Branded Sanctuary (15 page)

“Chloe, by inviting you here, he‟s inviting you into a part of himself that you will only find if you reach deep into
his
soul. Nothing at that level is rushed or forced. It simply is. And you know that I am here for anything you need.” Before her emotions could embarrass her, Chloe watched Marguerite sit back on her heels, change the subject. “You know, after today you‟re off work detail. You get to be a hundred percent guest.”

“Oh, but I can help—”

“No.” Marguerite shook her head, but her expression had eased, releasing Chloe as if she‟d loosened a tether. “Despite my willingness to exploit your labor to the nth degree, once the clock tolls midnight, you are a guest, entitled to immerse yourself in the experience. Tyler has hired more than enough people to handle things. Even he and I will only be overseeing the occasional detail once things start. This is the seventh one of these he‟s hosted, so the people who run it know what they‟re doing. We can all enjoy the experience.” Marguerite cocked her head, gave her a piercing look. “Do you miss Brendan?”

“Terribly,” Chloe said, without hesitation. He was uppermost in her thoughts.

Particularly that one night he‟d stayed with her, so close, his body warm and strong, folded around her. The way he smelled, the softness of his hair brushing her cheek when she‟d pressed her lips to his throat.

The first night she‟d been here, Marguerite had worked her so hard, she‟d fallen asleep sitting up on the couch after dinner. She‟d woken in a pair of strong arms, carrying her to her guestroom. Her mind had leaped to the conclusion she desired most.

“Brendan,” she mumbled.

“Tyler, sweetheart. But he‟ll be here soon.” She‟d been tucked into the bed, M‟s cool, gentle hands removing her skirt and shoes, covers drawn up. As they were leaving, she‟d felt the only stirring of fear she‟d had all day.

“Light. Please leave light on…in bathroom.”

That same female hand came back, smoothing her hair. Then Tyler‟s firm touch on her leg, his lips passing over her brow as well. “No harm will come to you here, little flower. But we‟ll leave it on for you.”

Tuning back in to the present, she wondered if Brendan had thought of her half as much as she had him. When she got her cell phone back, would she have a dozen missed calls from him? Or had he possessed the discipline she lacked?

Just hormones. Right. The
“God, I-want-to-fall-in-love-so-hard-with-him-I’ll-give-myself-a-permanent-concussion-and-never-wake-up-from-it”
kind of hormones.

As Marguerite said, she‟d always relied on Chloe‟s intuition. Intuition hadn‟t protected her from evil, but maybe she never should have expected it to do so. That wasn‟t the purpose of her particular super power.

Despite the wry smile the thought gave her, she couldn‟t dissipate the ache that never left her, which had nothing to do with Brendan. While Chloe refused to burden Marguerite, she did desperately want the answer to the question the woman was tragically capable of answering.

“M, how did you keep it from eating you alive? The fear, the… Is it a smokescreen?

When something really awful happens, and we build walls to hold it together, hold it back, but something knocks them down, shows you how pointless those walls are, what do you do?”

Marguerite had taken a reclined seat on the adjacent wide Adirondack lounger. Her hand still rested on Chloe‟s arm, and now her fingers curled around it. “Come here.” Nonplused, but compelled by that velvet voice, Chloe unfolded from her chair and shifted, letting Marguerite guide her down, so she was curled up against her.

Marguerite wrapped her arm around her back, pressing Chloe‟s head on her shoulder, tucked beneath M‟s chin and fall of moonlit hair. The lean strength of Marguerite‟s body had an unexpected softness to it, the pillow of her breast, the skin of her thigh underneath Chloe‟s as she crooked her legs over it. Marguerite stroked her hair.

“You learn to do without the walls, Chloe. The point isn‟t building them, but building a life that is so much of who you are, nothing can destroy it. If you‟re lucky, when you figure that out, you find—or discover you‟ve already found—a person who will help you keep the darkness at bay. Someone who gives you the strength to live as who you are, not a prisoner of your own mind.”

