Just One Taste (Topped #2)(27)

“We’ve only recently started a relationship though. I think she needs time.”

“And I’m fairly certain what that girl needs is crazy passion that sweeps her away.” Grace looked over the dinner she was about to serve, making sure everything was warm. “Look, I’ve got some experience here. I was determined not to let Sean hook this pretty fish because I didn’t trust that man as far as I could throw him, and that wasn’t far. He was just as muscular back then. He was younger than me. He was hotter than me. I wasn’t about to let that man into my bed much less my life.”

“So what changed?” Deena had her reasons to keep distance between them. All the men in her life had failed her. It was why he’d let the lying thing go. He wouldn’t do it again, but she’d been afraid of him and now he looked at that as a good thing. She would joke and laugh and pal around with most of the other male employees. In the beginning, he’d thought it was because she didn’t like him, and now he realized she liked him too much.

“He walked into my backyard one night, jumped into my pool with his clothes on, and I’ve been his ever since,” Grace said with a wistful smile on her face. “He overwhelmed me. Once he had me in his arms, I couldn’t think about anything but him. All the reasons I couldn’t allow him in kind of fell away and all that mattered was Sean.”

He wasn’t sure Grace and Deena had the same issues. Grace’s husband had died. He hadn’t abandoned her. Still, he understood what Grace was saying. He’d been hesitant to push their relationship past the boundaries of the club because he didn’t want to scare her away. He wanted her trust before he moved them along, but the couples had been encouraged to talk outside of class. And he was different than the other trainees. The only reason he was going through training class was to acquaint himself with the club and how everything worked. If he’d had the money for a membership on his own, he would have applied and given his references and likely been accepted without training. As it was, he was being used more or less as a third instructor. He could start herding her gently toward a relationship outside the club. In a few weeks they would be asked to spend a couple of days under their training Doms’ control as it was.

He nodded to Grace and began to make his way through her spacious home. He’d heard the story about how she and Chef had moved from Fort Worth to be closer to family when Carys was born. He walked through the halls, the walls dotted with pictures of the happy family. Smiling kids and loving couples. It reminded him of his own home in Missouri where his mom and dad had always kept pictures of him and Gwen, every one of their embarrassing school pictures on the wall for all to see.

He wanted that. He wanted the happy home and playful kids, and damn but he wanted that woman as his wife. Smart and sexy. Deena could light up a room when she smiled.

“Hey, did Grace kick you out of the kitchen?” Sean stepped away from the group he’d been talking to and held a hand out to Eric.

He shook Chef’s hand, glancing over where Kyle was looking at his new tablet. “She did, indeed. It looks like he’s happy with his new toy.”

Sean nodded. “I’ve loaded it with every possible way for him to communicate with his mother. I know there will be times when he can’t, but when he can I want him to have every opportunity. Are you looking for your girl?”

“Am I that obvious?”

Sean shrugged. “We’re all that obvious. I saw her in the parlor. Come on. I’ll take you there. I’m afraid she was talking to Charlotte. My sister-in-law loves to think of herself as a good influence on new submissives. She teaches them all the tricks to being a real brat.”

“I was afraid of that.” He followed Sean down the hall and heard Charlotte Taggart talking.

“Oh, I don’t bother to manipulate Ian,” the redhead was saying. “His skull is far too thick. I’ve found direct confrontation is what turns him on.”

Sean stopped before he rounded the corner. From here they could listen but not be seen. “Give it a minute and you’ll understand what you’re up against.”

Yep, eavesdropping wasn’t only for the line chefs. “I don’t know that we should listen in.”

“I have no idea what turns my Dom on,” a familiar voice said. “It doesn’t seem to be me.”

Holy shit. That was Deena’s voice.

Sean leaned in. “So we go in now?”

Bastard. “Not on your life.”

How could she think she didn’t turn him on? He got a hard-on anytime she walked into a room. She sat in his lap most of the time. She had to feel it. He’d worried at first that it might scare her off, but she hadn’t said anything.

“I don’t believe it.” That was Tiffany. He would know her throaty voice anywhere. “That man is into you.”

At least one of them had some sense.

He was very aware that he was standing outside the room like a teenager listening in. It was so far beneath his dignity, but every time he started to go in, Deena said something that stopped him in his tracks.

“If he is, then he has a funny way of showing it.” Deena sounded very offhand, as though she couldn’t care less. “Or maybe that’s simply who he is. I knew it from the moment I met him. He’s one of those guys. You know the type. Upstanding. Moral. Always doing the right thing.”