Holding The Cards (4 page)

Josh tied it to the branch and then set his hands at Lauren's waist, his palms hot on her skin. The knot of her towel had tightened during her climb, so now the terry cloth rode low on her hips. His long fingers lay inside the circle of it, grazing her hip bones. She was sure he meant his touch to be a steadying thing, to help her take a firm grasp of the rope without having to worry about her balance. Unfortunately the effect of that warm, intimate touch had the exact opposite result.

Jonathan's face flashed through her head, along with the memory of him sitting on the top stair to their second floor, dressed for work. It had been shortly before their breakup. She knelt between his knees, desperate for just a simple hug, the desire to be held. He had put his lips against her ear. "You are so fucked up, Lauren."

He had said it soothingly, reinforcing what she had come to believe about herself. Rather than feeling insulted, she had felt vindicated. Like having a doctor diagnose her illness, she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude at having it acknowledged.

Lauren's skin crawled with the memory and her chin tightened. She knew how to climb down a damn rope. She was one of three women at the gym that could do it.

She seized the rope and swung herself carefully into a descent position, blocking out for a moment that she was giving the man below, gay or not, a great view of her ass, and the one above quite a display of tits. Well, happiness and joy to them both.

Page 15

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Focus," her personal trainer at the gym had told her. "That's the key to getting to the top, and back down again. Never think that getting down is easier. That's when most accidents happen in climbing, because it's harder to control your descent. Psychologically your mind thinks it's made it."

Her current surroundings and situation were nothing like the gym, so perhaps it was understandable that the reminder of that lecture came
after
she lost her grip on the rope.

Lauren had time for a short shriek before she was falling, flailing through the air and then landing against another warm body. Marcus was knocked off balance by the weight of her hurtling body hitting him.

They thudded to the ground in a twisted tangle of limbs and muttered curses and rolled several yards down the steep incline before he managed to catch onto a protruding root and bring them to a halt.

Lauren attempted to extricate her limbs from Marcus enough to turn and find out if he was all right. She found he was trying to do the same, but they managed it. Josh was coming down quickly, no hesitation, she noted sourly. She comforted herself with appreciation for the ripple of tense power across the shoulders and down his back, the way the jeans rode lower with his arms above his head and stomach muscles contracted tight. That's the way they'd be if his arms were tied at the wrists to a suspension bar, pulled just high enough to keep him on the balls of his feet, so his buttock muscles would be firm and clenched.

Whoa, where had that thought come from? A silly grin twisted her lips. It was a tasty image, though. She shifted her focus to the one who had broken her fall. Marcus had pushed himself up on his elbows, and his lip was cut where her elbow had landed. "Are you all right?" she reached out to it, at the same time he offered a solicitous hand to that same offending elbow and said, "Are you okay?"

He managed a crooked grin. "We must be, if we're both more concerned about each other."

"No," she said, smiling back. "You're male, and so you can't admit you're in terrible pain, and I'm female and so naturally would always ask about the well-being of others before my own."

"Another woman with an overabundance of therapy," he observed, turning his hand into a position to offer a courteous handshake, despite her current lack of clothing. "I'm Marcus."

"Lauren," she shook his hand and then cocked a brow at Josh. "And I think we met in the tree."

"Which explains why you flung yourself out of it," Marcus noted dryly. "Perfectly understandable."

Josh shot him a deprecating look, then turned his attention back to Lauren. She noted with some amusement his determination to keep his gaze fixed on her face. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I think so." Lauren found her knees a bit unsteady as she rolled to them. She put her hand to the forest floor to push herself up. A pair of male hands supported her at either elbow, and she gazed down at her half-naked torso, stained with dirt and leaves.

"Well, this has been an adventurous day," she murmured to no one in particular, though she thought she heard Marcus chuckle. She was going to adjust that towel, as soon as she could discreetly turn away from the two men.

She put her weight down on her right foot and gasped, grabbing at Josh's arm to keep her balance.

Sprain. Probably not a bad one, but just one more delightful thing to add to the day's charm.

