“Do you promise to play nice?”

“Tyler, there’s nothing here I can’t handle.” Marguerite interjected it before she could respond. She locked gazes with Violet in direct challenge. Violet dipped her head, a grudging smile tugging at her lips.

Tyler at length nodded, passed a caressing knuckle over Marguerite’s cheek. He did in fact circle to the other side of the pool, but once he was there, he apparently decided he preferred a more active use of his time than Violet had suggested. Stripping off his shirts and slacks, he revealed that he wore a pair of thin swimming shorts underneath them. The movements of his body lithe and male, he dove cleanly in the pool to begin a series of laps.

Violet cleared her throat. Marguerite pulled her gaze back to her, saw a flash of humor in the woman’s eyes. “Men shouldn’t be that beautiful, should they?” She tilted her head toward her husband, not looking directly at him, but from the gleam in the Caribbean blue eyes, Marguerite was certain Violet had perfected the art of perusing him at her leisure while driving him mad with the feigned indifference. An indifference she was sure Mac knew was illusion, driving up the sexual tension between them. His attention was riveted on her every movement. Even as his head rested back on the lounger, his fingers gripped the straps holding him with tension. Marguerite noted his cock was rising again, noted that Violet had not completely cleaned him. Apparently she preferred to leave the stain of his semen dampening the trimmed thatch of dark pubic hair beneath the stiffening shaft, the thin point of dark hair running down his hard lower abdomen.

She was right. Men should not be that beautiful. Marguerite forced herself not to look back at the pool, at the sight of Tyler completing a turn, his lean body swift and powerful, the water gleaming on the length of his arms and breadth of shoulders as he stroked across it. She took a seat in a chair, crossed one leg over the other, folded her hands in her lap as if she were in her tearoom. “We have our privacy. Cut to the chase, Mistress Violet. Say what you’ve been wanting to say since the night at The Zone.” Violet sized her up with that measuring gaze, a cop’s eyes. “All right then, I will.

You know how his wife died.”

With those few words, she’d effectively narrowed the room to just the two of them.

Violet kept her voice low, obviously not intending Tyler to catch a snippet of the conversation, which Marguerite was certain would have ended it abruptly.

“I do. She should have been there for him, as much as he was there for her.” Violet inclined her head. “Amen to that. I know it, you know it, but guys like Tyler and Mac, they don’t believe in therapy sessions and psychoses. They come from this medieval age bullshit that says if they aren’t a hundred percent together for their women, they aren’t men. So if I hadn’t known him as well as I do, I’d have said he went to Europe to prove something, not because he loved her and truly wanted her back. But he did love her.”

She paused. “He was going to surprise her. He bought a ticket to her performance, but was too late to get the good seat he wanted. He hoped to let her see him, let her know he was there.”

Marguerite’s hands tightened together as she realized what she was hearing was firsthand, what Violet had learned from Tyler himself and now interpreted with the love and outrage of a close friend. She leaned forward so Violet would not have to raise her voice further, wanting to hear all of it.

“He bought her flowers, planned to go to her hotel that night. He walked in about ten minutes after they found her. That, like nothing else, nearly killed him.” Violet’s eyes were vibrant. “Because he genuinely believes if she had seen him there that night, known he was there, she wouldn’t have done it. And the bitch of it is, he’s probably right. She couldn’t handle being without him, but she also couldn’t handle being with him when he had to break down and be fucking human.”

“And you think I’m like her?”

“No.” Violet surprised her with the immediate answer. “You’re like Tyler.

Whatever happened to you, you pulled it together on your own, kept on going. That’s a point in your favor and why I’m telling you this. When he came back from Europe, he stopped writing, producing, stopped going to The Zone. Got drunk a lot. I was the officer who arrested him after he went looking for a bar fight and fortunately was too blind drunk to kill anyone.” A grim smile touched her lips. “It’s funny how friendships get started. But then he pulled it together one more time. I don’t know how often a person can do that before he’s got nothing left.”

You’d be surprised, Marguerite thought.

“He loves you, Marguerite. With all of him. It’s so plain that it hurts me to see it, to worry that it might not be enough for you, because he has so much to give.” Marguerite held Violet’s penetrating gaze. “I never wanted to hurt him. I’ve tried to say no in every way I could.”

“He doesn’t know the word no.” Violet sighed, considered Marguerite. “You’re not who I would have chosen for him.”

