Page 67 of Brave
“Thank you for letting me spend one more night,” she told Carlson, when he pulled into her cul-de-sac.
He smiled. “Not a problem. Tomorrow though, I want you home with me. In my arms and in my bed, your hot little ass tucked right up against me, and the playground of your body ready and available for some good, ol’ fashioned stress relief. Right now, I think we both could use it.”
It sounded heavenly.
“Thank you,” she said again, smiling. He probably thought she meant the stress relief, but she didn’t. It was more. It was everything from that moment at Black Light when he’d reached across the table and taken hold of her hand, shaking it for the first time, not thinking a single thing about the panicked girl just trying to make it through a simple introduction. It was buying her dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill, when he’d drawn his line in the sand and then marched her to the bathroom to prove he wouldn’t back down. It was his no nonsense and his gentleness.
It was the whole Carlson Garvey package.
He would probably never know how much that meant to her. But if it took the rest of her life, she hoped she might someday show him how much she appreciated his refusal to give up on her. How much she appreciated him.
How much she loved him.
Her breath caught as that realization dropped into the pit of her stomach and then lay there, trembling. She was in love with her Dom. When had that happened?
“What do you think about going out to dinner to celebrate?” Carlson asked as he drove up into her driveway and parked. “Not tonight, sadly. I’m at the base today right up until our shift at Black Light, but I think we could carve out time tomorrow if you’re interested. You can meet me downtown, or I could come pick you up. Bring flowers.” He thought about it. “Hell, maybe even put on a suit and make reservations somewhere.”
“Like a date?” Still reeling from her own revelation, that took her aback even further.
“Why not?” The corner of his mouth quirked. “People who like each other are supposed to do that, right?”
When he gave her that crooked boyish grin, her stomach warmed and she melted. Yummy trickles slipped through her sex, tickling her folds, and setting that old familiar pulse on fire.
“What’s your favorite flower? Roses, daisies, lilies?”
No one had ever asked before. The urge was to say roses, but only because those were what he’d mentioned first and might mean that he preferred them. They were also the most expensive flower, or maybe it was a test to see how difficult she was to please. Or he might get upset if she liked things that cost her too much money, or maybe…
She caught herself, shutting down the spiral before it could take hold. “Carnations,” she said. “Any color, but the blue ones are especially pretty.”
His grin broadened. “Good to know. Be prepared to go shopping before dinner. I’m going to buy you a dress, something nice.” He tossed her a wink. “Don’t wear panties.”
She got out of the car, butterflies that had nothing to do with anxiety dancing in her stomach. If anything, the happy cloud she’d been walking on got that much higher as she went up the walkway. Waving him goodbye, she fished her keys out of her pocket and let herself into the house.
Her mother was standing in the living room in front of the easy chair by the window, her usual perching place whenever Cynthia went out by herself. Her purse was in her hands, which was odd because her mother never carried her purse in the house. Normally, it lived on the coat hook right next to her jacket and the front door, but that wasn’t the only oddity. Normally, her mother greeted with a thin or awkward smile, but she didn’t so much as glance at her when she stepped past the short entryway wall into the mouth of the living room. Her face was drawn and unsmiling as she stared down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Something in that stillness shook the cloud Cynthia was on, dropping her all the way back to Earth.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
Her mother startled. Nothing but her eyes moved as she locked on Cynthia. She hadn’t even realized Cynthia had come home. That was when Cynthia’s world fell apart.
“Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!” Squealing, Pony ran down the hall to meet her. Her sub-mate flung her arms around her in the tightest hug. She was grinning, but her eyes were wide and wild in a way that made Cynthia cringe. The butterflies that had been so joyous just moments before, crashed. Suddenly all she could feel were the old snakes coiling and squeezing, trying to crush the breath out of her as, coming down the hall behind Pony, resplendent in the suit he’d been wearing the night he’d been arrested, was Ethen. His eyes were cold; the thinness of his smile, at complete odds with the sicky joyousness of Pony’s.
“He’s out,” Pony cheered, hugging Cynthia tighter. “We’re going home!”
Clutching her shoulders, her too thin hands hooked into her like claws. The wildness in her eyes and the cringe of her smile turned desperate as she pulled back.
“You do want that, don’t you?” Pony begged through the shakiness of a grin that seemed more desperate the closer Ethen came. “He forgave us. He wants us to come with him. We can get out of here, and it’ll be just like it used to. You want that too, don’t you?”
Her legs began to shake. Watching Ethen come, it was all Cynthia could do not to bolt. Not that that would save her. She’d tried to run from him once before. He looked exactly now as he had back then, thumbs hooked in his belt, the epitome of relaxation. She already knew she had no chance of escaping.
“Of course she does,” he said soothingly, his tone at odds with the iciness of his stare.
Please, Pony pleaded silently. Come with me.
Cynthia didn’t move, she couldn’t. Even her breath shook.
“I’ll go pack,” Pony said, much too cheerfully, hooked fingers digging into her shoulders. “For you too, okay? Puppy? Okay?”
Pony nodded, as if acknowledging Cynthia’s granted permission and she could not make herself say no.
