Branded Sanctuary (43 page)

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Chloe could tell there were things he wanted to say to her. Marguerite had said things would boil up once the wound was lanced, but she wanted to make it even easier for him, break him open so it would all come out at once. When he rose, his height shadowed her such that she trembled with the desire to move into that shelter, hold him to her. She could do that if she wanted to. She could be and do anything here with him, because he wanted her. Everything she was.

In some ways, he‟d been telling her the truth all along, though it hadn‟t hit the target dead on, as she‟d sensed. He did want to please her, make her happy, do as she desired, because that was what you did when you wanted, needed and loved someone with all your heart. It amazed her that it had been so difficult for both of them to say and acknowledge such a gift, embrace it with everything they were from the very first moment. However, the one thing she‟d always known about humans—they weren‟t always very sensible.

Or predictable. Because, though she wanted the comfort of his embrace, she wanted something more right now. She wanted to test something in herself, see if she could navigate that roller coaster of angry, lustful emotions she‟d felt at the carnival.

He moved past her, his eyes on her face, but had to break the contact to go to the wall. She enjoyed the view, the graceful power of his male body. She‟d had him refasten the snug trousers and dwelled on the way his ass shifted, the flex of muscle in his back and broad shoulders. All hers, every fine inch of him. When he reached the wall, she spoke again.

“Put your hands on the wall, just above your head, out to either side.” He did, and she glanced to the corner. In another cluster of artfully placed shadows, a variety of tools appropriate to the environment had been hung on a brick façade. She moved to it, conscious that his head had turned, tracking her movements, and probably indulging in an eyeful of her walk in those heeled boots, the sway of her hips. She could feel the dampness of her thighs from his mouth and the arousal that had trickled down, tickled by the strips of the skirt. Her shoulders were bare and pale in the dim light. Her curls were pinned up, exposing her neck and the silk cord of the pendant.

Conscious of his regard, she knew he would be anticipating her turn back toward him in the corset, pulled open to show her breasts fully, but still supported so they thrust out provocatively. She could torment him by making him close his eyes, but she wanted to feel the heat of that gaze on her. Revel in the clean, healthy desire of it.

She passed her fingers over a riding crop, a flail and what appeared to be an electric cattle prod. A coiled whip, paddles, switches. She‟d read enough to know which ones to leave alone, knowing they required skills she didn‟t have to use safely. Perhaps leaving them here anyway had been a test of Marguerite‟s, or proof to boost her self confidence, showing how much she‟d progressed in just these three weeks from her unreasoning anger.

She paused over an item she didn‟t know. A teardrop-shaped hoop, slightly larger than her hand, attached to a handle. The hoop appeared to be made of some kind of semi-firm rubber. She picked it up, liking the weight and that it wasn‟t much longer than her arm from elbow to fingertip.

She came back to him. The minute she turned, he‟d returned his attention to the wall as if he hadn‟t been staring at her, though she could tell he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. Suppressing a smile, she came up behind him and used the top edge of the thing to trace the line of his spine, from nape to the waistband of his trousers.

“What is this?”

He cleared his throat. “It‟s a branding hoop. It leaves temporary marks.”

“Mmm.” Reaching forward with her free hand, she tugged the shirt that was mostly off anyway out of the pants, dropped it to the side. “Undo the top buttons of the trousers again. I want them low enough that I can see all of your back.” So she could see that brand, now that she knew who‟d done it, why it was there.

She needed to see it, see how it made her feel.

He‟d hesitated at that, but then he lowered his left arm, moved the hand in front of him and obeyed. The fabric tightened over his buttocks briefly, even more than it was already, then he tugged and the trousers dropped several inches, sliding away from the
fleur de lis
, and coming to rest just past the rise of his ass.

When she traced the brand with her fingertips, he trembled. “How does this make you feel?” she murmured.

“Good.” He rested his forehead against the wall, both sets of fingers back above him, curling inward in response to the sensation. “It feels…like you‟re taking ownership of it.”