She‟d always wanted to touch Marguerite‟s hair the way she was doing now, her fingers running through the thick tail, letting the strands drift back down onto the incline of her right breast. Go from there to trace her fragile neck. Marguerite allowed it, because it was so obviously okay to do that here in this quiet place, the crickets humming, and M so lazy and relaxed. It wasn‟t as if she wanted to have sex with Marguerite, but just indulging the desire to touch someone she loved but didn‟t necessarily desire, with impunity, was bliss. Marguerite‟s hand continued to stroke her back slowly, down to her hip and then back up, to her nape, teasing the curls, then going back down again.

“This feels weird,” Chloe said quietly. “But a good weird. I like touching. More than most people do.”

“Well, you‟ll be in heaven for the next several days, because at this carnival, you‟re free to touch quite a few people.”

“Even that one?” Chloe grinned as her gaze was drawn to the stage going up further down the side lawn. The four men working on the placement of the support structure included Tyler. He‟d arrived to answer questions and ended up lending a hand. He‟d stripped off his T-shirt, like most of them in the Florida heat, and was helping raise a beam in nothing but a pair of jeans and a lot of gleaming muscle.

“Within reason,” Marguerite said dryly, but there was a tone in her voice that suggested she wasn‟t entirely uninterested in the sight.

“He‟s your knight, isn‟t he? The one who keeps the darkness at bay.” It didn‟t require the nod against her hair, but she liked feeling it.

The beam placed, Tyler‟s attention shifted, as Chloe knew it would. If Marguerite was ever in his proximity, he was always quick to find her. It made Chloe wonder if maybe Marguerite helped keep Tyler‟s nightmares at bay as well. Because she knew one thing for sure—everyone had them.

He strode across the lawn, relaxed and easy, a feast for feminine eyes with damp muscled flesh and well-fitted jeans. Yet he still managed to project the Southern gentleman even in the casual dress, amber eyes focused on them as he approached.

“You two make a provocative and lovely picture. Giving those boys all sorts of ideas.”

Chloe grinned. “Well, tell them to meet us all down at the hot tub, then.” Tyler smiled, slow and sexy, and her heart did a somersault, despite herself. Of course, she also noted that Marguerite‟s heart rate increased as well. Understandable, considering Tyler‟s gaze was fastened on his wife like he was going to take healthy bites out of every inch of her bare skin.

Since she had at least an ounce of brain left, Chloe noticed the way Tyler looked at M was not only possessive, but something else. Marguerite had explained they were both sexual Dominants, but Chloe hadn‟t really gotten far enough to think how that might work. But in this moment—intuition versus knowledge—she got the gist of it.

With each other, one was more dominant than the other. She knew exactly who that was when Tyler‟s gaze shifted to hers. Chloe read the intent—and the command—loud and clear.

It wasn‟t the first time she‟d cleared out for them. For the past few days, probably because of what kind of carnival this was, the sexual undercurrent between them had been about as “under” as an undertow, capable of dragging a whale from the shallows out to sea.

“I‟ll go help Marcia set up the game booths,” she said, every nerve ending coming alive under that gaze, making her want Brendan even more. Maybe she could bribe Marcia into letting her borrow her cell phone. “She said after lunch there‟d be a million stuffed bears to set out.”

“No,” Marguerite said, her arm tightening around Chloe‟s back. She held Tyler‟s gaze a moment, an unspoken communication. When he gave a slight nod, her lashes swept down, acknowledging his…permission. That was clear enough and amazing as well, but then Chloe‟s brain checked out as Tyler settled on M‟s side of the wide lounger. He removed Marguerite‟s sunglasses, tossing them beside her lemonade glass.

As her blue eyes sparked, he braced his arm on the far side of Chloe‟s hip, caging both women inside it as he leaned in and captured Marguerite‟s mouth in a kiss.

It wasn‟t a brush of lips. It was a hard, press-her-back-against-the-lounger, take-her-mouth-and-dive-in, unrestrained plundering. Chloe‟s breath shortened, her body yearned. She closed her hands into fists to restrain herself, because she hadn‟t been invited to participate and wouldn‟t even know where to start. She was here, though, her body pressed against Marguerite‟s, Tyler‟s braced forearm pressed intimately against her hip and buttock. Then he did something that astounded Chloe more. His hand curved under her hip, his fingers firm but gentle, and he pressed her in tighter against Marguerite‟s body. Marguerite‟s leg shifted, and whether intentional or good fortune, it pressed solidly between Chloe‟s thighs.

