She was sure of it, but there was no way she could draw attention to it without ruffling his feathers. That was the problem about getting so close to someone so fast, while at the same time not having enough of a foundation to justify acting...well, wifely. A scary word to pop into her head, but she couldn't deny the drive.

When Marcus asked her about dessert, she shook her head, though the Oreo cake looked fabulous. "To tell the truth, guys, I'm a bit beat. It's been a long day. I think I'm going to call it a night soon..."

"No, don't do that." Des stroked her leg. "I know you want dessert."

"Want and need are two different things. My a.s.s does not need that."

"I've seen your a.s.s. Cake does lovely things for it."

Julie snorted, but caught the warning look in his eye. To h.e.l.l with it. She went with honesty, putting her hand on his arm. "If you've had a long day, it's cool if you want to head for home, okay?"

He coiled his fingers around hers and leaned in to brush his lips against her ear. As he spoke against it, she noticed Marcus and Thomas doing their best to look as if they were involved in conversation with one another, to give them the illusion of privacy. "I don't want to go to bed without you, love," Des murmured. "I'm all right. Just quiet."

He lifted his head, looking toward Marcus to restore the four-way conversation. "How long have you two been together?"

"What do you mean?" Thomas asked blandly. "He's just a good looking piece of a.s.s I picked up on the plane. Looked like he needed someplace to go."

Marcus grimaced at him. "Yeah, because North Carolina would be the destination a top grade piece of a.s.s like me would choose for a good time."

"Well, top grade maybe ten years ago. Now..."

Julie yelped as Marcus reached across the table and gave a lock of her hair a brutal yank.

"Little b.i.t.c.h," he p.r.o.nounced. "Des, you need to beat her. A lot. I'll hold her down."

"I can do the holding my own self, but thanks for the sanction," Des rebounded.

"Doms encouraging Doms," Thomas said to her. "Beware and run."

"We only keep picking at you because you've been so sensitive about this ever since you hit your forties." Julie sniffed at Marcus. "You'll be beautiful to the day you die and you know it. Even then everyone will want one last time to admire your corpse."

"Just make sure Thomas isn't in charge of dressing me," Marcus said, taking a sip of his beer.

"I have a flannel shirt and a pair of overalls that will look great with those overpriced Italian shoes you like." Thomas grinned and answered Des's question. "We've been together a while now. Long enough to feel like we're starting to get the hang of it."

"Looks like it." Des rotated the gla.s.s of water in his hand and sat back once more. He linked fingers with Julie's on the table and squeezed, an admonishment as if he antic.i.p.ated her trying to interrupt.

"Here's the deal." Des's gaze shifted between the two men. "I love her, but I'm not a great bet in the grow-old-together department. I expect she's told you some of that. She says none of that matters and that she wants to give us a good run. I'm selfish enough, and want her enough, to listen. Plus, I think past a certain point it doesn't really matter anyway, does it? Your heart gets stuck on someone. So I guess what I want to tell you straight up is I'm a selfish b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I may break her heart because my body gives out, but my heart won't. If I hurt her, it won't be because I don't love her enough."

Julie stared at Des. That heart he was worried about breaking was in her throat. A cheerful cacophony of noise continued around their table: people eating, talking, laughing or watching TV at the bar. The clink of metal and gla.s.s added to that rushing undercurrent. Life kept moving on, but things here were quiet, reflecting the stillness inside her as Des shifted his gaze to her, his grip sure and firm. She lifted her chin, telling him...she agreed. She accepted.

Marcus's foot was pressing against hers beneath the table as Thomas reached over, covering her and Des's clasped hands. He'd meant it for her, but didn't seem to mind including Des. Des looked mildly surprised by the affection, but then Marcus spoke, drawing their attention.

"You asked us how long we've been together. Long enough to recognize when someone else has a good start on it. She knew we didn't have to approve of you for her to decide to want to be with you. She's an accomplished, brilliant woman. But we're family, and I've learned that a family's support can sometimes be the difference between success and failure when you're trying to make a relationship work."

Marcus exchanged a meaningful glance with Thomas, full of past history, then brought his eyes back to Des. "You seem good for each other. You have our support, both of you. Unless you turn out to be a d.i.c.k, and then we'll rip yours off."

"Fair enough." Des toasted him. "Because I'd feel the same way about anyone who hurt her."

"That's the right answer. Just be good to her. She's earned it, a hundred times over. If what she's said is true, sounds like you do, too." Marcus tapped his gla.s.s. "Take her home, Des. You both look like you need to call it an early night. We'll be around a few days. If things go right between you, you'll have a lifetime to get to know us both."

