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She’d been getting paler by the hour. Now it was almost three p.m. and he was worried she might pass out.

Rory rolled his chair a few inches to the right. Just enough to study her from his vantage point at the feed counter without looking like that was what he was doing.

Daralyn stood in front of the mirror at the back, where they sold outerwear and work shoes. Someone else would think she was fussing over her appearance, but he knew she never looked at herself in a reflection.

Who would notice that kind of detail? It seemed he noticed everything about her. Every emotion transmitted through body language—a change in the angle of her chin, the light of her eyes—was another page in a book he committed to memory. He was more aware of her vitals than a surgeon. Like the rate of her pulse, the tiny beat of it in that little pocket at the base of her throat, and how her breath made her small breasts rise and fall.

Christmas had been two weeks ago. He’d kissed her under the mistletoe, in front of his well-meaning family who’d plotted the event. He remembered every detail of that, too. One of her nervous, chapped hands had fallen onto his biceps, her fingers tightening. He’d wanted to have her straddle him in his chair, right there in front of everyone. Not because he wanted to disrespect her, but because he ached to do what a man with two functioning legs could do. Hold his girl flush against him, cradle her in his arms as he kissed her. Feel the give of her body as she trusted his strength enough, wanted it enough, to melt into him.

Up until recently, when he had thoughts like this about her, he’d put them away, appalled at himself. She’d mostly lived with his family since she was fifteen. But Marcus had told him something, and it had stuck in his head like gum to his brain cells.

Marcus was his brother’s…husband.  Yeah, Rory was country enough that saying it, even in his head, still felt weird. But Thomas was happy, and Marcus was a decent guy. When he wasn’t being an asshole.

The day after Christmas, Marcus had seen Rory watching Daralyn. He’d come to stand beside him in the front yard while the women hugged and talked to Rory’s sister, Les, who was headed to the airport to return to medical school.

“You know she’s not your sister, right?” Marcus said.

“I’m pretty sure she is. There are pictures of me holding her as a baby.”

“You know how easy it is to slap a guy in a wheelchair upside the head? It’s at just the right height.” Marcus swept a palm upward to demonstrate. Rory lifted a quick fist to block, and cocked it to strike.

“It’s also easy for a guy in a wheelchair to punch another guy in the nuts.”

Marcus dropped his hand with a chuckle, but then he sobered. “She’s twenty. You can treat her as a woman, Rory. A woman you want, with a man’s hunger.”

Marcus could say that, because he didn’t know everything going through Rory’s head when he was around her. Then Marcus proved that highly annoying thing Thomas had complained about. His uncanny insight.

“When you think about her, I’m betting a couple different things are happening in your head and your cock.”

At Rory’s narrow look, Marcus shrugged, and affected an exaggerated Southern drawl. “The two are connected like biscuits and gravy, boy.”

“Asshole,” Rory muttered.

A slight smile played on Marcus’s mouth, but his intent green eyes remained fixed on Rory. “You want to protect her like it’s the only thing in life that matters. And you want to make her yours in ways that you’re worried are wrong. They’re not, and when you want to know why, you’ll come find me to talk it out. Don’t be proud. Desire can cover a fuck ton of ground toward knowledge, but wanting to fly won’t keep you from crashing if you don’t learn how a plane works. And even if you’re willing to risk yourself, you can’t risk your passenger. She’s everything, right?”

Coming back to the present, Rory tapped a pensive couple of fingers on the top of his chair’s right wheel. Rory knew about being out of control, not having enough knowledge about what lay ahead, and how fucking crazy that could make a guy. But whatever this was, it was still a jumble in his head, his gut, and yes, his cock. Even as, at other times, it was like a straight line between two very clear points.

He rolled out from behind the counter. “Daralyn.”

She turned, gave him an absent, jittery smile, and immediately came his way. Her glossy hair, the color of the rich brown of a house wren’s back, was in a ponytail, the bundle of natural curls bobbing against her exposed neck as she moved. She was wearing jeans and a blue shirt Les had given her for Christmas. It had a scoop neck and lace band at the bottom that hugged her narrow hips. A feminine ensemble that enhanced her body without being intentionally sexy.

