Stripper: The Fringe, Book 4 (28 page)

Diane carefully set her mug on the countertop and took a step away from Duster. “Is that what you’re after? Or are you saying that’s what I’m after?” Frankly, she didn’t know whether to be worried or insulted.

“Are you nuts?” Eyes still sleepy, blinking at her with confusion, Duster set his cup aside. “Remember we agreed that neither one of us would want Michael’s job. And I know that’s not why you’re interested in me.” Duster leaned in close. “You can’t be after my money, because I don’t have any. You can’t be after my potential power, because I really don’t have any of that either. So it must just be me you’re after.”

“Must be.” When he pulled her close, she didn’t resist.

“Besides, I’ll tell you who has the real power around here.”

“Who?” Diane asked.

“Mary.”

“Mary?”

“Mary, by reputation alone, convinced me and Michael that she could bring down Windmere with a fleck of lint.”

“I heard that.” Diane apologized for eavesdropping. “How in the world did she manage that?”

“She bluffed. Michael and I bought it because she’s so unpredictable. Mary, Mary, quite contrary.”

“How does your garden grow?” Diane supplied the line automatically.

“Trying to figure out Mary is a waste of time. Like what everyone thinks they’re doing for Rena and me.”

“You didn’t sleep with her.”

“Of course not,” Duster supplied automatically. “I didn’t want to give her children.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I can’t just sleep with someone like that. I mate. If I couldn’t have you, I was going to get stripped so I could start over. But all that’s moot.” He took her hand. “Maybe now that you’re here, this silliness will stop, and I’ll be able to see Rena again.”

He let go, and they both retrieved their coffee cups. Fiddling with her mug, tracing the lines of it with a slender nail, watching the wisps of vapor rise from the brown edge, Diane told herself not to pry. She swore she wasn’t going to, and then asked, “Why do you want to see her so badly?” She tried to soften the demanding tone of her voice with a smile that felt utterly false.

“It’s okay that you want to know. I’m okay with telling you.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“I am. Like I said, Rena’s a nice lady, and I liked being around her. She was my friend long before I ever asked her out, and I miss her. Are you a jealous woman, Diane?”

“No, I understand the difference between friends and lovers.” It must have dawned on him, as it had on her, that they really didn’t know each other all that well, not all the subtle little bits. “It doesn’t threaten me that some of your friends are women. In fact, I would find it more disturbing if you had no female friends.”

Sighing, he kissed her head.

“Besides, a man who can withstand the press of a naked female body after years of celibacy—your fidelity is the last thing I need to worry about.”

Snuggling her to his side, Duster drank from his mug, then peered back out the window to the sunrise. “I never really knew what I was waiting for, but I couldn’t seem to move on. I guess patience is a virtue I seem to have in droves.” He chuckled. “Unlike Michael or Mary. Their patience is taxed after about five minutes.”

“Instant results.”

“More like instantaneous with those two.”

“Is Michael upset with Mary for what she did yesterday?”

“No.”

“He said he would grill her for answers this morning.”

“Oh, that was just his way of saying we’d have a debriefing. Mary worked her way out of lockdown. I’m telling you that not a soul has ever accomplished that. We need to know how so we can fix those holes in security.”

“Less than three minutes. She seemed extremely proud of that.”

“She should be. If Michael had her treated like she should have been treated, Mary would have hit that cell stripped bare. Tossing her in there unbound was the first mistake. Letting her wear her own clothes was the second, but the worst would have to be not taking her damn boots. She has an arsenal in her skull but damn near the same in her shoes.”

“Why is Mary so determined to play such a dangerous game with you and Michael?”

“It took me a long time to understand this, but, to her, it’s all about making it better. Build something idiot-proof, and Mary says someone will build a bigger idiot. Make it smart-proof. Make it clever. That’s a hell of a lot harder.”

“So Mary keeps you and Michael on your toes.”

“Absolutely. Mary doesn’t want to get away. She wants to make sure that what Michael and I think is secure, really is.”

“I was afraid I would come in here and find Michael grilling her for the details.”

“Not today. Perhaps tonight. Actually, Mary probably already fixed everything or at least filed a report about what she did, why it worked and how to fix it. Mary is rather thorough.”

“When we were waiting, in the cells, she told me how relieved she was that you came back.”

“I’ll bet.” Duster laughed. “Working directly with Michael isn’t easy. She told me that my job sucks. And it does in some ways. Thing is, I’ve been dealing with Michael for a long, long time. I know him better than anyone else, which helps me deal with him.”

Remembering the cruel coldness in Michael’s eyes as he interrogated her, Diane shivered.

“Are you cold?” Snuggling her against the heat of his body, Duster set his cup aside to wrap her fully in his arms.

“I’m afraid. Of Michael.” Diane fought down another shiver because she knew Michael was looking for her to make a wrong move, and then he’d pounce. Anything she did, even something inadvertent, he’d blow out of proportion. If Network Thirteen managed to track her to Windmere, which was a remote possibility at best, she could just imagine Michael gleefully handing her over to them.

“That’s exactly what he likes to instill in people. Raw, naked fear.”

“He’s very good at it.”

“Yes, he is. Thing is, he won’t hurt you unless you give him a reason to. Just don’t lie to him. About even what you perceive as the slightest detail. Don’t hurt him or Mary, and believe me, he won’t hurt you either. I sincerely doubt he’ll ever trust you, but I think, with a little time, you two can at least coexist peacefully. Probably that’s the best we can hope for.”

“Actually, to be honest, when Mary looked at me and told me that if I so much as tried to thwart security, she’d come after me—she scared me a lot more than Michael did. Don’t ever tell Michael, but his wife is far more intimidating than he is.”

