Lyda is like that. Of course. It should have been obvious.
Less than a couple years ago, a break-in at Tea Leaves, a terrible event connected to M's past and one that nearly lost her both M and Chloe, had taught Gen what lay beneath Marguerite's formidable calm. During that time, she'd also found out some pretty eye-opening things about her boss. Marguerite was a sexual Dominant, a Mistress. Tyler, was also one--a Master that is. Chloe's husband Brendan was a submissive who inhabited that world.
Eventually, Chloe had revealed to Gen the shocking fact Marguerite had been Brendan's Mistress of choice before meeting Chloe. While Chloe wasn't a Mistress, she was a sexually adventurous young woman. Somehow, she and Brendan were making it work, but there was an undeniably strong bond between them, more than the usual overt affection of newlyweds.
Before those revelations, Gen hadn't known anything about the BDSM world except the distortions of pop culture, but once she learned--again through Chloe--more about what a Mistress was, it had certainly explained a lot about the effortless power Marguerite seemed to exercise over everyone in her world, though Chloe said that Dominants were as diverse as any other group. Not all Mistresses were like Marguerite.
Actually, I think there's no one like Marguerite, Chloe had said, with a twinkle in her eye.
Lyda exuded similar qualities. Obviously. So it made sense. She was a Mistress. Maybe she had trouble containing those boundaries within a proper environment, and Gen was just inexperienced in dealing with that kind of thing.
Even though Chloe frequently encouraged Gen to join them at The Zone, the BDSM club they frequented, and in which Tyler had an ownership interest, Gen had always declined. It wasn't her world. She wasn't drawn to that. Or rather, by not exposing herself, she was making sure she wasn't. She'd been down the sexually adventurous road in her early twenties. Two marriages had pretty much burned her out on all of it.
She had gone as far as looking up the club online. It was a classy, high-end establishment, the membership fee making her blanch. Marguerite had never encouraged her to visit it the way Chloe had, but that didn't mean anything. Marguerite really wasn't the "C'mon, girlfriend, let's get our freak on at the BDSM club tonight" type.
Gen grinned, equilibrium restored. This was her world. It was comfortable, quiet, what she knew. Things made sense. She amused herself by imagining Lyda in stereotypical dominatrix gear. Sleek, form-fitting black latex that clung to hips and trim waist. Those generous breasts would swell out the top of a corset, her long red hair loose and caressing pale shoulders. She'd be wearing gloves, the kind that fit like a second skin and went past a woman's elbows. Gen had a black, silky pair she'd picked up at a yard sale. She wore them at home sometimes for no reason, since she had nowhere to wear them.
She imagined Lyda reaching out, black-clad fingers touching Gen's face, then sliding up to her temple, into her hair, tightening there. Gen would sink to her knees, right in front of those sleek, latex-covered thighs. Would she put her lips on one and stay there, eyes closed, as Lyda stroked her hair?
She'd moved into the storeroom, was measuring out tea, but that thought brought her to a halt. Arousal dampened her panties. Weird. Another word for bizarre, peculiar and uncanny. Uncanny. She liked that one. She'd become addicted to the thesaurus as part of her collage hobby, trading out words for the patterns she created, preferring the aesthetic look of one word over another because of its combination of consonant tails and fat vowels. Other times she just liked how it fit the tone of the picture she was making. Earth instead of dirt... Rain instead of water... A choice of one versus the other made a different impression on the senses.
She was spending too much time daydreaming. The phone was going to start ringing with more orders, the door opening on the midmorning rush. She shouldn't be dallying, not when Marguerite was handling customers and a visitor.
She laid a light towel over the container holding the Ceylon, seeing no need to seal it for a quick dash. Until it was too late. She came out of the storeroom at the quick march and ran smack up against another human being.
Tea leaves did a tsunami wave over the dislodged towel, the fruit-and-molasses smell clouding the air. Oh, shit. She should have put a lid on the bowl, should have...
A pair of strong male hands caught hold of Gen to keep her from tumbling, but in so doing, the kind stranger was unable to defend himself from the onslaught and took the shower of leaves square in the face. Now he was sneezing.
