“Wrap your legs around me,” he told her. When she did, she also wrapped her arms tighter around him, holding him close. He felt her love everywhere. It was all the proof he needed of the existence of the soul, a full-bodied thing that transcended the physical.

  He didn’t mind indulging the physical side of things, though. He eased back, so her hands slipped to his abdomen. She gazed at him as he sent a meaningful look to his firm grip, now on both sides of the ladder. “Caught my mermaid,” he said softly. “Turn around. Stand on the bottom step.”

  He’d never get tired of that light flush in her cheeks when he took control, the way she swallowed, how it made the fragile lines of her throat move.

  When she complied, the tension of standing on the ladder gave her pert backside an intriguing lift, square in his view. She looked over her shoulder at him, her sleek hair spread over her shoulder. The valley of her spine, the curve of her back and slim lines of her shoulders, also filled his vision, but that sweet ass stayed front and center. Her lips were temptingly wet.

  “Lie down on the concrete,” he said. “Hips hooked over the lip of the pool.”

  And there came that sexy little quiver as she understood what he was intending. She stretched out on the concrete. It would be warm from the sun coming through the windows, and he confirmed it when he saw how she flattened herself to it, pressing her hip bones just over the lip of the pool as he’d commanded.

  Her heels brushed his sides as he used his grip on the ladder to push himself down further in the water, bringing himself level with her thighs.

  “Spread them wider,” he said, a low rumble.

  She did, which meant her feet left the bottom step of the ladder, floated free on either side of him. He put his grip on the ladder over her legs, so both his arms and his body would keep them open as he desired. Then he moved in, putting his mouth on that red damp crotch, breathing heat on what was beneath. She shuddered, and he saw her fingers curl against the concrete.

  “Rory…” she breathed.

  “Let me tell you something,” he said, brushing a kiss on her upper thigh, right at the crease with her buttock. He nipped her with teeth, watched her jump. “For the past week, you’ve made sure I took medicines, checked my vitals, helped me do all the things the doctor told me to do. I told you I didn’t need a nurse, that I could take care of myself. And I have and I do. But you still helped, because you care. Because I needed the help, and you’re a friend. You’re family. You love me, and I love you.”

  She licked her lips, her gaze flicking down to him and then away. She knew the other shoe was about to drop. He let the pleasure of it build in his gut, move up into his chest. Gave her another nip.

  “But I think you need a reminder of who’s in charge here. Don’t you?”

  She nodded, her lips pressing together. He treasured the sensual anxiety in her hazel eyes, even as he sharpened his tone.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

  “No, Rory. No, sir,” she added hastily as he nipped her, harder this time.

  “So who’s in charge here?”

  “You are.”

  He brought his mouth back to her cunt, tonguing her through the fabric, pushing. Her buttocks tensed, her heels digging in to his sides. He nudged the elastic aside, dipped beneath it with teeth and tongue, and leisurely enjoyed eating her out, tasting the slick arousal. She jerked, shuddered, made little cries. All of it filled him with a deep male satisfaction, a fierce possessiveness.

  He took down the bottoms to reveal her pale pink buttocks. He cupped water in his palm, letting it trickle over them, then down between her legs, giving her the contrast of the wet heat of his mouth and the cool water. When she was gasping for air, eyes closed, he backed off enough to slap her ass with a wet palm, knowing it would change the nature of the sting, make it stronger.

  She cried out. Then her buttocks lifted, asking for more.

  He liked to give her more.

  He did it until he saw her squirms become less on the pleasure side and more on the discomfort side, and then he did it another half dozen times. Proof that she’d bear more for her Master, and him testing that obedience. Then he put his mouth on her again.

  He loved the taste of her. He wanted to let go of one side of the ladder, run his hand up her back, let her feel his palm there, but he needed to keep his balance to work his mouth on her just the way she needed. Afterward, he’d have her lie on a lounge chair and stroke the supple line of her back, the damp hair, and watch her turn into a drowsy kitten. Now he engaged the other side of her, the writhing, begging, panting aroused woman, straining toward the climax he held in his control.