Almost exactly an echo of what she‟d felt the first day she‟d seen it, not knowing then even what it was.

“I am,” she said. His fingers tightened further, his body rippling with a wave of emotion she could feel. It was overpowering to know they were both feeling something so strongly, even barely touching. He awaited her pleasure, and she could take as long as she wanted to absorb the emotion, savor it. She didn‟t need to give him anything else until she was ready.

“All right,” she said at last. “You should have told me about the brand from the beginning, shouldn‟t you have?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” she echoed, affirming it. “You should have told me that you wanted me.”

“Yes.”

“You shouldn‟t have come, because you promised me you wouldn‟t, not until I said those two words.”

“No.” As he pressed his forehead to the wall, she saw the fierce desire gripping his expression, making her even more needy for him.

She took a step back, gauging where she‟d need to be. “Does this hurt a lot?”

“It can, depending on how much strength you use.”

Level Ten pain threshold.
She remembered that from his program entry, the night of the auction. But still… “Is there any way I can hurt you incorrectly with it?”

“It‟s a good idea, with any tool, to stay above the kidneys.” Reaching back, he showed her where with a fingertip pressed above that area on his back. Then he returned his palm to the wall. “Best also to stop before you draw blood, though this will only do that if you keep hitting the welts it creates, over and over. The Zone doesn‟t allow bloodletting without special permission.”

“All right, then. Three strikes. Unless I like it and decide to do more.” He pressed his forehead to the wall again, nodding, and she saw that delicious tremor run through his body. She didn‟t have to understand why he craved it to be aroused by his response, and that too, was a new and exciting revelation. He‟d told her that by giving her pleasure, it would give him pleasure. She hadn‟t considered how much the reverse could hold true.

Moving away from him, she did a couple practice swings against the lamp, watching how much the rubber gave. The lamp vibrated with the impact when she put a little more strength against it. Nodding to herself, she came back to him.

“I‟m not sure the lamp post did anything to deserve that, the way I have.” She suppressed a smile, and trailed the hoop down his back again, teasing it over the brand. “Keep it up, and I‟ll make it much worse.”

“Keeping it up isn‟t a problem. Not watching you walk with your breasts out like that, and glimpses of your pussy through the strips of the skirt. I want to put my mouth on the boots, bite through it to your ankle. Work my way up to the top, and slide my tongue around the edge, behind your knees. Kiss your beautiful, perfect ass. God, please do it, Chloe. You‟re making me crazy.”

The plea and demand made her put aside rational thought and go for intuition. She swung. The rubber hit with a sharp slap noise in the middle of his back. She‟d put some strength behind it, and a curved crescent appeared on his flesh, pain and pleasure both shuddering through him. She did it again, harder, just below it, earning a muffled grunt, his shoulders bunching. Once more made a triangular trinity of intersected crescent marks, radiating heat and pain. She did it twice more, high and low, then once more, in the center, over the original three. The power of his stillness, of his submitting to her torment, of his hunger to serve her, washed over her like a drug. Goddess, she‟d had a taste of this the night of the carnival, but this was so, so different.

Because this was about their pleasure, not just her dark cravings. She was soaking wet, and it was as much from his response as her own. He stayed against the wall, his hands flat, but the sense of restrained power there was pure lust, waiting to be unleashed at her command.

Even so, as she watched the welts rise on his skin, she felt sympathetic pangs in her own flesh. Setting the hoop aside, she moved in, and placed her palms over them. Heat, as she‟d sensed, and he drew in a breath at the abrasion of that mere light touch.

Reaching around to slide her fingertips down his abdomen, she arrowed into the open trousers to find his cock hardening again. It jumped spasmodically against her touch.

Leaning in, she pressed her lips to the first welt. Then the second. Kissed every one of them, again and again, as his trembling increased beneath the kneading, slow rhythm of her touch on his cock, her caresses to his back with her moist lips.