"Oh God. I'm so sorry. Are you all right?" She snatched a paper towel from the storeroom, wet it down in the utility sink and came back out with it, bending down to insert it in his field of view. He had his hands on his knees, his head down. "Here, wipe this under your nose and on your face."
He managed a quick grin between another couple hard sneezes. "Sorry." He complied with her direction, took another paper towel from her to blow his nose, then one more damp one to finish things off. As he straightened, she saw he was a handsome mid-twenties, slim but charismatic, his sleek dark hair pulled back to show sharply sculpted facial features. He wore black-and-silver braided bracelets double-wrapped on his wrists, black jeans and a white T-shirt. A matching choker was wrapped around his throat, completing a somewhat Goth look. No eye makeup or black nails, though.
"Subdued Goth?" she ventured, seeking something to say other than apologies.
Brown eyes like rich cocoa sparkled at her, setting off those butterflies again. She must be going through some weird hormone surge today.
"I teach sailing at the community college," he explained. "Runny black eye liner scares the students."
"But you are a Goth?"
He shrugged, cleared his throat. "When I go to a club, I might trick myself out with the full regalia, but not so much on a day-to-day basis anymore. I'm evolving. I was never much of a music-inspired Goth anyhow."
This was the kind of eccentric conversation Chloe loved. She'd jump with both feet into someone's head, ferret out every intriguing thing about them. Usually Gen had a sideline seat to enjoy the show, but maybe today she'd try something different. Maybe she'd be the one daring to find out more.
"Is there another type of Goth?" Stepping back into the storeroom, she began to measure out more Ceylon, trying not to think of the gimlet eye Marguerite would level upon her for her carelessness. It wasn't cheap, one of the Sri Lanka teas that came from the highest elevations.
"I'm inspired by movie and literary geniuses of the genre," he said, leaning in the door, entirely comfortable. Of course, trying to asphyxiate someone with tea did bring down social barriers. "Like Edgar Allan Poe."
"I really don't know much about Goths," she admitted. "I didn't know there were different...sects."
"That's all right." He grinned again. "My perspective isn't that common. I tend to do my own thing. I was born in the wrong time period."
She replaced the lid, sealed the container and efficiently swept the counter. As she moved to the doorway and he straightened, she saw he was probably close to six feet. Not quite as tall as Marguerite's Tyler, but still a nice height.
"Maybe you weren't born in the wrong time period," she suggested. "Maybe you were alive then, and now you're here, reincarnated. You can't stay in the same time period forever."
Good God, Chloe was rubbing off on her. Not only was she talking like her, she was finding the topic engaging.
"Except during sex," he observed. "That's the only way you can make time stop, during any lifetime."
She gave him a sharp look, prepared to say something a little more distancing, but his serious expression said he wasn't flirting, just making a simple observation. "Spoken like a guy," she responded lightly.
"No," he said. "It's not like that. Everyone knows about that kind of sex. Or they should."
He met her gaze as directly as Lyda did, but there was a different tone to it. Whereas Lyda's gaze could hold her like a restraint, his drew her to him like the offer of a young satyr to dance with him on a moonlit night. She'd don
e a collage of a fairy ring recently, a birthday gift for a friend in her book club who loved fairies. That was the only reason she could think why such an impractical idea had jumped into her mind.
She decided to take it back to safer footing. "Favorite Edgar Allan Poe quote?"
"'Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.'" His lips quirked. "My favorite partly because I liked the quote, partly because it taught me the dangers of academic pretentiousness."
A college grad. Of course. Usually she had an aversion to that type, knowing how little she'd have in common with them and not really wanting to be reminded of her comparative lack of education, but the comment made her curious. "How so?"
He sighed. "I wrote it up on the board for a class, a visual aid for a presentation on Poe. Couldn't figure out what all the snickering was about until the end. I had left the 'r' out of peering."
"'Deep into that darkness, peeing...'" She chuckled. "Well, conceivably, one could pee into the darkness and experience fear, doubt and wonder at the same time."
