Unrestrained, page 4
“Yes.” And maybe it was true, maybe she had.
“Good girl. Open wide.”
Breathless at the very idea that she could admit to wanting to suck the cock of such a man—an animalistic giant who fired her deepest, dirtiest fantasies—she held onto the moment, replayed the words several times with slightly different variations before moving on.
“Don’t keep me waiting.” She made him say it in a coarse, guttural tone, pictured how he’d watch closely, perhaps breathe a harsh sniff when she cupped his sack and ran her tongue over his balls attentively. In her mind’s eye his head tilted back and a vein rose along his neck, beating in time to the pulse in her own throat, and the impossible happened: he wanted her.
He put his hand over hers and traced her mouth with his swollen cock before feeding it between her waiting lips, his face tight. “That’s it, show me how deep you can take it.”
She imagined how she would obey, taking him to the root, hungrily, her chin brushing his balls. If he allowed it, she would run a hand between her legs and play with herself as she sucked him, her fingers squirming as busily at her swollen clit as they did now.
Her chest tightened. Senses overloading, she feverishly rubbed and thrust her fingers deeper into herself, juices running down her thighs until they trickled between her buttocks. Her face burned with the need to feel him fuck her mouth until he came, to feel him flood her dry throat with his sticky seed. She dug her nails into her thighs, pretending it was his grip as he pumped her mouth harder. That final filthy image got her off and a fine tremble ran through her straining, rigid body.
She came hard, a gasp slipping from her lips as her eyes opened and her body arched, rippling contractions sliding up and down her spine. They froze her in place and then they were done with her. Body slackening, she rolled over. Oh, god, that was a good one. The man was such stellar fantasy material she really should write him a thank you note. She wiped her fingers on her thigh and listened to the gallop of her heart slowly settle as she stared at her clock. Seven in the morning, but a Saturday, so no need to get up just yet.
Burying herself back under the sheets she stared at the wall. Her orgasm had come so much quicker than usual, the contractions intense for a solo effort. Though, the last time she’d come with a man, her orgasm had been a tiny, timid thing. Her mind recoiled from the memory even as she became bogged in the mire of it. Pedestrian sex, a cock softening inside her, a hand stroking her neck, a warm, gentle smile. “When will you get those scars fixed?”
At first she’d thought she’d misheard her boyfriend, had had to replay the words several times before she’d come to the conclusion that, yes, she’d heard right.
“Get over it, Holly.” Flinging the sheets away she sat up. She had no time for self-pity. Her regency romance novel lay on the bedside table and she snatched it up, determined to immerse herself in the character’s awkward marriage of convenience. After only a page she set it aside again.
To hell with it, she would ride over to his workshop. Today. She could not take another torturous week of looking at the photos and wanking like a five-fisted monkey while picturing herself in Luisa’s shoes. Scratch that, Luisa’s restraints. And trying to figure out if Stein’s invitation was serious or not. But she had to call first. Shit. Perhaps she could also stab herself in the eye with a blunt fork, just for extra fun.
She padded out to the lounge and stared at the dreaded phone. No matter how many times she’d told herself she wasn’t calling Stein, the phone had leered at her all week. She’d dived deeper into her romance novels, her armor against stress, but the phone had continued to sneer at her, unimpressed, until she’d decided that she hated it like she hated bad spelling and punctuation. It really was an evil little fucker. She gave it the finger before picking up the receiver and dialing.
“Stein here.”
She hadn’t been expecting a quavering falsetto, but she’d forgotten the way words rumbled from his chest like an oncoming avalanche. He could have been making millions grinding out songs as the lead of some death metal band, singing about tombstones instead of carving them. Perhaps she should tell him that.
Stop dithering, Holly.
Phone pressing into her palms as she gripped it too tight, she forced her lips to move. “Want a visitor?”
A long silence made her wonder if the line had been disconnected. “Stein?”
“When?”
She looked at her watch. “Eleven?”
“Das klappt. Bis denn.” He hung up.
Wow, what a Chatty Kathy. Had he even known who he was talking to, or had he mistaken her for one of his fuck buddies? And how many of those did he have? Luisa was unlikely to be the only one.