Chapter Seventeen.

She'd been right about how tired he was. They'd dropped off her car and he'd taken her back to his place in his truck, but he'd said very little, though it was as he said. He was quiet, not unhappy. He held her against him as he drove, letting her chatter and making accommodating grunts as needed.

Once they reached his place, he stripped down to his boxers, drew her to the bed and removed all her clothes but her panties, which seemed to be his preferred nightwear for her. She'd have to talk him into letting her wear something more come wintertime, though usually he had excellent ways to warm her up.

Tonight, he gathered her close and told her he'd had a good time with her friends. While his c.o.c.k was semi-hard at her proximity, showing an interest in s.e.x, she didn't push it and he didn't either, almost immediately falling into slumber.

He held her close through the night. Though a couple times her shoulder started to ache or she had an itch, she ignored those things, not wanting to do anything to cause him to let her go. As she lay there, the need to hold him even more tightly than he was holding her had her keeping her arms wrapped around his back, her face against his chest.

She was typically overly paranoid about things, so she told herself to ignore a niggling uneasiness, even as she kept rousing to listen to him breathe, to wonder at how deeply he was sleeping. She thought of the things they'd said and done at dinner, Marcus's serious tone and the look in his green eyes. When they'd parted that night, he'd hugged her and offered words that both rea.s.sured and unsettled her.

"We're here for whatever you need, Julie. Always."

She'd turned to Thomas for his hug and found him watching Des with that same curious look. Her Master was currently paying their check because he'd refused Marcus's offer to pay for all. "Okay," she told Thomas. "I know that look. I get first dibs on any paintings you do of him. And a big family discount."

"No, it's not that." Thomas's brow creased. "He's just really familiar to me."

"Maybe you saw him in one of the clubs you and Marcus visited while you were traveling. He does several rigger conferences each year."

"Yeah. Maybe. Hey, on that note, let me get a shot of the two of you on my phone before we part ways. You know Daralyn and Les are going to want to see the guy you're dating."

When Des returned, he was amenable to a picture, standing beside her in his easy, friendly way as she laid a familiar hand on his chest and smiled for the camera.

As she drifted off into sleep now, she dreamed of Thomas's picture. There was a fading on the edges of Des's side. She tried to get Thomas to sharpen it, to take it again, but he said it was too late. It was fading, and she had to figure out a way to keep Des in the picture...

She woke from the disturbing dream. It was daylight and, since she didn't have to be at the theater until later in the morning, it was okay for her to sleep in. It still felt strange and overindulgent after the round-the-clock schedule she'd been keeping these past few weeks between the theater's demands and Des.

She was alone. She cleaned up in the bathroom, using the contents of the toiletry bag she'd brought to wash her face, brush her hair and teeth. Donning a knee length purple knit skirt and a pale green cotton baby-tee, she accented them with silver hoops and a silver and jade stone choker before she went in search of her Dom. She left her hair down, brushed out thick and shining, because he liked it that way, though she pocketed the barrette she'd need when the humidity kicked in.

Through the window, she saw him outside, bagging up leaves in Betty's yard. She was glad to see him awake and looking restored, but as she started to open the door, she saw Betty was with him. From their body language, it was clear she was about to interrupt a heated conversation. She hesitated, torn between defusing it with an untimely interruption, and letting them work it out. When she decided on the latter, she couldn't shame herself into closing the door and not eavesdropping. That dream was still too close to the surface of her consciousness.

"I don't want to talk about it," Des said stubbornly.

"So you've said. You've been a broken record for the past two weeks. Des, you can't ignore this."

"I'm not ignoring it."

"Yes, you are. Your numbers are not good. You've held out on intense insulin management longer than most with the type of insulin resistance you have, but your kidneys are starting to show the strain. You're going to be facing dialysis soon and you know it. Not years from now; in a matter of months."

His jaw set as Julie's breath caught. Betty stepped closer, and her expression softened, but not enough to dilute the steel in her eyes, her determination to get through to him.

"I know you've started taking fewer jobs and working less days of the week, which is good for your body, but you can't ignore the signs. You don't want to wait until you're in full renal failure. You can do dialysis at home, you know that. A few times a week, at night. You just hook yourself up at bedtime."

"You think you're telling me something I don't already know? That I haven't studied this s.h.i.t a million times? Once I start dialysis, that's it. Dr. Greeley said it might work for me a few years. And then it won't."

"Which is why you should do what I've suggested a million times. Sign up to get a kidney."

"I'm not a good candidate. They've told you that before."

