Submissive Desires (8 page)

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic, hon.”

“I am. I am. But I’m not. I just wanna meet you for the first time and get it over with, ya’ know?”

“You’re a real sweet talker, there, Maura – makes meeting me sound like the equivalent of going to the dentist for root canal.”

She giggled. Simon loved making her giggle, and she did it so readily. “Well . . . just so’s you know, I do look forward to meeting you more so than that . . . but not by a lot.”

His ego was going to suffer by this woman, he could tell. “You should go to bed.”

“I’m waaaay too hyped to go to bed, Simon.”

“Mmmmmm. I could help you with that, too . . .”

“No, you couldn’t,” Maura replied staunchly, no matter how much she wanted to give in.

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“The offer stands, regardless.”

“Thank you,” she replied with excruciating politeness, blushing furiously.

“I bet you’re blushing.”

“Cut that out!”

He was laughing again, deep and rich and pouring over her like honey on a sopaipilla. “Well, try to get some sleep, anyway. I’m gonna go get some work done – you should, too.”

Maura sighed. “Yes, Sir.”

“Just try, hon. I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven-thirty.”

“I’ll be the one driving around and around and around trying to decide whether or not to park and get out . . .”

“I’ll just go stand in front of you, and then you’ll have to stop,” he supplied promptly.

“If I don’t mow you over first . . .”

“It’ll be fine, I promise. Really.”

“I know that intellectually. But it’s very scary to me. Very.”

“I know. That’s why I’m having you to take as many precautions as possible, Maura. So you’ll feel safer.”

Maura sat up straighter in her chair. “All of the safety warnings in the world wouldn’t alleviate my severe nervousness about this.”

“Then we’ll hug real quick in the parking lot and then go in and get lunch quick. Food’ll distract you.”

The man had an answer to everything. “Okaaaaay,” she didn’t sound at all sure of his ability to make her comfortable. “Maybe what we ought to do is meet in the parking lot and then go away and meet again for dinner.”

“As much as I care about you, honey, I’m not going to drive all the way home then all the way back, even for you.”

Maura grimaced. “I forgot.”

“Try not to stay up too late. I want you in bed no later than one – you hear me?”

She sighed. “Yes, Sir.”

“That’s my girl. And try to get some sleep.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good girl. I’m gonna go. See you later.”

“Okay. Night. Sleep well.”

“I will. You too.”

Maura hung up the phone and just sat there for a long while, staring at it, hoping she could work up the nerve necessary to stop her car . . . or to get to the restaurant in the first place.Maura spent the entire of the next morning, after her eyes had popped open promptly at the abhorrent hour of five-thirty, futzing about what she was going to wear, how she was going to act, and practicing conversations with him even while she was driving to the restaurant. Her heart was going to hammer its way right out of her chest in a bloody mess, she was sure.

It was only eleven-fifteen, but even before she turned into the half-empty parking lot, she could see a big black truck parked right out in front, and someone – definitely of the male persuasion – was leaning negligently against the back end of it. Deciding to be brave for once in her life, she pulled up into the space next to him and shut off the car.

But she couldn’t seem to make herself get out of it. So much for bravery.

Simon knew exactly who had just pulled up beside him, and he was halfway around the end of the truck before she’d cut off the engine. He expected the car door to swing open, so he stayed back a little, but then it didn’t. And still didn’t. And really didn’t.

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Finally, Simon walked up to the driver’s side window and squatted down. It was such a low-slung sports car that that put him at eye level with her. She looked stark and faint, but the window rolled down electronically, although she had yet to look at him.

“Are you okay?”

She sighed while Simon was busily drinking in her profile. They’d exchanged pictures at one point - and drivers’ license photos were atrocious by definition - but hers had not done her justice. He was fairly entranced by her hair as it hung in loose waves past her shoulders – the pictures he seen must’ve been older, because none of them showed her with hair quite that long. It was luscious, and Simon had to keep himself from reaching out to bury his hand in it at the nape of her neck, capturing a hank of it to let its silky softness dribble over his fingers. He was instantaneously hard as a rock, and nothing of the rest of what he saw in her plain but delicate looks assuaged that in the least. He wanted her desperately on sight, and, if he hadn’t been sure she would have to be his before, her bright, feminine looks cinched it.