Don’t think about that.
She dressed plain, selecting her usual jeans and T-shirt. She held the wardrobe door as she stared at her collection of scarves. It was really too hot for one, even her lightest brown cotton favorite. If she was lucky he’d be too polite to stare at her neck again. But why was she worrying what he thought of her looks? She’d do better to worry about whether he might reach for a length of rope. Oh, in her dreams.
Shaking off the edges of lust and unease, she sat down to write her shopping list and plan her foray into the day. Shopping first, the tedium of collecting groceries and hauling them back home, stopping on the return trip for her assignation. Oooh, assignation, she liked the sound of that, but then probably most things sounded exciting to someone who usually only shuttled between work, home, the gym and the supermarket.
Well, no more.
She jumped up. Where was her shopping bag, her list, her helmet? She hunted them down, scolding them for hiding, paused at the window and dropped the lot to quickly fetch a scarf. So what if it was hot? She needed it. Her brow furrowed. She’d also need to grow a spine and harden the fuck up if she was going to do this thing with Stein, whatever it was. No, definitely no scarf.
Chapter Four
Without her usual UV-protecting scarf her throat felt naked as she pedaled down the rain-drenched street, her flaws exposed as thoroughly as the flapping genitals of a nude skydiver.
The scars were deep enough she needed to use special sun protection, and ugly enough to make people look twice. And the ugliness didn’t stop at her epidermis. When people stared, she wanted to scream at them, throw her fists around, and children were not always exempt from those fantasies. She pedaled faster, wet hair flapping in the breeze. Her helmet sat at home because she was too vain to arrive with helmet hair. As if he’d even notice.
She paused at an enormous stone wall. One-eight-two. That was him. The gate was an open maw, a monstrous affair of wrought iron and stone pillars, all overgrown with lush creepers. Had he cut each stone block himself? She could easily picture him hefting each slab into place with unearthly strength.
Chaining Lucille to a tree, she caught sight of a bump on the road. A sodden cycling glove lay like a dead bird on the asphalt. Was that a good omen or a bad omen? Probably a bad one considering she’d been caught out by a sun shower while riding over. Then, at Gordon Street, the bus traveling beside her had drenched her with a puddle of street water, soaking every last thread of her jeans and T-shirt. She’d always hated buses. Buses sucked a big, fat hairy one.
Wet and bedraggled she shouldered her backpack full of groceries and then crunched across the gravel through the open gates. Past the gate, a dark, cramped circle of conifers cast shadows over a stepping-stone path and a shiny white utility truck built as solidly as its owner. Did he drive like a jerk? If so, he had the right wheels for it.
She followed the winding path to a two-story building. Stone, of course. Stein was a fool for the sedimentary. The walls of his house reached high, each gray block set in cement cured a brownish green by sun and humidity. On the ground level, beneath a wooden sign saying ‘Stein Stonemasonry’, a pair of massive oak doors stood open.
His workshop.
Anticipation overrode nerves, adding bounce to her step as she walked to the doors and stuck her head inside. Faintly disappointed when she didn’t spot him straight away, she stepped over the high threshold and blinked.
His workshop was different from what she’d expected. She’d pictured something dark and dungeon-like, but this was all light and air. Long, tall windows spilled sunlight across several work benches and the tiled floor. And there was something unusual about the light. She squinted. A thousand tiny sparkling dust motes hung in the sunbeams. Wow.
As she looked around, the dry, bitter smell of oil, metal and rock bit into her nostrils, not entirely unpleasant. Slabs of stone surrounded her and she felt lost in the strange forest of mesomorphic stumps. The sound of a pneumatic drill rattled her ears and wound her nerves up a notch. She looked to her right, then down and blinked. She hadn’t expected to look down to find a giant.
A familiar tattooed back was bent over a white headstone as he worked in a crouch. The whine of the power drill cut out as he switched it off to make some small correction with a chisel and hammer. Seeing his naked back in a photo was one thing, experiencing it in real life was another. All that brawn, that burly heaving weight in motion, charging the air with kinetic power as his muscular arm accelerated up and then down, muscles making each tattooed letter jump. Awe-inspiring. Delicious. Magic.
