Worth The Wait: A Nature Of Desire Series Novel (48 page)

“Yeah.” Desmond looked back up at the drifting clouds. "You never answered my first question. What happens if Thomas's other kidney goes bad?"

Marcus stared at him between the rungs of the ladder. "If you hurt Julie, if you don't appreciate the gift that life has given you, I'll personally cut it out of your body so Thomas can have it back. Otherwise, there are plenty of people in the world who don't deserve to live that can give up a kidney. I'll find them."

Des blinked as Marcus's head disappeared beneath the edge of the roof. "He meant that shit," he muttered.

"Of course I did,” drifted up from below the roofline. “Asshole. Go talk to Julie. Do the right thing. Stop being a prick."

Des shook his head. He paused, pride warring with a whole lot of other emotions, so that when he spoke, it came out a harsh bark. "Marcus."

Marcus reappeared. Des wished a million things could be different, but Marcus's words had reminded him there were a few key things that he didn’t want to change. He swallowed pride, a jagged lump the size of Texas.

"I’m feeling a little out of it. Can you and Thomas help get me to the ground so I don’t break my neck?”

Marcus’s expression switched to instant concern and Des shook his head. “I’ll be fine once I get down there and rest and eat something. Just overdid it on this job.”

“Well, then, we’ll take you out for some dinner. And we can go to Elaine’s—”

“No.” Des shook his head. “Not right now. I can’t… You’re making me rethink something I’ve always been sure I’d never do. Thinking about a family I didn’t know I had on top of that, dealing with it today…”

“Yeah. I get it. No worries, man.” Marcus’s empathy was clear, helping Des relax, but he wasn’t done yet.

“I want to talk to Thomas about this, one on one, no interference. All right?”

Marcus’s green eyes reminded him of Betty’s no-nonsense sharpness. “You got it, but it was Thomas who insisted on this, Des. Believe me, my influence was more on the ‘are you fucking mental’ side. Initially.”

“And now?”

Marcus lifted a shoulder. “We find ourselves agreeing to all sorts of insane things to honor the people we love. To give them the gift of our faith, and trust that sometimes they might know a little more about things than we do.” His lips quirked. “Though if we’re smart, we don’t tell them that. Else they’d become unbearable.”

* * *

A
meal
and a night’s rest had restored his strength. Though Des had protested fiercely, Marcus and Thomas hadn’t stopped with offering him dinner, probably because he’d only eaten the amount of it needed to prevent dangerously low blood sugar. His lack of appetite only increased their worry. Thomas had driven Des in his truck the several hours back to Charlotte, Marcus following in his car.

“You look like shit,” Marcus said bluntly. “We’re going to get you home.”

Des and Thomas had their talk, though it was clear that Marcus had spoken the truth. Thomas had no concerns about donating Des his kidney. He also didn’t bring up much about the familial connection, sensitive enough to realize—or Marcus had cued him to it—that Des wasn’t really ready to discuss that.

Des had eventually nodded off, sleeping through the offerings of the radio station that Thomas turned on as background noise. When he woke, Betty was leaning over him through the open window.

“I’ll take care of your dialysis tonight,” she said. “You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

He was unable to refuse. He pushed down that familiar demon of helplessness, of being far less of a man than Julie deserved. Thomas helped Betty get him into the house, his arm strong and sure around Des’s waist, Des’s hand gripping his broad shoulder. His cousin. This was his cousin.

No, still not going there.
But as he glanced at Thomas, at the serious brown eyes and straight nose, he wondered if they shared any common features.

“Thanks,” Des said. “Thanks to you both. Sorry about this.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” Marcus had rolled in the case with the dialysis equipment and was at the foot of the bed. He gave Des a humorous look. “I did tell you that Elaine Wilder was your aunt. The horror of that is enough to put anyone on his ass.”

“My mother is going to put something up your ass.”

“She says worse about me all the time. Your mother has a gutter mouth these days.”

“From your influence.”

As the two men bantered back and forth, Des was aware of Betty hooking him up, her mouth thin and eyes worried, but when she caught him looking, she stroked a hand along his face, a maternal caress.

“Just rest, Des,” she said quietly. “I’ll handle this tonight.”

He drifted off. When he woke, a few hours from dawn, Marcus and Thomas had gone. Betty was asleep on his couch. She’d removed the dialysis hook ups when it finished cycling, shut everything down and prepped it for the next treatment. He would have done that. He usually did that, usually did all of it himself.

But as Marcus said, family cared about you when you needed it. He spent the next couple hours staring into the darkness, thinking about how he’d find the courage to fight for family and love for the first time in his life… And fight for his life, one more time.

* * *

D
es came into the theater
. The audience area was dark, but with the stage lit, he didn’t have trouble finding Julie’s silhouette. She was watching the ongoing rehearsal, leaning against the seat in front of her. Lila and Harris were handling most of what was going on, but she’d watch and give her opinions. She would enhance without taking over, provide direction where the path was murky. He’d watched her do it during the prep work for
Consent
, offering suggestions to Harris, to the tech people. She had a grasp of the whole picture invaluable for making the resulting production the best possible offering.

