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It had come out before she thought to check back the endearment, but at the heat that flared in his eyes, she moistened her lips, swallowed the emotions that rose up in her, and kept going. "Do you understand?" she asked, more softly. "I won't permit you to hurt yourself for me. I do not want that. Are we clear?"
It broke the moment a little bit, put them out of the game and back on equal footing, but that was what was needed. Acceptance came with it, proven in his sudden, easy smile, and the strength of his hands closing on her wrists.
"I'm where I want to be," he responded, rubbing his thumb over the tender skin covering her pulse. "And with the people I want to be with. "
Chapter 13
He included Marcus in his glance, eliciting a flicker of surprise in that one's expression. Josh's gaze came back to her face, and rested there for an intent moment.
Her senses dimmed, shutting out the sounds of surf, Marcus's presence, even the sunlight and white sand. There were just Josh's eyes, his sensuous, firm mouth, and the planes of his face.
"Your heart is in your eyes, did you know that?" he murmured, and somehow he had drawn close, so he spoke a breath away from her lips. "I'm not afraid of anything I see there, Lauren. "
Something loosened in her stomach and she relaxed. A sub had to be strong to be a healthy sub. There were aspects of Josh that were not healthy. She'd already seen some of the dark places, but he was in possession of the essence of himself, enough to make the conscious choice to trust her. That simple evidence swamped her, made her tremble deep in a place that a hundred vehement declarations of devotion wouldn't have been able to touch.
He brushed his nose along her cheek and then his face and his hands slid away. He rolled gracefully over her leg, giving her a brief touch of the cold wetness of his softened penis on her leg. She gave a short, surprised squeal, which he answered with a chuckle.
He sprawled lazily onto the towel. He was half covered with sand, like a young boy. He adjusted himself on his stomach and crossed his arms just beyond his head. The motion pulled the muscles up along his back, and he pillowed his cheek on his overlapping hands, his face towards her.
She had of course noticed, several times, that he had another tattoo on his back, but this was the first time she had taken the time to do a close study of it. Again, the artist had chosen a sword as the central part of the design, though this one was of a more dramatic size. This sword had been tattooed from the base of his neck to just above the cleft of his buttocks. The hilt was simple, the blade polished silver gray, but from hilt to tip the weapon was wrapped in a barbed vine. Here and there a rose bloomed, perfect in detail, but mostly there were thorns and barbs, stenciled as if pricking his skin in many places, with a tiny black drop of blood here and there. In one place, the drop had fallen upon one of the roses, spreading and staining the pure crimson petals. It was some of the best work she had ever seen, and yet it offended her. Someone had marked what she now thought of as hers, and there was inherent cruelty behind the choice of the artist, as if the intention was to make him feel the sharp dig of the thorns.
The choice of the artist. The impact of that hit Lauren, and she leaned over, trailed her fingers over it.
"Your wife was a marvelous tattoo artist," she observed.
Josh flinched as if, in truth, the tattoo caused him pain.
"I'm sorry," she said. He shook his head, but turned his face away. She could have pushed it, but he had given her enough for the moment, on several different levels. She lifted herself into the beach chair. The open sides of the chair were just above Josh's gaze, so that he could turn his eyes upward and see the curve of bare buttock and point of her left hip when he had a desire to do so.
Marcus knelt on his opposite side, and brushed the sand off of Josh with a towel. Then he poured the oill into his hands, rubbing his hands together to warm it. He glanced up at Lauren, gave her a half smile, reassuring but somber, and put himself to his pleasurable task.
Lauren sighed herself as Marcus's long-fingered, elegant hands began to spread the oill over Josh's back, polishing the lean, muscular physique of the naked man beneath his touch.
At the sound of her breath, Josh turned his face back to her, the pain again shuttered in his eyes. Liquid need uncoiled within her, and with studied casualness, her hand dipped. She traced the remains of the sand sculpture Josh had made on her, drawing his eyes there as she dipped her fingers into the small valleys where his fluids had collected, not quite dry, viscous satin to her touch.
He moistened his lips at her motions, and the need tightened, reminding her of how close she had come to orgasm just from watching him above her. However, as much fun as it was to hold his attention with her movements, it reminded her that she had some nurturing to do.
She stretched and pulled the duffel over to her. While Marcus continued his languorous massage, and Josh's eyelids drooped, she made up another small plate of smoked gouda cheese on cornbread crackers, and brought out a bottle of cold spring water, the outside of the bottle wet with ice and its own condensation.
"Something to drink or eat?" she asked her reposing charge. At his nod, she fed him from her hand, watching with a thickness in her throat as he took each small cube from her fingertips, his lips and tongue caressing her with each bite, his eyes never leaving her. She put the bottle of water to his lips often, to replenish his fluids and to be enthralled by the rise of his Adam's apple with each swallow. He lifted his hand to her wrist to steady her hold on the bottle, his eyes promising her. . . anything.
When he'd had enough, Lauren wiped the corners of his damp mouth with her knuckle. He caught it between his teeth and stroked it with his tongue a moment before releasing her. His gaze dropped as he did so, a flirtatious motion of deference that had the added perk of allowing him to slide his attention over her aching nipples, as hard as any coral forged by the ministrations of water and sun.
"Close your eyes," she commanded, and Josh obeyed, with a slight frown. She was pleased with his reluctance, but she wanted his body to relax, the muscles to go smooth and flowing under Marcus's touch. He needed rest, because she was far from done with him.
His initial tension about Marcus's touch seemed to have melted away. Lauren did not know if it was because her presence gave him the illusion of protection from unwanted advances, or because of the longstanding friendship between the men, and Marcus was behaving himself. Or maybe the environment they had been weaving since the onset of Marcus's card game had made nothing taboo or to be feared, simply experienced. Like being at an amusement park, they knew it was all there for pleasure and enjoyment, and therefore non-threatening, an escape from reality. The intrusion of reality too often could turn pleasure into something as warped as the reflection in a fun house mirror.
After a few more moments, she rose, leaving him under Marcus's capable hands as she strolled naked down to the water's edge. She lifted her arms to enjoy the feel of the warm sun and breeze move along her body.
The island did have magic. She felt decadent, sensual, a creature of sex rather than a woman with tedious emotional baggage. She again felt that sense of being a goddess, standing naked on a sun-drenched beach with a breeze caressing every crevice.
The first wave curled around her ankles, barely kissing her toes with foam before it rolled back, but by the time it returned she had moved up to her thighs into the cool water. She loosed her hair, shook it out so it tumbled down her back. Another step and she was able to lift her feet and roll to her back like a sinuous mermaid, passing her hands over herself to clean off the sand and the arousing evidence of Josh's desire. Her body quivered under her own touch, but she did nothing more than tease it.
She had held Marcus's hands, deferring her own climax. She was on that sharp, sparking edge of sexual arousal, where the body was so suffused with the weight of it that it could balance on the brink, hold to it without going over, as long as the host did not give in to gravity.
The rewards of not giving in grew proportionately with every moment of resistance. Nature taught a person every lesson they needed to know, and Lauren knew lava sealed in the earth grew hotter over time, until the eruption was capable of moving tectonic plates. As she rolled and stroked herself, dipped her head beneath the waves, she felt like molten fire being contained but not cooled by the grasp of the surf, a part of the changing earth herself. The temperature of her inner fires was rising with her play with Josh and Marcus, and she wondered if the eruption for which she was headed could consume the pain and mistakes, burn them away and leave dark, rich soil for new things to take root.
She came out