Desire to touch the powerful dorsal muscles bracketing his ink clamped down on her like a bear trap. She took a deep breath to steady herself. He was hardly naked in his jeans, boots and protective leather apron, yet the sight of his bare back and each flex and bunch of muscle turned her thoughts to the erotic photos on the iPad and her serial fantasies.
He’s shirtless, carving stone, and I’m in lust.
Approaching him, her heart pounded in tempo with his hammer. He’d donned personal protective equipment and the goggles, gloves and respirator gave him a sinister, anonymous look. Without the tattoo, she could have mistaken him for a stranger, some other strapping man who liked to tie women up and fuck them silly.
She unshouldered her backpack and let it rest at her feet. He caught sight of her and put down his tools before sliding his safety goggles up, his respirator down, and standing. “Hi. Time got away from me. Thanks for calling ahead.”
Trying not to eye the broad naked shoulders above his startlingly narrow hips, she gave him a polite nod. “No problem.” Oh, how very polite everyone was today, as if they hadn’t met over an iPad full of fuck photos.
His gaze went to her neck for a moment before gliding over her body, face and hair. “You’re wet.”
For an awkward moment she thought he was referring to the state of her underpants and her face slackened with shock. Then she got it. “I got rained on.” She gave him a tight smile and a shrug, the universal code for ‘shit will happen’ before changing the subject. “What are you working on?”
“Come see.” A muscle-corded arm, coated in white dust, waved her over. As she picked her way through benches, buckets and blocks of stone, he bent and hoisted the pale headstone he was working on onto a waist-level bench. The sturdy wood groaned and she calculated he must have lifted a good fifty kilos in that simple motion. He was beyond strong. Challenge him to an arm wrestle and he might rip your arm off. Why had she come here? Alone?
She shook the thought off and inspected the headstone, the white marble glowing gently under the sun, its inscription half-engraved.
“Why’s it wet?” she asked. His jeans and heavy protective apron were also wet.
“I mostly use wet methods, to prevent silicosis. The respirator should take care of it but I’m a little paranoid. Breathe in enough crystalline silica dust and it’ll scar your lungs so you can’t breathe anymore. Think miners and black lung.”
Silica dust, the pretty sparkling motes, no doubt. Was it too late to hold her breath? She felt his gaze on her.
“Don’t worry, short-term exposure won’t hurt you. Did you cycle far? Your cheeks are pink.”
She forgot all about the deadly dust motes as she squirmed under his attention. “It’s warm today.”
Still smiling, he reached a hand towards her face as if to touch her. Head-shy, she ducked away, alarm buzzing down her spine. What was he doing?
His eyes widened and he dropped his hand. The deep scar running across his jaw jumped like a rope pulled taut. “Sorry. There’s something in your hair. A leaf, I think.”
She could have kicked herself. He looked so annoyed. All he’d wanted to do was pull something out of her hair and she’d flinched away like he was some kind of serial sex offender. She searched her hair for the hitchhiker and her fingers closed on something small and dry. A curled yellow leaf. She snuck a glance at his face, registered the hard line of his mouth. No doubt he expected an explanation for her odd behavior but it was impossible to tell a near stranger what made her the way she was.
Instead, she looked around his workshop. A bold orange and black pattern set in stone caught her attention. “Is that marble?”
“Tiger skin marble, from Hubei.”
“Wow.”
She looked at the block next to it.
He answered her unspoken question. “Gold jade marble, another Hubei specialty.”
Cracked and crazed with shots of silver and gold thread, it gleamed, almost smug in its beauty. She frowned. “You don’t make headstones out of this, do you?”
“Could do, but no. That’s my ‘play’ stone. Slate is what I use for memorials and inscriptions, it’s good for sharp detail. Though some people prefer white marble for the way it looks.” He patted the headstone he’d been working on.
Play stone. The thought of hard, unforgiving rock being an object to play with gave her pause. But if any man was made to play with stone, it was Stein. Standing by him, the scent of skin and male sweat flirted with her senses and appealed to her femininity in a way wholly unfamiliar to her.