  “Rory…”

  “I like to hear you beg,” he said. He pulled himself up on the ladder, curved his body over her, putting some of his weight down on her frame. He watched her press her ass into his pelvis as he laid a kiss between her shoulder blades. Then he lowered himself back into the water. “Sit up and turn around,” he said.

  When she did, he nodded to the space in the water between him and the ladder. “Bring yourself down into the water and wrap your legs around me,” he said. “Stare into my eyes and rub yourself against my cock. Make yourself come. Don’t look away.”

  She obeyed, sinking back into the pool. The space was small enough she slid against his chest, his stomach and everything below. Lifting her legs, she wound them around him. Leaned back on her elbows on the top step and began to do as he’d commanded. He stared down in the water, watched her align herself with his groin and begin to lift and lower herself there. He should get rigid enough to provide interesting friction for her, and he could tell when he had, not just by seeing his erection push against his swimsuit against her, but by the way her breath rate increased, and her eyes got that glazed look. Her nipples were hard points against the swimsuit. Her arching back made it even more noticeable.

  “Cup your breasts and press them together,” he said. When she complied, he put his mouth in between them, let his tongue play in that crevice and then nuzzled the tender curves. Her cries strengthened as he suckled the points through the fabric. Her hips were sliding up and down on him, short strokes whose speed was increasing as her climax bore down on her. The water rippled around them.

  Her gaze clung to his, as he’d commanded. She was struggling to do it, and he watched her, unsmiling. She was feeding on the commands, the sensations. The unspoken knowledge that he wouldn’t let her look away, that it was up to him when she went over, and he relished watching her struggle between her body’s desires and her Master’s will.

  When she reached for him, he allowed it. She slid her fingers over his abdomen, up his chest, over his nipples, and down again. It was erratic, no finesse to it, but because it was all driven by raw desire, it drew an equally strong response from him, particularly with her providing that stroke against his cock. He could feel his own response building and knew she might just make him climax as well.

  “Now,” he growled, and she went over, body shuddering, arching, skin flushing like a pale reflection of the bold color of her suit, the fabric creasing over her body, her hip bones, the slope of her ribs, the line of her neck.

  She was crying out her pleasure, her lips stretched open, her lashes fanning against her cheeks, brow creased with the power of what swept over her.

  He clutched the ladder as her movements against him, the touch of her hands, brought his orgasm forth, no surprise. Later tonight, he’d have her put him inside her, because he wanted that sense of joining, and knew she needed it, too.

  But right now, he couldn’t imagine feeling any closer to her, as they watched one another, rode that wave together, her desires under his command while he answered all her needs with more pleasure, more sensation.

  “Rory…” She was whispering his name, her body still vibrating. Her fingers were stroking him, little needy clawings.

  “That’s my girl,” he murmured. “You’re so beautiful. The most beautiful mermaid I’ve ever seen.”

  He reclaimed the noodles he’d left on the concrete, fitting them under his arms before he scooped her up against him and floated them away from the ladder. As she rested against his chest, he gathered her hair in one hand, brushed her temple with his lips.

  “Just for the record, you look positively smoking in that bikini. Brick said so.”

  Her gaze lifted to his, hazel eyes serious. “It doesn’t matter. I belong to you.”

  “Yeah, you do. Did I mention how lucky I am? But you’re still a tyrant when you’re playing nursemaid.” He tugged her hair. “Doesn’t matter if you do it with shy smiles, big eyes, and sweet talking ‘suggestions.’ I’m not fooled.”

  That shy smile appeared, and she twined her arms around his neck. “I’m still yours.”

  “You bet your sweet ass you are.”

