again the same way he’d gone in, leaping down the stairs in one go and jogging lightly over to the driveway, and I flashed back, despite my exhaustion, despite my emotion, despite all of the mad things that had happened tonight, to the way he’d vaulted up into the truck bed earlier. I sat there, his flannel jacket, still warm from his skin, draped over my thighs, saw the tattoo and the close-cropped, wanting-to-curl black hair, all that chest and athleticism and hard body, and got a rush of heat that made me shudder.
Why, after everything I’d done to change my life, was my libido still so stuck on physical strength, on hardness, on that exact kind of male … otherness? I could say it was the adrenaline talking, or that he’d been so sweet when he’d held me and laughed. I knew better. It was the way he’d jumped into that truck, and worse—it was the way he’d held that shovel like he could hold off the world, including my father, and the way he’d made me go on to safety.
I resented the rigid gender roles I’d grown up under, and I rejected them. Masculinity and femininity weren’t opposite poles, they existed on a continuum. I knew that, and I so wanted to want a man like Dorian, my twin. A gentle, cerebral type who’d indulge my take-charge tendencies with a tolerant smile, because he wasn’t threatened by them. Or like Matiu Te Mana, the Emergency doc I’d thought could be my destiny a couple years back. A take-charge type himself, because he had to be in that job, but safely fifteen years older than me. Safely easygoing, good-natured, and quietly competent, too. That had never gone anywhere at all, though, much as I liked Matiu, and I didn’t think it had just been him.
No spark. No rush of inappropriate heat up the legs. No flustered, unsettling catch in my breath.
I refused to think I had PTSD. But if not, why did I have this glitch in my wiring? Why, unless I was actually damaged, would I only be attracted to the kind of man whose masculinity scared me, the kind who drove dusty trucks and wore work boots, who knew how to use tools and had too much muscle and didn’t seem afraid of anything? Why couldn’t my brain let go of that impossible attraction and let me, you know, actually have sex? With somebody I could trust not to hurt me?
I’d heard it could feel good. I’d have loved to believe it.
This time, he had the dog with him, and my confused spirit settled some at the sight of the animal, her chocolate-brown fur a bit scruffy, her otter’s tail waving gently. When Gray pulled open my door, the dog barked once, wagged her tail so energetically that it moved her entire backside, and smiled at me with her whole face. I slid straight down from the seat, got both arms around the dog’s neck, and gave her a cuddle, and for the first time, the hot tears pricked behind my eyelids.
I said, trying not to let my voice shake, “I should be so angry at you, you terrible creature, sending me into the river like that.”
“To be fair,” Gray said, “she pulled you out as well. Restitution, eh. A bit like me, maybe.” He opened the girls’ door and put out a hand, and nothing happened. They didn’t get out. When I looked, they were just sitting there, frozen.
I said, “Come on, girls. Let’s go inside.”
“He’s trying to touch Fruitful, though,” Obedience said.
I sighed. “Outside, men can touch women, and women can touch men. It’s allowed.”
“Well, somewhat,” Gray had to put in. “Consent, and all that.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I said. “Time and place?” There I went with the sarcasm again. It was the hunger, maybe. Or that unsettled thing.
He looked startled, then grinned, stood back, swept a big arm out wide, and said, “Come in and meet my mum, ladies. And let me be the first to say—welcome to the start of the rest of your life.”
I was lost. I could feel it happening. I was a lost woman.
10
Male Behavior
Gray
I wanted to do something else for Daisy. To be honest, I wanted to carry her inside. She looked that knackered, and her sisters didn’t look much better, especially Fruitful, who was still limping badly, wincing with every step. Daisy had climbed down from the truck without a word, though, for whatever it was—the fifth? sixth?