Branded Sanctuary (14 page)

“You come first.” He shook his head, lifting her hand to his mouth, but she drew it away, giving him a sharper look.

“What do you want?”

That demand seemed to shock him, like a curious moment of
déjà vu,
but when he locked with her gaze, the singular intensity pulled at her and unsettled her at once. “I want you to come to the carnival.”

Squaring his shoulders, he added, “I‟d like you to see this side of me, Chloe, but I‟m also kind of afraid. Afraid you‟ll be repulsed, or worse, that you‟ll put some polite smile on and say, „that‟s nice‟, and I‟ll never hear from you again. But I guess that‟s a risk I have to take. After all, you can‟t very well prove you‟re falling in love with someone if you don‟t offer up your whole self to them, right?”

She stared at him, and it was his turn to look startled with his own words. “I‟m sorry, that was entirely unfair. I‟m not saying that to make you feel—”

“Stop,” she said softly. He stilled as she stood. Gazing up into his face, she reached up to touch his hair, fluttering across his brow. When he lifted his hand, she shook her head. “Please…don‟t touch me right now.”

His hand dropped, and he swallowed. She caught the essence of something, a glimmer of understanding, intertwining with her own confused reaction to the moment.

“Brendan, I wish I didn‟t know how damn honest you are. Then I could pretend that you said that because you‟re afraid I won‟t hang out with you anymore, ride the amusement park ride until it‟s done. But I know you are that honest. Just as I know, crazy as it sounds, that I want to hear those words, even if they make me a lot more afraid than they would have before you asked me to the carnival.” At his puzzled look, she bit her lip. “I‟m scared I‟ll react exactly as you said. Find out more and realize I can‟t accept a vital part of who you are. That I‟ll paste on a forced smile, because I won‟t want to hurt you, while my heart will be breaking because I really wanted to give us a go. I‟ve dated a lot, had a lot of fun, even had my heart broken once or twice, but in hindsight, they were markers in life, you know? Those things you expect to experience, to learn about who you are and what you want. This is more, what‟s between us, and that means it‟s going to hurt a lot more if that happens.” He nodded, a quick jerk. “I know. I‟m sorry, Chloe. If you don‟t want to go, though, you don‟t have to. You don‟t have to be in that part of my life to have me in yours. I promise.”

Of course I do, silly man.
Her knuckles stroked down his sculpted jaw, her thumb passing over his lips. The quivering restraint in them, his desire to tease her flesh, made her tremble as well. “So I guess I‟ll be packing up some clothes in a few days and going to Marguerite‟s for the weekend.”

She was glad to see a wary pleasure enter his gaze, though a regret as well. “Then I have to leave you here,” he said. “One of Marguerite‟s conditions for you attending is that I can‟t see you until this weekend. She thought it best if you had some time to think about it, be sure. She said if you were worried about staying at your place in the interim, you could stay here, in her upstairs bedroom, or at their Tampa house.” Chloe wondered what all had been in that conversation, because she saw some tension remained in his shoulders. It suggested all the things this meant, things she knew she didn‟t truly understand. It brought some of her own worries to the surface.

“Brendan, you said I‟d really be M‟s guest, not yours. And that you‟ll be there as…what you said.” For some reason, it felt odd to say it, though she could tell her inability to do so closed him off a little to her. Not in an obvious way, for he still stood near her, head attentively cocked, but something shut within him so she wouldn‟t have to look in there, be forced to walk into that room, as he‟d said.

If she did that often enough, she‟d have to be the one to turn the latch, open the room again. No matter what her own conceptions were of what he‟d just called himself, she realized there were more layers and complexity to it than the stereotypes or websites could address. Strangely, that reassured her. It meant that there were no hard definitions. Like love.

“Does that mean other women can…will…”

Though he‟d respected her desire not to be touched right now, the way they stood so close put their hands so near touching that when he shifted, their fingers brushed.

Curling her pinky over two of his large fingers made a tight smile cross his handsome face. His eyes roved over her features, following the curling strands of hair moved by the breeze across her cheek, to her lips.

“That will be up to you, Chloe.”