It was stupid to get uptight about it. Lots of people hadn't attended college. She hadn't done well in school, too busy living up to low expectations while her single mother worked. Gen had become a hairdresser to make ends meet and found she did that well enough, but she didn't have any real flair or passion for it. Her life was littered with mediocre attempts at a lot of things. She'd liked writing poetry in middle school, until she read one to her mother and Momma made it clear girls from trailer parks didn't write poetry. They found a guy who, if they were lucky, didn't drink to excess and beat them, and settled down to have babies.
It had probably been very bad poetry. She'd thrown it away, but in the past few years she'd thought about going back to school to get an English degree, just for the pleasure of learning. Which was ridiculous. Not only because she didn't have the money to waste on "fun" classes, but because she'd made so many mistakes early on in her life, with education and men, learning a practical skill like accounting had made more sense. She channeled her creative side into her crafts. Collages required only access to discarded magazines, newspapers and other recycled paper sources, and a healthy supply of glue. She loved her monthly book club, though.
"Oh." She realized she was shirking another responsibility. She really was off her game today. "This is a private area. The main entrance to Tea Leaves is on the front porch. Did you get lost?" She asked it kindly but firmly.
He didn't seem offended. "Mrs. Winterman said I could check out her new garden additions, to get ideas for the nursery. I think she was trying to get rid of me while she and my...Ms. Coltrane talked.
"Oh. Okay."
"I...work for Lyda," he supplied. "When not doing the sailing."
She noted the pause, as if the answer wasn't as straightforward as that, but he'd moved on to introductions. "I'm Noah. Can I help you carry that?"
"Gen. Pleasure to meet you. No, I sealed it this time. We could dropkick it back to the kitchen if needed. In my own defense, I wasn't expecting a tree to spring up right in front of the door."
When she earned another easygoing grin, she couldn't help but note he was really handsome. It wasn't exactly his looks, which were a ten on any scale, but what lay beneath them, a compelling quality that kept drawing the eye back to his face, those distracting lips. "Do you know Brendan? He teaches drama at the college."
"He helped me get the sailing gig when I moved down here for my grandmother a few months ago. I came from New Orleans."
"From New Orleans to Tampa. I can't imagine. New Orleans seems so exotic."
"You guys have Miami and the Keys. Disney World."
"The first two are a bit of a drive from here. But I'll give you Disney World." As she came out of the storeroom, he reached past her, closed the door so she didn't have to do it while balancing the tea. "Did you meet Brendan in college?"
"No. He was visiting New Orleans a few years back and he and I met in one of the clubs there. We hit it off, had a lot of common interests."
A club. And he worked for Lyda. Should she just ask outright if it was a BDSM club? Chloe would. But she wasn't Chloe, no matter how she was trying to channel her. It had been her problem all her life. Always feeling out of sync, no matter where she ended up. Except Tea Leaves. She fit here. She didn't have to prove anything here, be anything she wasn't.
Noah followed her to the side entrance, apparently comfortable not saying anything further, which was good, because she wasn't sure where to go from there. He held the screen door for her, reaching out to steady her on the steps. Her nerve endings reacted with tingling pleasure to the long, strong fingers that briefly gripped her side, brushed her lower back. As she glanced back at him, she noticed his lips were red, shaped nicely. She wanted to run a fingertip over them, see what they felt like.
He was on the step right below her, which put them at eye level, his one arm stretched out to hold the door behind her, the other on the rail, making their bodies form an intimate circle, one of those inadvertent things that could happen between two strangers with chemistry. A dark brow lifted at her pause, and in that moment she reached out and touched his mouth.
It was soft and giving, a potential for wet heat that firmed under her touch as he parted his lips, let her stroke over them. His sinfully sweet gaze remained on her the whole time. Unlike Lyda's, his wasn't penetrating. It felt more like he was...waiting.
"I'm sorry," she said, drawing back. "I'm not sure why I did that."
"Because you wanted to," he said simply. "The best reason to do anything."
