Her eyes glinted at him, her lips twisting in a rueful response he answered with a grin and a less suggestive idea.

  “Let’s go get one of those cupcakes.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  They were in time for another food demo, where they had the chance to watch a Dom decorate his female sub with several dessert options. Then he and Daralyn shared a cupcake, her laughing as she helped him get frosting out of his beard. He licked hers off her top lip.

  It was getting close to time to call it a night. They were country people with a normal ten o’clock bedtime, up with the sunrise, and it was past midnight. They’d made a good accounting of themselves though, since the other guests had begun to thin out. Some he suspected would retire to the guest cottages, while others would head back into the city or to area hotels to continue their activities in private.

  The evening had had some of everything. He’d seen a few scary things, but watching those things get other people off had undeniably affected him, and he thought Daralyn felt the same. He was also considering alternative uses for his store inventory, sure he’d never look at certain items the same way again.

  They’d had that one scary moment when Daralyn had freaked out about Des touching her. But it had been more than balanced out with laughter, smiles, arousal, and a strengthened sense that the two of them were in this together. They were discovering new stuff, and comfortable being with one another while they did it.

  As they swung back toward the pavilion for what he figured would be their last lap, he noted an informal gathering of people at several round tables, cozily spotlighted with strings of paper lanterns. The servers had consolidated the remaining food on a nearby smaller buffet table, next to a drink station still well stocked with an ample beer and wine selection. A pretty woman in a black dress and white collar with a heart lock was serving as bartender.

  Julie and Des were sitting at one of the tables with Tyler, and gestured at Rory to join them. Daralyn looked pleased at the chance to visit, so he decided they’d stay a while longer. He guided her over to a chair next to Julie and ordered himself a light beer and Daralyn a soda from the attendant. Des moved the empty chair from beside Daralyn so Rory could slide in next to her.

  Tyler, Des and Julie were sharing the table with two men and a woman, twenty-somethings like Rory and Daralyn. One of the men was a polished-looking kind of handsome, like a lawyer. The other man looked like a cross between Brick and Johnny. His callused hands suggested his job was some sort of manual labor. The woman between them was willowy, with straight dark hair and clear eyes. Both men had an arm along the back of her chair, a message of intimacy and belonging.

  The lawyer-looking guy’s hand overlapped the big man’s, and he was stroking his forearm and her shoulder with an equal intimate ease. A possessive one. The bigger man’s hand was cupped in the same way around the woman’s shoulder, teasing a line up and down her upper arm.

  Another threesome. In this world, that kind of grouping apparently wasn’t all that unusual. And the touches between the men said it was a full three-way, not just two guys sharing a girl.

  Polyamory. The term had come up while he was reading Marcus’s recommendations. While he’d only recently wrapped his mind around men getting married, seeing relationships that weren’t just one boy, one girl crop up in the BDSM research stuff made sense. He assumed most non-traditional relationships would find a comfortable overlap with other kinds.

  The lawyer definitely had the Dom-vibe, but the gaze the bigger man periodically sent his way was harder to define. As if they might both be Doms to her, but to each other, it was more fluid, even as the lawyer probably still held the reins most of the time.

  Rory told himself he wouldn’t stare like a country bumpkin, but he did notice Daralyn studying and taking in the nuances, same as him.

  “This is Geoff, Sam and Chris,” Julie told them. She’d started with the lawyer and proceeded in order to the right. Sam might be short for Samantha, Rory deduced. “They’re from North Carolina, too, and made the trip with us for the party. I’ve been trying to get them interested in doing performances at the theater. Sam in particular.” She winked. “Because if I get Sam, I’ll get the two of them.”

  Geoff chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure the city would be thrilled to discover one of their ADAs is doing erotic stage work on weekends.”

  Yep, had the attorney part right.

  “You can wear a mask.” Julie shrugged. “Several of our regulars do that. One of our writers drafted a skit for the next show that could have been written for you three specifically.”

