Read The Shy Dominant for Free Online

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