The Shy Dominant (5 page)

“We better get inside.” His voice was rough. He couldn’t help how she made him feel, hungry and wanting. And alive in a way he hadn’t felt for years.

Her lips quirked wryly. “Safer.”

“Yep.”

He held the door open for her and immediately spotted Mattie and Stacy staked out around the coffee table in the great room. The delicious spicy scent emanated from there, wrapping around him like a home coming present.

“Dad!” Mattie gave him her bright smile. “We saved some stuff for you.”

Candle light flickered against the walls, throwing shadows wildly as he closed the front door. He stood a moment, taking in the transformation to his plain wooden coffee table. It was big and sturdy and Stacy had been at him for a while to replace it, but it was a great place to put up his feet so he’d so far been resistant to his daughter’s decorating disdain.

Somehow the battered maple had become a place of romance. Hunks of crystals and sea urchins decorated the surface where food wasn’t laid out. Interesting dishes in round and oval shapes held steaming platters—oysters, shrimp and tumbled vegetables in red curry. The girls were drinking from champagne flutes.

“Sparkling peach juice,” Dharma whispered. “Although in Europe, it would so not be a big deal for them to have a glass of red wine with dinner.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re a rebel but not a parent. I shudder to think how I’d get them to go to bed at the appointed time if they had alcohol in their system. Sugar can be bad enough.”

“Oh, yeah. Hadn’t thought of that one!”

She took his hand and led him to the table where Mattie served him up a king-sized plate. He took it, wanting to shovel it down he was so goddamned hungry, but he didn’t want to ruin the ambiance for his girls.

His girls.

He realised he had automatically included Dharma as one of them, as if she completed his family.

He swallowed tightly. “I can’t believe you did all this.”

“We get to keep the crystals and seashells, Dad!” Mattie sang out. She took the dessert from Dharma and would have dived in, but Stacy sneered at her and put the Nanaimo bars on lusterware plates first. “It’s supposed to look good, dummy,” Stacy said.

“Tastes better,” Mattie mumbled around her own serving, her contentment unmarred by her older sister’s waspishness.

Dharma grinned at their byplay and Fred felt his mood lift, becoming as bubbly as the drink Dharma handed him. He wished it was a beer. From her amused look, he guessed he was transparent.

“Thanks for doing all this,” he told Dharma. He found himself studying the shape of her eyes, liking the slightly exotic tilt. To bury his feelings, he turned his attention to his food and the chatter of his girls.

His girlfriend.

If only she could be.

* * * *

“Did you get a chance to talk to Stacy about whatever has been ridin’ her?” Fred asked later as he and Dharma washed out the serving dishes.

Dharma shook her head, her hands wet from the sink, sleeves rolled up, hair clinging to her forehead. She looked earthy and sweaty, like a sexy laundress from another century.

“No, to be honest, it was probably too optimistic to think I could get her to confide in me. I mean, she’s not one of my adult girlfriends. She’s…”

“A kid. And you have no experience with kids.”

Dharma shrugged. “Nope. Anyway, she’s also pretty territorial about you. Haven’t you dated at all?”

He cleared his throat.

“I’m guessing just a couple of one night stands.”

Since he’d driven the girls to a schoolmate’s home to see a litter of kittens after dinner, he was franker than he would be if they were in the house. “A firefighter can always get pussy,” Fred stated baldly.

Dharma’s eyes widened at his deliberate crudeness.

“That’s what it is,” he continued, wanting her to understand he was not in a position for a relationship, especially with someone so young and unfettered. “I’d be alone with a woman like we are now and she’d slide off her panties…” He glanced at her colourful clothing meaningfully. “Climb up on the kitchen island and spread herself for me. And I’d take what I was offered, Dharma. I am a man.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How nice for you, that women make it so easy.”

He couldn’t help but grin at her acid tone. Was his tigress actually jealous?

But she wasn’t his, he reminded himself for the thousandth time. Sex was one thing, having a girlfriend was another.

“You think if you have me, it’ll be all over, Fred?” Dharma asked him in a husky tone. She put aside the casserole dish she’d just washed. “You think you won’t want me again?”

“Dharma…”

“Who was she, the woman who just hopped on your kitchen counter and offered herself?”