  Thanks to some additional discounts the trip organizers dug up, Elaine had the opportunity to stay an extra week out west, and Rory had encouraged it. As a result, by the time his mother returned, he was almost a hundred percent again, which was good. But he wondered if she was still upset about what had happened, because on the way back from the airport, he sensed some tension under her warm greeting for them, the chatty discussion of the details of her trip. They’d brought his van, so Elaine had the front while Daralyn sat in the second row seat that could be flipped up next to his anchored chair.

  Rory noted his mother kept glancing at him, then looking toward Daralyn, with an oddly frustrated and worried glance.

  “You okay, Mom?” he asked once, reaching out to touch her hand at a stoplight. His mother latched onto it, giving him a hard squeeze before the green light required her to let him go.

  “Yes,” she said. “Glad to be home.”

  He met Daralyn’s gaze in the mirror. Neither of them was fooled, but whatever it was, his mother didn’t want to talk about it right now, so he let it go for the moment.

  Daralyn had fixed a lunch, so while she went to the kitchen to work on setting that out, Rory debated whether to help or follow his mother to her room. Daralyn helped him decide.

  She put the potato salad on the counter and glanced in the direction Elaine had disappeared. “Maybe she’ll talk to you alone,” she said. “About whatever it is.”

  “Yeah. Let me go see.” He briefly gripped her hand, their fingers tangling, then he pivoted the chair and made his way down the hallway.

  Elaine had opened her suitcase on the bed, but had sunk down next to it. She hadn’t taken anything out yet, which told Rory there was definitely something off. She was an obsessive nester, always insisting on getting everything unpacked first thing after a trip.

  “Mom?”

  Everything she’d texted or called about while traveling had suggested the trip had gone well, and she’d had a great time. So he braced himself for a lecture and marshaled a reassuring rebuttal, since the only thing he figured could be upsetting her was being away while he landed up in the hospital.

  When she began to speak, he wished that had been it.

  “I received a call from the ADA who handled the prosecution of Daralyn’s uncle,” Elaine said, meeting his gaze. “We should be getting a letter from the Department of Corrections in a few days. Daralyn’s uncle is being released in a few weeks. Health reasons. He has terminal liver cancer.”

  Son of a bitch. As he digested that, her gaze went from him to the hallway behind him. He inhaled her scent, knew Daralyn was there. No surprise, since Daralyn had likely been listening, worried about Elaine and wanting to know how she could help.

  Without looking her way, Rory lifted a hand. Elaine’s gaze flickered as Daralyn stepped into the room and took it, leaning against him in his chair.

  “You can talk to us both, Mom,” he said. “She can handle it. She can handle anything.”

  Regret crossed Elaine’s features. Her gaze shifted to Daralyn and she nodded, an apology. “Of course. I’m sorry, honey. I should have asked you to come in here before I said anything. I’m just…I know you’re not a child anymore, but I’m just so very tired of you having to handle so much.”

  She wasn’t the only one, but Rory’s whole point in having Daralyn stand next to him, where he could put his arm around her waist, have her rest hers around his shoulders, was to confirm for her that it was okay. A reminder that Daralyn could trust that this life she’d built for herself wasn’t going to disappear. They wouldn’t let it.

  Daralyn looked at him, then at Elaine, and there was resolve on her face. “But I don’t have to handle so much,” she said quietly. “Not alone. I haven’t had to handle anything alone for a long time, thanks to all of you.”

  Rory shot his mother a tight smile and Elaine shook her head. “All my children are growing up,” she said. She took a breath. “I can’t anticipate what he’ll do, but he believes he has a claim on your father’s house. It’s likely he’ll come here.”

  It wasn’t the first time Rory had thought of it. In the back of his mind, he’d kept a mental countdown of when Burton would be up for release. He was sure his mother had done the same. Unfortunately, that timetable had just been stepped up by a couple years. He expected the state didn’t want to have to pay for cancer treatments. Easier to put him on a sex offender list and cut a dying man loose.

  Despite Daralyn’s calm words, hearing that her uncle might set up house here had made her face pale, and put a tremor in her suddenly stiff body. Having him in the same county, only a few miles down the road, knowing she might run into him while on her bike, at the store, at community events?

