Page 12 of Learn For Me

Tsking, Atticus crossed the threshold and held out one of the beers. “Bet your heart doesn’t care if she’s thirty or sixty. Age doesn’t matter, Zeke. Look at Jasper and Archie, me and Lisha. Sizeable differences in age, but we don’t care. It’s all about theperson, not how many years longer you’ve been alive.”

“She left.” Taking the bottle, he drained half of it.

“She did. There were circumstances.”

“I asked you if you knew why she left.”

“You did,” Atticus agreed, sipping his own drink as he meandered to his desk chair. “And at the time you asked, I honestly didn’t know. If I remember correctly, it was the next day when she contacted me to explain.”

“But you didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t bother asking. I waited a week, figuring curiosity and missing her might spur you to set aside your pride, but you just carried on as though she’d never been here.” He ran his thumb over his lips. “She told me she left a note because you were asleep when she needed to leave, and she didn’t want to wake you.”

A note? This was the first time he’d heard anything about a note. “I don’t know if there was one or not, but there certainly wasn’t one when I woke. Besides, it’s a moot point now. Olivia left; now she’s back. You’ll get her house fixed, because that’s what you do. You fix everything.”

“The house is fucked,” Atticus stated flatly.

“The damp and mold can be removed; it’ll just take time and someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“That won’t fix the cracks in the foundation, the woodworm eating the place from the inside out, the deplorable state of the water pipes, or the fact that the roof is starting to cave in. It’s fucked,” Att repeated, “and Olivia will not be living there.”

“Gonna be a tight squeeze here, what with one big kid, two young children, and a baby on the way.”

“Exactly.” Jungle-green eyes bore into Zeke’s.

“Hotel, then. Or one of her coworkers can bunk her until she finds someplace else.”

A dark eyebrow flecked with silver rose in a questioning arch. “Olivia requires more than a bed to crash on, Zeke. It seems evident to me that the last couple of years have taken their toll on her.” Tipping his bottle toward her, Atticus shook his head. “She’s alone, she needs help. She needs a goddamn Dom.”

“D’not,” the woman under discussion mumbled as she pushed herself into sitting. Her eyes were barely open, her face still slack with sleep. Her next sentence was a jumble of words that were meaningless.

“How the hell do you even know she’s submissive?” Zeke demanded incredulously. “Has she mentioned her latest trip to a kink club? Does she have handcuffs in her desk drawer and a bucket list of sexual activities to work through?”

“No!” Olivia said indignantly—or he thought she was aiming for indignant.

Adorable was more apt.

“How the hell do younot?” was Atticus’s reply.

Because he didn’twantto. The idea of Olivia being submissive clicked his Dom switch, and he hadn’t played since the week before Avalon was razed to ash and debris. Three years without the comfort of a warm body against his, of feeling a woman tremble when he gave her an order.

He missed the contact, theconnectionbetween himself and a compatible woman. Not just for sex, but to sate the yearning in his soul for a little while.

Fifty-five, he thought in disgust, with one childless marriage long behind him, and his ex-wife living her life several states away, with two teenagers and a husband who thought the sunshine shone out of her ass.

Olivia was a temptation he couldn’t afford to touch, one who’d already proved walking away without a word wasn’t a hardship. That didn’t exactly inspire trust, did it, and a dynamic was based on it.

Trust. Respect. Dominance and submission.

“If you truly believe she’s submissive, then find her a Dom. Avalon reopens on Friday; I’m sure there’ll be a whole host of eager Doms just itchin’ to get their hands on fresh blood.”

“You’d break each and every pair of hands that touched her.”

Zeke glowered, even though it was true. “Nothing to do with me who lays hands on her. She’s not submissive, and you’ll probably turn all those red curls white if you take her to the club. Just hook her up with a hotel, Att, and treat her like a goddamn adult.”

The Daddy Dom’s eyes slid to Zeke’s right, his lips twitching.

Glancing down, he saw Olivia by his side, swaying. Damn near asleep standing up.

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