Les had shown her how to use makeup. Most days Daralyn didn’t wear it, but she did today, some eye shadow. Her hazel eyes had touches of blue, green or yellow scattered through the golden-brown irises, depending on the light.

She wasn’t girl-next-door. She was fragile angel, bewildered by the world in which she’d been dropped, like a puppy tied in a sack with a stone weight.

He was sure that was the type of rage-motivated thought Marcus would tell him wasn’t helpful, but on top of that anger, Rory sometimes felt a kind of fear when he looked at her. As if she’d never been meant long for this world, and even now was close to giving up her last breath to ascend, return to a place far from the shitstorm that had been her life until she came to live with his family.

When her father died, God rot him, and her uncle took off shortly thereafter, their closely knitted community had realized, to its shame, what had been happening in that rundown house for years. Until Daralyn came to live with them, even Rory’s mother hadn’t realized that the most obvious assumption of what they’d done to her wasn’t going to be the worst of it.

Some predators knew how to shape their prey to aid them in concealing their true nature. Her uncle and father hadn’t been good at anything else, but they’d fucking excelled at that.

Her father must have been the brains, though, since the uncle had been caught a year later, assaulting a young girl within a block of her school. Rory kept hoping to hear the son of a bitch had been killed in prison.

“Do you need something before I go?” Daralyn asked him. She had a breathy voice. When she had to raise her volume, her gaze would dart back and forth like a startled deer. “I can… I mean, I don’t have to go. I’m sure the first day is orientation, really, and…”

“You’re going.”

She stopped mid-sentence, her gaze flitting quickly to his face and then over his shoulder, somewhere else. He’d noticed that, too. She’d meet Thomas’s eyes, his sister’s. His mother’s. But not Marcus’s. And not Rory’s.

He couldn’t say why that was significant, but a primal part of him responded to it, tightening his heart in his chest. He realized he’d said the words not just as encouragement, but as a command.

“You want to make her yours in ways that you think might be wrong. They’re not, and when you want to know why, you’ll come find me to talk it out...”

He was losing his mind to some weirdness Marcus had planted there. He tried easing his tone, no matter that it felt like he was backing away from something important, something she actually needed. He gestured to her. “C’m here. I have something for you.”

He liked seeing the curiosity in her eyes. With how quiet she was, some people thought she wasn’t smart. But she’d learned pretty much everything about running their family general store since she’d started working here. She knew where every item was and could give helpful guidance to customers, whether it was about how much grain to feed a horse or what kind of tool was needed for a home or farm repair. She always listened closely when Rory was explaining things like that. She wasn’t just mimicking, either, when she repeated that advice to customers. She understood. He might not be the smartest guy around, but he thought she had off-the-chart comprehension skills.

He remembered when it had been decided to let her work at the store. At first he thought she wasn’t going to work out, because she wouldn’t ask any questions, though she was clearly anxious and frustrated when she didn’t know something. Then Thomas told her straight out, “Daralyn, the more questions you ask, the more you learn from Rory and me, the better you’ll be at this.”

She mulled that over, a frown creasing her brow. “I’ll be more helpful to you?”

Thomas started to speak, and Rory knew he was going to assure her she’d have a job no matter what, but some weird part of him knew that wasn’t why she was asking the question. Rory spoke up before his older brother got it out.

“Yes. Tons more helpful.”

She hadn’t hesitated to ask a question ever since.

Now, with her standing in front of him, wondering what he had for her, Rory leaned back to reach behind the counter. He was aware that her gaze slid over his upper body, the stretch of his T-shirt over his chest and shoulders. Even though she was quick to turn her eyes elsewhere when she noted his attention, her cheeks getting pink.

A woman’s hunger… 

He kept his upper body in prime shape, and was never gladder for it than when he saw her sneaking those looks. He did weights and regular body conditioning, but Les had located him a secondhand sport chair for his last birthday, and Marcus and Thomas had pitched in to get it for him. Now he played basketball with his old high school buddies who still lived in the county. He also did marathon rolls along the rural roads in their county. Neighbors would shout encouragement as he went by their places. Those same old high school buddies would come by in their pickups and razz him, try to nudge him off into a ditch with their oversized wheels. Fuck, he loved those guys.