Page 16

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Marcus squatted and ran his hand along the back of her calf, down to the injured member. "Already swelling," he confirmed.

She had been sucked into some parallel dimension, where every tawdry cliché from a cheap romance novel was going to be played out. If everything went true to form, one of the men, probably the one she found most irritating yet mysteriously irresistible, would swing her easily up into his arms.

"Okay, then," Josh nodded, hooked her arms around his neck, bent and scooped her up. "We'll take you back upstairs and get that wrapped." He lifted a brow at her snort of laughter. "What?"

"Nothing," Lauren shook her head. "Nothing at all."

At least this parallel dimension had its perks. Being carried up a hill in a strong man's arms was decidedly pleasant, though unsettling, since her right bare breast was pressed into his unshirted chest, and she felt every shift of his fingers along her spine and thigh.

"You could have at least let me adjust my towel," she said.

He glanced down at her, and with her arm occupied in holding on, there was nothing she could do but endure the heated perusal.

"Why would I want to do that?" he grinned.

Her eyes narrowed.

"He's always been this way, Lauren," Marcus commented. "God knows I've tried to beat it out of him."

Josh snorted. "Like a little prissy fairy like you could beat up anyone."

"If you're going to act like a homophobic Neanderthal," Marcus remarked, moving ahead to open the side door of Lisette's house, "I'm not going to play with you anymore. Do you need some help?"

Josh's grip on Lauren tightened and Marcus clucked. "You see," he informed Lauren. "He doesn't share."

Josh's face suffused with color. He looked as if he might defend his actions with some excuse, but in the end he said nothing. He shouldered by Marcus, jabbing him in the chest with his elbow.

"Ow," his friend said mildly, and shut the door after them.

Outside, where her options were limited, being half naked had been embarrassing but not fatal, just part of the whole ludicrous situation. Carried up the stairs and into Lisette's living room, furnished with every comfort of the civilized world, Lauren felt a keen urge to have the floor open and suck her in. It was so much easier when she was in control, with all the right trappings in place. Even though she knew they were just trappings, and the real control came from within.

"Put me down, we're in the house," she said, struggling a bit to underscore the order.

Page 17

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"I don't think it's going to do you much good to stand on your feet," Josh observed. "Where do you want me to put you down?"

"Over there," she snapped, pointing at a comfortable chair. Her robe lay on the ottoman, next to the cursed sliding glass door that had started the whole incident.

Josh nodded. "Marcus, go see if Lisette has an ice pack and some bandages."

"I don't need—" Lauren closed her eyes and fought the desire to scream as he sat her gently in the cushioned embrace of the chair. They had helped her. There was no reason to take them off at the neck because she felt helpless.

"Lauren," Josh's fingers touched her jaw and she opened her eyes. That lean, half-bare body curved over hers. His eyes were on her face, not on her naked breasts or the low riding towel.

"Shit happens," he said quietly. "We're not teenagers here. We all know what we look like under our clothes. You were in trouble, we're neighbors, we helped. There's no 911, nothing but the three of us to take care of one another. If you're going to look at this in any way, think of it as a good story to tell Lisette later. Don't beat yourself up over it."

"Easy for you to say," Lauren managed, trying not to look away, a cowardly way to deal with the overpowering sense of invasion his sincerity caused. "You weren't the idiot that —"

"You're not an idiot." Lauren jerked at the hand that came down and clamped on hers. Josh squeezed her fingers. "You didn't know the door would lock behind you, you didn't know if someone would be coming to give you a hand, so you took the initiative and tried to help yourself out. That took guts.

Okay?" His tone softened on the last word, and he released her fingers to touch her face again, one light brush, tentative.

Lauren studied him, swallowing at the sheer…energy she saw behind those marvelous gray eyes. She had read a book, or maybe it was a sci-fi movie she had seen, where an entire galaxy was enclosed in a pendant. What she saw in his gaze reminded her of that. His proximity, his words and those eyes were all dragging her under. She struggled to stay above water. "You're being too nice about all this," she said.

"You're right about that," he said, surprising her. "If you'd stop being so pitiful, I could drop the whole chivalry thing and stare at your tits."