Chapter Two
The only answer to that was retreat. She moved back into Tea Leaves, cognizant of him following behind her. It really was turning into a peculiar day.
She put the Ceylon in its proper spot and finished up the order for six. Marguerite was at Lyda's table, keeping an eye on the customers as they spoke. Noah moved into the room, nodding deferentially to Marguerite and Lyda before he took a seat by the door. The several chairs lined against the wall there were intended for waiting to-go customers, or for those who needed an extra seat at their table. When the nearest table of customers, a group of three women dressed for the office, looked toward Noah, he gave them a pleasant, guileless smile they seemed to appreciate.
Gen didn't blame them. He wasn't beefcake hunky, but the direct gaze, the lean strength of his body, the compelling face and eyes, made a nice package. She remembered the give of his mouth beneath her fingertips, could easily imagine his tongue teasing her fingertips, those brown eyes studying her, gauging what would give her pleasure.
If Noah was "with" Lyda, not just an employee, did that mean he was like Brendan, a submissive? Did he "belong" to Lyda? As Gen imagined having someone like him at her command, submitting to anything she desired, her knees weakened a little. She'd never given a lot of thought to tying a man up. She'd barely gotten out of missionary position with the two mistakes she'd married, both of them into the traditional male-on-top scenario.
She made a face at herself. For all she knew, Noah just worked for Lyda, and Lyda was merely a very imperious person, neither one of them part of the BDSM lifestyle. Best not to let her imagination run away with her, but there was no harm in it. The racetrack was in the privacy of her mind.
When her name caught her attention, she tuned into the conversation between Marguerite and her visitor. The context put a hard brake on her thoughts, both feet hitting them with a what the hell?
"Gen has purchased tile for her kitchen, but hasn't yet hired someone to do the labor," Marguerite was saying. "She could use an extra pair of hands to do that."
Marguerite glanced her way. "Gen, Lyda is looking for somewhere for Noah to stay for the weekend. He has excellent handyman skills. Would you be interested in his labor in return for giving him room and board?"
If M was making the suggestion, she knew enough about Noah that he could be trusted in Gen's home.
Which left Gen more worried about whether she could be trusted.
She glanced his way. The intent quality to his expression clogged her breath in her throat.
"He refuses to allow me to pay for his accommodations elsewhere," Lyda was saying to Marguerite. "He can be stubborn about that. He prefers to pay his own way. Besides the renovating, he'll do whatever maintenance or housekeeping chores are needed while he's there. Laundry, cleaning, yard mowing. No task too big or small."
"Sounds like I may not want to give him up." Gen meant it as a joke, but the way Lyda's gaze turned to her strangled Gen's nervous half chuckle.
"He has that effect. I'll be having some college friends visiting, but it's a girls' weekend. No boys allowed. He could crash at a friend's house, but I prefer making his arrangements for him, so I know where he is, and that he's properly occupied."
Marguerite and Lyda exchanged a cryptic glance at that. Gen turned her attention to Noah, wanting to know his reaction to such an audacious statement. His gaze was fixed on Lyda. In it she recognized a hint of what she'd felt when Lyda had gripped her hair so hard. Hunger. The kind that moved low in the belly, that had to do with sex, with longing, with a question waiting to be answered.
When Lyda's glance flickered toward him, Noah's attention dropped to the floor, so deliberately Gen felt the jolt. Okay, her Nancy Drew skills were on target. But she didn't know anything about this kind of thing. Was she supposed to treat him the way Lyda would? No, of course not. He'd just be a house guest helping her out with the kitchen.
"Gen?" Marguerite was asking for a decision. "Would you like Noah's help? I guarantee he'll be helpful and as nonintrusive as you wish. But there's no obligation at all on your part. He can stay with Tyler and me."
Which would make more sense, really. Gen's entire house was the size of Marguerite and Tyler's living room. But Marguerite also knew that Gen's funds were limited, and she really did want to get the kitchen finished...
"No. I'd appreciate the help." She heard the words exit her mouth. Noah's expression warmed, and another wave of nervousness had her looking away.