“So.” He cleared his throat. “You’ll need dinner, since you’ll be there from four to nine.”

“You made me dinner?” Her eyes widened.

He snorted. “Yeah, if I wanted to poison you. Mom made it. I provided the lunch box.”

His mother was a feeder, and she liked to cook. She particularly liked to feed Daralyn. When she’d come to them, she’d been almost skin and bones. Now she’d filled out some, in nice ways, but she was still an indifferent eater. Rory had wondered if she didn’t like the taste of food. Or if eating meant bad things to her.

He’d graduated a C-student, and he hadn’t gone to college. He knew farming, hunting, running the store. He was good at math, anything with numbers, but in school he’d read books only when they were part of homework. His mother had to threaten his life to keep him from taking advantage of the cliff-note books his friends snuck around and bought. He’d much rather be out playing sports, fishing, hunting, or hanging out with his friends, than reading a book.

Yet, as his interest in Daralyn had evolved into a man’s desire, for the first time he sought out books. Psychological and sociology stuff. While his intent was to learn more about trauma victims, he’d been surprised when his readings gave him insights into himself, his family, the way they related to one another, healthy versus unhealthy behaviors. Apparently, what was just day-to-day for the rest of them was a complete science.

Some interesting shit, though he could see how people could get too carried away with it and not rely on their most important, inborn tool for figuring things out about one another. The way he’d learned most things.

Common sense. Paying attention.

For instance, her indifference to eating. He’d figured out at least one food Daralyn liked. So there were three miniature Reese’s cups in her lunchbox. It was his contribution to his mother’s small container of soup and half a sandwich on homemade bread. Mom would have given her way more, but they’d all learned they couldn’t give Daralyn too much food at once. It seemed to overwhelm her, and she’d eat nothing. But small amounts she would tackle. Like the miniature Reese’s, instead of a candy-bar-sized two-cup pack.

She’d find about the lunchbox contents later, though. Right now she was enchanted by the lunch box itself.

“Holly Hobbie,” she said, cradling the beat-up 1979 metal container like it was a Faberge egg. “Where did you find it?”

“Believe it or not, Greenwald Reardon had a line on it.” Greenwald ran an old antique and junk shop off the interstate, about twenty miles away.

“I love it.” She gazed down at the blue bonneted girl in a patchwork dress, standing in a field, holding a fistful of feathery wheat grass. “Thank you. And I’ll have to thank your mother for making me dinner. That was really nice.”

Her smile was what had convinced Rory that Daralyn was an angel. It lit up every dark place he had inside him. As she’d taken the box from his hands, he’d made sure their fingers brushed, just to feel the little quiver in them, see the quick flick of her lashes toward him.

His feelings weren’t a damsel in distress thing, either. Shit, sometimes he wanted to drop on his knees to her, feel her arms around him, because he was pretty damn sure she’d survived something none of the rest of them could. It fucking awed him. That she could still smile that way, lightening the load of everyone around her, no matter what she’d endured…

“That girl’s smile is God’s miracle,” his mother had once murmured, tears in her eyes. Rory didn’t have his mother’s faith, not by a longshot, but he couldn’t argue with that one. He’d been told it was a miracle he hadn’t died when the tractor rolled over him. He hadn’t felt that way at first. Truth, he’d been a bit of a little bitch about it all, wallowing in his own pity. Which he’d been told was pretty normal, a stages of grief kind of thing. But Daralyn’s smile made him ashamed of indulging even a second of that shit.

He’d had a loving family who’d supported him every step of the way. She’d had no one solidly in her corner until she was fifteen fucking years old.

The clock chimed the three-fifteen bell. Her ride to the community college was coming at three-thirty. She glanced at the clock, and just like that, the nervousness was back. Double the strength. “I guess…” Her voice quavered, her eyes shammed shut, and her knees buckled.

“Shit.” She was close, but not close enough for a man with useless legs to catch her. He did manage to hit the brake to lock the chair in place and stretch forward enough to grasp her elbow without overbalancing. She went down to one knee between his feet, her kneecap glancing off the metal footplate and his right steel-toed work shoe, but he’d slowed her descent and knew she was okay.