Lauren choked on a laugh. A smile eased across his face, stopping her breath. He rose, moving out of her personal space, physically at least. "I'll see what we can make for dinner," he said.

"Dinner?" she squeaked at his back as she snatched the robe and worked her way into it. "I don't need… I don't recall inviting you to dinner," she wiggled the towel out from beneath the robe and belted the latter just as Marcus returned.

"But you were going to, because we rescued you," Marcus pointed out. "Besides which, Josh is a terrific cook. Here," he knelt before her with a first aid kit and a brush. He opened the kit and unrolled a bandage. "First I'm going to rub this with a wet cloth, and get a bit of the forest off…"

Page 18

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

* * * * *

Pleasant small talk.

Josh cooked and threw a comment or question into the conversation now and then. Mainly he listened, with the same intent focus with which he chopped, sautéed and transformed grocery items she would have nuked or eaten raw into a culinary delight. The aromas drifted into the living area with the dim glow of the kitchen track lighting, rousing her hunger and relaxing her body, as the cloak of night took over outside the sliding glass door.

"Now," Marcus picked up the brush when he was satisfied with the skin temperature and level of swelling on her ankle. "Let's get you tidied up for supper."

Before she could utter more than a sound of surprise, he was freeing her hair from its banana clip and pins and spreading it out behind her to take the brush through it and unsnarl the tangles.

"No protests, my dear." His voice dropped an octave. "If I recall, you enjoy being served."

Lauren's gaze jerked up to him. The sensual mouth and soft fall of hair was the type of face a woman did not forget. Even as she had the thought, it was there, the vague familiarity sharpening onto a distinct memory.

"I remember you. You were… sitting with another man. A younger man." Her eyes danced at Marcus's quick, wicked grin.

"Close your eyes, dear," he suggested. "And just lay back and enjoy."

* * * * *

The place had been called
May I Have This Dance?
. IT had a hundred dollar cover charge to step into grace and elegance with a kink flavor.

Men dressed in black tie. The women wore formal wear heavy on corsets and long flowing skirts reminiscent of the Victorian era, and four inch stiletto heeled boots that were not. Diamond chandeliers sparkled, dimmed so they threw moving circles of light onto the ballroom dance floor but allowed the shadows to keep their secrets. Near the orchestra, bubbles drifted out onto the floor like schools of fish and dispersed among the diners like fairies alighting on flowers, touching a shoulder, a lock of hair, kissing a face before vanishing into moisture.

There was gallery seating, for those who preferred to watch the floor and sip a cocktail. Lauren had chosen that option. The mid-thigh sheath of black fabric shot with silver sparkles was somewhat inappropriate, in her estimation, for such a fantastical landscape. She wore seamed thigh highs beneath
Page 19

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

the dress that revealed a hint of their lace tops when she crossed her legs, and silver high heels fastened to her ankles with a swag of slender silver chains. It was fetish wear only to those who recognized it as such, in case she met one of her colleagues in the lobby of the hotel, on her way in or out. She hadn't even meant to go out, intending to skip Maria's suggestion. But something about a hotel room on a business trip, its odd combination of loneliness and temptation to indiscretion, had driven her to explore the boundaries of her world in a new place.

Marcus, though of course she had not known his name then, had come in from the bar. He had caught her eye, as he would any woman's, and she watched as he opened the door for the young man with him, guiding him through with a solicitous hand to his elbow. Marcus was wearing a tux with a swallow-tailed coat and white silk bowtie, his dark hair falling back onto his shoulders in perfect ebony waves.

She watched how he spoke to the waiter, while the young man looked about him uncertainly. She suspected it was his first time in such a place. He also had that anxious, anticipatory air of someone awaiting a Master's bidding, not sure what that bidding would be, and aroused by the very thought of what it could be. It was in Marcus, too, the studied, casual way he spoke to the waiter while keeping a proprietary hand on his companion's back. Behind the casual expression was something more, a still fascination, another form of anticipation. How would his companion react to what he would ask of him?

