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The earth was shaking, not her. She tried to clear her hazy mind and realized that Lisette's house was rumbling on its foundations in sporadic bursts. Each tremor was preceded by a thud that sounded as if it were directly beneath them.
Passion cleared from Josh's eyes and he swore, amusing her by giving her a hard squeeze on the ass and an apologetic, desperate look before he rolled away. He snatched up his jeans and leaped out of the room, not a bad view all the way around. Lauren turned over, snagged her robe and followed him, more slowly, since the room was still tilting in a pleasant way. She was pleased to discover she could walk better this morning, though her slight limp and wobbling progress were no match for Josh's athletic strides.
The orchestrator of the morning's events, in an indirect way, was standing out on the deck, staring down.
Lauren approached the living area just as Josh stepped out of the open sliding glass door, zipping up his jeans and buttoning them.
"She won't listen to me," Marcus informed him.
Marcus's gaze passed to Lauren as she came out. "You've got healthy lungs," he commented.
"Leave her be," Josh said, leaning over the rail. "Isabel? I'm right here. Look. . . look up - Isabel!"
Lauren blinked as an earsplitting trumpet sound vibrated along the boards beneath her feet. It sounded like an elephant. It couldn't be an elephant. She approached the edge of the deck. Marcus smiled at her, easing her discomfiture, and curled an arm about her waist to draw her forward.
She blinked. She was looking down at an elephant. A small, white elephant, but most definitely an elephant.
The elephant's crinkled dark eyes shifted to her and the creature made a curious crooning noise.
Apparently she was much happier now that she could see Josh. With some alarm, Lauren realized the earthquake had been caused by his devotee pushing her head and considerable weight against the pilings of the house.
The bright sun and the reminder that he had other responsibilities, albeit in a form she would not have expected, returned her to reality. She needed to push off the effects of the mind-boggling orgasm and not make too much of it. She wouldn't push him. It had been a night of fun, was all, and now they all had things to do. His words this morning about continuing the game were probably just a case of male morning horniness.
"So," she propped her elbows on the wood and ignored the peculiar sinking feeling the idea gave her,
"Are white elephants native to this island?"
Josh chuckled. "Here," he said, "You shouldn't be standing. "
Lauren caught hold of his shoulders as he lifted her up to sit her on the wide railing. He kept his hand braced against her back, his fingers splayed over the curve of her hip, an automatic gesture to keep her safe that made her stomach flutter in emotional reaction. So much for casual. His posture put his body close to hers, so close she could still smell the scent of herself on his mouth.
"Isabel was in a movie," Josh said, looking down at the elephant, now stripping a six-foot sapling of leaves. "They injected dye into her skin to turn her white. "
"I remember that movie," Lauren recalled. "That fantasy thing, like a Conan type. . . what was the name of it?"
Josh shrugged. "I don't see many movies. Regardless, when the movie was over, they didn't need her anymore. " A shadow crossed his face. "The dye poisoned her blood. "
Lauren, dismayed, looked back down at the elephant. Even while eating, Isabel kept one eye on Josh.
The eye, clear and bright, nevertheless possessed that ancient look of wisdom and mystery that pachyderms have, a reminder of their existence on the planet significantly earlier than humans.
"They think she has a couple years before organs start shutting down and she'll be in pain. They were going to go ahead and put her down. I was in a position to take her, and so I brought her here, on a barge. "
He shrugged. "She likes to know where I am. I forgot to tell her I wouldn't be in the usual places. Of course," he smiled at Lauren in an open, affectionate way that erased some of her tensions, "I didn't know I was going to end up staying here at the command of a beautiful woman. "
Lauren looked over the edge, pleased to feel his grip on her tighten. "Seems to me," she observed, "That you're at the command of two women. And one of us just decided Lisette's banana plants are fair game. "
"Hey!" Josh called out sharply. "Isabel, no! Ah. . . son of a - " with another apologetic look, he scooped Lauren off her seat on the rail and set her down on the bench in a move so effortless it caught her breath.
He took the rail himself, swung out to the tree she had used for her descent the day before, and shimmied down the trunk.
Marcus chuckled and set down his coffee cup. "So, beautiful lady, what's your pleasure today? We can leave you to your own devices, to hobble around the house as best you may, or we can take you on our adventures. "
The idea of being stranded in Lisette's house held little appeal. Lauren overlooked the fact that she had intended to do just that, nurse her hurts and wallow in dejected solitude for the weekend. Of course, she had put a more positive spin on it than that when she got in the boat yesterday.
Still, she hesitated to answer. Where did the events of the past half hour leave them? Did they just shrug it off, resume their separate schedules, or was there something happening other than a night of sex games?
Stop being a moron. She had never been a woman to doubt her own appeal to the opposite sex. She knew when attraction was there and when it wasn't. A D/s relationship did not evolve this quickly unless strong desire was driving it. She put a hand on her fluttering stomach. Strong might be an understatement for what she was feeling for Josh. She was shielding herself precisely because she sensed there was far more than the physical involved. She was being a coward.