Normally, he might have been rather impatient with her tentativeness, her hesitation in trusting him. But not with Maura. She was well worth waiting for, and he wanted her to be sure of him before she did something she really didn’t want to do.

“I promise – you’re just as safe with me as you want to be. I would never let anyone hurt you –

including me.”

Maura turned and looked at him for the first time, and had the breath knocked out of her even though he was far from gorgeous – too roughly hewn and craggy faced. But he had a presence – an aura, if one believed in such things – that practically knocked her on her butt. She had no doubt about the truth of his words. The problem was that she didn’t know how safe she would want to stay with him – and his eyes were so full of sensual promise that she had to look away again.

He was tall and lean, not overtly, bulgingly muscular, but obviously very strong – physically and mentally – broad shouldered with a classic Y-shape. Simon had a full head of graying hair, and a well-kept gray mustache. She wanted him on sight, and the accompanying gush of feminine liquid onto her panties only made her that much more wary of him.

He just sat there, as if they had all the time in the world and he was perfectly content to wait for her to decide to gird her loins and meet him properly.

Finally, after much too long trying to convince herself to move – during which he was remarkably quiet and calm, watching her wrestle with herself about him – she eyed him with more bravado than she thought she possessed. “Well, are you going to move, or am I going to knock you over with the car door?”

He got to it before she did, pulling the handle and backing away as he opened it for her. Feeling distinctly inelegant, Maura exited the car, and Simon took several steps closer to her to close the door with a thunk. Although she desperately wanted to slink away from him, she didn’t, and was inordinately proud of herself for standing still, although she was eying him with incredible wariness that Simon wholly understood.

He offered his hand – hoping to show her that he didn’t expect intimacies from the outset – that he was quite patient enough to let her get comfortable with him before he touched her in the manner he really wanted to.

Maura just looked at his hand for a moment, as if it was a rabid dog stealthily approaching her, but then she blinked several times and shook it, firmly, pumping twice then releasing. He let her go immediately with no coy attempts to retain contact. “It’s nice to meet you, Maura Boardman.”

Her eyes slid away from his. “Same here, Simon Hawkins.” Her voice was not her own – it was someone else’s who was more than slightly timid and awed by both the situation and him.

She wasn’t getting any more relaxed, in fact she looked more frightened and unsure than she had in the car. “Well, why don’t we go in and get some grub?”

That earned him a small, tentative smile. “Yes, why don’t we?” God, after everything they’d talked about online, how could she still feel so damned awkward around him? They started to walk; Simon obviously shortening his strides to accommodate the difference in their statures. He didn’t touch her in 37

any way – didn’t put his hand on the small of her back as he wanted to, just to guide her – hell, just to get the feel of her in the most courteous and gentlemanly of manners – didn’t take her hand or drape his arm around her shoulders. All of which he almost desperately wanted to do, despite the fact that he wasn’t usually the most tactile of people - in fact he was normally quite solitary and self-contained.

Still, there it was; a deep, aching need to put his hands on her, so much so that they literally itched to settle on her somewhere – anywhere at all, even the most inappropriate of places.

Consciously trying to remember all of the courtesies his mother had so painstakingly drilled into him, Simon held the door open for her, which only seemed to add to her discomfort. Since she’d preceded him, she got the next door and held it for him, which made him grin down at the little women’s libber.

They were seated quickly at a green wrought iron table with matching chairs, as the place really hadn’t filled up with the lunch crowd yet. The menu was the size of war and peace, but Maura didn’t even open hers.

“Already know what you want?”

“Yup.” Her eyes skittered nervously away from his.

“I like that in a woman,” he teased gently, trying to help her settle down.

She blushed, and he could only guess that it was full-bodied. It certainly was a deep red. “I don’t generally tend to be indecisive.”

Simon laid his menu on the table. “Neither do I.”