“This is just amazing.” Chloe sat back in the lawn chair, her tired muscles protesting. “It‟s like watching an adult Disneyland being built in a week.” She tried to curl her legs up underneath her, her favorite sitting pose, and managed it with a little groan. “Okay, I‟m no longer worried you were coddling me when you made me come here early to help with this instead of Tea Leaves. Are you sure you weren‟t a slave overseer in a former life? Or worse, a personal trainer? I think that‟s what slave overseers become in this life. Physical trainers, math teachers… Of course, I guess from what I‟ve been learning over the past few days, you‟re kind of one in this life. Though I get that submission isn‟t forced, that it isn‟t slavery, even though some like to be called slaves. I—Argh.” Chloe gave Marguerite a narrow look. “You‟re doing that thing you do, where you don‟t say anything and I babble along like a brook on whitewater steroids.”

“It‟s because I like hearing you talk. You don‟t filter, Chloe. It comes straight from your mind and heart to your mouth. If we‟re sticking to water analogies, straight from a spring‟s source, before anything can contaminate it along the way.”

“Like bear or moose droppings,” Chloe said brightly.

“Then again, some filtering can be wise.” Amusement wreathed Marguerite‟s typically somber features.

Manual labor aside, Chloe was sure Marguerite had also invited her to keep her from going bonkers this week. No visits from Brendan, right after they‟d discovered that new flush of desire, lust, laughter. To reinforce Chloe‟s barely there resolve, Marguerite had taken away her cell in one of those only-M-could-get-away-with-it moves. Told her it would build the anticipation for when she‟d see him again. Chloe had wondered why they both accepted Marguerite‟s edict about no contact without question, but she knew in a way Marguerite was right. She needed to think about this.

Maybe Brendan did too. That is, whether he really wanted to show her this side of himself. Some moments she felt overcome with what it might all mean, images crowding in her head. Her body ached with those images, unsure how to react. Other times, she couldn‟t bear to think about it, how it might end something between them before it even began.

One thing was for certain, though. Whether it was the enforced absence from one another right after she‟d rediscovered her libido, or the fact they‟d spent the last three days doing all sorts of set up work on a carnival that was going to be all about sensual pleasures, she was nearly feverish with unmitigated desire. Remarkably, she hadn‟t pleasured herself in Marguerite‟s guestroom
because
she wanted Brendan so badly. She wondered if he was the same, or—an even more tormenting image—was he in his bed at night, in that state of glorious nakedness, working himself furiously into his hand.

Thinking of spilling himself in her cunt, her mouth…

“M, does Brendan like me? I mean, do you think he‟s seen enough of me, to know that‟s who he likes?”
Or is he one of those who gets off on the damsel in distress?
She couldn‟t bring herself to ask that, was somewhat embarrassed she‟d asked what she had, so abruptly.

Marguerite crossed her ankles, her legs bare to mid thigh from a pair of belted tailored shorts. She wore a neat cotton blouse tucked into it, showing a tempting and classy line of cleavage. Her long hair was in a tail, tumbling over her right breast. She smelled good. Maybe because of her heightened sense of the erotic, Chloe could well imagine how a man might beg to have some part of that. She felt an odd desire to touch and stroke Marguerite herself. “Yes. Whoever you need to be, at any point, that‟s who Brendan will want. It‟s the type of person he is.”

“Hmm.” Chloe drew a steadying breath, looked away. “You have a Ferris wheel on your lawn. A freaking Ferris wheel. I can‟t believe it.”

“We mix the traditional trappings with the untraditional. We want to keep the sense of play, childish adventure, mixed with the more adult versions of it.”

“A carnival‟s perfect for that.” Chloe watched workmen hang a sign over one tent.

The Marvelous Freak Show. Unlike a fair or festival, a carnival was a blend of light and dark. The macabre with the fantasy. “I remember going to one by myself when I was younger, about sixteen. There was so much light, but it was like the bug light that draws you in before you see the shadows. There were rides and games, but the carnies, they had these intent eyes, and this right-out-front sexuality, like you‟d imagine gypsies would have. A fringe society living by a different set of rules.” She tuned in to find Marguerite regarding her intently. “Yes. It‟s a good description.”

“Brendan is part of this world. He‟s one of the gypsies. You haven‟t answered many of my questions, you know,” Chloe added. “At least not with a lot of detail.”