The waiter led them to the table directly beneath Lauren. Marcus pulled out the chair for his companion, seated him, then sat to his left, his arm laying along the young man's chair back, his fingers playing absently with the boy's nape. His companion was looking about, drinking it all in, his smiles quick and easy, and Marcus chuckled often during their murmured conversation.

They fascinated her, and at first she was not sure why, did not question why her gaze could not leave them. Marcus ordered for them both, and the waiter brought them drinks.

The young man picked up his napkin, but Marcus's hand closed over his wrist. "Leave it, Thomas," he said.

His words reached Lauren, a murmur rising above the undercurrent of noise around them. Marcus laid the boy's wrist on the table and his own hand dropped, a palmed caress of the boy's inner thigh that suffused his face with color. "I want to be able to see what I do to you."

Thomas nodded, settling his hand around the wine, but it trembled slightly. Yes, Lauren decided. They had played at home a good deal, enough that they knew one another's signals, but this was likely Thomas's first debut in public as a sub. It was enough to rivet any Dom's attention, watching a Master acclimate a sub to serving his pleasure before the eyes of strangers, though of course in a place like this,

"stranger" was a relative term.

It was not just her thighs that tightened at the interchange, but something in her throat, her heart. That dual sense of belonging, in the way of being equally possessor and possessed, the intimacy of it. She saw it in their tender play with one another and it made her miss Jonathan keenly, or rather, what she had wanted to have with Jonathan, and never had.

"I've a gift for you," his words drifted up, penetrating her pain, and Lauren gazed down upon them again.

"Your company is gift enough," Thomas said, touching his glass to Marcus's.

Marcus chuckled. "And here I've no hip waders for such flattery." At the other's cheeky grin, he fished something out of his jacket and laid it on the table.

Page 20

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Lauren leaned forward. It was an elegant gold chain, something a well-dressed man might wear, its simplicity and gleam speaking of its quality, but it appeared long for a man's neck.

Marcus leaned forward, and his voice dropped, husky. "It goes around your waist, my love, and you will feel its movement with every twitch of that delectable ass of yours. It will ride on your hip bones, reminding you of how my hands feel there, digging into your flesh when I'm driving into you, whispering your name, telling you to come for me." He lifted it, held it at eye level. "It symbolizes your willingness to be bound to me, obedient to me, for it is not my will alone that holds you, but yours."

The young man grasped Marcus's hand, the gold between their palms.

"Tell me you understand," Marcus murmured, his eyes on Thomas's, "And tell me in the way you have been taught."

"I understand, Master."

"And do you willingly belong to me?"

"With all my heart," the man's voice was ragged with emotion.

"Good, then," Marcus leaned back. "You will stand, remove your coat, tie and shirt, and unfasten your pants so I may place my collar upon you."

Thomas grew pale, but Lauren suspected she knew where the blood had gone by Marcus's appreciative chuckle. He eased forward again. Without any self-consciousness, he fondled his sub's groin, stroking the tightly packaged treasure there. "Keep your legs open for me," he said, so soft, but the steel of it thrummed through Lauren's own thighs. Her hand was tight on the rail, perspiration making her grasp slick.

Such behavior was expected in a D/s Club, but unsettling for a novice. The boy was not used to this intense level of play, she could tell, and he was mesmerized and terrified by it, ready for it before he knew he was ready for it. Embracing it.

"Are you mine, or not?" Marcus said, his voice an octave more stern. "Or do I need to whip you, to remind you who your Master is, and how quickly you should move to obey him?"

Thomas pushed back his chair, muffling a groan as Marcus's skillful fingers gave him a hard stroke. He stood.

"Keep your eyes on me, pet," Marcus settled back with his wine, "and it will not be so difficult. Or, perhaps you should watch the lovely Mistress in the balcony, who is being pleasured by the very sight of you."

Thomas's gaze shifted up and met Lauren's. She let an appreciative smile toy on her lips, keeping her eyes steady and expectant upon him, though it startled her to know Marcus had known she was watching. Marcus lifted his glass to her and she inclined her head, but they both instantly turned their attention back to Thomas.