Eventually, the waitress came back and asked, “Did ya’ll save any room for dessert?”
“Oh, wow, the banana pudding is tempting,” Tuesday told her, “but no, I think I’m good without it.” She took a breath. “I will pay three hundred dollars to get the ingredients that went into the collard greens, along with any special instructions needed to cook them so they taste exactly the same.”
“I want sweet potato pie with vanilla ice cream,” Knife said.
The waitress nodded to him and told Tuesday, “I’ll ask the boss.”
Three minutes later, the man Knife recognized as the owner came out to them.
“We don’t generally share our recipes, ma’am. Is there a reason you’re askin’?”
“Because you make them better than me, and I love collard greens. I’ll go to five hundred, if it helps.”
He looked at Knife, who saw the instant recognition in the other man’s face. “I’m terrible with names, but I never forget a face. How is Horse and his lovely Gabby?”
“They’re good, thanks for asking.” He offered his hand. “Knife.”
They shook hands and the owner said, “Ah, yes. The butcher. You spoke with my wife at length about the best woods for smoking pigs.” He turned back to Tuesday. “Apple cider vinegar that’s locally made, a little Worcestershire, cooked with ham bones, fatback, and a touch of brown sugar. Everything else is the norm – onions, garlic, some red pepper flakes, bone broth.”
She pulled her wallet from her backpack, and he shook his head. “I ain’t gonna fleece a friend of Knife’s.” He looked back to Knife. “I hope everything was to your liking?”
“Exceptional, as always. My friend here raved over your liver and chicken hearts.”
He smiled, “Woman after my own heart.”
The waitress stepped out with Knife’s sweet potato pie with ice cream, and Knife handed her his credit card before Tuesday could try to pay. “Both of us on the same ticket, please.”
Chapter 20
Tuesday held on loosely while Knife pulled the vibrating motorcycle into the garage and killed the engine. She didn’t know if she was hornier than a bitch in heat because she knew there’d be a scene tonight, or if it was from the motorcycle rumbling between her thighs for the past two hours, butdamn, her clit was throbbing away inside her jeans.
She swung her leg over the back of the bike to dismount, and she winced at the sharp, sudden pain. Her hips were stiff and sore from the long ride, and it caught her off guard. Sure, they’d ached while she rode, but they were so close to her pulsing clit, it’d all just kind of blended together.
Knife pulled his helmet off, smirked at her, and patted her ass. “You’ll get used to it if you ride with me enough. Head on upstairs and get a quick shower. I’ll be up in about ten minutes, and I expect you to be standing naked under thepulleys when I get there. Legs spread, hands at the back of your head, those gorgeous tits poking out.”
Her stomach flip-flopped, and she didn’t argue. She gave him a single nod and headed inside, hips protesting the entire way.
She showered fast under piping hot water, which did nothing to calm the low thrum of anticipation building in her belly.
Walking across the room naked after she was dry felt a little silly, but as soon as she’d assumed the position he’d ordered — legs spread, arms locked behind her head, chest pushed forward — her libido ramped into a desperate need.
And yet, she’d just spent an entire day with him as a complete person. Not just the sadist Dom who ties her up and hurts her so beautifully, but the man who let her get used to his motorcycle slowly before he had fun on the curves, who showed her the most fantastic, magical trail she’d ever hiked.
That was saying something, since she’d hiked in the Alps, both in France and Switzerland, not to mention all the time she’d spent hiking in Montana, or the month she’d explored Yellowstone with her dad when she was a teen.
But this magical little trail on Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee, an hour from home if she took the interstate, had more magic than any of them. And he’d shown it to her.
Now she was standing naked under his pulleys, waiting for him to come upstairs and tether her body in his evil ropes — with her libido already in overdrive, wondering what cruel, sadistic predicament he’d bind her into.
She was having trouble meshing both versions of him into a single man. Outside the bedroom and inside the bedroom. Maybe it was because she was only supposed to know the one she knew in here. The logical solution was to keep them separate in her head — the man who calmly explained a damned disappearing creek belonged to one category, the sadist who bound her into ropes and then beat and fucked her belonged to another, and as long as she didn't let them bleed together, maybe she could manage this.
The problem was they'd already bled together, since she was thinking of him talking to her about chicken livers and tater tots while she was standing under his fucking pulleys with her tits poked out and her legs spread exactly as he’d ordered.
Today had changed things, and she knew it.
But she wouldn’t trade it for anything, and that was a problem all by itself.
She heard his boots on the stairs, and her breath caught.