“Breathe through it. Just breathe.”

“Darn it,” she whispered.

He heard the despair, the self-directed helpless fury that turned the innocuous word into a profound oath. And he refused to allow her to go there.

“Hey, no. You’re fine.” He gathered up her long, thick hair, so he could reach her nape, knead it with strong fingers. He wanted to soothe, be gentle. But seeing her on one knee before him, her head bowed, other reactions surfaced. Hardened. He could feel her breath against his abdomen. Her hand was gripping his knee.

He didn’t question it. Something surged up in him, too certain and powerful to be wrong. He might question it later, but not now.

He tightened his hold on her hair, let her feel the pull against her scalp. Her breath stilled, and the hand on his knee curled, fingernails pressing into his leg. Yeah, he’d somehow known she’d react that way. He caressed her neck, firm, sure-fingered, as he spoke.

“You’re going to school, and you’re not only going to do fine, you’re going to love it. All that stuff that you’ve wanted to learn, that the rest of us took for granted and thought was bullshit. You’ll learn it and do great things with it. Become a rocket scientist or something. Straighten up for me.”

She lifted her head and shoulders, the hand on his knee increasing in pressure as she started to stand, but he only wanted her to change position so he could do what he did now. He grasped her under the arms, and tightened all those muscles he’d worked to have. As he brought her onto his lap, her knees naturally parted to straddle him. Since his chair didn’t have arms, her legs slid past his hips, her calves finding a natural resting spot on the back of the wheels.

Fucking hell…finally. He had to restrain himself from bringing her right up on him. He told his cock this was enough for now, having her legs spread over him, seeing the sexual awareness and desire confusing her mind. It had drawn her away from what was worrying her so much. Which would allow him to get a straight answer out of her, so maybe he could help drive that worry away.

“So what’s the problem?” he asked bluntly. He had some sensation at the tops of this thighs, and they translated the pressure of her backside against his lap. Just that small bit of input to his brain felt like heaven. She blinked, moistening her bottom lip. Her hands were on his biceps, curled in against his flesh.

Stop thinking about that. Think about her.

“Tell me, Daralyn.”

She gestured helplessly around her. “I just… I’m so good here with… At the store.”

She’d been about to say, “With you.” He knew it. As much as he loved knowing she felt safe with him, the crumpling of her features, reflecting the defeat she felt against her fears, was a bigger concern to him.

Everyone wanted to be needed. But needed through the avenue of wanting, craving, yearning. Not through the dark tunnel of fear, which kept growth and change out of reach.  He knew about that kind of fear. It had kept him paralyzed in ways that turned his wheelchair into the worst kind of handicap. A prison.

“When I’m here, and it’s not time to leave, I get excited, thinking about going to school.” She was trying hard to steady her voice. Trying not to shake. Her fingers continued to curl against his flesh in little jerks, convulsive kneading. “Happy, even. Now it’s time to do it, and I’m thinking about the people, the noise, all of it. It’s like walking along the edge of the ocean, my feet in it. It looks so amazing and big. I want to go out in it, because one part of my mind thinks it will be wonderful. But then I think about getting swept away from shore so I can’t get back. Untethered… Unmoored.”

She pronounced the word carefully. She kept a journal, writing new words she liked in the margins. He’d seen her make entries when she heard words she didn’t know. At fifteen, she’d been close to illiterate. Learning to read had been the first thing that had brought her out of her shell. He remembered her and Les sitting in Les’s bed, Les going over English basics with her.

Sometimes when Rory thought of things like that, he felt a pain in his gut, wondering if he was being fair, wanting her. Maybe her first true relationship should be with someone fresh and new, who could see her as a woman, not a broken doll.

He’d quizzed himself on that, ruthlessly. Was he going after her, interested in her, because she had been broken? Did he want her because he could feel powerful over her in a way he couldn’t anymore with the confident, carefree cheerleaders who’d once fawned over him? They’d loved his height and strong legs, his ability to pick them up and tease them. Alpha male posturing displays. Words from those sociology books that had crept into his brain, despite his initial snort at them.

And what about her? Was she drawn to him because he was “safe?” Known?