She glanced at another stone block and sucked in an awed breath. “Wow. Can I touch it?”
A ghost of a smile flitted over his rugged face. “Natürlich. It’s solid rock, you won’t break it.”
Cupping her fingers around the block of yellow marble, she gave a start at its coldness. Exploring the polished side with the pads of her fingers, she decided there was something rich and soft about the texture, but it was the color that struck her; the fertile pollen tint, the deep grain with its complex dark striations, the pattern hinting at death and decay. “What is it?” she asked.
“Imperial wood vein marble.”
She smiled. “It looks just like petrified wood.” Glancing around she noticed smaller blocks of stone. “Those don’t look like headstones.”
“I also do restoration work on monumental masonry, replacing small parts that have broken off statues and ornamental flourishes.” He paused, and the look he gave her was pure sin. “You could say I’m a man of many talents.”
Her breath caught in her throat as she flashed back to the photos, the way he’d eaten Luisa out like a custard pie. No kidding he was talented. “And so modest.”
His lips twitched. “Shall I pretend to be? Are you a woman who appreciates modesty?”
She held her breath. He was all flirty and she had no idea what to do with it. Once she would have flirted back, but that was when she’d been a different person, with different instincts. Now she didn’t trust it. It had to be some sort of bad joke at her expense. During the awkward pause his smile faded and his eyes turned somber. “Do you have time for coffee?”
She looked at his water-soaked clothes. “So long as I’m not interrupting.”
“No. I was ready to take a break.” He stretched his neck to one side, the lean muscle in his shoulders jumping. “One second.”
Overcome by sudden shyness she nodded and waited as he unplugged a cord from an electrical outlet, his torso outlined in stark relief by the sunlight. Once finished, he led her across the studio, past a coil of rope that hung from a hook on the wall. She eyed it. Why was it down here? Did he fuck women in his studio?
He caught her looking at the rope and his lips twitched. For a moment she feared he would wink at her, and she would have to run, full pelt, out of the workshop, unable to contain the enormity of her panicky embarrassment. Darting a glance around the walls, she looked for something else to ask him about. Her eyes skimmed over mallets, hammers, chisels and power tools she couldn’t name. A large lump of whitish marble caught her eye.
“What’s that?”
“Wunsiedel marble, from Bavaria.” He pronounced it Voon-zee-dal, the deep, rolling ‘l’ at the end reverberating through her. If French was the language of love, then German was surely the language of lust, the equivalent of a verbal spanking. Did he have any idea how his voice affected her? She sucked in a breath.
He’d removed his heavy protective apron to hang it on a hook. His nipples were small brown peaks on the molded mass of his pecs. They were so, well, so tidy. For some reason she’d imagined they’d be as unreasonably big as the rest of him, and sprouting man-hair, but he was surprisingly bare and smooth there.
He caught her staring at his nipples. “Hungry?”
He had no idea. “What does your tattoo say?” she asked instead. She’d seen ‘gebunden’ was preceded by the word ‘fleisch’ but the meaning eluded her.
“Bound by flesh.” He nodded at her backpack. “Can I take that for you?”
“No thanks.” She frowned. “Is that a quote?”
“Yeah, by me.”
Okaaaaay. Obviously he didn’t intend to elaborate. Lugging her bag of groceries, she followed his gloriously bare back up a set of polished timber stairs, all the while sternly reminding her libido about the dangers of unsafe sex, being overly familiar with strange men, and looking too long without blinking. You’ll go blind, Holly.
The air changed as they ascended, the smell of oil and stone fading, the scent of wood and wax polish growing.
“I’ll get changed. Feel free to look around.”
Don’t feel like you have to put a shirt on just for me.
His back disappeared from sight, leaving her to her own devices in the lounge. An older home, her favorite type, all musky wood, antique furniture and bare floorboards. She prowled the room, inspected his books—mostly non-fiction tomes on sculpture and stonework, many in German—and touched the heavy mahogany furniture as she breathed in the scent of beeswax candles. He had a lot of candles and few lamps. How did he read at night? Everyone read at night, didn’t they? She noted the absence of a television set.
