“Necking with both of you, hmm?” She attempted another smile. “Max is going to need to get back here with us for that to work. Unless you have some crossing-sword phobia and want me to clamber back and forth over the seats like a four-year-old.”
“Well, you’re not much bigger than one.” Ben linked an arm over her neck again and took the elbow to the ribs with a grunt. Instead of retaliating in kind, he tangled his fingers in the beaded chain she wore. It was threaded with a handful of jasper beads and a silver framed set of Peter’s dog tags, the “collar” she wore out in the vanilla world. “How about you tell me what’s bringing you down today?”
“Don’t worry about it, Ben. I’m fine.” Dana drew her knees up so she could rest her cheek on top of them and angle her head in his direction. “Let’s go do shoes. I bet they have some lace-trimmed combat boots. A woman can’t have too many pairs.”
“Maybe in a minute.” He removed her dark glasses, so he could see her pale green eyes, and put the accessory on the cushioned seat beside him. She might be blind, but he could still pick up a lot of cues from her eyes. “I know you’re fine. You’re tough. The strongest of all of us. Except maybe Matt.”
When she looked surprised by that analysis, Ben nudged her. “You’re the one who decided to be a minister, make a life out of giving people hope and pointing them the best way toward their own inner strength.”
“I’m not a saint.”
“No shit. Unless those bearded guys immortalized in stained glass windows were into threesomes, bi-sexuality and getting their ass spanked by a tit-obsessed muscle head.”
She picked at an invisible thread in the upholstery. “I’m not the strongest after Matt. Peter is.”
Keeping his one arm around her, Ben twisted the fingers of his other hand in the necklace, tightening it around her throat and tugging. It snapped her attention right to him, and he saw the little quick breath, an involuntary sub reaction that was as impossible for her to stifle as her own breathing.
“That’s the way you’re supposed to think about your Master,” he said mildly. “If he’s doing his job right. Or is he being an asshole? I can kick his ass for you.”
“Yeah, right,” she snorted.
“It’s not impossible,” he said. “Especially if I get Max on board and, if Peter’s being a dickhead to you, Max is totally on board. Right, Max?”
“Roger that,” the limo driver responded.
“And I’ve been known to take Peter one-on-one,” Ben added. “Creeping up behind him with a blunt instrument, true, but playing fair isn’t part of my rep.”
“Tell me about it,” she muttered, putting her hand on the one he had tangled in her necklace. “You know what that does to me.”
“Yeah, I do. Makes me hard to watch it, which, in the absence of Peter and Marcie to enjoy the effect, gets us both in trouble. So, you better start talking. Because if Max starts to get a hard-on, then we’re in trouble with Janet. I’ll take three Peters over one Janet, any day.”
Her little smile came back, though it had a sadness he didn’t like. He saw Max had glanced at them in the rearview mirror, possibly because of the Janet comment. He and Janet were playing around the edges of seeing one another, but to the rest of them, it was clear where it was going, so Ben didn’t mind teasing.
He expected Max was also looking back here because of Dana. Max loved all the women like family, but he and Dana had a special bond because of their military service. Plus, Max had been her primary driver ever since she and Peter had married. Ben knew he’d have Max’s backup coaxing the problem out of her if she wouldn’t relent. But she gave him the opening with her next words.
“Well, I told Peter to fuck off and leave me alone this morning, so I’m probably in far bigger trouble.”
“I’d say.” Ben did a quick rewind to the impending cookout and realized Dana hadn’t made her good-byes to her man in the same affectionate way the others had. In fact, Dana had been keeping a wide berth around Peter. The former National Guard captain’s gaze had flicked to her, more than once, with a hint of frustration. “He knows he’s upset you,” Ben realized. “You know that hurts him worse than anything, baby girl. C’mon. What gives? Tell me.”
She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “He’s back on the whole having-a-baby thing. I said some things I didn’t mean to say; then he played the Master card at the wrong moment and said we’re having one and that’s that… Hence the fuck off part.”
Ben pursed his lips. “Well, normally I wouldn’t advocate using one’s ordained Mastership, so to speak, to impose a decision that’s going to affect you as husband and wife partners for the rest of your known life, but he may have a point. You’re standing on the edge of a pool, baby girl, knowing you really want to learn to swim, but until someone pushes you in, you’re going to keep thinking it to death.”
“I’m the only one who drowns if I jump. A baby is awfully different.”
“You won’t be raising him or her alone, right?” He touched her face, a slide of his knuckle along her soft cheek. Though the cosmetic surgeons had done a fan-fucking-tastic job trying to restore the fresh beauty she had before the IED exploded under her, he could still feel traces of the scar tissue. She’d come back a hell of a long way in confidence, much closer to her former self, since that had happened. If Peter was pushing the baby agenda, then Ben knew her Master was pretty damn certain she was ready for it.
“Why won’t he leave it alone?” she complained.
“You’re kidding, right? Milk-engorged breasts.”
Another despairing chuckle strangled out of her. Ben touched her knee. “But beyond that, it's because he knows you want one, and you'd be great parents. Final reason? He loves you more than anything. Even more than breasts.”
“Don't I know it.” A rusty laugh escaped her. “I wear the smallest-sized bra of any in this group.”
“Your tits are fine. Peter says they're like perfect little apples, fallen straight from a tree and smelling summer sweet.”
“He did not say that.”
Ben raised a hand. "On my life, and I think Lucas got it on hidden recorder, just so we could harass him about it.” At her pensive look, he nudged her again. “Do you remember what you said to us at your wedding?”
“Was I sober that day?”
He pinched her, and she squirmed, swatting at him. “Ow. You leave bruises, Peter will be pissed.”
“Not if you deserved them. Shut up and listen. During your toast, you said ‘I never had the chance to see most of you with my eyes. But I can see you in my heart.’”
“How did you remember that, word-for-word? That’s scary.”