Chapter Nine
Cullen said six thirty, so of course I started to walk down at six.
I admit I was excited to see him again. Now that we’d put a cessation to the hostilities, I was eager to be clear in my intentions.
His foolish claim that no Dom would be interested in him was a far cry from the truth.
Cullen was a talented, handsome man and a precious sub that I desperately wanted to claim.
Gods, even just saying that in my head sounded so he-man, but it was the truth.
The thought of Cullen finding someone else filled me with a sense of dread; he was the man I had wanted for months.
I refused to call it pining, especially when I spent half the time switching between adoration and frustration.
Actually, it did feel suspiciously a little like pining.
I hadn’t bothered to drive. Cullen's place was barely a five-minute walk down the hill, and it was a perfect late summer evening. It wouldn’t be long now before the weather grew colder, and the air around town would fill with the smell of woodsmoke.
I was looking forward to the change of season.
Autumn was my favourite time of year. The changing colours in the leaves and the chill in the air reminded me of family bonfires, and Mum exasperated that all her neatly raked piles of leaves would end up scattered around the grounds again.
I stopped at the start of the lane that meandered its way down to Cullen’s surgery and home and looked at the village in the late afternoon early evening light.
It looked remarkably like something from an Arthur Ransome book, with its thatched roofs and whitewashed walls set against the rugged coastline.
Moving to Tewsbury had been a smart move.
Manchester was exciting, and I never lacked for clients, but I was starting to worry that platinum princesses and princes and their ￡300 cut and blow dries were going to be the end of me.
The grind of the nine till nine most weekdays left me little time or energy to go attend munches or even attend the weekends at Crimson House.
I hadn’t written in months, and I worried that Lord Lamprey and his dashing valet Ross wouldn’t get their final novel.
I chuckled to myself thinking about how Cullen would react if he knew I wrote the Lusty Lord Lamprey novels.
I’d overheard Cullen at the pub telling Cal he had just finished the second book and was hoping to get the weekend to read the third one.
It had been sorely tempting to tell him there and then that I was James Saint Laurent, but I’d chickened out.
Cullen’s cottage came into view. It was such a pretty place with its thick ivy climbing on one wall and its lattice windows and smoke billowing out from one of them.
Wait. What the hell?!
The side gate was open, and I sprinted down towards the door Cullen used for his private residence.
It was open, and Cullen stood there wildly flapping a dishcloth as smoke drifted out from behind him and a small black kitten wound its way around Cullen’s ankles, completely unperturbed by the events going on around him.
“It’s a simple recipe anyone can cook. Right. Anyone but me.” Cullen muttered to himself, not realising I was standing close by.
“Cullen, what happened?” I stepped closer and could see a dark smudge across Cullen’s nose.
“Oh, blast it. I was hoping to have this mess cleaned up before you got here. I’m burning my house down and running late. Yes, my evening has gone swimmingly.” Cullen huffed, leaning his weight against the doorframe.
“Are you okay?” I moved in closer, lifting Cullen’s chin with my fingers to see his face. Apart from a soot smudge on his nose, he seemed fine, but I was still concerned.
“I think I had the oven too high and somehow incinerated the chicken. I really should have stuck to my original plan of picking up fish and chips from the chip shop.”
“We can worry about that later.” I gently pulled him away from the door and led him to the small outdoor sitting area. “Sit down, let me get a better look at you.”
Cullen moved to push my hand away, but he stopped, catching my eye. “I’m sorry, Sir. I wanted to make something special for you to show you…” He let out an exasperated huff. “To show you I’m not some old fool trying to impress a man much too young to want to spend time with me.”
“Okay, right now, I’m more worried about you than some ruined dinner.
I love that you wanted to make something special, and there is no reason we can’t do that one night.
Perhaps though maybe under supervision.” I gently bopped Cullen’s nose, and he smiled, understanding I wasn’t making fun of him or cross with him.
I kissed him gently with a brief touch of lips, just to ground myself to know that he was okay and to show him I wasn’t going anywhere.
“I feel like the foolish one, Princess. I should’ve nipped this silly feud between us in the bud months ago, and I don’t want to hear this silliness about our age difference anymore.