“Good girl. Open wide.”
Breathless at the very idea that she could admit to wanting to suck the cock of such a man—an animalistic giant who fired her deepest, dirtiest fantasies—she held onto the moment, replayed the words several times with slightly different variations before moving on.
“Don’t keep me waiting.” She made him say it in a coarse, guttural tone, pictured how he’d watch closely, perhaps breathe a harsh sniff when she cupped his sack and ran her tongue over his balls attentively. In her mind’s eye his head tilted back and a vein rose along his neck, beating in time to the pulse in her own throat, and the impossible happened: he wanted her.
He put his hand over hers and traced her mouth with his swollen cock before feeding it between her waiting lips, his face tight. “That’s it, show me how deep you can take it.”
She imagined how she would obey, taking him to the root, hungrily, her chin brushing his balls. If he allowed it, she would run a hand between her legs and play with herself as she sucked him, her fingers squirming as busily at her swollen clit as they did now.
Her chest tightened. Senses overloading, she feverishly rubbed and thrust her fingers deeper into herself, juices running down her thighs until they trickled between her buttocks. Her face burned with the need to feel him fuck her mouth until he came, to feel him flood her dry throat with his sticky seed. She dug her nails into her thighs, pretending it was his grip as he pumped her mouth harder. That final filthy image got her off and a fine tremble ran through her straining, rigid body.
She came hard, a gasp slipping from her lips as her eyes opened and her body arched, rippling contractions sliding up and down her spine. They froze her in place and then they were done with her. Body slackening, she rolled over. Oh, god, that was a good one. The man was such stellar fantasy material she really should write him a thank you note. She wiped her fingers on her thigh and listened to the gallop of her heart slowly settle as she stared at her clock. Seven in the morning, but a Saturday, so no need to get up just yet.
Burying herself back under the sheets she stared at the wall. Her orgasm had come so much quicker than usual, the contractions intense for a solo effort. Though, the last time she’d come with a man, her orgasm had been a tiny, timid thing. Her mind recoiled from the memory even as she became bogged in the mire of it. Pedestrian sex, a cock softening inside her, a hand stroking her neck, a warm, gentle smile. “When will you get those scars fixed?”
At first she’d thought she’d misheard her boyfriend, had had to replay the words several times before she’d come to the conclusion that, yes, she’d heard right.
“Get over it, Holly.” Flinging the sheets away she sat up. She had no time for self-pity. Her regency romance novel lay on the bedside table and she snatched it up, determined to immerse herself in the character’s awkward marriage of convenience. After only a page she set it aside again.
To hell with it, she would ride over to his workshop. Today. She could not take another torturous week of looking at the photos and wanking like a five-fisted monkey while picturing herself in Luisa’s shoes. Scratch that, Luisa’s restraints. And trying to figure out if Stein’s invitation was serious or not. But she had to call first. Shit. Perhaps she could also stab herself in the eye with a blunt fork, just for extra fun.
She padded out to the lounge and stared at the dreaded phone. No matter how many times she’d told herself she wasn’t calling Stein, the phone had leered at her all week. She’d dived deeper into her romance novels, her armor against stress, but the phone had continued to sneer at her, unimpressed, until she’d decided that she hated it like she hated bad spelling and punctuation. It really was an evil little fucker. She gave it the finger before picking up the receiver and dialing.
“Stein here.”
She hadn’t been expecting a quavering falsetto, but she’d forgotten the way words rumbled from his chest like an oncoming avalanche. He could have been making millions grinding out songs as the lead of some death metal band, singing about tombstones instead of carving them. Perhaps she should tell him that.
Stop dithering, Holly.
Phone pressing into her palms as she gripped it too tight, she forced her lips to move. “Want a visitor?”
A long silence made her wonder if the line had been disconnected. “Stein?”
“When?”
She looked at her watch. “Eleven?”
“Das klappt. Bis denn.” He hung up.
Wow, what a Chatty Kathy. Had he even known who he was talking to, or had he mistaken her for one of his fuck buddies? And how many of those did he have? Luisa was unlikely to be the only one.