“You‟ve already done a lot of looking yourself, on the internet.” Marguerite also wore a pair of dark glasses that, with her folded hands and straight carriage, gave the sense that she was a statue. The only thing that disrupted the illusion was the wind, rippling the Gulf waters behind her and playing in the pale strands of her hair.

“But you haven‟t really encouraged me to do that, either. In fact, last night, you made yourself scarce while I was web surfing.”

“This is a very hard world to truly understand, Chloe, unless you already feel it in some part of you. Even those who do often have trouble explaining why it draws them.”

Chloe curled her hand over her bare toes. Her sneakers overlapped on the grass below her chair. “That kind of feels like an ultimatum, M. Like if I‟m not…one of you, then he and I have no chance.”

Why that should ruffle her feathers, when she‟d nursed the same fear at Brendan‟s invitation, she didn‟t know, but it got her back up. It was uncomfortable to feel defensive, almost…competitive…with Marguerite, so she was relieved when M didn‟t seem to take offense. Instead, she pushed a plate of sugar cookies, sitting on the table between them, closer to Chloe‟s side.

“Every submissive is different, Chloe. Most of what comes up on the internet about BDSM looks the same. Violent, kinky, garish. But in actuality, every submissive is different. Imagining that every male submissive is a bedwetter who wants to crawl around and suck on mommy‟s toes is erroneous, not to mention judgmental. Just as boiling down what each of them needs to a tall woman in leather beating their asses with a paddle is too simplistic.”

Chloe couldn‟t imagine Brendan in either of those scenarios, but she kept thinking about that first night, the things he‟d said.
Is that a command?
The way he‟d framed what he wanted in terms of her needs, not his own.

She frowned, picked up a cookie and turned it over in her hand, smelling the tempting aroma of the baked sweet as Marguerite continued. “I haven‟t said too much, Chloe, because it‟s up to you to find out what Brendan is. You‟ve always been a creature of exceptional intuition, and it‟s my belief that when we let our fears drop away, truths are much clearer. In time, I will answer any question you ask, but I think the best way to understand is to simply experience these three days, not based on what you‟ve seen on a website, but on what those finely tuned senses of yours feel.” Reaching over, Marguerite touched the cookie, then ran a fingertip down the side of Chloe‟s hand, spreading grains of sugar there. It gave Chloe a not-unpleasant shiver.

“We place a great deal of emphasis on knowledge, understanding, comprehension,” Marguerite continued. “But in a truly tolerant world, things don‟t always need to make sense to us to be accepted, or to become a vital part of our lives.”

“Like the biblical fruit, the knowledge of good and evil. Kind of screwed ourselves there.”

“Yes. Because understanding good and evil is intuitive, not scientific. We both know that.” Marguerite‟s look arrowed directly into Chloe‟s soul. Toward a room she was determined to keep locked. Even if she ultimately couldn‟t, the last person she‟d burden with what was in that room would be Marguerite.

Chloe cleared her throat. “I guess my break is over. I need to go get—”

“Stop.” The firm command stopped her in mid-sentence as those blue eyes became cooler, more intent. Irrefutable. “Chloe, I will never, ever make you tell me something you don‟t want to say. So the discomfort you are feeling comes from the fear of what you know you need to say, and the fact you‟re not sure you‟re ready for the consequences of it. But know this.”

Marguerite rose, came to her and settled on her heels next to the low chair, surprising Chloe as her long, cool fingers settled on Chloe‟s folded knees. “Those shadows at the carnival. If you get lost in them, or feel you need to walk away from the light into them, you will not be alone there. Whenever, whatever you eventually must face, we will be there. And I suspect Brendan will as well, no matter where or how fast you take your relationship with him.”

Chloe shook her head. “I don‟t want to make you part of that. Or him.” Marguerite reached up and cupped the side of her face, her thumb moving over Chloe‟s lips in a way that felt…Well, Chloe couldn‟t exactly describe it. Since Marguerite had invited her into this world, she‟d seen glimpses of the Mistress she now understood Marguerite was. It wasn‟t like Marguerite was putting the moves on her or anything, but there was a definite sexual, authoritative undercurrent in Marguerite‟s touch and in the way she held Chloe with her gaze. Chloe felt most comfortable capitulating, staying still and quiet under that touch, not thinking, merely accepting that it felt good to be touched, that she felt sensual awareness of the pad of Marguerite‟s thumb tracing her lips in that stroke. It was okay.