“I know that. I wouldn’t have chosen myself for him, either. I know a relationship with me is likely to bring any man irreparable harm.” She turned toward the teapot, intending to use the ritual she knew to cover the misery that Violet’s words provoked in her own heart, disquieting her mind. It made the jewels chafe, made her feel suddenly like she was playing dress up in someone else’s clothes.

Violet’s hand touched hers. “You love him, too.”

Marguerite raised her lashes to find the woman looking at her, not with distrust and dislike as she expected, but compassion. Even kindness. She tried to find an answer, failed. The emotions filled her chest, making it hard to breathe.

Violet blew out a breath. “Don’t answer such an obvious question. Despite the worries of my husband and Tyler, I do know when to stop being a hard-assed bitch.” Her gaze shifted to her husband who was watching them closely, as if he knew what being discussed. This time she met his gaze directly, let him know she was looking at him. Marguerite saw something soft come into those vivid blue eyes. “There’s nothing irreparable when it comes to love. If you want him, you love him and he loves you, you don’t have any choice. You fix it, you figure it out or it kills you.” She shot Marguerite a sideways glance. “And here comes our very tasty table.” Violet withdrew her hand as Roland returned to them. Marguerite had to recover quickly from the flood of reaction that the sincerity in Violet’s eyes had caused in her.

As she bade Roland return to his position as their table, she had no idea where Violet would go from this point, only that she was intrigued to find out. And Violet did not disappoint her.

“Let’s get down to the really important things. How do you get your hair to stay that smooth and silky in Florida’s humidity?”

Tyler pulled himself from the water, toweled off and took a seat in the chair where he’d left his clothes. Though he couldn’t hear what they were saying except for the occasional word out of context, he’d followed the gradual transfer from serious discussion to girl chatter. It intrigued him to watch Marguerite ease her toe into that end of the pool, the way her eyes widened in surprise when Violet gestured her forward so she could fix a section of the jeweled top that had gotten twisted. Then she touched a lock of Marguerite’s hair, let it flow through her fingers as she obviously complimented it.

He also watched with amusement, sympathy and admiration as the women managed to integrate their idle chatter with highly effective torture of poor Roland.

Violet moved to the chair opposite Marguerite. With a quiet command, Marguerite bade Roland prop his chin on that chair, putting his nose and mouth no more than an inch or so from Violet’s pussy, readily outlined and visible in her Brazilian bikini bottoms. Marguerite idly played with the plug, caressing Roland with her fingertips as they discussed things any women might discuss over tea. Though they took pains to appear indifferent to the two men they were teasing, Marguerite knew both of them were aware of every shift from Mac, every rasping breath from Roland. And she was hyperaware of Tyler, of his regard. Of the desire she could feel emanating from him.

With occasional sweeps of her lashes, the posture of her body, the upward curve of her breasts with the pink nipples framed by the jewelry, she conveyed the body language of a woman who was stimulated though she was not being physically touched in any way. And through all of those things, she wanted to let him know it was his regard that was causing it.

Marguerite had played so little with others, staying one-on-one for so long, she was amazed at how enjoyable this was, the many different dynamics to arouse them all. So her next question surprised herself as much as her tea companion.

“May I touch your piercing?”

At Violet’s smile and nod, Marguerite reached forward to touch the woman’s recent navel adornment. Conveniently, she had to lean forward so her knee insinuated itself between Roland’s thighs, pressing on his testicles. She brushed her fingertips over the tiny pair of handcuffs dangling from Violet’s navel, taunting Roland as much as the position taunted her husband, who looked as if he was going to erupt from the lounge chair any second.

“It hurt like hell for the first few moments,” Violet offered. “But it’s worth it. God, all Mac has to do is touch it and I practically go off. It doesn’t make sense, really, because my navel wasn’t the least bit sensitive before then. Leila says it does the same thing to the clit and nipples. This is good. What did you say it was?”

“Ti Kwan Yin, tea of the iron goddess of mercy.”

Violet’s eyes gleamed, appreciating the subtlety, and shifted her legs, producing a frustrated noise from Roland.

Marguerite noted that her sub kept swallowing, suggesting that he was having a difficult time keeping the saliva from pooling in his mouth, but she knew he would not disobey either Mistress, even to steal a single kiss against Violet’s skin. Not only because he would risk punishment from one of them, but he might lose a limb to the territorial ire of a husband who outweighed him by fifty pounds at least.