Don’t think about that.
She dressed plain, selecting her usual jeans and T-shirt. She held the wardrobe door as she stared at her collection of scarves. It was really too hot for one, even her lightest brown cotton favorite. If she was lucky he’d be too polite to stare at her neck again. But why was she worrying what he thought of her looks? She’d do better to worry about whether he might reach for a length of rope. Oh, in her dreams.
Shaking off the edges of lust and unease, she sat down to write her shopping list and plan her foray into the day. Shopping first, the tedium of collecting groceries and hauling them back home, stopping on the return trip for her assignation. Oooh, assignation, she liked the sound of that, but then probably most things sounded exciting to someone who usually only shuttled between work, home, the gym and the supermarket.
Well, no more.
She jumped up. Where was her shopping bag, her list, her helmet? She hunted them down, scolding them for hiding, paused at the window and dropped the lot to quickly fetch a scarf. So what if it was hot? She needed it. Her brow furrowed. She’d also need to grow a spine and harden the fuck up if she was going to do this thing with Stein, whatever it was. No, definitely no scarf.
Chapter Four
Without her usual UV-protecting scarf her throat felt naked as she pedaled down the rain-drenched street, her flaws exposed as thoroughly as the flapping genitals of a nude skydiver.
The scars were deep enough she needed to use special sun protection, and ugly enough to make people look twice. And the ugliness didn’t stop at her epidermis. When people stared, she wanted to scream at them, throw her fists around, and children were not always exempt from those fantasies. She pedaled faster, wet hair flapping in the breeze. Her helmet sat at home because she was too vain to arrive with helmet hair. As if he’d even notice.
She paused at an enormous stone wall. One-eight-two. That was him. The gate was an open maw, a monstrous affair of wrought iron and stone pillars, all overgrown with lush creepers. Had he cut each stone block himself? She could easily picture him hefting each slab into place with unearthly strength.
Chaining Lucille to a tree, she caught sight of a bump on the road. A sodden cycling glove lay like a dead bird on the asphalt. Was that a good omen or a bad omen? Probably a bad one considering she’d been caught out by a sun shower while riding over. Then, at Gordon Street, the bus traveling beside her had drenched her with a puddle of street water, soaking every last thread of her jeans and T-shirt. She’d always hated buses. Buses sucked a big, fat hairy one.
Wet and bedraggled she shouldered her backpack full of groceries and then crunched across the gravel through the open gates. Past the gate, a dark, cramped circle of conifers cast shadows over a stepping-stone path and a shiny white utility truck built as solidly as its owner. Did he drive like a jerk? If so, he had the right wheels for it.
She followed the winding path to a two-story building. Stone, of course. Stein was a fool for the sedimentary. The walls of his house reached high, each gray block set in cement cured a brownish green by sun and humidity. On the ground level, beneath a wooden sign saying ‘Stein Stonemasonry’, a pair of massive oak doors stood open.
His workshop.
Anticipation overrode nerves, adding bounce to her step as she walked to the doors and stuck her head inside. Faintly disappointed when she didn’t spot him straight away, she stepped over the high threshold and blinked.
His workshop was different from what she’d expected. She’d pictured something dark and dungeon-like, but this was all light and air. Long, tall windows spilled sunlight across several work benches and the tiled floor. And there was something unusual about the light. She squinted. A thousand tiny sparkling dust motes hung in the sunbeams. Wow.
As she looked around, the dry, bitter smell of oil, metal and rock bit into her nostrils, not entirely unpleasant. Slabs of stone surrounded her and she felt lost in the strange forest of mesomorphic stumps. The sound of a pneumatic drill rattled her ears and wound her nerves up a notch. She looked to her right, then down and blinked. She hadn’t expected to look down to find a giant.
A familiar tattooed back was bent over a white headstone as he worked in a crouch. The whine of the power drill cut out as he switched it off to make some small correction with a chisel and hammer. Seeing his naked back in a photo was one thing, experiencing it in real life was another. All that brawn, that burly heaving weight in motion, charging the air with kinetic power as his muscular arm accelerated up and then down, muscles making each tattooed letter jump. Awe-inspiring. Delicious. Magic.