Yet as he looked at her pale face, felt the tremor in her hands, he knew he wasn’t going to back off. At least not in this moment. He had an idea, backed by that gut feeling he’d had that day he spoke before Thomas could, letting her know ways to do the job better. Serve and take care of the family.

Still holding her, he leaned back and fished several more things out from behind the counter. He’d had to shorten a length of chain for Kenny Fisher earlier in the week, and he’d had a two-foot surplus left over. It wasn’t a delicate, girl’s bracelet kind of chain, but 3mm links, extra durable hardware. Retrieving that, a spool of wire and the pair of small pliers with them, he nodded toward her left hand. “Hold it out to me. Palm up.”

An authoritative tone, easy as breathing. It was the way he talked to the seasonal help, the high school kids, to keep them off their phones and earning the money he was paying them to unload Christmas trees in December, or grain trucks the rest of the year.

But they sure as hell didn’t respond the way she did. He exhaled the command and she inhaled it, responding by lifting her arm. He looped the chain around her wrist, figured out the length he needed, then removed it again. But he slid off his class ring and laid it in her palm. “Keep your arm up, and hold onto that a minute.”

Her fingers closed over it. She slipped a fingertip inside the ring, perhaps to anchor it in her palm, but she caressed the silky inside of the metal as if seeking the heat of his body. Maybe he was just imagining that, but he wasn’t the kind of person who put a rose color over everything. He knew what certain things meant when he saw them happen.

He cut two pieces of wire and wrapped one on each of the end links, leaving enough wire to close the loop. Shifting his grip, he plucked the ring from her palm and put it between the links. Twisting the remaining wire around it, he made her a bracelet, then ran his fingers over and around it to ensure there was nothing jabbing her. Which allowed him to caress that soft skin, feel the pulse speed up. He glanced up at her, holding her gaze.

There were only a few inches between their faces. He didn’t back away, deliberately letting his gaze roam over her features, the silky eyebrows, fair forehead, her straight nose and those very distracting lips. Her chin had a slight quiver to it. He wanted to place the heat of his mouth there and then move up, take over her mouth, bring her the heat of his.

She met his gaze only a second before her lashes swept down over her cheeks, but her wrist stayed willingly in his grasp. He kept his thumb running along that velvet stretch of skin as her fingers trembled. The bracelet was snug enough she would be aware of it there. The white-gold ring was like a charm at her pulse point, large enough that with an inward curve of her hand she could rest her fingertips on it. His initials were stamped in black on the square middle, his school name outlining it, the school’s mascot and graduation year on the sides.

“Daralyn.” His voice had roughened, and he kept it that way. “Do you think about that kiss at Christmas?”

Her lips parted, her cheeks getting that charming pink color again.

“Look at me, Dar."

He didn’t think he was breathing when her gaze raised slowly to his, held. The golden color had deepened, the pupils big and dark. She swallowed. "Tell me," he said softly.

“Yes. I do."

"Every night?"

Her flush deepened, but her eyes sparkled a little, showing some spirit he liked. A lot. "I have other things to think about than just that."

"That wasn't a no. I’m going to kiss you again. Really soon. Would you like that?”

She nodded, slowly.

“Good. So keep in mind, if you die of a panic attack today, I won’t get that chance.”

Her lips curved slowly, her soft eyes lighting in a way that shot straight into his heart and loins.

“Okay.” Her fingers curled over his ring.

He lifted her under the arms to guide her to stand on her feet, though it was the last thing he wanted to do.  Well, until her gaze fell to his lap to confirm what was probably obvious, even though he hadn’t pushed her full against him.

Her gaze flicked up. He guessed she expected him to look away, make things easy by pretending he didn’t notice, or she didn’t. It was polite instinct to do it, but he wasn’t feeling polite. He kept that steady lock on her eyes.

She’s a woman now.

She sure the hell was.

A crackle of gravel told him someone had come into their parking lot. Likely the SUV carpool to the college. But she still didn’t look away. It was as if she knew, intuitively, he meant for her to keep looking at him until he told her she could look away. And his reaction to that was so strong, he considered pulling her on his lap again.

But Marcus was right about that other thing. She’s everything. Her happiness, her well-being.