” I could see Cullen gearing up to argue, but luckily, a distraction appeared in the form of an adorable black kitten with piercing blue eyes.
Dropping to my knee, I scooped him up. He purred loudly as I scratched his tiny chin. “Who is this handsome fellow?”
Cullen turned back from staring at his house to look at me, and a fleeting smile crossed his face.
“That’s Tennyson. I forgot to feed the poor thing, so he’s probably starving by now.
” He looked back towards the house and sighed.
“Looks like most of the smoke has cleared. I mean, it was just the pan that caught fire.” Cullen pointed his chin towards a blackened pan sitting on the stubbly grass.
I didn’t like the defeated sound of his voice or the way his shoulders drooped.
I shifted Tennyson into one hand and held the other out to Cullen.
“Come on, let’s get out of the chill.” I noticed the temperature had dropped and the wind had shifted, coming in off the water.
You could smell the salt and seaweed in the air.
Cullen barely hesitated before he took my hand and led me inside.
The kitchen was tidy, and the only thing that gave any clue to what happened was a strong smell of burnt chicken in the air and the blackened open oven door. “What exactly happened here?”
Cullen had followed me inside, taking his kitten from my hand and hugging it to his chest. He gave me a resigned look and shrugged towards the oven.
“I think the oven finally died like it’s been threatening to do for years.
The thermostat is shot, and it tends to fluctuate between barely warm to the ground floor of the sun itself. ”
“First thing in the morning, we’ll call someone to look at it. That,” I said, pointing at the oven, “is a safety hazard.”
“They won’t come tomorrow, it's Sunday. I’ll get to the electrician on Monday. Until then, I think I’ll just have to settle for takeaway or sandwiches,” Cullen said.
“Well, tonight, I think we can do better than that. Fancy a walk down to the shore? I know the chip cart is still open, and they do a nice piece of fish.” I watched Cullen mull it over.
I understood his frustration, and I meant it when I said I still wanted him to cook a meal for me, just not that night.
“Sounds like a plan. Though I should probably finish getting dressed.” Cullen looked down at himself.
It was only then that I noticed what he was dressed in, or more what he wasn’t wearing.
He had on a very flattering button-down, but he was minus a pair of trousers, instead, clad in a very sexy pair of red lace briefs.
Bloody hell, he looked sexy. I think I had a new favourite image of Cullen in my head now.
Cullen pushed the door closed, still holding the kitten to his chest. He pressed a soft kiss between its ears only to have it try and bat his face with its paws.
Cullen just smiled at its antics before lowering it to the ground.
My breath caught at the warmth of that smile, not a guarded half smile, but a true smile that lit up his eyes.
“I think that’s my new favourite look for you.” Grabbing his hand, I made him spin around, jolting a surprised laugh out of him.
“You are a terrible tease.” Cullen’s cheeks were flushed pink, and he was smiling. Without any thought, I pulled him closer, bringing the hand I was holding to my chest.
“When it comes to you, Princess, I never tease. You are so damn sexy.” I reached around and slid my hand over his lace-covered bottom. I traced the edges of the lace, lightly pulling him closer, wanting to touch and hold him.
Cullen rested his weight against me, his forehead laying against my shoulder. “I want to believe you when you say that.”
“Then I will keep saying it.” I brushed Cullen’s hair back from his face. “I know we’ve not talked much before last night, but I feel like something good could be happening here.” Cullen nodded slightly, and I felt the tension lessen slightly in his shoulders.
“Why don’t you throw some trousers on, and we can head down to the chippie and grab some food?
Move, sweetheart, before I decide I want to eat something else entirely.
” I gave Cullen’s soft arse a squeeze, earning a playful growl from him.
“It’s an order, Princess. Be back in ten minutes or I’ll have to think of a suitable punishment. ”
Cullen pulled out of my arms and smiled at me before he turned to head for the stairs. But before he got there, he stopped and turned back, the smile he flashed was shyer than the one before but no less real. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Believe it, Princess, now get a move on.”
“Yes, Sir.” Cullen ran up the stairs in a flash of lace underwear. Now I just had to will my dick to behave itself and not embarrass ourselves. So far, it was not listening to me.