“That’s because Michael goes over the top to overawe, where Mary is subtle. He’s a five-hundred-pound beast stomping and snarling, while Mary is a bitty little scorpion with a deadly tail.”

Diane nodded. “It’s not what she says so much but the way she looks at you. With that wide-eyed look.”

“Innocent yet cunning eyes.”

“I’ll tell you what I told them both. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to be with you and Scott. That’s all. I have no grand desire to do more than just be your wife and a mother to Scott. I’d like to have some other work to do, but given the circumstances, I’m willing to wait on that.”

“You want to strip people here on Windmere?”

“Not necessarily.” She would miss that part of her work, but she could see how threatening her ability to chemically alter a subject’s brain would be to Michael. Not that with her touch she could craft people into killing machines or anything, but Michael would never believe her if she told him the details of her skill. “I can do more than strip. I can help people by talking to them. That’s what I’d like to do.”

“A mind shrink.”

“Please don’t call it that. It makes it sound like I sprinkle salt on their brains to make them contract like slugs. I could counsel people. Like what I did with Sheldon. Rarely do I find I have to strip a client.” But it would be nice to be able to offer that to the populace of Windmere. Perhaps here she could build a room that would give her the privacy and isolation she needed so she wouldn’t need to work on a ship. Network Thirteen never considered building a place for her, because they didn’t want it traced back to them. Paranoid. Network Thirteen and Michael had a lot in common.

“Oh, I don’t think Michael’s going to go for that. He’ll think you’ll try to turn people against him.”

“By
talking
to them?” She uttered an exasperated sigh. Without her work, or something similar to occupy her time, she saw a rather long, bleak and boring existence before her. “Is he really that mistrustful?”

“Before you get upset, take a walk in his shoes. Or feet, rather, since Michael hates to wear shoes. This is his world. He has to be a bit paranoid to keep it safe. Do you really think some big-hearted, cuddly muffin kind of a guy could have built this place?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Yes.” Diane straightened the edges of his robe. “You did.”

Duster laughed. How good it felt to just stand here in his kitchen with the strong scent of coffee in the air as he held his wife. His wife! While his son slept down the hall. His son! “Cuddly muffin. I like that, but don’t let it get around.”

“Worried about your manly reputation?”

“Not so much. But women hear something like that, and they’ll be all over me.” He said it in jest, but a speculating light entered Diane’s tawny gaze.

“I imagine they already have been. As you said, what intelligent woman wouldn’t want to align herself with you?”

“You
are
a little jealous, aren’t you?” He hated to admit it but her concern boosted his ego.

“A bit.”

“Don’t be.” He toyed with the tie of her robe. “I’ve had that cunning gaze flashed my way. One look and it’s over before it starts. I’m not power-mad, and I have never been much interested in women who are.” Thinking back over the years, he’d more than once had to be firm with such women. Once, he had to get downright rude. Being a nice guy backfired sometimes because some people mistook kindness for encouragement. “Call my culture primitive, but I mated for life.” Tilting her face up, he kissed her softly, then more firmly as she pressed against him. Surging with a sudden, intense passion, he lifted her up and set her on the countertop. Angling himself between her legs, he pulled her until they meshed together, and her long, slender legs wrapped around his hips. On a deep, almost painful sigh, he said, “This waiting is about to drive me mad.”

“That makes two of us.” Diane pushed her robe aside, then his. Sliding forward, she drew him between her thighs.

Feeling that honey heat, Duster bit back a gasping groan, then pressed forward. All he had to do was pull her down off the counter and he’d be inside her. Given the strain in his body, he felt damn sure he’d climax about a tenth of a second later.

“Wait.” Diane slid back on the counter. “Duster, there’s something we need to talk about.”

“It’s okay.” Reluctantly, Duster closed his robe and hers. “Now and here isn’t the time for this. Not when Scott could come traipsing in at any moment.”

Flashing a guilty look to the archway between the main room and the kitchen, Diane groaned. “I forgot all about him.”

“I’ll bet that’s a first.”

“I can’t believe I almost—what the hell is wrong with me?” Tightening her robe, Diane slid off the counter.

“Hey, I’m flattered. And remember, this wasn’t just your idea.” Dropping his gaze to the tent he made against the front of his robe, he chuckled. “I think we should go get dressed, wake Scott up and make breakfast together.”

“We could go and take a shower together.” Diane looked to his hips. “With my hands, I could—”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll wait.”

“I feel horrible. Like I’ve been teasing you all this time, and I just want to—”

“End my torment?”

“Something like that.”

“What about yours? Or are you about to hand me that line that it’s different for women?” Along with the macho male pride of his culture came such ridiculous notions about women and sex, like they didn’t need to enjoy physical relations, they just had to produce children. Most of it was as foolish as what he labored to live up to.

“It
is
different for me.”

“Truth time, Diane.” He pulled her to him and peered down into her face. “How often would you let your hand slip below your bed covers, stroke your body and think of me?”

A dark blush bloomed high on her cheeks as she closed her eyes. “Too many to count over the years.”

“Same here.”

She giggled.

“What?” he asked.

“You slipped your hand below the covers and thought of yourself?” Diane peered up at him with an arched brow.

“Smarty.” He chuckled madly as he pressed her close. “I thought of you.”

“Had you thought of yourself, you’d win my vote for most narcissistic man in the Void. Somehow I can imagine Michael thinking of himself while pleasuring himself, but not you.”

“If my biggest thrill was to make love to myself, I would be about the most blissful man ever. I’d likely be unable to lift my right hand, let alone operate it with any finesse.”

Clapping her hand over her mouth to muffle a loud laugh, Diane dissolved into giggles as she leaned into him.