Now Kendra looked up as he approached, shielding her eyes with a cupped hand. She was wearing a sexy red bikini. Her body was long and lean, her legs shapely with muscle. She had a large tattoo on her upper thigh of some kind of winged horse. Both shoulders were inked as well, one with the classic BDSM triskelion, the other with a pair of crossed chef knives.
Then he noticed the scars.
There was a white ridged line of scar tissue in a vertical line between her breasts that spanned the length of her sternum. Her pretty breasts were marred by more scars, though much smaller and less obvious. His first thought was a car crash, but that scar between her breasts was too straight a line to be the result of an accident. Maybe when he got to know her better, he would ask what had happened.
“Hey there,” he said, stopping in front of her. “Mind if I join you?”
She smiled up at him, a pretty dimple appearing in her right cheek. “I’d like that. I was watching you out there on the waves. It looked awesome. How do you stay upright?”
Dylan chuckled as he dropped his towel beside hers and set down his board. “Practice,” he said. “Lots of salt water up my nose, bruises, surf rashes and sore ribs, but it’s all worth it. There is nothing like the high from riding a good wave, the endorphins pumping, body and mind at one with the ocean. I’m a surfing junkie. Salt water runs in my blood. I wouldn’t have taken this job if it hadn’t included a beach.”
“That’s cool. I totally get it about the endorphin high. I’m a runner. Sprinting always makes me feel powerful—invincible and free. Like if I plant my foot just so, jump up and kick off, I could take off into the air and fly. At those moments, I feel I could go anywhere—leave everything and everyone behind.”
“That’s it exactly,” Dylan agreed as he settled on his towel next to Kendra. He turned to her, keeping his eyes on her face instead of the raised line of scar tissue between her breasts. “How did your first day in Henry’s kitchen go?”
Kendra shrugged. “Pretty good. I’m used to a very fast-paced, churn-out-whatever-you-can-as-fast-as-you-can kind of environment. Things are a lot lower key here. There’s more focus on the quality of what we’re producing rather than speed. I like that. I didn’t realize how worn out I was from my job back in Seattle. I have a feeling this place will be good for me.”
Dylan smiled. “Good for us, too. I had one of those incredible sourdough cinnamon rolls with the cream cheese icing this morning. Did you make those? If so, will you marry me?”
Kendra laughed. “I did make them. Glad you liked them, though I’ll need to see how you are with a cane before I accept your marriage proposal,” she quipped.
Dylan instantly perked up at this not-so-subtle indication of her sexual orientation as a submissive, or at least a sexual masochist. He lifted an eyebrow as he regarded her. “I’m quite good with a cane,” he admitted. “In fact, I’m doing a demo in about an hour on proper caning technique. I was going to use a piece of paper and a pillow, but I’d way rather use a live subject, if you’d care to volunteer.”
Something sparked in Kendra’s eyes, her nipples becoming more pronounced beneath the bikini top. But she shook her head and sighed. “I’d love to, but I have to ice the cakes I made earlier in time for tonight’s dinner and I need to get my dough ready for tomorrow’s breakfast rolls.”
“How about later this evening?” Dylan persisted, aware he was being pushy but unable to help himself. “I plan to attend the dungeon party. As a resident Master, I have my own scening station. You could sample some of my cane collection firsthand, or should I say first butt cheek, haha.”
“Ha ha,” she echoed with a grin. But she didn’t say yes.
Then again, she didn’t say no.
He decided not to press it and instead focused on the unusual tattoo on her thigh. “What is that thing? A Pegasus or something?” He ran his finger lightly over the ink. Her skin was warm and supple beneath his fingers.
Kendra smiled as she shook her head. “I can see where you’d think that, because of the wings. The wings were actually my addition to the design. The animal is an Arabian Oryx. They used to roam in huge herds all over the Middle East. They were hunted very nearly to extinction about forty years ago. A group of wildlife conservationists began a breeding program with the last nine oryxes in captivity. The program was very successful and oryxes were recently reintroduced into the wild, though there are still only like a thousand of them left. I got the tattoo when—”