Noah convinced me over breakfast to stay with him for the weekend, after letting me know he’d informed Priscilla, my boss at The Ranch, that I was safe and unharmed. On my second afternoon at the cabin, I sunk my hands into the warm, sudsy water, and I watched him through the kitchen window where he stood in the yard bathing Woof, the neighbor’s cow dog. The handsome mutt had one green eye, one blue, and boundless energy. At this moment, he pinned his normally perky ears back in a droopy, sad gesture.
Suddenly, a deep baritone penetrated the glass, and the lyrics sung by Noah came through. I recognized it as his own invented version of Brahm’s Lullaby for a dog.
“Scaredy-cat, close your eyes.
Daddy’s right here beside you.
I’ll protect you from soapy stings,
You will wake up in my arms.
Guardian angels are near,
So bath on, with no fear…”
Finishing up the last of the pots and pans, I pulled a stool over and watch the show, while Noah finished his lullaby to ease Woof’s hatred of water and soap.
My heart unhinged a little.
This was not the gruff he-man that sometimes drove me crazy. This guy loved with tenderness emanating from his soul, a man who made it his business to care for others.
Watching his powerful, well-muscled arms towel off the pooch caused me to remember a scene from my childhood, when I grew attached to a kitten in Greece where my parents had taken us for their summer leave from the army. I’d carried out the mistake of naming him Rusty after his copper coloring. He was the best friend I had during our overseas tours, and I had to leave him behind, not knowing whether anyone else was feeding him their leftover feta cheese or fried fish as I had done.
Was he hungry?
Meowing after me?
He trusted me, and I moved away, leaving him all alone to fend for himself on the rough streets of Athens.
The hot splash of a tear on my hand kicked me out of my reverie. I looked up at Noah, now towel drying Woof in the yard. I couldn’t watch anymore.
Instead, I nabbed an enormous slice of coffee cake, along with a cup of tea, and took it to the wooden soaking tub in one corner of the cabin that he showed me earlier. Antique, distressed lumber framed the metal bath, and there were floor to ceiling windows surrounding it. It was like sitting in a magical fairy tree house. I sunk into the warm, bubble-filled container.
“Ah, so much better.” I said to myself, luxuriating in the sensation of bone melting water as I grabbed a loofah to scrub myself clean.
Before I finished, Noah walked in with a bottle of chilled Veuve Clicquot in his hand. The only reason I recognized it was because he bought a bottle to share in Phoenix, before matters got weird between us. Thinking back on when we first met, I relaxed further into a state of warm bliss, sinking until the bubbles came to my chin. To have such a man, on such a day, made me feel as though I’d float right out of the tub. I drummed my fingers on its edge and smiled at nothing. It was as if all the things I imagined were coming true. “Did you come to sing to me?” I invited.
He stood there tall, rawboned, bearded. His ingenuously appealing face stared at me as if I were the last cookie in the jar. “Would you like that?”
I curled my hands around my middle, feeling lightheaded. “I don’t know. It might embarrass me.”
He epitomized burly, broad chested and muscular. There was no need to be shy, but I shuddered at my humiliation about being naked before him. It made no sense. After all, he was the dude who’d eaten my ass like a cupcake this morning. I was glad the steaming tub hid the fact that his sheer presence forced me to blush.
The intensity in his lowered speech didn’t slip my notice. “I’d be the one singing. What would you have to be embarrassed about?”
Ignoring the mocking tone inside me that wondered what I would do if he started crooning, I replied, “You know, grandiose gestures.” I glanced around, looking for an escape from this suddenly all-too-serious conversation. “They make me nervous.”
In fact, I couldn’t think of a time when I’d truly enjoyed myself with a man.
And that made Noah dangerous.
He was most pleasurable.
“How about I join you instead?” His eyes were like summer lightning, and prolonged the moment. One by one, his garments fell until he stood naked before me.
Stripped bare.
To say the sight was to my liking would be the understatement of the century.
So yes, I could have resisted.
Pretended that whenever he whipped out that turgid cock of his, it didn’t turn me into his obedient little pet.
But what would be the point?
He sunk into the bubbles behind me and framed me with his legs. “Oh, my.” I gasped, when the bulb of his erection bumped me in the back.
“Relax.” He ordered, and started sponging my shoulders, arms, and spine. “Can you let someone fucking take care of you for a change? I’ve been waiting my entire life to do this.” It was hard to unwind when I was fully aware of his hardness rubbing up against me.
My breath caught in my throat when I questioned, “Where’s Woof?”
He placed a hand on each of my shoulders, pulling me back so I curled into the curve of his body, and I had to fight my own battle of personal restraint. “He’s clean, dry and enjoying a cow femur in the yard... content. Like me.” I looked at him and his eyes drank me up as he said with deceptive calm. “You’re my treat, and I’m going to nibble every inch of skin until you let me bury my bone in each one of your holes.”
My words made me sound braver than I felt. “Is that a promise?”
“Only if you obey my third important rule.” His voice didn’t budge.
I forced myself to settle down. His daddy discipline was having a Pavlovian effect on me. As soon as he started doling it out, my lady parts salivated their lust.
Denial flew from me. “Another test, great.”
“It’s easy to remember, but hard not to forget.”
“Did I tell you I detest riddles?” I dropped my head back on his chest with a sigh of pleasure.
“Use your words, princess. You’ve got to explain to me what you want, how you’re feeling, whether anything is bothering you. Daddy will fix it and make it better.”
“Not so simple after all.” I tried to maintain my curtness, but his compelling personage and the way my body tingled from his contact put me in a trance. “Sometimes I don’t even know what’s in my head. I get distracted easily.”
It was as if I needed an ‘off’ button for my brain. I’d heard too many times from my parents that I couldn’t use ADHD as an excuse. As a kid, everyone thought I did dumb things on purpose, and it made me feel stupid. I wasn’t trying to exploit it as a defense, but I grew up knowing I was different.
Still was.
My chin dropped to my chest, and suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to run away and hide. Not because I was naked. I didn’t want him to know how I struggled to make the best of every day.
I couldn’t stand his pity.
I’d hate to seem foolish around him the way I did with so many others.
Everyone thought I did crazy things on purpose—but he forced me to feel wanted, desired.
The opposite of dumb.
What would it be like to have that all the time in my life? A daddy who accepted me for who I was?
The way my body responded to him had me contemplating staying here forever. Would that be so bad? There was food. Water. Shelter.
And the giant stud I had been drooling over for the past year.
What if Noah were always there to answer questions, calm my fears, cause my insecurities to vanish?
But dreams only come true in fairy tales. And every one of them had a violent edge, sharp as a knife and twice as deadly.
I’d snack on his man candy for a bit, and when his guard was down and he was spent from our sexual antics, I’d carry out my escape.