The Shy Dominant by Jan Irving

very much. What the hell was that? Except Fred thought he knew what the weird fashion statement signified.
    Stacy didn’t want to go.
    Mattie was fine with her dress, but she wasn’t happy over the timing. The wedding was set for the same day as a school play where Mattie had helped carefully design the set and she didn’t want to miss out. His youngest daughter had asked him what was the big deal anyway? She hadn’t seen her mother in years, so what was one more night?
    The hell of it was, he agreed with both of his daughters. Why should they go? To top it off, he’d spent a torturously boring and God-awful family dinner with Marilyn, her fiancé Ryan, and Mattie and Stacy.
    He hadn’t seen Dharma in days.
    Had he made her pregnant?
    The question was like a refrain from a song that kept playing in his head over and over again.
    He rubbed his leg, yanking out the cane he was forced to use for one more day and loathing every minute of it. He already felt too old for Dharma. Now he had to use a cane, giving her a great visual.
    Had he made her pregnant?
    Christ, the things they’d done, the things she’d let him do…
    It was like as soon as they were together some kind of chemical reaction occurred, and he was a primitive man with his mate. All he wanted was her head under his hand while he had her on her knees, her legs open when he needed to mount her. And he wanted to do it over and over again.
    Was she all right? He hadn’t had any time to talk to her properly after they’d had unprotected sex because Taz had arrived right after they’d made love and Dharma’d had an early shift…
    Did she regret letting him fill her with his seed? But God damn, it had felt so good.
    He hardened thinking about it.
    He told himself he’d driven over here tonight to talk, to make sure she was all right, but the truth was he needed her, needed to renew the bond of the flesh. He wanted his hands cupping her ass, her teeth in his shoulder, her legs around his waist while he fucked her.
    * * * *
    Dharma froze, hot chocolate sauce dripping from her spoon onto her flokati rug. Andrew frowned, his mouth still open to receive the tasty goodness. His twin brother, the delectable Anton was scratching irritably at dried patches of chocolate on his muscled chest. Maybe he had an allergy. Damn, why hadn’t she thought of that before she’d used chocolate?
    Both men were completely nude, their beautifully proportioned bodies surrounded by everything she could find in her apartment that was pink. It was the perfect frame of all that maleness, the perfect statement for her next piece…
    “What the fuck is this?”
    She whirled, almost hitting Andrew with the spoon.
    Her old fashioned Fred had his hands on his hips, staring at her from the entrance of her living room, the spare key she’d given him ages ago when she kept losing hers dangling from one fist.
    Anton noticed Fred and nudged his twin with a smirk. “Hey, do we get the white chocolate now? Mmmm.”
    “White chocolate,” Fred repeated hoarsely. With an exaggerated movement, he placed her keys on her mango painted coffee table. The gesture had such finality that for a second Dharma’s mind went completely blank.
    “Art,” she said. “It’s art.”
    “Of-fucking-course it is.” Fred turned his back, limping towards her front door because he was using…a cane?
    What the hell, when had he hurt himself? He hadn’t texted her about this!
    But then she was running because she’d come alive as soon as she’d seen him. “ Wait! ”
    He was already outside when she huffed out the door, tripping on the scarlet skirt of her kimono.
    “Fred, will you wait!”
    He knocked her hand off his arm, giving her a look so full of hatred she gasped. “Free spirit. Just like my wife, right? I have a family and I had to put them first this week—”
    “Wait, I know that—”
    “And while I do that,” he gave a jerky nod to her apartment, “you’re already partying with boy