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"Couple of weeks. I'm going to be pulling long hours getting them done, but with a little help…"

"What can I do?"

"How do you feel about sanding?"

"Show me what you need."

He does. Before I know it, I'm installed in a little station of my own. He takes my hands and places them on the wood, running my fingers over rough spots and explaining what to do. I somehow manage to pay attention, even if the warmth of his touch and his attention continue to build inside me.

"Got it?" he asks.

"I think so."

He returns to his work, then, and I set to mine. It's easy enough, smoothing out the splinters and getting everything ready to be stained. The dirty music continues to pour out of thespeakers. The suggestiveness of the lyrics doesn't exactly help my concentration, but after a while, the low, steady thrum of arousal fades into the background. I split my attention between the project in front of me and the ripples of Deandre's gleaming muscles and the achy, tender spot between my legs.

For a while, we work side by side. We each seem to make good progress. The pieces I'm helping finish for him are exquisite; Cayden wasn't lying when he said Deandre was an artist. I appreciate the curves and twists of the wood, the shapes he created with his own two hands, and they're just like him. Sturdy and strong, delicate and graceful—all at the same time.

I'm nearing the end of the stack he gave me when the lathe shuts off. I don't think anything of it until he says, "Hey, girlie."

"Yeah?"

"You said you done some carving before?"

"Uh-huh."

"Want to learn how to do some more?"

"Sure."

I set aside what I was working on and move to join him on the other side of the room. He has a few chair backs set aside. A couple of them are already finished, intricate, smooth scroll work etched into each one. It's nothing at all like the choppy woodcut blocks I used to make in my printmaking days. A prickle of doubt makes me frown.

"I don't know if I can do anything as fancy as all that."

"Bet you can. C'mere. I'll show you how."

He plants his big body in an old, repurposed work chair. Beside him are laid out a variety of tools, some of which I recognize. I stand there, expecting a demonstration, but then he reaches for me.

"Come on. Can't see from that far away."

Oh. Jeez, he's strong. He pulls me into my lap, and my brain goes fuzzy with static for a second. I feel tiny held in his embracelike this. His bare skin pours off heat, and the rise and fall of his muscular chest is a force against my spine. His breath washes across my ear, and I shudder.

"Here." He pulls at my thighs, getting me to straddle his lap, and it's basically reverse cowgirl, except with all of my clothes and half of his still on. The position makes me more stable, right until he hauls me back against him.

I can't help the moan that falls out of me. He's not even completely hard, but the ridge of his cock presses into my ass when we're like this. He's enormous, and God, I want it.

"Deandre…"

"Shh. Focus."

And then, Lord help us all, he picks up a piece of wood and a tool.

What follows is the sexiest, most torturous woodworking lesson in the history of mankind. There's something so soothing about his presence, though. As he instructs me on the kind of carving he does, my mind goes glass smooth. I'm a throbbing mass of need and want, but I'm also an attuned student, absorbing his tutelage, ready to do as he asks of me.

Submissive, honestly. Without so much as a whip or a chain or a rough word in sight.

Under his direction, I pick up a piece of my own. He keeps his hands on mine, and together, we create something from a hunk of bare wood, and satisfaction boils in my breast. It's been so long since I've made something with my hands, and it feels good. Almost as good as the heat of his body encompassing mine, as the warmth of his praise washing over me, as the increasingly huge bulge of his cock beneath me.

"Got it, girlie?"