Chloe gasped, her hand automatically clutching onto the closest thing, which was Tyler‟s biceps. He continued kissing Marguerite, moving across her cheek, down to her throat, where he bit. She arched up at the strength of the bite, where Chloe could see teeth marking skin. Tyler squeezed Chloe with his other hand, moving her against Marguerite‟s leg. Oh Goddess, it felt good, and he began a massaging motion that kept her in a slow, subtle rhythm.

With the two of them drawing her in like this, she couldn‟t help but obey the motion. She was vibrating all over, just watching, working herself in involuntary, semi-restrained jerks against Marguerite‟s leg as Tyler multi-tasked with riveting efficiency, making sure Chloe kept building that fire in herself even as he moved to Marguerite‟s shoulder, teased at her bra strap beneath the blouse with his teeth. Then he lifted his head, his gaze fixed on Marguerite‟s face with fierce brilliance.

“Move it out of my way.”

Chloe‟s sex spasmed at the authority in his tone, irresistible. In response to his demand, Marguerite slid open a couple of buttons on her shirt and drew the fabric aside then released her front-closing bra. It slid back, giving Chloe a glimpse of the nearly exposed curve. Then Marguerite lifted her hand above her head, clasping the top slat of the lounge chair so there was no impediment to his access to her body, her face.

As he bent, Chloe watched his mouth seal over the already aroused nipple at close range. Taking it in, he began to suckle in a way that made her own breasts ache in envy.

Tyler‟s hand descended further, took a firm hold of Chloe‟s right buttock at the most sensitive part of the curve and squeezed. With the right pressure and manipulation of fingers, he had Chloe shamelessly working her clit against Marguerite‟s body.

Marguerite‟s hand slid up the back of her shirt, playing with her bra strap, and Chloe didn‟t know how they could even think, let alone coordinate all this. Her mind was just completely immersed in the close-up sensory input. After working out in the sun, Tyler‟s biceps were hard and slick under her hand.

The men working on the stage were just across the lawn, their view impeded only by some light vegetative screening around the patio. They could get a hint of what was going on, but not the full view. While he didn‟t mind sharing with Chloe, she doubted Tyler was amenable to exposing his wife‟s body and arousal to other men. Still, the possible voyeuristic glimpse, with Tyler protective and in control, was enough to stir Chloe further.

Amid her haze of desire, she also realized she didn‟t fear him. There wasn‟t that hesitation, that self-sabotage that had occurred with Brendan, perhaps because she wasn‟t the focus, the bull‟s eye center of the target. She was only a passerby, a witness so close she was drawn in, in an entirely non-threatening way.

Tyler‟s other hand had coiled on Marguerite‟s clipped-back tail of hair, wrapping it to hold her head at the angle he desired, keeping it back as he sucked her. Chloe‟s hand slid down his arm and back up, digging into his shoulder. The slow rock of her body against Marguerite‟s leg kept her arousal in a lazy, sweet spiral that mercifully kept her thoughts at bay. Tyler‟s pace on Marguerite‟s breast had likewise slowed, and Chloe found it explosive to watch the way he licked and nibbled, sweet and easy, nuzzling her at his own pace. Obviously showing it was his pleasure he was indulging, to tease and taste his wife‟s nipple as long as he wished, no matter how much she might shudder or plead beneath him.

But Marguerite was still, as if she understood what he required. However, her stillness wasn‟t dispassionate. Chloe felt the heat coming off her skin now, the little involuntary jerks the intense arousal made it impossible to suppress, reflecting the tremendous effort it took to remain motionless under stimulation. If Marguerite‟s desire was as great as Chloe‟s, it had to be building to a combustible level.

She was amazed she was doing this, but she supposed she shouldn‟t be. Being around Brendan had left her hormones in chaos, and setting up for a fetish carnival was all about sensual delight. It was more than enough to keep her in a stir. Sexual arousal had the same effect as alcohol, lowering inhibition, making unwise decisions seem completely okay. This wasn‟t unwise; she trusted Marguerite and Tyler more than she probably trusted anyone, but it was certainly unsettling to find herself swept up in their erotic wake.