Divine Solace (Nature of Desire 8)

Leaning forward, she adjusted the air to a cooler setting. "So, are you sure you're okay with helping me out with this for no pay? I was budgeting for a laborer to do the tilework." In another month, she'd meet that goal, so she could pay one. If Noah was as good as M implied, she had no problem with him getting the money.

He shook his head. "You're giving me a place to stay. This is my way of paying for it."

"For what tile guys are paid, you could stay in a suite at the Marriott for a week."

"Yeah, but the company wouldn't be as good."

"I've never had someone try to charm me into letting them do my home improvement." She could accuse him of indulging his masochistic tendencies with the hard and tedious task, but she wasn't sure what was appropriate teasing when it came to BDSM. Plus, she didn't know if all of it was about pain. She couldn't imagine Chloe beating Brendan.

Noah eased up on the brake, accelerated through a light, changing lanes with a hairsbreadth between him and the cars fore and aft in the heavy traffic. He did it so smoothly, she didn't feel nervous in the least. She wondered where he'd acquired his urban driving skills.

"Better not thank me yet," he said. "I haven't done tilework in a while. You may have to pay someone to fix what I screw up."

She sincerely doubted that, since Marguerite wouldn't have recommended him otherwise. "I'll report you to Lyda if you do a shoddy job. She seems like the type to demand perfection."

His eyes slid over her face before they returned to the road. "She has a way of demanding a lot from everyone around her. Things you don't think you have inside of you, but it makes you a better person to find out they're there, if that makes sense."

She thought about the way her day had gone since Lyda had crossed her path. How Gen had reached out and touched Noah in a way she'd never spontaneously touched a man. When he'd been washing cups and busing tables, she'd felt a thrill every time she thought about him coming home with her. But that had connected to Lyda as well. It was as if, by letting Noah stay with Gen, Lyda was sending her some kind of secret message. Gen couldn't deny it gave her a tiny yet equally strong thrill, like being passed a note at school by a secret crush.

I'm being an idiot. "Does she always come off so overwhelming?"

That grin reappea

red. "Actually, that was Lyda way toned down. Her inside voice, if you will."

"Geez."

He laughed, a pleasant sound that caressed her senses. Then he gave her a thoughtful glance. "You know, if you want to ask things about being a Dom or sub, it's okay. I'm used to talking about it. If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay too. I just don't want you to feel like you can't ask. You seem like you maybe want to ask some things."

Great. She'd been able to rein herself back under the illusion of respecting his privacy, but he'd just removed that barrier.

"Oh, that's okay. I can always ask Marguerite and Chloe that kind of thing."

He changed lanes, a quick glance over his shoulder and at the mirrors. She liked watching him drive. His focus on the road let her study him at her leisure, those attractive details that a woman didn't get to study as closely when a man's attention was on her. The flex of his forearms as he adjusted his hold on the wheel, the shift of thigh when going from gas to brake. When she next sat in the driver's seat, her backside would be nestled where his nice tight one had been. Crazy, silly thoughts. That was why it was safer not to talk about these things. She was only foolish to herself, so the pleasure was undiluted.

"Chloe said you haven't ever asked anything. She figured that either meant you aren't comfortable with BDSM and prefer not to talk about it, or you have Family Syndrome." At her look of puzzlement, he elaborated. "You're like family, so you don't really want to know about each other's sex lives. The Ewww factor. Chloe's term and description."

"I guess it could be that," she hedged. "I don't know enough about BDSM to be intolerant of it, so I've never really had that issue. I knew Marguerite quite a while before I knew the other stuff about her, but she's the type of person, once you find out she's a Mistress, it's like..."

"So incredibly obvious it's a 'well, duh'." His eyes sparkled. "Another Chloe term."

"She has her own language." Fondness for the girl welled up in Gen. "And even if I did have a problem with BDSM, it wouldn't matter. M and Chloe could bury bodies in the garden, and all the good things I know about them would outweigh that. I'd just assume the True Lies Arnold line."

"'They were all bad'," Noah supplied, making her chuckle. "You're loyal. That's a nice quality. One of the best, no matter what people think."

An odd note entered his voice, defensive. She decided to leave that alone, since she was still teetering on the line of how intimate she wanted the conversation to go. But she supposed some basic, less personal information would be okay.

"It's not so much because of the family thing," she admitted. "Asking Marguerite personal questions is always...problematic, and if I asked Chloe the questions I want to ask, she'd start pushing me to put on a corset, come check out a club, see it all firsthand. I'm more cautious about things."

They were idling in another snarl of rush-hour traffic, backed up at a series of lights. He looked at her. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For whatever happened to you that made you more cautious about things."

She stared at him. "I didn't say anything did."

He let a fingertip whisper over the outer corner of her right eye, following a track to the corner of her lips. "I saw a flash of it, in how you held your mouth, the way the lines along your eyes creased."