Divine Solace: 8 by Joey W. Hill Page B

explained.
“Seeing them together more often. But Lyda’s witnessed relationships where
someone without a true Dom/sub orientation hooks up with someone who has a
strong one, and Brendan is a down-to-the-bone sub. Those relationships have a
hard go of it, long term. But the way he and Chloe feel about each other, it’s
obvious there’s something there, above, beyond and below the Dom/sub thing.
That gives it a far better chance of survival.”
    He smiled. “Beyond that, it’s impossible not to love Chloe.
Brendan would ride a bicycle to the moon for her.”
    Gen thought about how Chloe had thrown herself in Noah’s
lap, his easy affection with her. She wondered if Noah defined himself as a
down-to-the-bone submissive.
    At this point she’d moved into the living room and was
curled up on the couch, watching him clean up the kitchen. He’d shooed her out,
refused to let her help.
    He’d left the shirt off. When he made motions to put it back
on for dinner, she’d asked him not to do so. He hadn’t said anything about
that, but the flicker of his gaze as he complied had made her focus on her
lasagna intently for the first few minutes of their dinner. Now she studied the
smooth expanse of his back. As she expected, he did have tattoos. Between his
shoulder blades was a blood-colored heart with a Celtic triquetra overlay done
in black. Below it was the infinity sign, the sideways figure eight,
intertwined with a rendering of handcuffs. Below that was script.
    Yours, unconditionally.
    When she’d indicated he was merely a tool for his Mistress,
not genuinely interested in Gen for her own sake, his negative reaction had
been emphatic. And yet it niggled at Gen, his level of compliance
to…everything. Yours, unconditionally . For herself, it was a highly
alien concept, agreeing to give oneself to a complete stranger, just because
someone else ordered it.
    “What if I wanted to tie you up and drown you in my
bathtub?”
    “You have a shower.”
    She made a face at him. “You know what I mean. Smartass.”
    He grinned, pulling ice cream from the freezer. “I draw the
line at being murdered. Unless my Mistress convinced me I’d done something that
really deserved that. I hope that won’t be the case this weekend.”
    She couldn’t tell when he was joking. Holding off on further
questions for the moment, she indulged herself in a study of the taper of his
waist, how his jeans rode his hips, the shift of his buttocks. He’d shed shoes
and socks, so he was barefoot. He’d taken off the silver-and-black
double-wrapped choker before dinner, though he still wore one of the bracelets.
    He brought her a small dish of sherbet, decorated with a
couple vanilla wafers. Taking a seat on the floor next to the couch, he braced
his back against the foot of her easy chair and drew his knees up into a bent
position, his body angled so he could see her. She was willing to make room for
him next to her, but he indicated he was good where he was.
    “Is sitting on the floor a sub thing? Or you just like the
floor?”
    He lifted a shoulder. “Habit is part of it. At home or in a
club setting, my Mistress often requires me to kneel or sit on the floor, so my
head isn’t higher than hers.”
    “That seems really egotistical.”
    “Not in that context. She’s honoring what I am by letting me
act as her submissive in every way. When she makes me act like her equal, often
she’s punishing me.”
    She digested that. “You don’t strike me as a cringing slave
type.”
    “It’s not like that, either.” He gestured with the spoon.
“It’s hard to explain. You sort of have to feel it, or have a sense of it.”
    “So you could explain all night long and I wouldn’t get it.”
That gave her in inexplicable sinking feeling, but Noah touched her foot.
    “No, not necessarily. You don’t have to be as deep in it as
Brendan or Lyda to figure it out. All of us have Dom and sub tendencies. Think
about your job. Who would you say is the