Branded Sanctuary (33 page)

He seemed to be struggling with his own thoughts, so she decided to let him off the hook. For now. “Someone promised me lunch,” she said.

He nodded, kissed her palm, and then let her go. She stayed in that quiet space for a few minutes, enjoying the view as he reached over her legs to open the wine cooler. It shifted him to his knees, and she put her hand on his side, thinking of a horse, the living, fluid heat of muscle under the powerful beast‟s flesh, just like this one. She moved her hands down, one over the other, as if she was brushing him, until one palm rested on his hip. He glanced at her over his broad shoulder, his hair falling like a silky mane in truth.

“Those Mistresses. Have they ever spanked you?”

His brows lifted, a slight tug at the corner of his mouth as she cupped his buttock, followed the curve of it. His eyes darkened as her fingertips found the center seam and descended, her thumb caressing the curve of his testicles beneath denim.

“Yes, but not so much the „Mommy, I need a spanking because I‟ve been a bad boy‟

psychology. “ He lifted a shoulder. “That area has a lot of nerve endings, connected directly to the cock, and Mistresses like getting those worked up, connected directly to the cock. They like giving pain as well, and the ass is a good place for that, harder to do permanent injury but still possessing the necessary psychological impact, the connection of punishment with authority and safety. Love and dominance both.”

“Wow. That sounded so…teacher-like.” She imagined it, imagined them getting that response out of him. Their hands on his trembling body, taking him places that she couldn‟t. That she never would. Her fingers dug in. “When they spanked you, did they put you over their laps and paddle you like you were six? Is all of what you just said bullshit, and when it comes down to it, to the moment itself, you actually
are
looking for Mommy to punish you?”

“Would it bother you if I was?” When he gave her an even look, withdrawing the wine and sitting back on his heels, her hand slipped away, both dropping back into her lap.

“I‟m not sure why I asked it that way,” she said slowly. “Why I felt so angry, all of a sudden.”

“At me, or yourself?” He kept his face carefully blank as he poured.

“Both. And the whole world, for a second. I don‟t know what‟s the matter with me.

I mean, I don‟t judge people like that. It wouldn‟t matter to me if Gen liked to sleep in a cradle and suck her thumb, or Tyler liked to dress in women‟s clothes, as long as they were okay with it, and it didn‟t hurt anyone else.”

“You aren‟t contemplating making Gen yours,” he pointed out. “Judging is all right when it‟s for yourself, Chloe. Deciding what you want and best need for your own happiness. No shame in that.”

“But there is shame in making someone else feel bad about who and what they are, just because it might not mesh with who and what I am.” She closed her eyes at his look. “I‟m not saying you and I don‟t mesh…I just… Oh God, just shut me up.” He touched her nose, a whimsical gesture that brought her eyes back open. “I would be very disturbed to know Tyler dressed in women‟s clothes.” She caught the sadness at the back of his expression, though. Her heart hurt at his attempt to make her feel better. She wondered if he already knew it, that in the end they wouldn‟t suit. Had he come to that conclusion, decided he was willing to be her Mr.

Right Now, even if he couldn‟t be Mr. Right? That made her angry in a different way.

She reached out abruptly, gripped his hand. “You‟ll do what I…command you to do?”

He cocked his head. “Mostly, yes. If it‟s not a command that harms you.” She shook her head. “Don‟t let me hurt you, Brendan. Don‟t let me take weird, fucked-up potshots at you for reasons I can‟t understand, and just take it. Okay? Please, I‟m begging you. Don‟t let me do that to you.”

Touching her full bottom lip, he ran his thumb over the indentation of her chin.

“You‟ll never have to beg me for anything, Chloe.”

Turning away, he began to set up their lunch. Unsure what to say, she watched him open the deli wrappers, lay out her sandwich on a napkin, then unwrap the homemade brownie and pour her a glass of wine. Did he do it unconsciously, serving her like this, rather than handing her a sandwich to unwrap herself or fixing his own food at the same time?