  “It probably was.” Sam leaned against Geoff’s side and had her thigh pressed against Chris’s. “You’re just innocently saying it ‘could have been written’ for us.”

  “They know you too well, love.” Des tugged Julie’s hair. She was relaxed against him, her hand lying loosely on his thigh. They looked content, but Rory suspected Des was about as tired as he and Daralyn were.

  Des had a couple challenging health issues, with insulin-resistant Type I diabetes at the center of it. Though he and Des never talked about it much, Rory suspected that commonality had helped them warm up to each other quicker than they probably already would have, since Rory was all good with someone who made Julie this happy. But Des knew what it was to have his life revolve around his health choices, not just as a look-good-for-the-girls or keep-the-doctor-off-your-back thing.

  Tired they might be, but never tired enough to give family a hard time. “Run while you can,” Rory advised Sam. “Julie’s like a cute and fluffy pit bull.”

  “Cretin,” Julie said.

  Rory made a show of scratching his head. “What’s a cretin? Itn’t that them things you put on top of a salad? They’s good when they have cheese in ‘em.”

  Julie snorted as the others chuckled. “Just you wait,” she told Rory. “I’ll get you up on a stage one of these days.”

  “Only if you’re thinking of doing something over my dead body, and I think there are laws about that.”

  Tyler was leaning back in his chair. While he listened to the banter with a light smile, Rory noted his attention wasn’t fully on them. He was waiting for someone, and Rory had a good idea who it was. When the light in his eyes became focused heat, he knew she was headed for the table.

  Since he didn’t expect anything about Marguerite Winterman had changed since he’d seen her at his brother’s wedding, Rory made sure he didn’t take a swallow of beer before turning to follow Tyler’s gaze. He’d probably choke on it.

  Though the small handful of people hanging out in the tent likely saw her more often than he did, he wasn’t surprised to see their attention drawn to her as she moved into the tent, headed toward her husband.

  With a lithe body, silky, thick white-blond hair and pale blue eyes, Marguerite was stunning, but not in a cover model kind of way. It was a quality, not a group of physical features.

  He’d remembered her correctly. She walked like a goddess touched down to earth. And after a night of being around Doms and subs, now he was certain she fell in the Domme category. Her attitude projected it, how she measured and appraised those around her.

  But the way her eyes met and held Tyler’s as she crossed the space between them, how she put her hand in his once she was within reach, sent another kind of message.

  She was a Domme, yes. But not with him. She belonged to him. Rory guessed the right term was switch, but that submissive side was exclusively for Tyler. As soon as she looked away from her husband, the Domme was a hundred percent back.

  Flowing white pants draped her hips while a gray sleeveless velvet top hugged her slim upper body. The fabric coaxed the fingers to stroke, if the owner of them didn’t mind having the digits broken into little pieces by Tyler. Or, as he shot a second look at that Domme expression, by Marguerite herself.

  On her swan neck was a twisted double strand of seed pearls, interspersed with tiny silver pieces that looked like icicles. A silver angel pendant had wings shaped to look like the icicles. The pendant rested just below the hollow of her throat. It was the only jewelry she wore.

  “Ma’am,” Rory said. Though he knew around here “ma’am” had a whole different meaning, for him the address was automatic manners.

  Her gaze rested on him, and then moved to Daralyn. Yeah, he remembered that about her too. She didn’t say much until she was darn good and ready. He wouldn’t say she was unschooled in social cues, the way Daralyn had been and still struggled with. Marguerite Winterman simply discarded them as unnecessary.

  Daralyn had been stealing looks at her, but when Marguerite’s regard came directly to her, Daralyn was looking at her beverage again. His girl offered her polite smile in Marguerite’s general direction. However, her hand on Rory’s knee curled up in that way it did when she wasn’t sure of a new person. He covered it with his, a reassurance.

  “We’re so glad you two could be here tonight.” Marguerite spoke at last. She had a quiet voice. He didn’t expect she raised it often, but it had a clarity that commanded attention.