Desire to touch the powerful dorsal muscles bracketing his ink clamped down on her like a bear trap. She took a deep breath to steady herself. He was hardly naked in his jeans, boots and protective leather apron, yet the sight of his bare back and each flex and bunch of muscle turned her thoughts to the erotic photos on the iPad and her serial fantasies.
He’s shirtless, carving stone, and I’m in lust.
Approaching him, her heart pounded in tempo with his hammer. He’d donned personal protective equipment and the goggles, gloves and respirator gave him a sinister, anonymous look. Without the tattoo, she could have mistaken him for a stranger, some other strapping man who liked to tie women up and fuck them silly.
She unshouldered her backpack and let it rest at her feet. He caught sight of her and put down his tools before sliding his safety goggles up, his respirator down, and standing. “Hi. Time got away from me. Thanks for calling ahead.”
Trying not to eye the broad naked shoulders above his startlingly narrow hips, she gave him a polite nod. “No problem.” Oh, how very polite everyone was today, as if they hadn’t met over an iPad full of fuck photos.
His gaze went to her neck for a moment before gliding over her body, face and hair. “You’re wet.”
For an awkward moment she thought he was referring to the state of her underpants and her face slackened with shock. Then she got it. “I got rained on.” She gave him a tight smile and a shrug, the universal code for ‘shit will happen’ before changing the subject. “What are you working on?”
“Come see.” A muscle-corded arm, coated in white dust, waved her over. As she picked her way through benches, buckets and blocks of stone, he bent and hoisted the pale headstone he was working on onto a waist-level bench. The sturdy wood groaned and she calculated he must have lifted a good fifty kilos in that simple motion. He was beyond strong. Challenge him to an arm wrestle and he might rip your arm off. Why had she come here? Alone?
She shook the thought off and inspected the headstone, the white marble glowing gently under the sun, its inscription half-engraved.
“Why’s it wet?” she asked. His jeans and heavy protective apron were also wet.
“I mostly use wet methods, to prevent silicosis. The respirator should take care of it but I’m a little paranoid. Breathe in enough crystalline silica dust and it’ll scar your lungs so you can’t breathe anymore. Think miners and black lung.”
Silica dust, the pretty sparkling motes, no doubt. Was it too late to hold her breath? She felt his gaze on her.
“Don’t worry, short-term exposure won’t hurt you. Did you cycle far? Your cheeks are pink.”
She forgot all about the deadly dust motes as she squirmed under his attention. “It’s warm today.”
Still smiling, he reached a hand towards her face as if to touch her. Head-shy, she ducked away, alarm buzzing down her spine. What was he doing?
His eyes widened and he dropped his hand. The deep scar running across his jaw jumped like a rope pulled taut. “Sorry. There’s something in your hair. A leaf, I think.”
She could have kicked herself. He looked so annoyed. All he’d wanted to do was pull something out of her hair and she’d flinched away like he was some kind of serial sex offender. She searched her hair for the hitchhiker and her fingers closed on something small and dry. A curled yellow leaf. She snuck a glance at his face, registered the hard line of his mouth. No doubt he expected an explanation for her odd behavior but it was impossible to tell a near stranger what made her the way she was.
Instead, she looked around his workshop. A bold orange and black pattern set in stone caught her attention. “Is that marble?”
“Tiger skin marble, from Hubei.”
“Wow.”
She looked at the block next to it.
He answered her unspoken question. “Gold jade marble, another Hubei specialty.”
Cracked and crazed with shots of silver and gold thread, it gleamed, almost smug in its beauty. She frowned. “You don’t make headstones out of this, do you?”
“Could do, but no. That’s my ‘play’ stone. Slate is what I use for memorials and inscriptions, it’s good for sharp detail. Though some people prefer white marble for the way it looks.” He patted the headstone he’d been working on.
Play stone. The thought of hard, unforgiving rock being an object to play with gave her pause. But if any man was made to play with stone, it was Stein. Standing by him, the scent of skin and male sweat flirted with her senses and appealed to her femininity in a way wholly unfamiliar to her.