“Daralyn,” he said in measured tones, his fingers curling on the top of his wheels to hold onto them, hard. “Go on before you miss your ride.”

She swallowed, nodded. Turning away, she collected the tote that had her books and papers, and picked up the lunch box. At the door to the store, she stopped, her hand on the doorknob. As she pulled open the door, so the folks in the carpool could see her coming out, the chain on her wrist clinked lightly against the knob. The bells over the shop door chimed a single staccato note, telling him she was shaking again.

“See you in a while,” she said, shooting him a shy, quick glance.

“You bet you will.”

A small smile, and she stepped out, letting the door close behind her. He rolled over to the window. He saw her hesitate at the SUV open door. Her head was lowered, as if she were thinking. His grip on his wheel tightened, as he prepared to go out there and give her reinforcement, if she needed it. She put her hand over the chain, over his ring. He saw her take a deep breath.

Reaching up, she gripped the side of the vehicle and stepped up into it. He saw her settle into a seat next to a nerdy looking guy staring at his phone as the door closed. The SUV was put into gear and pulled away, trundling out of the gravel parking lot and accelerating once it was on the paved road.

He sat in an empty store, his heart aching, his cock hard, and his mind split in three different ways. She’d been gone five seconds, and suddenly there was a Daralyn-sized empty space in the store that somehow had the density of a black hole.

Truth number one. He wanted her. He wanted her like he’d never wanted anything, and he didn’t want to hold back on that any longer.

Truth number two.  Maybe he was channeling some weird Fifty Shades thing that he’d subliminally absorbed by falling asleep to late night TV, but that didn’t fit. He wanted to say it wasn’t him, it wasn’t her, but their reaction to one another over it said otherwise. And yeah, he’d looked at some of this stuff on the Internet, but he hoped like hell he’d stumbled on the wrong places, because he’d seen things he…fuck, he didn’t even want those things in his head. Because some of it hadn’t repelled him, and that disturbed him worse.

That brought him to Truth Number Three. He needed to talk to Marcus. Because there was another reason why Marcus’s words had gotten lodged in his head. The Internet sites had helped Rory realize that, too.

Marcus wasn’t “just” Thomas’s husband.

A few days after Thanksgiving, Marcus and Thomas had come from New York, planning to stay at their North Carolina house through the holidays. Rory had rolled up onto the porch, using the ramp they’d made sure was part of the house modifications soon after they moved in. Seeing the door open, he’d opened the screen and rolled into the living room, calling out. Nothing. The house was empty, though the door was open.

He’d rolled through the house, toward the back porch. The door to that was open as well, allowing a cross breeze between the two screen doors. The windows had been open, too, so he could see and hear Marcus and Thomas before they were aware of him.

Thomas had his hand clutched on the rail while Marcus had him pressed up against it. Marcus’s hand was wrapped around Thomas’s throat as his lips cruised over his cheek. Rory started to retreat, fast, but before he did, he heard Thomas utter a single word.

That word had resonated in Rory’s mind, and echoed there, again and again. The fevered look Thomas had sent toward Marcus was one Rory recognized somehow. He wanted to see it in Daralyn’s face. He wanted to hear her say that same word to him, the way Thomas had said it to Marcus. With pleasure and need, confidence and absolute surety that it held everything he needed.

“Master.”

He wanted to kill her uncle and father for treating her the ways they had, but she’d been stronger than both of them. He believed in her strength. The way she’d teased him just now, about having other things to think about than him? That had been pretty damn close to flirting.

She made his cock hard and his mouth dry, and gave him fantasies when she knelt at his feet or set her chin in a way that suggested she might just one day mouth off to him. Like she might one day feel safe enough to do that with him, the way he wanted her to feel safe.

She could tease, challenge, defy, confront him, all she wanted. He’d never hurt her. He’d celebrate that confidence, even as he’d answer it in ways that might challenge her, too, but in the right ways. Maybe she needed that.

He had an unsettling feeling that he sure as hell did.

* * *

In His Arms will be released late summer 2020. Stay tuned for an exact release date!

Join the characters of the award-winning Nature of Desire series as they find love, through the infinite ways Domination and submission can be expressed.