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"Well, then. " Marcus cleared his throat after a moment. He stood up and adjusted the shirt back on Thomas's shoulders, buttoning it down the lean chest, his fingers caressing, his face only an inch from his lover's. He was not touching him in any overtly sexual way, but the act of redressing him, not allowing him to tend himself, was expressive in its eroticism. Lauren felt damp all over, in and out. His hips brushed Thomas's aroused crotch with casual indifference, but not inattention.
Marcus refastened the trousers, belted them, and then began to work on the tie. Thomas raised his now free hand, closed it gently over Marcus's wrist.
"You promised to tie my hands and feed me, Master," he reminded him. "And I desire nothing more than to be yours in all ways. " His eyes, his body, the light but insistent touch, all communicated his aching need to please his lover. An ache Jonathan had never had for her.
Lauren sat back, her heart breaking, and spilled her tears into her wine.
Chapter 5
"Did he ever break the chain?" she asked softly.
The answer was a long moment in coming.
"When it was time," Marcus said.
She reached up, touched his hand against her hair. She did not know him well, but she knew the flood of pain that could exist behind such casual words. When love was real, not puppy love, not lust, not a crush, it became an internal organ that grew behind the heart and buried its roots there. When it was torn out, even the act of taking one's life to end the pain required too much awareness. Numbness was the only way to survive it, and it took months, maybe even years to grow the courage to allow the anesthesia to wear off and see if the pain was still excruciating.
Her hand slipped away, and she plucked at her robe. Though she had sensed Marcus had a Dominant sexual personality, and he knew the same of her, if not by sense then by personal knowledge, was he picking up the same warning signals from her that she had detected in Josh? Careful folks, you may be getting into a damaged vehicle here. Don't press the "go" pedal faster than this one's guardian angel can fly and, by the way, her wings may be clipped. Or she may be at her therapy session and off the clock.
She was losing her grip; she tightened her fingers on the chair arm to get it back. In her soft silk robe, with a glass of wine at her elbow, and Marcus turning her hair into the same silk stuff as her robe, she could relax. She would relax.
"Are you a hairdresser?" she asked.
Josh chuckled. Marcus snorted behind her. "I have thought about training to be one. Something to fall back on. You know if my career as a New York art dealer earning over six figures a year in commissions ever falls through. There's always room for one more gay hairdresser, after all. I don't think you even have to have formal training - you can just show up in a beauty parlor and say, 'I'm gay!'" he ratcheted his voice up to make it effeminate. "They'll hire you instantly. Like being black and seven feet tall. Automatic NBA material. "
Lauren tilted her head back. "I'm sorry. I offended you. "
"You're not entirely sorry. You were asserting territory, darling, and I respect that. " Marcus curled his hand in her hair so she was caught and held, looking up at him. "I didn't mean to pry," he said, more gently. "I apologize for being intrusive. "
She nodded, a slight movement of her head, and he released her, but she continued to look up at him an extra moment, which was an apology in itself he acknowledged with a similar small movement of his head. He considered the brush. "I suppose you did have some context for asking the question. I have a sardonic wit I use liberally. "
"Excessively," Josh put in.
"Only on Neanderthals with no sense of humor at all," Marcus rejoined. "Now, hold still another moment. Josh is ready to feed you and I haven't finished making you beautiful. "
"She was already that," Josh pointed out.
Lauren smiled in his direction and was amused when he busied himself with the food again. Marcus leaned down to her ear.
"He is quite something, isn't he, our boy?"
He straightened and went back to general topics as he began to plait her hair into a loose braid on her shoulders. Lauren let his voice fade to pleasant background music that stirred the senses, like soft jazz, and watched Josh finishing the plates. There was something about watching a man involved in a task with his hands that could absorb a woman's attention. Perhaps it was the female subconscious connection to the earth, to creation and fertility. Those long fingers, taking things of the earth, carrots and snow peas, potatoes and onions, and transforming them with care into sustenance. His eyes, intent on his task as he sliced the potatoes into smaller pieces. A quick, careless brush of his arm against his forehead where a lock of hair caused an itch. The movement drew her eye to the ripple of muscle over his ribs, the soft hair beneath his arm. He shifted his hips, transferring his weight to his other foot, which was bare. He had removed his sneakers when they came in and tossed them carelessly by the door, like they were all home.
The two men seemed not the least bit uncomfortable to be cooking in Lisette's house, caring for her friend and entertaining one another with casual conversation.
"What does a caretaker of the homes of five famous artists and writers do, Josh?" she asked at last, taking a sip of her wine.
He glanced up, the corner of his mouth tugging in a half smile. "Just about everything. Repairs, home maintenance, water plants. They want the house to look lived in when they come. I also do things like this sometimes. If Mrs. Von Haugwitz doesn't want to cook herself dinner because she's at a crucial point in her latest sculpture, she can give me a ring. I'll let myself in and cook up dinner. I've given massages to Mr. Grimes because his back bothers him when he works with the scroll saw too long. That type of thing. "
"So you cook, you're a masseuse, a tree climber, a carpenter and an HVAC man. "
"And many, many other things. He has so many talents, our Josh. "
Josh shot Marcus an obvious warning look. The undercurrent of tension felt flammable, so Lauren held her questions. For now. She took another swallow of wine and pretended not to notice their by-play.
Josh was certain the woman had no idea how she looked sitting there, her fingers toying with her wineglass. The pale pink silk of the robe outlined every feature of her body, from the point of her right breast to the long line of her thigh. The neckline parted to show him the graceful curve of the left breast as she stroked that glass stem with her slender fingers.
He turned away and took a bracing swallow of his own wine. Needles of sensation prickled along his back as Marcus passed him, sliding casual fingers along his spine, a little too close to his waist.
