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Mac sat on the ground next to the small bench, one leg crooked up, his fingers cupped over his knee while his other hand played lightly with her calf. The bench was small, but he could have sat with her. He hadn't. He had waited at her feet, patiently, for her to wake.
She feigned a casual stretch, aware of his eyes coursing over the tilt of her breasts as she did so. "I didn't mean to nod off on you," she said.
It was surprising to have to admit to herself that she was flustered as much as pleased by his devotion to her needs. It was one thing to have it in The Zone or at Tyler's, where the environment demanded and expected it. She knew she had thrown down the gauntlet when she had introduced him to Justin in the way she did. He had met the test, accepting her unspoken desire to have him embrace his submissive role in a semi-public manner with barely a hitch in his stride, and he'd stayed in it, as if he had taken her actions as an unspoken command to do so until she said otherwise. It was unsettling, but undeniably arousing.
She stroked his neck, ran her hand through the thick curls, grazed her knuckles down his jaw, across his upper lip, along the facial hair that was so soft in one direction, so marvelously not when his lips were moving between her legs. He turned his head, kissed her fingertips one by one as she offered each. His gaze never left hers, and her nipples tightened sweetly beneath her shirt, rising up for his attention.
"So what are you thinking, Mackenzie?" she asked quietly, stroking him.
"I'm thinking I'd like to sit on the bench, hold you in my lap while you sleep as long as you like."
"Mmm. What did you buy me?"
He turned to the decorative bag behind him, pulled it forward. Violet was conscious of his nervous tension as she reached in.
"I bought you two things. I was sure you'd like...at least one of them."
She lifted out the custom-made Italian ankle boots. Designed in a hunter green velvet that would perfectly match the first dress she had worn with him, it had black ribbon lacings, the ends of the laces tipped in emerald beads. The elegant stem of the heel was three inches.
"There's also three extra sets of laces in there. You can do them up in a gold foil color for Christmas parties, and there's a brown with these smooth colored earth stone beads to tone it down, wear them with jeans. And then there's one set in a matching green lace. I chose the boots, but Justin pointed out the laces and the ways you could wear them. I don't think that's cheating, exactly."
She suppressed a chuckle. "I love them, Mac. They're beautiful. They're perfect." She set the boot aside, leaned down to kiss his firm mouth. "You're perfect."
His hand curled up behind her neck, holding her there, prolonging the embrace, and she had no objections. She couldn't think of a more wonderful moment, basking in the sun of a secluded garden, Mac's lips on hers, his touch on her body.
He pulled back slightly. "The other thing. If you don't like it...it may have been too forward, but you said I should get you something you would like..." He stopped, shook his head. "I should probably take it back."
"Not until I've seen it." She was curious as to what item Justin had in his shop that would be causing Mac such concern, and she reached back in the bag.
It was a hinged box of carved wood, the top engraving of a pair of whooping cranes. "This is beautiful, Mac. What were you so worried about?"
"Inside," he inclined his head. "The gift is inside. I just thought you'd like the box, so I bought that." He shifted. "I bought the boots for you, too. This...I thought you'd want to know it was bought with your money, so to speak."
"I know how much Justin's shoes cost. You spent too much already, and I told you to use the certificate," she scolded.
"I did. Inside the box." He placed a hand over hers on top of the lid. "But I can get you something else if
you don't like it."
Curiosity fully roused, she released the clasp of the box and raised the lid when Mac reluctantly slid his hand away.
The silk-lined interior held two things. One was a key. The other was a man's silver bracelet. The Italian design of flat pewter links joined by smaller links would be an appealing look for a man who wasn't a fashion plate, but who knew how to dress well and attract a woman's eye. Each of the smaller links was embedded with a discreet diamond chip.
"It locks," Mac said, as she looked down at it. "I used Lisbeth's gift at The Zone so Mistresses would know what I was...but they never really tied me to her. You hate it. I'm sorry, it was selfish, and presumptuous. I just--"
Violet laid the box to the side, reached down to take hold of his shoulders and dropped into his arms, unbalancing him with the unexpected move so he rolled back to take her weight. She ended up stretched full length on top of him on the garden path, her mouth fastened on his, hands fisted in his hair. He recovered quickly, his arms sliding around her back, tightening the embrace so every curve and valley of their bodies fit together, and he swallowed her soft murmur of pleasure with the contact.
Violet lifted her head from the kiss at last, though she thought she could have lain there forever, feeling the hard strong length of his body beneath her, tense with leashed passion.
"So you like it, then?"
She lifted a shoulder, affected a neutral look. "It'll do."
He grinned.
Violet lifted herself off him, and of course as soon as he recognized her intentions he helped, providing extra strength with his hands at her waist. She took the bench again, looked back into the box and fingered the smooth flat rectangular pieces, nearly an eighth of an inch thick, joined by the smaller square links, like an elegant masculine chain.
"How'd you know my shoe size?" she asked, her mind moving over a myriad of thoughts, desires, possibilities, trying to rope them in, struggling for rationality, caution.