The waiter appeared, taking their orders quickly and efficiently and returning immediately with their drinks – fresh squeezed o.j. for her, and coffee for him.

He watched her fiddling with her purse, rearranging her silverware – doing anything but looking at him.

“Are you all right?” he couldn’t suppress the question. She looked so truly uncomfortable.

Her eyes darted guiltily to him, then she sighed. “Yeah, I’m okay. I hope you have a cell phone on you so that you can call 911 when I have a heart attack, though.”

Simon put his hand on the table, palm up. “Put your hand in mine.”

She met his eyes, her gaze sharp with fear and a complete awareness unlike she’d ever felt before.

Her eyebrow rose. “Or else?”

He shook his head slowly. “No. No punishment, no negative consequences. Just when you’re ready.”

Maura stared at his hand, then at him, then at his hand again. Why was she hesitating – it’s just holding his hand, for God’s sake! She did it all at once, like ripping of a band aid, placing her small hand in his tentatively. Simon felt as if a tiny bird had come to perch, warily. He didn’t try to grab her or hold her in any way, but he did place his other hand lightly over hers, sandwiching those freezing fingers between his warm palms and rubbing slowly.

Although she was surrounded by him, she had the feeling that if she tried to retract her hand at any time that he wouldn’t try to hold onto her, and that feeling kept her snuggled happily in that warmth.

“Your hand is frozen.”

She chuffed. “A sign of a major nerves.”

“Is it all that bad meeting me?”

Another eyebrow raise. “I would hate meeting you under normal circumstances, and this hardly qualifies as normal.”

“I thought we’d gotten to know each other pretty well in the past few months.”

“We have, but that’s still quite different from actually meeting you.” Her fingers were growing gradually warmer as he rubbed them and squeezed them into his warmth.

“Apparently.” Simon felt no need to chat constantly if he didn’t have something to say, and online they had definitely graduated to that point. Now he took the opportunity to watch her surreptitiously.

The picture she’d given him had not done her justice. She was not classically pretty in any way; instead she had a mish-mash of pretty and half-pretty features that he was quite sure would glow if he could get her to 38

relax and smile a little at him. The picture had been of her giggling uncontrollably – right now he couldn’t imagine her doing that – she was too stiff and tense.

They chatted about stupid things – his drive up, how well she’d slept last night, which wasn’t at all – until someone stopped by their table. Maura couldn’t place where she knew the man from, but he was very familiar – it wasn’t until Simon called him by name that she recognized where she knew him from – he was a Senator.

“Harry! How are you?” Simon didn’t smile, his face rock hard with no semblance of greeting in his tone, either.

“Hawkins. I’m fine. Surprised to see that you’ve crawled out of your cave long enough to join the rest of civilization . . .” The enmity between the men was fierce – like two Alpha males circling each other before fighting to the death for dominance of the pack.

“Allow me to introduce you to Ms. Maura Boardman. She’s a writer friend of mine. Maura, this is Senator Harold Kelly.”

Maura dutifully shook the gentleman’s hand, murmuring, “It’s nice to meet you.”

The Senator replied with some pat nicety, and took his leave.

“Wow. A Senator.”

Simon grimaced. “Don’t be too impressed. He’s an oily sort, and that’s putting it politely.”

If she’d needed any confirmation of his identity – that he’d told her his correct name – the Senator had provided it, but it hadn’t ended there. Two other people had stopped by their table before they even got their meals – one of whom was the Mayor, and the other the Chief of Police. Both referred to him almost reverentially as “Col. Hawkins”. Unlike the Senator’s reaction, both the Mayor and the police chief seemed to genuinely like him, greeting him warmly and treating him with the utmost respect.

“Well, I guess you gave me your right name,” she offered wryly as the waiter put their food in front of them – his burger and her French toast with sausage. “Three very prominent members of the community just confirmed it.”

He took a bite of burger and snacked voraciously on his hand-cut fries. “They could have been look-alike actors I’d hired.”

She hadn’t considered that, he could see it in her face.

“But I didn’t.”