  That sure as fuck wasn’t going to happen.

  He thought of her coming to him in his room, getting him to the hospital. When strength had been needed, she’d found it. She’d always found it.

  But there were certain things she could expect from him, that he would handle, and nothing she said or did could keep him from it.

  Still holding onto Daralyn, he used one hand to push the couple of feet to the bed and take his mother’s hand. Then he looked up into his girl’s face and met her gaze with a solid and steady one of his own.

  “Let him come,” he said. “We’ll deal with it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was mid-morning when the text came in on his phone. Rory glanced at it, lifted a hand to catch Johnny’s attention. It also drew Ralph Peterson’s, who was here to pick up some fire ant powder. “About forty-five minutes,” he told them.

  The two men stopped what they were doing. Peterson headed out to his truck and Johnny turned the sign to Closed. About that time, Daralyn came out of the back. Her expression told him she’d heard him.

  As she approached the front counter, Rory put his hand out on it, and she put hers in his grasp. Her eyes were thoughtful and dark, an abyss. He tightened his hold, telling her he had her.

  “If it was my choice, you know I’d tell you to stay here,” he said. “But it isn’t.”

  He’d wanted to make it his. Only a talk with his mother had kept him from being an idiot about it. He’d brought it up with her one night when Daralyn was at school. He’d discussed it from several angles, but then it had boiled down to one major point.

  “That first year, when I was hurt, you didn’t want me out of your sight,” he’d said, meeting his mother’s gaze over the dinner table. “I’m ashamed how I let you wait on me hand and foot, not realizing how much more helpless it was making me feel. Not your fault. You did it out of love. But I’m afraid of doing the same to her, Mom.”

  “What snapped you out of it?” she’d asked sagely.

  “Marcus, when he threw the bag of grain at me—”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “That was the straw. But it had been happening before then. You were getting more irritable, more restless. Even caught up in your head, there was a part of you that knew your own heart, the man you wanted to be. That you wouldn’t deny yourself. The man you are.”

  She met his gaze, smiled. “Marcus’s challenge to you was the catalyst, but it was one you were ready to hear, in that moment. And we all learned something important. To trust the strength you had within you to set your own path the way it was meant to go.”

  Reaching across the table, she put her hand on his. “You need to trust her the same way, despite how protective you are.” A fond smile crossed her face, one that spoke of the woman she was, as well as a mother. “Your father was the same. Didn’t even want me to go up a ladder without him being right there with me.

  “The men of this family have always been strong, traditional men, but with room in their hearts for change. Through love and the sense God gave you, and your mother and father encouraged you to have, to think for yourselves.”

  While he and Daralyn discussed it several times over the past couple weeks, him trying his best not to be that “traditional man,” he hadn’t pushed her to make a decision, and she hadn’t indicated what it would be. Until now.

  “I think…I have a couple things to finish in the back,” Daralyn said after a long moment.

  “Okay.” Rory suppressed a strong sigh of relief and stroked her cheek, her mouth. Held her gaze. There weren’t words for moments like these, but he showed her his feelings, his will. “There may be fire burning all around us,” he said, “But around you and me, there’s a circle, and nothing gets past it. Got it?”

  She nodded. Then she slipped away, returning to the back with precise steps. She hadn’t said much, but he could tell a lot was going on. He’d realized that deep place she’d carved inside her head was a place she went to deal with things. Which made sense, since it had been the only place she could live, be something other than what she’d been forced to be. She didn’t hide there, not so much anymore. Now it was where she went to work things out.

  When she was ready to be held, when she needed him to take control and bring her out of that place, he’d be there.

  He pushed himself out into the parking lot, got into his van and followed Johnny in his pickup. When they reached the stretch of rural two-lane highway that was the main artery into their small town, he saw they weren’t the first to arrive. Over thirty people were already here, including Thomas and Marcus, who’d returned from New York specifically for this. His mother was with them. More were arriving, a convoy of cars parking on either side of the road.