She glanced at another stone block and sucked in an awed breath. “Wow. Can I touch it?”
A ghost of a smile flitted over his rugged face. “Natürlich. It’s solid rock, you won’t break it.”
Cupping her fingers around the block of yellow marble, she gave a start at its coldness. Exploring the polished side with the pads of her fingers, she decided there was something rich and soft about the texture, but it was the color that struck her; the fertile pollen tint, the deep grain with its complex dark striations, the pattern hinting at death and decay. “What is it?” she asked.
“Imperial wood vein marble.”
She smiled. “It looks just like petrified wood.” Glancing around she noticed smaller blocks of stone. “Those don’t look like headstones.”
“I also do restoration work on monumental masonry, replacing small parts that have broken off statues and ornamental flourishes.” He paused, and the look he gave her was pure sin. “You could say I’m a man of many talents.”
Her breath caught in her throat as she flashed back to the photos, the way he’d eaten Luisa out like a custard pie. No kidding he was talented. “And so modest.”
His lips twitched. “Shall I pretend to be? Are you a woman who appreciates modesty?”
She held her breath. He was all flirty and she had no idea what to do with it. Once she would have flirted back, but that was when she’d been a different person, with different instincts. Now she didn’t trust it. It had to be some sort of bad joke at her expense. During the awkward pause his smile faded and his eyes turned somber. “Do you have time for coffee?”
She looked at his water-soaked clothes. “So long as I’m not interrupting.”
“No. I was ready to take a break.” He stretched his neck to one side, the lean muscle in his shoulders jumping. “One second.”
Overcome by sudden shyness she nodded and waited as he unplugged a cord from an electrical outlet, his torso outlined in stark relief by the sunlight. Once finished, he led her across the studio, past a coil of rope that hung from a hook on the wall. She eyed it. Why was it down here? Did he fuck women in his studio?
He caught her looking at the rope and his lips twitched. For a moment she feared he would wink at her, and she would have to run, full pelt, out of the workshop, unable to contain the enormity of her panicky embarrassment. Darting a glance around the walls, she looked for something else to ask him about. Her eyes skimmed over mallets, hammers, chisels and power tools she couldn’t name. A large lump of whitish marble caught her eye.
“What’s that?”
“Wunsiedel marble, from Bavaria.” He pronounced it Voon-zee-dal, the deep, rolling ‘l’ at the end reverberating through her. If French was the language of love, then German was surely the language of lust, the equivalent of a verbal spanking. Did he have any idea how his voice affected her? She sucked in a breath.
He’d removed his heavy protective apron to hang it on a hook. His nipples were small brown peaks on the molded mass of his pecs. They were so, well, so tidy. For some reason she’d imagined they’d be as unreasonably big as the rest of him, and sprouting man-hair, but he was surprisingly bare and smooth there.
He caught her staring at his nipples. “Hungry?”
He had no idea. “What does your tattoo say?” she asked instead. She’d seen ‘gebunden’ was preceded by the word ‘fleisch’ but the meaning eluded her.
“Bound by flesh.” He nodded at her backpack. “Can I take that for you?”
“No thanks.” She frowned. “Is that a quote?”
“Yeah, by me.”
Okaaaaay. Obviously he didn’t intend to elaborate. Lugging her bag of groceries, she followed his gloriously bare back up a set of polished timber stairs, all the while sternly reminding her libido about the dangers of unsafe sex, being overly familiar with strange men, and looking too long without blinking. You’ll go blind, Holly.
The air changed as they ascended, the smell of oil and stone fading, the scent of wood and wax polish growing.
“I’ll get changed. Feel free to look around.”
Don’t feel like you have to put a shirt on just for me.
His back disappeared from sight, leaving her to her own devices in the lounge. An older home, her favorite type, all musky wood, antique furniture and bare floorboards. She prowled the room, inspected his books—mostly non-fiction tomes on sculpture and stonework, many in German—and touched the heavy mahogany furniture as she breathed in the scent of beeswax candles. He had a lot of candles and few lamps. How did he read at night? Everyone read at night, didn’t they? She noted the absence of a television set.
