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that she be there when he got done doing it.
“It may not have been personal. She may have been referring to how dirty you were from work. ”
He met her gaze in the mirror, a rueful smile crossing his firm lips at her attempt to tease, but he lifted his shoulder in an apparent casual shrug as he bent his attention to the cloth, wiped it across his bare chest. She liked him smooth, had him keep himself shaved for her, though she’d had him keep the hair on his head the way it was now, the shoulder length that let her see all the different color variations from the sun.
“They’ve seen me cleaned up. All shellacked. I wanted them to see me. Who I am.
This is who I am. ”
All the potentials of strength and intelligence she knew he possessed were emerging. This handsome, magnificent man was slowly becoming as complex and beautiful inside as out. He took her breath away, on many different levels.
Despite herself, she moved to the opening of the small bathroom, reached out and ran her fingers down the center of his back.
“So what happened? Use the other clean cloth for your face. The coolness will feel good. ”
He complied, so his next words came out from behind terrycloth. It also served as a blindfold, helping him to get the words out, as she knew it would.
“I told her I would respect her wishes, but I needed to speak to Mac, and to her.
They listened. ” There was wonder in his voice. A quiet triumph, laced with contentment and acceptance. “When it was over, she didn’t say anything to me, just walked into the house. But Mac stood there and looked at me awhile, then asked me if I wanted a beer. We sat out on their dock for about a half hour, drinking beer, not saying much. Then he shook my hand, wished me luck. I saw her watching me as I walked back down the street to catch the bus. She didn’t look…she looked like she was thinking, not hating. ”
Dona stroked her knuckles down the valley of his spine. She knew what it was to love a man with her whole self. She’d dared to do it twice now, and this second time she knew she’d do anything for him. She couldn’t say she didn’t understand Violet’s anger. The black eye she’d given him the moment he’d stepped onto her property, the follow-up punch to the jaw.
But it hurt, imagining how Nathan would have stood there, taking the blows, a man big and strong enough to stand toe to toe with scarier things than a pissed-off woman who was barely over five feet tall, even if she was a cop. He would have waited until she finished, the blood filling his mouth. Then once again, he’d quietly ask for a chance to talk to them. It was that which would have gotten through to Violet. Seeing that there was something different about him. Something worth hearing.
He was fiercely devoted to the quest to make amends. Fiercely devoted to taking care of Dona. Maybe too devoted, she reflected.
She worked late hours at the free clinic. While society’s memory of the previous life associated with her name had vanished, her medical degree and credentials were unquestioned. The advantage of having Lucifer as her previous employer, she suspected. Another of the quietly amazing gifts she’d been given.
Every day, Nathan came to escort her home, no matter how tired he was after a hard and hot day of roofing in the new subdivisions going up on the outskirts of the city.
“A kick-ass Mistress you might be,” he’d tease her, “but you’re still a woman. My woman. You’re not walking home alone. ”
He liked to hold her hand as they walked. They’d talk about their day, watch the neighborhood kids squeeze in that last moment of play in the darkening streets.
Those moments of male testosterone meshed oddly well with his submission to her in the bedroom, his willingness to serve her however she desired. But it wasn’t just the roughness of the neighborhood. He knew how she felt about opening the door of their home alone, fighting the hold of what might be behind it, a lingering phobia.
Therefore, when she woke to find herself held tightly by him in the loneliest hours of the night, she understood. He’d tear open his heart and let her have it if she asked. It was all for her. He’d found something worth saving his soul for, and that had made all the difference. She wondered if he understood he’d saved her soul as well.
“I want to celebrate. ” He turned suddenly and caught her about the waist, twirling her, sending the handful of cotton balls she held flying and making her laugh with his boyish exuberance. The light and the shadows in her mind joined hands, making it the best kind of ache to look up at him. “I got paid yesterday. I’m taking you out to dinner and for ice cream afterward. ”
She cocked a brow. “And ice cream?”
“Waffle cone, cookie crumb topping, everything. ” Sobering, he brought her closer.
Despite the injuries to his face, she got lost looking into his blue eyes, feeling the muscled length of his body press against her. “Anything you want, Mistress. Today, tomorrow…”
She let him kiss her, and as he deepened it, those calloused hands clutched her hips, pulled her closer in male demand. She decided she was going to exercise a Mistress’s prerogative. Dinner could wait. Ice cream and him. Those were the only two things she needed, and if she could have them together, so much the better. She had half a pint of mocha vanilla swirl still in the freezer. The microwave would melt it just enough…
* * * * *
A summer breeze flitted through the curtains. The bed was stripped down to just sheets as his body stretched over her, giving her the pleasure of running her palms up his strong arms, braced on either side of her. Across the broadness of his back, down to his hips, slightly sticky from the ice cream she’d licked off his buttocks and his long cock. He’d had some too, and her pussy still ached from the pleasure of the cold and heat mixed, the warmth of his mouth before she’d had him replace it with his cock.
Lean, a roofer’s spare body, but all muscled and more wide-shouldered than expected. When he bent to her, catching her lips in a kiss that was somewhat off center because of the rhythm of his body stroking into hers, everything was dusky, dim, soft at the edges in the quiet room. The noises of the street outside blended with the radio inside.
“Dona. ” He murmured her name, sinking deeper. She arched, wanting all of him and more.
“Mine,” she whispered back, biting his lips a little harder, feeling him swell inside her at the sensual punishment, the claim on him.