“I‟m sorry, Brendan.”

“For what?” he rasped.

“For not liking to hurt you.”

“I‟m going to turn around now. I want to hold you. Is that okay?”

“It‟s way more than okay.”

He turned then, a blink of time, and had his arms around her, holding her close.

They leaned against the wall, her palms folded over his back, keeping the rough texture of the wall from scraping those welts. “Please say those two words,” he murmured against her hair. “I‟m going to go crazy if you don‟t.”

She closed her eyes, drew a breath and tipped her head back, because she wanted those forest-like eyes so close, his mouth so touchable she had to trace it with her fingertips.

“You‟re mine, Brendan,” she said. “Fully, in every way. Whatever you need or want, it‟s here. We‟ll figure it out. I believe that, down to my Passionate Pink painted toenails.”

His smile blinded her, or maybe it was the easy tears that spilled from her eyes at his reaction, so heartfelt and giving. He kissed every one. When she put her fingers on his mouth, they passed the next few moments in a silent game of him nipping and nuzzling at her fingers, catching and holding one then letting it go, until they were both smiling.

“You‟re gentle, Chloe,” he said at last. “I love that about you. I love everything about you.” Taking a breath, telling her that he was working at what she‟d started, he spoke. “I‟ve been with Mistresses who shared me, and I had no claim or demand on who they had in their life, but that was part of who we were to one another. If I thought you were the type of person…maybe I could give you that, but I don‟t think you are. I know you aren‟t,” he added hastily, at the warning glint in her eye.

With the raw emotion she heard enter his voice, he captured her heart even more.

“I‟ve never wanted something as much as I want you, Chloe. I‟ve never had someone I wasn‟t prepared to let go. Someone I wanted to keep, more than anything else. I was fine with that, until I met you that night at the wedding. I wanted to call you a hundred times, but I didn‟t, because I told myself it had to be about what you wanted, not what I wanted.”

“Idiot,” she decided. “We could have been fucking like minks months ago.” He choked on a laugh. “I‟m sorry for that, but also because, by doing that, I made you go through it alone all those months. I could have helped.” She shook her head. “I think things happen at certain times, for certain reasons. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, but it doesn‟t make me wish any less that I could have been there for you.”

“Except for a couple times at the carnival, and even then it felt…sort of wrong, you haven‟t called me Mistress.”

“Nor have you demanded it.” He cocked his head, seeming to consider what he was going to say next, how she would take it. She tightened her grip on him, drawing his attention.

“Tell me anything, Brendan. Don‟t hold back.”

He nodded. “Marguerite…she‟s my Mistress. Clear cut. What you and I are is less definable to me. Meeting you…it opened a room I‟d kept closed, for a very long time. In fact, I‟m not sure I‟ve ever opened it. What I want isn‟t exactly different, but the form is.

You‟re who and what I want, in all ways. If I‟m being fair, I‟d have to say you‟re both to thank for that.”

Moving her hands down to the brand, she touched it, watched his eyes darken, felt the combined weight of two women‟s hold on him, and didn‟t feel threatened by it anymore. “I agree,” she said softly.

He tilted her chin up, and now his mouth was so close it made her dizzy. “The night I called you Beloved, that seemed to come closest to it, you know?” She nodded, too full of happiness to speak. Just as he‟d opened himself up to her to embrace the possible treasure of love between them, this past month she‟d been doing the same, rediscovering the treasure of herself, something she would never take for granted again. Brendan was the best possible reward for it.

She cupped her hand around his neck, guided him in backward steps toward that pallet again, and when she leaned back against his arms, he understood, taking them down until he was laying full on top of her, and the tears and joy and desire were all there. She pushed at the skirt, and he helped, closing his hands gently on hers to take them out of his way, telling her he would take care of her.

His cock slid in, long and deep, coming to rest in a well of her soul that embraced him with every emotion spinning there. She closed her legs over his back, her heels on his buttocks, feeling the loosened trousers beneath them.