"Your earlier health problems made you a bad candidate, but you've beaten those problems and manage your diabetes better than any patient I've ever had. If we were determined, we could get the donor list people to consider giving you one. You are extremely disciplined. You would take very good care of a donor organ. A kidney is one of the easier organs to obtain, relatively speaking."

"For most people. They've never stopped saying what they said at the beginning. My body isn't typical. It's likely to reject anything less than a close genetic match, and I have no family. Even if I had, it would give me what? Maybe another decade before it fails."

"Ten years is a lot better than six months if you do nothing," she snapped. "Why are you so f.u.c.king stubborn about this?"

"Because my whole life has been about this."

"Don't give me that adolescent self-wallowing c.r.a.p," she retorted. "You went out and made yourself an incredible life."

"By calling my own shots."

"Des, I'm not your prison warden. You're still calling your own shots. This is all your own choice. Get on a list, start dialysis. Some people do dialysis for fifteen years or more. A kidney can give you a decade. So a potential of twenty-five years, and who knows what other developments will happen during that time. Fight for yourself. Fight for your life."

"I do that. I've done that." He threw down the rake and rounded on her. "And it's not enough. It's never f.u.c.king enough. There's always going to be something else."

"Yeah, there is." Betty crossed her arms over her chest. "So why don't you tell those Type I kids you mentor to just give up now? Before they ever experience a senior prom, or a first love, or a trip to Disneyworld? Just f.u.c.k it, go ahead and die because life might be harder for you than other kids. What is the problem? Why are you acting this way?"

"Because I'm sick of it," he exploded. "You don't get it. You can't get it unless you're having to deal with it every f.u.c.king day. I'm tired of having to always be on guard. Check this, watch that, eat this, don't eat that. Hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia. Carry a d.a.m.n suitcase with me everywhere to manage it all. Weigh every f.u.c.king decision I make against how it will affect my diabetes, my pancreas, my kidneys..."

"You've always done that." Betty studied him. "Nothing has changed. Except her. That's it, isn't it? Julie."

Julie told herself to go away before she heard where this was going, but she couldn't make herself move, could barely breathe, in the face of Des's anger.

Des kicked the bag of leaves he'd just packed. The plastic exploded from the force of the impact and leaves scattered around his work shoes. He marched away from Betty, muttering, snarling to himself, and he rubbed both hands over his face. Julie had seen that densely packed energy around him before when he was fully in Dom mode with her, an exciting, s.e.xual energy. Right now it was painful and volatile. Betty held fast, but even she looked a little pale in the face of his rage.

As he gathered his thoughts, Betty glanced over and saw her at the crack of the door. Julie didn't draw back. Betty could out her there, or Julie could do the right thing and close the door, but they both made their choice. Julie didn't close the door and Betty shifted her attention back to him as if she hadn't seen her.

As Des turned to face the nurse, there was a defeated look to his expression Julie had never seen before. "We've just started, Betty," he said, a note of despair in his voice that wrenched her heart. "I didn't intend...I told myself I'd never drag someone I care about into this. And I did it anyway. She deserves better than someone who started life broken."

"You listen to me." Betty set her jaw and stepped closer, gripping his forearm. "We're all broken in some way, Desmond Arthurius Hayes. It's how life shapes us for one another. If Julie Ramirez sees what I see, she knows what a treasure she's found. And if she's a good person with a loving heart, you deserve her."

Des shook his head, pulled away. "No one deserves this. G.o.d is a heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"You're being a selfish idiot who can't handle being out of control," Betty said with gentle ruthlessness.

"Being out of control is the one thing I've always had to accept. But I don't have to accept it for her."

"That's her decision, not yours."

The portent in Betty's voice was as clear as a whispered cue through a mic. Summoning her courage, Julie stepped out the door. It was a little chilly and she shivered, crossing her arms over her body, but she met Des's eyes without flinching. "I shouldn't have been listening, but I'm not sorry I did. I feel like I do deserve you, Des. Meeting you has been one of the luckiest moments of my life."

He looked torn between anger at them both, and then a desperate, helpless fury captured his expression. "You should have respected my privacy," he told Betty. "And shut the h.e.l.l up when you knew she was there."

"Des," Julie said sharply, but he shot her a withering look.

"I shouldn't have gone down this road with you. Just...f.u.c.k. Please get the h.e.l.l out of here. I need you...I just need you to be gone right now."

He pivoted and strode away, headed down the path toward the barn. Julie stood frozen, certain this was how it felt to have a spear shoved through her gut, pinning her to the wall behind her. Betty stared after him, her mouth tight. When she noticed Julie's reaction, she climbed the porch steps to put a hand on her arm. "Here, honey. Come sit here."