Clearing her throat, she took up her sandwich. As she did, a pair of mated geese and their goslings moved along the water‟s edge, looking like a postcard.

“So back to this closet. I really want to know. Do you keep things there you take to the club?”

“Sometimes. My last relationship, we were roommates, and we used some of those things at home. A lot of what‟s in that closet is club wear, though, because Mistresses tend to like presentation.” He gave her a nudge, a half smile that she was sure was intended to make her feel a little better, rather than lower than a slug inching along the gravel. “You know how women are.”

“I expect a drama professor would be very comfortable dressing the part.” Despite her guilt, her mind quickly shifted to imagining a few things and wondering about her own private fashion show. But his comment gave her a distracting little pang. “So you said that relationship broke up a little over a year ago?”

“Yes. Shortly before Marguerite got married.”

“So I guess you were telling me the truth.” She slanted him a glance. “I‟m not a rebound.”

“You wouldn‟t have been that, even if you called right after the wedding. That relationship was over.”

“Did you love her?”

His expression shifted. “Him. I loved him at one time, but was never in love with him.”

“How do you know?” She was always interested in how people defined being in love. Though the path to it differed for everyone, she‟d noted that long term relationships seemed to have certain things in common, things she‟d always longed to experience. That commonality suggested there was a universal truth to love, an idea that seemed very reassuring, like proof of Divinity.

“Because this feels entirely different.” He gave her a briefly intense look that rocked her back on her heels, metaphorically speaking. She cleared her throat.

“I‟m not quite sure what to do with that yet, so I guess I‟ll steer us into safer waters.” She brightened abruptly. “Do they have boats here? Like canoes?” He nodded, looking bemused and amused at once. “After we eat, can we go out on one?” she continued. “It‟s like this dream I have. I want to lie on the boards and look up at the sky while you paddle.”

“All right.” Reaching out, he cupped the side of her neck, ran his thumb over her throat, the sensitive windpipe. The genuine smile forgave anything, gave her permission to release the memory of her ugly behavior as if it had never been. To do and be something entirely different.

Thinking about that, she decided she wasn‟t as hungry as she‟d thought. Not for food. Setting the rest of her sandwich down on the cooler, she shifted, aware of his attention as she eased herself down to her back. Dropping one arm over her head, she reached out to him with the other. “Come here, Beaver,” she said in a throaty voice.

“God, you are so good at being adorable and desirable at once,” he murmured.

Wanting to let the latter take precedence, she closed her hand over his shirt front and tugged, bringing him from his leaning position down toward her.

Responding to her desires, he moved his body over hers. Her small hands slid down his back, then lower, lower, until she rested on the rise of his ass, the line of his hip, and curled her fingers into his belt loops. He sucked in a breath as one bare foot slid up his calf, her thighs rising to cradle him.

“When you said I was confident, that night at the wedding,” she whispered, “why did you think that?”

“Because you were very independent, but not obnoxious about it.”

“Do feminist women annoy you?”

“No.” He gave a despairing half chuckle as she brought his pelvis closer to the juncture of her thighs, her softness against his hardness, even with the layers of denim and skirt between them. “I‟m grading papers in my head.” She rubbed herself against him, a slow circle. “Tell me what you think is obnoxious.”

“I get irritated with women who say they don‟t need a man to be happy.” She raised a brow. “Why is that?”

“Because it‟s bollocks. If you‟re a hetero woman, you need a man. If you‟re a hetero man, you need a woman. A homo man needs a man, and so forth. Everyone needs someone to love them, to stand at their back, be in their corner, inside their soul.

Someone who isn‟t required by blood ties or even the parameters of friendship.

Someone who looks at you, the good and the bad, and flat out can‟t help wanting to be with you. Very few people come into this world as whole pieces, or reach adulthood without some pieces broken off. We all need the other pieces of the puzzle to find happiness.”

This was like her dream too. Having him over her was like the sky passing above, the scenery changing like his emotions, but always constant, always there. She tightened her legs on him, ran her hand up his back. He‟d caught up with her change of mood, one hand sliding beneath her, thumb sliding along the line of her bare spine beneath her shirt, the other braced by her head. He held the pressure of his hardened cock against her in obedience to her will, but also to destroy it, she was sure.