  “I worried we might not be fancy enough to get into the party,” Rory admitted. “Well, me. I can’t imagine Daralyn would be turned away from any get-together.”

  “Not by a host with any sense,” Tyler reached over to tap his beer to the neck of Rory’s before he brought his own to his lips, took a generous swallow. “The only person I ban from my property is Marcus.”

  Rory managed his own swallow without a sputter, but it was a close thing. Tyler’s amber eyes twinkled. “It’s to protect my art collection. He’ll drool on it, ruin its value.”

  “I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Rory said.

  Marguerite leaned against the side of Tyler’s chair rather than sitting. Her hand rested on his shoulder while his arm hooked around her waist, thumb sliding back and forth over her hip bone.

  Though her body relaxed into his touch, Marguerite’s pale blue gaze stayed on Daralyn. “Have you been enjoying the party, Daralyn?” she asked.

  Yeah, definitely Domme. Marguerite had that direct way of asking a question that commanded an answer.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Daralyn knew the difference between someone trying to get her to express her preferences and someone making polite conversation. But then Marguerite took it to a different level.

  “What have you enjoyed the most about it?” Marguerite asked.

  Shit. Daralyn was suddenly staring a hole in the table. Still, as he watched her wet her lips, Rory realized she had an answer, so he held his breath, waiting. “Being here with Rory,” she said slowly. “And seeing everything…with him.”

  A nice thing to hear, and matched his own feelings on it. The others at the table were watching the interplay. It wasn’t hard to recognize that Daralyn didn’t like being the center of attention and was struggling with it. Rory picked up the thread to draw it away from her.

  “I appreciated the invitation,” he said. “It’s given us the chance to learn new things in a comfortable way.” He slanted a look toward Des. “Learning that rope thing in the store might have been awkward.”

  “At least during opening hours,” Julie interjected. She sent Rory a meaningful wink, one that told him she was doing her part to help with the shift. “Though I think some of your customers already know the pervertible uses for your inventory. Like Mrs. Mueller…”

  “Nnn-nh.” Rory shook his head and made a show of sticking his fingers in his ears. “You are not putting images of Reverend Mueller’s wife in my head I can’t remove.”

  “She’s a Baptist,” Julie told the table.

  “Definitely a kinkster, then,” Geoff observed. Rory pointed a warning finger at him.

  “I’ve just met you, but I will hurt you. Don’t let the chair fool you.”

  “Fair warning, he’s hard to beat up,” Chris said. “He’s thin but slippery. Being a lawyer, he has that oil coating on his skin.”

  Rory grinned, but beneath the genial expression, he was still watching Marguerite. She hadn’t smiled during the exchange, and her gaze didn’t move from Daralyn. She seemed to be divided between an internal focus on her own thoughts, and an external one, revolving around Daralyn.

  She wasn’t asking Daralyn anything directly, but Daralyn was keenly aware of the attention. Probably because Marguerite’s focus didn’t feel like the casual courtesy of a host. When he caught Julie’s puzzled, concerned look, he had reinforcement that he wasn’t imagining it. She didn’t know what the fuck was going on here, either.

  Daralyn’s back was unusually straight, which could be because of the posture the corset’s hold demanded, but the hand under his was quivering, and that trembling was moving up her arm. No matter what the deal was with Marguerite, he wasn’t going to let Daralyn suffer another moment of discomfort under that unsettling stare. As his dad used to say when he and his siblings were squabbling: You may not have started it, but I’m going to finish it.

  “Mrs. Winterman.” He spoke at the tail end of another round of chuckles, over something he hadn’t paid attention to. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  Tyler’s gaze came his way, the tiger eyes assessing. Under Rory’s grasp, Daralyn’s hand tensed at the edge in his polite tone. He wasn’t pissed, though. Just protective. A lot of Masters and Mistresses had looked at Daralyn tonight, a casual assessment. Of him, too. But no judgment to it. The party had been everything Thomas had promised. No one putting on airs or going out of their way to make them feel uncomfortable.

