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They worked on the salads. After finishing most of her wine, she felt ready to dip her toe back into more uncertain waters. It was helpful that Noah didn't push, staying with general discussion of her plans for the kitchen, questions about the neighborhood, her collages. She sat back.
"How did Lyda react to you saying you'd be anything I wanted?"
"She agreed." Noah rose to get the plates of lasagna, which he'd put back in the oven to stay warm. "You might think of me as bait, Gen, but I'm thinking Lyda was considering me a less intimidating tour guide. She suspected you'd like to learn more about us."
"You didn't call her Mistress that time."
"She's not completely hung up on that. She always says I'll know exactly when to call her Mistress. She's right about that."
The statement was fraught with images Gen could bring into focus far too easily. As Noah put the plates on the table, her gaze coursed up his body, back to the base of his throat, the part of his body that seemed to be her particular obsession. "You know, I really have no idea what to think. Whether to feel appalled, intrigued, nervous...or send you away."
"The most important thing to remember is you're in charge, Gen. You can do whatever makes you feel best."
"But I don't know how to do that, how to ignore your feelings."
"You're not." That emphatic note entered his voice again, commanding her attention. He met her gaze. "When you touched me at the chair, why did you do that? Only because you felt like it?"
"No. The way you looked at me, I thought..."
"I wanted you to touch me. I did. I do. You may not think of yourself as a Domme, Gen, but here's the thing about them. They only do what the submissive truly wants or needs, even though sometimes they have to help us understand what that is, because we bury it under a lot of other crap. My crap's been excavated for quite a while." His gaze flickered, making her wonder what that meant for him. "I'm not confused about how I feel, and I don't want you to think my reaction to you is some kind of generic program that happens for every woman who crosses my radar."
"I didn't mean to be cruel," she said hastily. "I--"
He shook his head, covered her hand. "I wasn't criticizing you. Just making it clear because, like you said, you don't know much about it. Sometimes even Doms and subs get it fucked up. So maybe we should talk about it some, answer those questions you've wanted to ask Chloe and Marguerite but haven't. Okay? Kind of like I'm a live search engine."
While she appreciated the encouragement and understood he was obviously at ease being grilled about it, they both already knew that wasn't the problem.
"Yes. But maybe later. I need to breathe. And eat."
He gave her hand a squeeze. "Fair enough. Will you tell me more about the craft room? It looks like a major studio in there, a little bit of everything. Do you do more than collages?"
"Yes. I do beading, scrapbooking..."
Chapter Three
After the earlier intensity, dinner was surprisingly low key. He got her talking about her collage projects, how she started doing them, the local craft and bookclub groups she socialized with. She and a dozen other women rotated responsibility for hosting crafting parties the first Thursday of every month. Everyone brought a current project and they chatted, ate a potluck dinner. She tried to take one course from the community college every semester. She also volunteered for an animal shelter, walking the dogs and cleaning out the cat cages a couple Sundays each month. She told him about a lean, black-and-white, seven-year-old tomcat who had come in recently, with scarred face and a bad attitude.
"I'm thinking I may adopt him. He's starting to like me. But I wanted to get the kitchen done first. I figured he wouldn't appreciate all the noise and dust."
In turn, she found out Noah had an eclectic employment history. In New Orleans, he'd worked multiple jobs, sometimes holding as many as three at a time. Stocking at grocery stores, park cleanup, mowing right of ways, construction. But his last job had been as a waiter in an upscale New Orleans restaurant. The tips he'd earned there were substantial enough he'd dropped to one job. He'd done that for about a year before coming to Florida to be near his grandmother.
"Dot's still pretty spry and determined to live alone. She's far more likely to offer help to a neighbor than ask for it in return, but she has to use a motorized chair to get around. She and I have always been close, so now that I'm nearby, if she's not feeling well or needs something done at the house, she'll call me. I've built her ramps and helped fix things in the house so it's easier for her to navigate and get things done in the chair."
His fondness for her was obvious. On the flipside, when he asked Gen about her job at Tea Leaves, she could tell he registered how much she loved working with Marguerite and Chloe.
"It's funny about Chloe," he said. "We all know she's not a Domme, even Brendan, but she's adapted herself to him in so many right ways, even Lyda's come around about it. At first she was sure they were going to crash and burn."
"Has she seen the two of them together?" Gen was offended for her friend. "Who could possibly think that?"
"That's part of why she's come around," Noah explained. "Seeing them together more often. But Lyda's witnessed relationships where
someone without a true Dom/sub orientation hooks up with someone who has a strong one, and Brendan is a down-to-the-bone sub. Those relationships have a hard go of it, long term. But the way he and Chloe feel about each other, it's obvious there's something there, above, beyond and below the Dom/sub thing. That gives it a far better chance of survival."
He smiled. "Beyond that, it's impossible not to love Chloe. Brendan would ride a bicycle to the moon for her."
Gen thought about how Chloe had thrown herself in Noah's lap, his easy affection with her. She wondered if Noah defined himself as a down-to-the-bone submissive.
At this point she'd moved into the living room and was curled up on the couch, watching him clean up the kitchen. He'd shooed her out, refused to let her help.