Damn, he hadn’t expected her to ask him that. She had her hands on her hips, confronting him.

“My neighbour,” he said. “And it was her kitchen, not mine. She doesn’t have kids so she could make as much noise as she wanted when I fucked her.” He was being deliberately crude so she’d back off.

Only she didn’t.

Instead she unhurriedly packed away the pans she’d brought then pointed to the kitchen counter. “That about right?”

“I…uh…” He couldn’t think. She was shimmying out of her skirt, the leather sliding down her legs and boots. Underneath she wore a pink thong and he lost his breath when he saw again her high, round ass, bare to his gaze.

Dharma thrust her hair back over her shoulder and let the thong drop. Somehow leaving her top and boots on only made her look more illicit. “It’s a bit high…” She lifted herself up on the island as he watched, frozen. “Fortunately, I do yoga.”

Then she spread her legs so he could see her glistening pink depths. “If I were your girlfriend and you’d had a tough day, this is what you could expect to come home to,” she said.

Chapter Four

“You’re too young for me,” Fred managed to croak. He was surprised he wasn’t going into cardiac arrest since his heart was pounding so hard. He was shaking. Jesus, he was actually shaking.

Dharma was a fantasy as she fell back, her long hair a silken tangle over her full breasts and the countertop surface. Her eyes were both heavy-lidded and challenging as they held his. Her cheeks flushed as if she felt the power he did.

“What are you afraid of?” she whispered.

He swallowed. If he even so much as grazed her hair with his fingers he’d be on her,
in
her. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“Tell me.”

Tell her? A dark fantasy rose inside him. Her wrists bound with his belt, her legs splayed on his kitchen island on a typical weekday night. Except his girls were somewhere else and when he got the pizza box from the young man at the door he let him into the kitchen so he could see Dharma.

He wanted to show her off to other men. How was
that
for a normal fantasy?

And maybe Fred would let the pizza delivery guy—whom he knew was single and oh so lonely—graze a finger over Dharma’s luscious wetness, touch and play with her, make her gasp and beg while Fred controlled the situation, controlled her pleasure utterly.

“You need to go home,” he ground out as sweat broke out on his body. He couldn’t let her know how disgusting his fantasies were. The things he wanted to do to her. The things he wanted to watch her do…

She sat up. “Seriously? You just told me you had casual sex with your neighbour on a kitchen island, that it was no big deal because you’re a man.”

His jaw bunched on the words he couldn’t say. The needs he had to lock up and bury. His body hurt, wanting to go to hers, to please her as her man.

“Can’t. I’m sorry.”

Dharma jumped off the island. She bent her head, hiding her face from him and he felt awful for her, fucking awful, imagining her humiliation. “I’m sorry I pushed you.” Her voice was tight, as if she was as wound as he was. “I didn’t mean to… That is just not cool.”

What was she talking about? He couldn’t think.

I want you so much.

But he didn’t have the courage to share this forbidden side of himself. She was his friend, she was too young, she was—

Everything
he ached for. Everything.

Dharma sucked in deep breaths, fighting hot tears aching to spill. How could this have gone so wrong? She’d planned to seduce Fred. He liked her, she knew he did. He laughed at her jokes, he smiled into her eyes, he blushed when she caught him looking at her ass when she bent over to get fresh coffee beans out of the giant sacks they used at
Coffee Dreams
. She’d assumed his story about the neighbour was his bashful way of sharing what he wanted.

Her up on his kitchen island so they could share some hot, fun sex.

How could she have been so stupid?

She forced herself to look at him, skinned down to a T-shirt, his biceps bulging from his crossed arms, his hair so close to his skull it resembled a warrior’s helmet.

He looked intimidating.

But she refused to be intimidated.

She refused to be embarrassed.

Oh, damn it, no. She
was.
She couldn’t help it.

She felt shattered, like she had to get away from him right now.

“I’m glad you liked the food,” she managed.

“It was…nice.”

Nice? What the hell did that mean? Had it been nice when she popped up on the table and flashed him?

Gritting her teeth, she said, “Nice. Great.”

As if he knew what she was thinking, he said, “I don’t use fancy words like Taz.”

