maybe we don't have a great shot, but maybe we foster. Like rent to own, something like that."
She chuckled. "I'm not sure if that's how it works, but yes. I would…" She faltered a little. "I would love to be a mother. Not right away, of course, but when we do… Do you think I would be a good one?"
“No doubt in my mind at all.” He caressed her face. “And we’ve got a hell of a support network to back us up. Can you see Mom doling out her matriarchal wisdom? Les showing them how to appreciate the science stuff, while Thomas and Julie handle the arts. And Marcus…"
He paused, made a deliberate show of contemplating that. "Okay, maybe we don’t expose them to Marcus's influence."
She laughed, and pinched his arm. "Marcus, the savvy businessman who brought himself up from the streets to become a very successful gallery owner. He’ll teach our children how to be financially successful."
Rory held her close again, relishing how she curled herself tight against him, her feet braced on his push rim, her knees drawn up. They fit as perfectly together as the diamond did in its setting.
"We’ll teach them that none of it matters without love,” she said softly. “And faith. In yourself, your family and whatever it is out there that brought us together, that brought me out of that dark house and into your arms."
"You won't ever find darkness in them," he promised, and he knew that was his biggest dream of all. That she would always find what she needed in his arms.
The End
Ice Queen
Book III in the Nature of Desire Series
Explore Dominant and submissive relationships from many different perspectives in the Nature of Desire series…
Since you’ve now met them, would you like a taste of Tyler and Marguerite’s story? Read on to enjoy Chapter One of Ice Queen, another standalone in the series. Note: It does continue in Mirror of My Soul, because it took TWO books to tell all of Tyler and Marguerite’s journey together.
Chapter One
“Catch a tiger by the toe, eeny, meeny, miny, mo.”
Marguerite glanced up from her purchase order as her hostess, Chloe Marcel, came into the kitchen area. Genevieve Wisner, her other waitstaff person, slid by in front of her with a tray of teacups as Chloe propped a hip on the doorframe. Fortunately, Gen was a tall woman, whereas Chloe was a tiny thing not even five feet tall and committed by genetics to look fourteen years old though she was nearly twenty-eight. Marguerite had discovered her working a kiosk at the mall that sold a wide variety of body-piercing jewelry. She’d liked the woman’s easy manner that drew customers to her side like old friends, the selection of high-quality jewelry and the fact that Chloe, while passionate about piercings, only had one. A navel piercing that she rarely revealed by her clothing choices without having to manually turn up the edge of her blouse or tug down her waistband. Marguerite had also liked the simmering mischief in her eyes. However, since hiring her as hostess for Tea Leaves, informally known in the Tampa area as the Tea Room, she’d learned to be wary of it.
“What are you going on about, Chloe?”
“I’m thinking about better parts of a tiger than his toes.”
Genevieve rolled her eyes, setting down the tray. “She’s in one of those moods, M.” She used her favorite nickname for their boss, having pointed out more than once that Marguerite’s cool reserve and authoritative presence would qualify her to head up the MI-6 of the James Bond movies. “She’s comparing men to animals again.”
“It’s not like we get many here, you know.”
“Men, or animals?”
Chloe grimaced at her. “This is a terrific, lovely place, Marguerite, but we do need to figure out a way to market it to men of marriageable age. Or at least the age of sexual interest.”
“Got it.” Gen nodded. “Age twelve to ninety.”
“I’ll plan a construction workers’ convention here just for you, Chloe.” Marguerite tapped her pen on the desk, considering the matter from her side office while Gen grinned, placing the teacups from the Coalport set carefully in the sink water to handwash them, as they did with all the porcelain sets. “Do you think they’d prefer something manly, one of our strong black teas served up in a reproduction YiXing? If clay was good enough for the samurai, it should be good enough for them. Of course, since the samurai left their swords outside the teahouse, we