She directed Julie into a rocking chair. "Breathe. You've gone pale as a sheet. Put your head down if you need to. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d. That stubborn, wonderful, pigheaded a.s.shole."

Betty rubbed her back, a soothing touch. "He didn't mean it. You know he didn't. He's been over the moon about you since he met you. I've never seen him react to a woman the way he has you."

Julie pressed her forehead into her arms and straightened. "You warned me, right?" she said with a shaky laugh. "You said it would get ugly when we got into this territory. I guess I just thought we'd gotten through it."

Betty shook her head. "He's always been able to keep relationships at an arm's distance. I guess that's why he's into all that rope stuff. He can get s.e.x and intimacy without commitment. You've kind of messed that up. In a good way."

"Doesn't feel that good at the moment."

"That's because he has his head up his a.s.s," Betty said tenderly, glancing toward the barn. "For truly understandable reasons, though I take issue with him striking out at you. But he'll give himself h.e.l.l for that himself when he settles down." Betty sighed and touched her hand, a simple, practical stroke. "He's angry and he's scared, that's all."

"I know. I mean, I don't know that, but I can tell he's upset." It still hurt that he'd struck out at her, especially after everything they'd shared up to now.

Some relationships weren't given a lot of time before they had to face the "for better or worse" clause. Maybe someone else in a relationship less than a few weeks old would cut and run in the face of that demand, but she'd waited a long time, not only to feel this way about someone, but to have him feel the same way about her.

"Where's he going?" she asked Betty. "He's getting company, whether he wants it or not."

He was clearing out a shed behind the barn that appeared to be filled with old construction materials. She supposed it was his way of dealing with his emotions, the same way she'd reorganized cords in the sound cabinet the day she'd been frustrated with him.

She took a seat on a nearby stump, watching him. He noticed her, but didn't say anything for a few minutes, pulling boards out and tossing them with a resounding clap on the ground outside the shed door. He was wearing work gloves, which she was glad to see since a lot of the boards had nails sticking out of them. Bugs skittered off the boards and she lifted her feet, letting a spider of an unsettling size scuttle away.

"So what's the real reason you're not on a donor list? Even if it's not a genetic match, why let that stop you? You told me you don't let a doctor or anyone else tell you how long you have to live. And as Betty said, you're pretty darn healthy. Except for the whole kidney failure thing."

She wasn't sure if the mild tease would be useful or not, but anything that would get him talking was worth a shot.

Desmond stopped, yanking off the gloves and tossing them to the side. "You know what being on a list means? It means there's someone below you, someone who will be waiting for a kidney longer. Maybe a kid, maybe a middle-aged woman who wants to live long enough to retire and have that house at the beach she's always wanted. Maybe a loser who's never done much with his life but, when he gets the gift of a kidney, it opens his eyes and he realizes how much more he could be and do, and he becomes the center of someone's world as a result."

He swiped a lock of hair out of his eyes that had come loose from the band holding it back. She wanted to stroke it away from his face herself, but she curled her hands on her lap, waiting him out. "I have no family," he said. "I'm a roofer and I'll always be a roofer, because that's what I like. I'm a guy who gets his freak on with rope and topping beautiful women. I know who I am, I like my life, I like the people in my life. I've figured out my s.h.i.t. I don't need more time on that. Someone else might. I'm not going to be the one who takes it away from them, just because I'm scared of dying."

Every word pummeled her. It was unbearable to hear him write himself off, as if her feelings for him didn't matter, as if she didn't matter. Then he pinned her with a blazing gaze.

"Or because the very thought of not having more time with you makes me want to shove every d.a.m.n person on that list out of my way. Just to get a single moment more together."

Before she could fully wrap her mind around the words, the fierce, frustrated way he said them, he had her on her feet and pushed her against the outside shed wall, kissing her in that hot, take-over way he had. His body pressed between her legs, his other callused hand gripping her thigh and pulling it up against his hip so she had to let him against her core.

They were surrounded by barn, forest and pasture, so they had their privacy, sort of. She hazily wondered if he was going to take her right here. The remarkable thing was she'd let him, her whole being hurting for and craving him. It made his anger contagious, so that she was shoving at him, pinching, scratching, slapping.

He seized her hair, yanking her head back and biting her lip. He was rough with her, pushing her to her knees, holding her against the wall with his work shoe against her abdomen, the heel firm between her legs, eyes glittering as he unbuckled his belt and stripped it with a hard yank. He opened his jeans and reached down to scoop her up and hold her against the wall.