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He kept his gaze on the row of tiles he was placing. "It was probably a good thing. Least that's what Lyda says. And Tyler, and anyone who wants to give me an opinion on it." He threw her an attempt at a smile, but it didn't detract from the hardness in his eyes. She thought of that Yours, unconditionally on his back. Had that been something he'd done for his Master?
"If I'm asking inappropriate questions, please tell me," she said. "Your world is so different to me. I don't want to be rude."
"You're fine. Actually, I think our worlds are pretty close to the same when it comes to this. Whether they end it or you do, a broken heart's a broken heart, right?"
His bald statement made it hard for her to turn away from the subject this time. "Yeah. I asked for the divorce, both times. The first one, Guy, he was an alcoholic. His drinking got worse as our marriage progressed. I tried to work it out with him, but it was too one-sided. He hit me one night, broke my nose. That was the final straw, but it wasn't the worst thing. The worst thing was him choosing the bottle over me."
Over and over again, after the first year of their six-year marriage. She wondered if a woman's self-esteem every recovered from that, no matter how many times she told herself it wasn't her, it was an illness, all the stuff they said on TV and in the Al-Anon meetings.
Noah sat back on his heels. Rising, he came to her, ran his finger along the uneven line of her nose. His expression held her still as he leaned down, pressed his lips to it. Then he straightened and went back to the tile placement, leaving her with a curious ache in her chest.
"And your second husband?" he asked, eyes back on what he was doing.
She shook her head. She'd taken this as far as she wanted to go with it right now. "My past is the past. At least I only made the mistake twice."
"Sounds to me like they made the mistake." He'd marked another trio of tiles and now pushed them toward her. "Can you cut these? It turns me on, watching you use that saw. Plus I get to look down your shirt when you pick them up."
It pulled a chuckle from her, as she was sure he'd intended. "Perv," she said. But she bent extra low and shimmied her chest at him before picking up the tiles and sashaying out the door with a lot of hip swivel. His wolf whistle drove the other, darker thoughts away.
Once all the tiles were placed, he mixed the grout and slathered it into the cracks, scraping off the excess. After that, she treated him to a Subway run. They sat in the back yard at her picnic table, feasting on foot longs and chips. She broke the third of a three-for-a-dollar cookie deal with him. Very magnanimous of her, since the food would disappear in his lean frame and be absorbed by his male metabolism, while she'd have to increase her daily walks to keep the fat at bay. Yet he pushed his half of the cookie at her, teasing her into finishing it before they returned to the kitchen to wipe down tiles.
"Lyda is a workout fiend," he said as they moved around one another on hands and knees, polishing the tiles with shop rags. "She does one of those basic training type classes a few times a week. She's the instructor."
"Which explains why she has the killer body."
"Yeah. But the nice thing about women is there are all types of bodies." He gave her that once-over look he did so well. "You've got a lot of nice curves. But see, you just rolled your eyes, the way women do. You don't realize how nice it is, to have a soft ass pressed up against your dick while you sleep, sliding your hands around a great set of tits first thing in the morning...
He stopped at the look on her face. "Sorry. That was a little crude. Doing tilework reminds me of being back on the construction crew, which was all guys."
Actually, his blunt observation underscored his sincerity, which she appreciated. As a result, the rough language turned her on more than she wanted to admit.
He'd turned away from her, allowing her gaze to linger. Thank all the gods for Florida sunlight, he'd removed the T-shirt a couple hours ago. The way his jeans worked with his body while he was on all fours made her have a few crude thoughts herself. "You're not as housetrained as you first appear. It...intrigues me."
His head swung back toward her. The hair at his temples was slick with sweat. Not allowing herself to think too much, she gestured. "Come here."
She was sitting on her heels. He pivoted toward her, abandoning the cloth and putting his knuckles to the tile, staying on his knees. She watched his shoulders and hips roll with the movement. He stopped within inches of her face, the flicker in his eyes suggesting what "not housetrained" could mean. She backed up and rose onto her knees, bringing her head above his. Gripping the edge of her T-shirt, she lifted it to wipe his brow, giving him an up-close look at her breasts cradled in white lace. She'd worn a bra with more push and lift today, because being around him made her feel more se
xual, more female. His breath on her cleavage was a slow, measured burn.
Whoa, girl. But she didn't want to whoa. Maybe it wasn't just at night that strong desires could rise to the top.
Scooting behind him, she nudged his calf. He looked back at her, his braided tail of sleek hair falling over his shoulder as he adjusted his stance so his knees were shoulder width apart. Moving between them, she removed her T-shirt entirely, sliding it down the damp valley of his spine, absorbing an appealing sheen of perspiration. There actually were good things about Florida humidity.
As she traced the individual bones beneath the thin layer of cloth, she leaned forward, which pressed her hips against his ass. His buttocks flexed beneath the pressure as he braced against her weight. She thought of what he'd said, about strap-ons. What would it feel like, to do that to a man? The firm shape of his testicles pressed against her thigh when she bent, put her lips between his shoulder blades.
"Gen."
"Shh." She brushed her cheek against damp male skin, squeezed her eyes shut. Then she drew back, rose to her feet. "So maybe I was wrong about the housetraining thing," she said. "You follow commands pretty well."
Her voice was thick, heart pumping hard. Was she taunting him? She wasn't sure. She retreated to the sink, her T-shirt in hand, pressed beneath her breasts. She stared out into the backyard, at her pretty groupings of potted plants, the privacy fence and small plot of grass.
"Would you like to see the less housetrained side of me, Gen? On your terms?"
She looked over her shoulder at him. He'd risen to his feet. A delicious shiver ran through her. His tone was rough, male, not boyish at all. She'd met men in their twenties who weren't much beyond high school when it came to maturity. Noah wasn't one of them. He was as versatile and timeless as a Fae sprite. Or an incubus. Maybe a vampire.
That fit. She imagined him as a vampire, forever young in appearance, yet looking at the world through the eyes of an old soul. Other times he had an emotional vulnerability that summoned her protective instincts. He was unpredictable, intriguing. And Lyda had given him to her for the weekend. He'd said so. Her first reaction to that had been disbelief, amusement, rejection. Then she'd moved so quickly toward the desire to touch, to experiment, it had frightened her into a quick retreat last night. But now the feeling was back, thicker, richer. She was far less willing to run away.
She looked at the wall clock. "Five minutes," she said. "For the next five minutes...show me." Five minutes had to be safe, right?
