Read Divine Solace: 8 for Free Online Page A

think.”
    An odd note entered his voice, defensive. She decided to
leave that alone, since she was still teetering on the line of how intimate she
wanted the conversation to go. But she supposed some basic, less personal
information would be okay.
    “It’s not so much because of the family thing,” she
admitted. “Asking Marguerite personal questions is always…problematic, and if I
asked Chloe the questions I want to ask, she’d start pushing me to put on a
corset, come check out a club, see it all firsthand. I’m more cautious about
things.”
    They were idling in another snarl of rush-hour traffic,
backed up at a series of lights. He looked at her. “I’m sorry.”
    “For what?”
    “For whatever happened to you that made you more cautious
about things.”
    She stared at him. “I didn’t say anything did.”
    He let a fingertip whisper over the outer corner of her
right eye, following a track to the corner of her lips. “I saw a flash of it,
in how you held your mouth, the way the lines along your eyes creased.”
    His tone was gentle, his eyes even more so, delving into her
and cradling her heart. So much for less personal.
    Fortunately, traffic started to move and he returned his
attention to the road. The person who assumed not a whole lot was going on with
this one because of his age or easygoing manner would be making a mistake. She
reached out, touched his jaw.
    “When you said that, I saw it here too. You get it because
you understand it. Yet you’re not cautious. You don’t seem that way.”
    He shrugged. “I know what it’s like for things not to turn
out the way you want them to. We all do. We just handle it differently. That’s
a good thing, because if we were all dysfunctional in the same way, it would be
a pretty boring party.”
    “I feel pretty boring, next to Chloe and Marguerite. But
I’ve felt safe that way, because they love me.”
    She couldn’t believe she’d said something that honest out
loud. But he merely nodded. “Being accepted for who you are, there’s nothing better.
If you have that, everything else is possible.” He hit the brake for a light
and gave her a significant glance, one that wasn’t easygoing at all. It swept
her face, her throat, down over breasts to the nip of her waist, highlighted by
his regard, even under the shapeless T-shirt. Then his gaze came back to her
face, lingered there.
    “I don’t find you boring at all. And neither did my
Mistress.”
    * * * * *
    Wow. That was news. If he’d left it at his opinion only, she
might have retreated behind false cynicism, assuming he was positioning himself
for a booty call, holed up as he would be at her place. But a woman having a
blatant sexual interest in her was a new idea. On top of that, it was the first
time someone had suggested—as if it was the most natural thing in the
world—that two people might be interested in her that way. Not
competitively. She got the impression—and maybe she was crazy—that he was
implying they both wanted her. At the same time.
    She’d likely read way too much into those two sentences. As
a result, she didn’t say much the rest of the trip and Noah didn’t push her for
more, though he made affable comments about the traffic and their surroundings
in a way that let her retreat back to her comfort zone, which worked for her.
    She had a little patio home in a neighborhood of five
hundred houses that looked just the same. Hers was on a cul-de-sac, backing up
to woods, which she liked since the developer had stripped most of the forest
to put up the cookie cutter houses faster. Her small fenced backyard was shaded
by pines and palms, a few oaks.
    In a three-bedroom, two-bath with small rooms, the two of
them would be very aware of one another’s presence, since her bedroom was
across the hall from the guest one. She used the third bedroom as her craft
room and kept a TV in there. There was a little one in the guest bedroom for
the occasional overnight visitors, but