“If you had a happiness book, Brendan, what would be in it? And no fair saying pictures of me to distract me.”

“It wouldn‟t be to distract you,” he said. She played her fingers through his hair, threading, stroking slowly, while his fingers curled in need, digging into her brown locks.

“It would be whatever reminded me of feelings like these. The shadow of a woman‟s smile…” His thumb followed her cheek. “It reminds me of that song from Camelot.”

He hummed it briefly, a hint of the melody in his voice as he spoke. “There was this brief, amazing moment, where everything was perfect. And they called it Camelot.” Then, switching to Shakespeare, he quoted, “„The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.‟”

“Romeo and Juliet,” she said softly. He was irresistible. She drew him down, touching his mouth with her own, that first sweet moment flavored with the chocolate she‟d eaten for lunch, and then it was all Brendan. A deep, abiding kiss. She‟d never thought what a sweet, wonderful word that was,
abiding.
So many meanings, all good.

She spoke against his lips after a long time, her body feeling heavy, like it was in water, tipped out of the canoe, turned by currents and tides, her will given up to nature‟s course.

“Turn over. I want you inside me, and I‟ll put my skirt over us, so that we won‟t scandalize anyone.”
Much.

She‟d never really thought seeing two people make love should be considered something shameful or dirty, or something that would traumatize young eyes. Indian parents used to do it in the same teepees, for heaven‟s sake. However, she didn‟t want to be interrupted by a forest ranger, so she was willing to be as discreet as possible, even given their location, screened by trees.

Moving his knee outside of her leg, he rolled them, with the sinuous grace and male strength she expected to see when she watched him swim.

“Do you swim with a league?” she asked, her voice low and throaty. “No, I want to do it all. Just keep your arms loose, out to the sides like that. To avoid suspicion from the prudishly repressed.” Her amused gaze lifted, became more serious. “And so I can control how I want this to go.”

“It‟s sort of like a league, yes. You can come…” His voice hitched as she spread the gypsy skirt over his chest and upper thighs, shifting over his groin. She hadn‟t worn panties, wanting the feel of air on herself after the constant pleasuring of the past twenty-four hours.

“I can come?” she prompted, with a wicked grin. “I thought that was up to me.”

“You can come swimming with me, if you want.” He drew in another unsteady breath as she reached beneath all that fabric and slipped the button of his jeans, taking the zipper down slow and careful. The front of his boxers were already damp from arousal.

“You can use your hands. Just to work them down.”

He did, managing it with her balanced on him, and then groaned when she shifted, rubbing her slickness along his now free cock, pressing it to his belly as she made it slick as well with slow, subtle movements. There was only forest behind them, so she opened her shirt, let him see the firm and bare curves of her breasts, since she‟d also left the bra behind today. The wind fluttered the shirt, giving him a brief glimpse of the full left curve, the jutting nipple.

“Chloe,” he murmured. “God, you‟re so beautiful.”

The look in his eyes, the way his hands tightened, not quite closing, as if he was imagining her breasts in their grasp, made such simple, non-poetic words ignite with a fire that increased her own desire. She continued that slow rub, and then, reaching beneath her, tipped his heavy weight up enough to fit herself onto him. Holding his gaze, she moved forward and then back, sliding down his length like hot fudge down the side of a sundae, too good to resist a bite and wanting more.

The birds continued chirping, calling back and forth. The afternoon sun diamond paned through the trees, jagged bits of gold reaching through to touch his face, bathe all those wonderful muscles, the lines of his body. He was like a living happiness book laid out before her, every page seen and unseen. She wanted to read every word, see every image. Touch every page of that book, front and back.

“I love your cock,” she breathed. “I love the way it feels inside me, how when I rise and fall on it, the ridge of your head stretches me, makes me feel hotter from the friction.” The fire in his gaze grew, but she wasn‟t finished.