“I haven’t heard too many from him.” Did she have everything? She had to focus, had to centre herself. Why couldn’t she centre herself? Men liked her. Men wanted her. It was no big deal that Fred had rejected her.

Her throat closed.

“Okay, well, tell the girls I enjoyed dinner.”

“Dharma, I—”

Oh, no. She could not talk about what had happened. If she did, she’d break down. Messy tears, crushed expectations, and it would only make it a million times worse when she was lying in bed alone tonight, wishing she could move to Paris.

“I don’t want you to hurt.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Too late.”

Silence stretched, tense and painful.

“I won’t be in the office for the next couple of days,” she said. She tried to make her pace look brisk and not like she was running as she hurried to the front door.

Fred grabbed her arm. “Are you quitting because of what happened?”

“What? No. I have to put in a couple of nights at the bar.”

“Like hell.”

She glared at him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“I told you when I took the secretarial job that I’d weigh the two jobs and decide which one suited me better.” She reached for the doorknob, but he slapped his hand against the door.

“I don’t want you working there!” He was looming over her deliberately, she was sure. What a jerk. Why had she ever thought him sweet and so sexy?

Why did he still feel that way to her stupid heart?

“I worked at the bar for months, one or two more nights is—”

“Is hell. It’s
hell
, Dharma.” His voice was hoarse. When her gaze shot to his, he looked away. “I know I can’t ask you to stop working there. I have no right.”

Her nostrils flared, taking in his scent, hot sunshine and exhaust from the fire hall. He smelt rough, like a man who worked with his hands. She still wanted to touch him, caress his chest through his T-shirt. “No, you don’t,” she said quietly. “Goodnight, Fred.”

With obvious reluctance, he stepped back, arms folded in the classic posture of holding back.

She swung open the door, jumping as she suddenly faced a stranger.

The woman raised her pale brows, taking in Dharma and Fred. She was a petite blond with an oval face and pale green eyes. “Well, isn’t this interesting?” she said, her gaze running over Dharma in a way that made it clear she thought Dharma had either just had wild sex or run a marathon. “Who are you?”

“Dharma,” Dharma said, completely fed up with the way the evening had gone. “And you?”

The woman smiled. “Fred’s wife.”

Chapter Five

“How did the big date go last night?” Sian Blaine asked the next morning in Coffee Dreams. She expertly made then slid a decaffeinated red-chocolate mocha in front of Dharma, who was slumped at one of the tables.

“Disaster,” Dharma moaned. “Disaster upon humiliation.”

“Oh, good.”

Dharma lifted her head from her crossed arms and gave Sian a glare. “Hey, you’re supposed to be part of my support system, remember?”

“I remember you’re part of mine.” Sian rubbed her pregnant belly gently. She was only working half shifts now on Luke’s insistence. Both of them were wildly anticipating their baby. Sian had decorated a bedroom in their fancy beach house to mimic a carousel, going so far as to hire Dharma to do a beautiful mural on the wall of prancing horses. The crib itself was inside a carved dancing pony with a black mane—in case it was a boy—sporting blue and purple roses decorating its saddle. Dharma figured this was going to be one spoilt kid.

She raised an eyebrow at her friend. “Ahem, support system?”

Sian grimaced. “Okay, Luke’s been harsh on the subject of you and Fred.”

“If he disapproves he can stuff it!” Dharma began hotly.

“Whoa, no, you don’t! You are not putting me between my soon-to-be husband and my best friend.” Sian sat down next to her. “Dharma, the men at the station all work together, put their lives in Fred’s hands. Luke is protective of him. He doesn’t think he’s sophisticated enough to deal with a light affair with ‘La Dharma’.”

Dharma had to smile at her friend’s nickname.

“You and Fred are such opposites.”

“I seem to remember you being sensitive about Luke being younger than you are, but it’s not relevant anymore,” Dharma said.

“From what I’ve heard, Fred’s wife was a free-spirit. And you’re a free-spirit times a thousand. You could break him, Dharma. He’s an old-fashioned man about love meaning commitment.”

Dharma sucked in a breath. Oh, Goddess, her eyes were stinging. “I wouldn’t,” she croaked. “And anyway, he hurt
me
.”