this morning. However, she imagined him smiling as he followed her down the road.
He honked his horn twice, indicating she was driving too fast. The way her vehicle kept weaving had already told Alexandra that. Gripping the steering wheel, she forced herself to slow down. Daniel parked behind her at the cabin and got out of his pickup at the same moment she left her SUV.
“What were you doing back there?” he hollered. “You nearly ran off the road.”
“I’m fine. I made it okay.”
He stomped over to her, the wind whipping his hair. “You could have been hurt.”
Alexandra stared at him in the faint light coming from the porch. “You shaved.” She touched his smooth cheek.
Daniel pulled her hand away and deepened his frown. “You could have killed yourself.”
Not likely. At most, she would have banged up the SUV. No big deal. Surely, he knew it too, which made her wonder about his concern. What it could mean. That he was falling for her as she’d already done with him, or he just didn’t want to waste tonight cleaning up any mess she’d made. Not about to ask, she rested her hand on his chest and murmured, “I didn’t.”
He screwed up his mouth.
She noticed the bag he gripped. Even with the stiff wind, she heard the paper crackling in his fist. Given the size of the bag, it could have held a strap, gag, blindfold, and more rope, or maybe some kind of packaged food he’d slap together as he had his nutty peanut butter sandwiches.
Stroking the edge of the bag, she asked, “What’s in here?”
His expression gave nothing away. “You’ll see. Once we’re inside.”
Chapter Eleven
Daniel dropped the bag on the sofa. After taking off his gloves, parka and boots, he headed for the fireplace even though the cabin was nicely warm.
Alexandra liked the way he took charge, not asking, just doing, as though he lived here too.
What a heady thought that was. Having him here every day to do homey things like laying a fire, making a meal, bringing her breakfast in bed. Alexandra smiled, then lost it quickly, wondering if he behaved the same way with other women. What else? He certainly wasn’t a virgin when it came to knowing what a female liked. Right now, it was her turn to have him take care of things. Next week, next month, surely next year, he’d be doing this with someone else.
No, stop. Don’t go there.
She did, unable to keep from wondering about him and other women. How close he’d come to marriage. If he’d ever wanted a home and family.
Alexandra had thought of little else during most of her life with it populated by a revolving door of domestic staff rather than loved ones. She repressed a sigh even as she hurt with longing.
Daniel lit the logs, then rested his forearm on his thigh and turned to her. “What are you doing?”
She’d just killed the lights. In the flickering flames, his skin was so beautiful, its deep color a perfect complement to his dark hair and masculine features. Alexandra pictured him hiking, fishing, hunting, doing all the stuff guys liked to do that she absolutely hated. Unless he was there to make it enjoyable. “You want the lamps back on?”
“I want to know what you’re doing.”
Yearning for him. What else? She lied, “Nothing.”
“Exactly. Take off your clothes.”
Ah, he wanted to play. So did Alexandra, though she wasn’t about to let on how much. Despite her galloping pulse, she peeled off her gloves slowly, dropping them on the chair. “Would you like something to
eat?”
His attention dipped to her pussy. “Eventually.”
He didn’t sound too enthused. Alexandra wasn’t certain if he was playing hard to get like she was, or if his mood from this morning had returned, making him want to bolt again. She dropped her coat on top of her gloves, then bent down and unlaced her boots, moving faster now. Giving him a reason to stay.
On his feet, he put the fireplace poker back in its holder.
“You want me to undress you?” she purred. Be your slave?
Unbuttoning his flannel shirt, he sauntered closer. “That could take all night given how slowly you’re moving.”
She yanked off her boots and tossed them to the side. He lifted his eyebrows at their loud clunk-clunk, then seemed to want to race her to nudity. Alexandra tore off her duds faster than she ever had. Her pile of clothing mingled with his.
Finally, they were both naked. Him standing, Alexandra on the floor. Daniel padded to her. His semi-hard cock and dangling balls swayed enticingly with each step. He offered his hand, helping her up. Leaning into him, Alexandra rubbed her nose against his shaved cheek, liking it nearly as much as his bristles, adoring his clean fragrance.
“Did you have a good day?” she murmured, stroking his flat nipple.
He squeezed her ass. “I’m thinking tonight may be better.”
Count on it. Alexandra pushed to her toes and slanted her mouth over his, welcoming him home after a hard time at the barracks, preparing him for an even harder night. Daniel accepted her invitation immediately, his tongue slipping into her mouth, his kiss commanding, reckless, uncontrolled, then surprisingly tender and searching.
His gentleness took her by surprise and touched a part of Alexandra she’d protected for too long, afraid she’d get hurt. Lovingly, she worked her fingers through his hair to keep him to her. Daniel eased closer, his body preventing her from escape, assuring her that he wasn’t going anywhere. They kissed for minutes, their response to each other lingering and soul-deep.
As far as Alexandra was concerned, nothing else existed except this. She wanted it to go on forever.