  This was something different.

  Marguerite’s attention finally shifted to him, held. Then her head dipped, a courtesy. “When you meet another person in a wheelchair, you feel a familiarity, because you have a better understanding than most of the paths you’ve each walked. Wouldn’t you say?”

  He didn’t sense she was doing the stranger in the grocery line thing, the one who thought asking him how he’d ended up paralyzed fell in the same category as asking him about the frozen peas he was buying. She had a serious purpose, and it involved Daralyn.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But we’re all different. Like you sub for him,” he nodded in Tyler’s direction, “but you’re definitely not a sub. Not like Daralyn.”

  Tyler’s amber gaze went from assessment to gun sight lock. He was ready to intervene if Rory became too forward, but that was warning for warning. Rory sent him a look that said he wasn’t backing down from it. Not while his own sub was in the firing line.

  Fortunately, Marguerite’s lips curved in a small smile, her fingers molding over Tyler’s broad shoulder. Half the tension hovering over the table dissipated.

  “Very insightful, Mr. Wilder. May I address your submissive directly? I can speak to you instead, if you wish.”

  Rory glanced at Daralyn. She seemed to be doing her own internal conversation, because her chin had set and her back straightened a little. He saw her lips move silently, then she looked his way, managed a faint smile. She was unsettled, but okay.

  He thought she’d said “just like a customer” to herself. He wasn’t sure if that method was going to hack it for whatever Marguerite intended, but he was here. He could help.

  “Long as I don’t feel you’re upsetting her. She’s had a very good night tonight. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  Marguerite’s pale blue eyes flickered. They were like pieces of the sky, just as vast. “I can understand that. Having someone willing to protect your soul with every bit of his own is a gift impossible to measure.”

  That last part had been sent right past him to Daralyn. Daralyn’s gaze came up, slowly, and then met Marguerite’s.

  Rory noted Tyler was watching Marguerite, too, in a manner too familiar for Rory to miss. He watched Daralyn like that when he knew she was balanced on a precarious edge. If he hadn’t been so closely locked into it with Daralyn, Rory might not have seen past Marguerite’s strength as a Mistress to note it, see it in Tyler’s protectiveness of her.

  As the significance of that took shape in Rory’s mind, Marguerite bent and spoke in Tyler’s ear. His gaze softened, though his mouth remained firm. He brushed a knuckle over her cheek, tucked a lock of her silky hair behind her ear. Then he touched the pearl necklace, hooked it, a reminder, as their eyes held.

  Rory’s gaze slid to the angel pendant resting just below the tender pocket of Marguerite’s throat, and that was when he understood. Or thought he did.

  Tyler had intimate knowledge of where his goddess’s vulnerabilities lay. But it was more than the Domme goddess thing that drew people’s attention to Marguerite. It was the same quality that Daralyn had. They projected a spirit that was remarkably eternal and yet ephemerally fragile, in ways that could be so easily, terrifyingly missed. Which meant they weren’t as resilient to the world’s blows. Their souls had already absorbed more than a lifetime’s worth of them.

  Marguerite and Daralyn had a kinship in their past that no one should have to share, but they did.

  Marguerite straightened and looked at Rory again. The Domme look was back, but there was no threat here. This was a reaching out, an attempt at an important connection. He noticed Daralyn’s hand was no longer trembling in his grasp, and she was quietly looking at Marguerite.

  “I’d like to show Daralyn a sculpture we keep in a private part of our gardens,” Marguerite said. “I think she’ll like it. You have my word. She’ll be safe with me in every way.”

  Daralyn appeared curious but not unsettled in the wrong way. Even so, it was still an effort to consent to having her out of his sight, but Julie’s reassuring look told him these were people who could be trusted.

  He saw it in Tyler’s expression as well.