She wasn’t always nice about it. She could be a bitch when needed, stepping in when someone was going the wrong direction and needed a firmer hand. She knew her ultimate responsibility was to owners, investors and, most importantly, the audience. Turning out quality, art, was her focus. Not control or power. She understood that beauty happened with the placement of rocks at the right spots in the stream. She directed and altered the flow, so sunlight could sparkle in a different pattern upon it, or so a tree’s roots wouldn’t be eroded by the water creeping up the banks. Yet she retained her appreciation of water as water, maintaining the integrity of what it was.

He loved taking all that passion and submissive response and doing the same with his rope. Shaping, driving her to a churning peak, seeing the many different ways she would overflow, respond to his will. Yet he was always dipping into the same deep immutable pool, the soul of who she was.

He’d been a bastard. Marcus was right. She’d forgive him, because that was part of who she was, too. But he had no intention of taking that generosity for granted or abusing it too often. And not just because Marcus would cut his kidney out with a dull edged knife if he didn’t.

Des slid down into a seat four rows behind her, wanting to take time to savor the way she was when she thought no one was watching. The slight movements of her shoulders and head were like an alert, smooth-feathered bird.

She picked up a notebook, scribbling in it, and set it back down, leaning forward to fold her arms on the chair in front of her, showing her sharpened attention for the next scene.

Onstage, the hero walked across it as the heroine stared at him. Master Horn and Cherry Blossom were good choices for these roles, a handsome couple, but not so pretty that they didn’t look real, or glamor over the strength of the Dom/sub dynamic happening between them. Des had watched them in a club environment, and they could be mesmerizing.

From the conversation back and forth between Lila and the director, Des knew the setting of this scene was supposed to be a colorful marketplace in the islands, with a small cluster of extras shopping around the hero and heroine. As they approached one another, the movements of the others would slow, all people on stage except them frozen.

Harris spoke. “Lights will dim and our center stage characters will be spotlighted, as if time has stopped.”

Master Horn slid a large hand over Cherry’s shoulder, wrapping his fingers in her streaked blond hair to tilt her head back. Their eyes locked. “I’m going to take you home now. Tie you up so you can’t move. Then I’m going to whip you. Your ass, your back, your thighs. I’ll press myself up against all those marks and, when I’m balls deep in you and start thrusting, that pain will become pleasure. You’ll beg for more. Because surrender is tearing yourself open, taking pain and asking for more. Nothing is sweeter or more terrible than cracking open your soul and giving it to someone you trust. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then get on your knees to me here. In front of all of them. Now.”

She sank down, his hand still in her hair. She pressed her lips to his thigh and stayed motionless, cuing the end of the scene.

The performance would be powerful because it would be real. The flogging scene would happen, and her excited reaction would be genuine. Des had read that part of the script, because it preceded a rope tying scene Julie wanted him to check out, both for his insights on its safety and improvements to make it more dramatic. Horn wasn’t a rope guy, so he welcomed the expertise.

This show would likely generate more controversy than the first.
Consent
had been an amalgamation of talents the audience could mostly absorb with pleased fascination but the detachment of viewing a circus, a fantasy come to life. This script dealt with issues and emotions everyone experienced, kinky or vanilla. It would be impossible to stay detached and not see the connections between this power exchange in the BDSM world and the give and take in every relationship.

Julie leaned back in her chair. Des wanted to move into the row behind her, take down her hair, stroke his fingers through it, put his teeth against her throat and cup her beautiful breasts.

He had the right to do all of that as her Master, her lover, her Dom. But the man had some bridges to mend first. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, press his face against the side of hers and hold on to that still, precious moment as long as he could before the world ruined it. That had been the root of his problem, hadn’t it? He wanted that perfection, nothing about his health and his life destroying it.

During those early dawn hours, he’d realized that he was going to have to accept a new definition of perfection. It was going to sometimes be messy, heartbreaking, tedious, frustrating… It was going to be everything that sharing a life with someone was and meant, like Julie had said. Glorious heaven and hell, and many other places in between.

“I missed you,” she said abruptly, not turning around. “Jerk.”

Of course she knew he was here. He almost smiled. Rising, he came down the aisle and moved into the row behind her, sitting down so he could cross his arms on the seatback next to her and look at her profile. She kept her eyes on the stage, though currently the actors were discussing some kind of issue with Lila, their words indiscernible as Julie and Des’s conversation would be to them. Two different plays in progress.

“I missed you, too. So much it hurt.”

“Good.” She set her chin and he almost smiled again, except it was blocked by the ache in his chest. He trailed his knuckles down her face, then spread his fingers out, settling them over her throat. The way she responded to that, not softening yet not drawing away, sent a hard jolt of longing into heart, stomach, groin.

He felt the jump of her pulse, that awe-inspiring reaction. Initially, he’d wondered if her response to him was just a first sub experience thing. It could be, but the offering of her love wasn’t a first-time experience. Either he was too selfish and fearful to let her go, or he trusted what they both seemed to feel around one another. Trust was always a harder and bigger leap for a Dom than a sub. But he’d better find the balls for it or she’d kick them into his throat. Yeah, she might let him cut her loose, but only if he was hobbling.