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"Is this your version of a pick-up line? Come check out my wood shop?"
His easy smile kept that liquid heat curling around her vitals, but she noticed his brown eyes became more serious. Something dark and pleasurable lay behind that considering expression when he looked at her. She didn't know what it was, but like earlier, her subconscious responded to it like metal to a magnet. Fish, hook, metal, magnet. Oh yeah. Being around him was going to be a metaphor grab bag.
"Would it work?" he asked.
"I've fallen for worse lines."
The smile disappeared then. He curled his other hand around her elbow, bringing her with him as they moved out of her room and into his. "I'll never use a line on you, Madison. I don't believe in them."
He put the box down in an empty space in his storeroom, and then took her hand in his, again simple and easy. "Troy will put those out when he gets here tomorrow morning."
She noticed his shelves were piled much higher than hers, underscoring his need for overflow room. "Did you pay Alice a fee for use of her storage space?"
He sent her an amused look. "No, but I have a feeling her sister the accountant is going to change that."
"Well, Alice tended to let people take advantage of her."
He came to a full stop at that, dropping her hand. "Excuse me?"
Jesus, that was uncalled-for. Cursing her tongue and her temperament, she blew out a breath. "I'm really sorry. That was unbelievably rude."
"Yeah, it was." He paused a moment, then spoke in a mild tone some part of her recognized as anything but. It stabbed her conscience, making her want to squirm. "I get that you have trust issues with men, Madison. But until I specifically deserve it, I'd prefer you not lash out at me because of what someone else has done."
A resentful part of her wanted to answer that with another snap. But he wasn't saying anything more than the truth, right? She'd behaved badly, and he deserved the return volley. Even if it hit a little too close to home. She wasn't used to a man grabbing the bull by the horns so directly. He demanded respect up front and gave her the same. She was all too aware that clarity of communication was very much a Dom trait.
"I said I'm sorry." She managed it with cool dignity, then sighed. "Hell, it was a rough day. I'm out of sorts and taking it out on you. Listen, I'll just go back to my store and we'll start fresh tomorrow, all right?"
That expression eased, which made things better, but he recaptured her hand, keeping her in place. "Or, you can hang out with me and get in a better mood. In my experience, nursing a bad mood by yourself just moves you into melancholy."
"Yeah, but you keep more friends nursing it alone." Not that she had a lot of those. She hadn't left much in Boston, all in all. Three more failed relationships and a job she'd aced but that had been safe, not fulfilling.
He squeezed her hand, as if sensing the additional punch she'd swung at her mood. "Just as an fyi, I've found a good spanking cures most pissy moods."
"I'll find my paddle if you get pissy," she said dryly.
She was pretty sure her yeah right tone didn't cover how her hand twi
tched in his at the provocative suggestion. The moment he said it, she saw him putting her over his knee and giving her a sound spanking for mouthing off in such a rude manner. She could even cast him in that photograph on her store wall, the severe Victorian gentleman, so proper and powerful. He'd walk with his wife in a landscaped park every evening, using his silver-handled walking cane with easy grace to clear any debris from her path, so she didn't snag her skirt or soil her slippers. Yet when they got home, he'd yank down her perfectly arranged hair, spread and bind her to their bed. As she gasped under the demands of his hands, mouth, he'd drive away any inhibitions, all vestiges of propriety out the window as she begged him to take her, as he stroked her between her spread, bound thighs with the smooth head of that cane . . .
Her free hand curled, finding dampness in the creases of her palm.
"I'd give one of Troy's testicles to know what's going through your mind right now."
She snapped back out of it. Her other hand was tight on his. He was waiting on her, studying her face. It was as though she was stepping in and out of two different dimensions in his presence. He didn't act as if there was anything strange about her pauses, her distraction, making it seem like he was right next to her on that journey.
She rallied. "One of Troy's testicles? Not your own?"
"I have use for both of mine."
Before she could figure out how to reply to what couldn't be anything less than a delicious threat, especially when he coupled it with a frank look at her flushed face and parted lips, he tugged her across his storeroom, taking her to a door on the far side with a key pad. As he punched in the code, she thought about the way their buildings looked from the street outside. "So the empty building on the other side of your store is yours?" she asked.
"Not empty. Just not open to the public."
She recalled that building's windows were papered with advertising for his store's wares and others in the district, as well as flyers for community events. The mural of advertising would allow him to screen the potential eyesore of a woodworking shop, but when she stepped into the space, she saw there was a far more vital reason he preferred privacy for it.
She thought she'd be safe looking at his creations. Sawdust, power tools, nice furniture. What she was looking at was a workshop for custom-made BDSM equipment. Her sister had probably brought him business, arranged orders for her own customers. The closest piece looked like a picnic table, only it was about half the traditional length and the space between the benches and table was too narrow to slide one's legs between them. The benches were padded, as was the table itself, with beautifully tooled red upholstery secured with antique gold tacks. The wood was a dark cherry, polished and finished. The quality was excellent, the type that fetishists paid four figures to own.
She thought of Logan's hands, the calluses and rough palms, and knew where he'd acquired them.
