Holding The Cards

He included Marcus in his glance, eliciting a flicker of surprise in that one's expression. Josh's gaze came back to her face, and rested there for an intent moment.

Her senses dimmed, shutting out the sounds of surf, Marcus's presence, even the sunlight and white sand. There were just Josh's eyes, his sensuous, firm mouth, and the planes of his face.

"Your heart is in your eyes, did you know that?" he murmured, and somehow he had drawn close, so he spoke a breath away from her lips. "I'm not afraid of anything I see there, Lauren."

Something loosened in her stomach and she relaxed. A sub had to be strong to be a healthy sub. There were aspects of Josh that were not healthy. She'd already seen some of the dark places, but he was in possession of the essence of himself, enough to make the conscious choice to trust her. That simple evidence swamped her, made her tremble deep in a place that a hundred vehement declarations of devotion wouldn't have been able to touch.

He brushed his nose along her cheek and then his face and his hands slid away. He rolled gracefully over her leg, giving her a brief touch of the cold wetness of his softened penis on her leg. She gave a short, surprised squeal, which he answered with a chuckle.

He sprawled lazily onto the towel. He was half covered with sand, like a young boy. He adjusted himself on his stomach and crossed his arms just beyond his head. The motion pulled the muscles up along his back, and he pillowed his cheek on his overlapping hands, his face towards her.

She had of course noticed, several times, that he had another tattoo on his back, but this was the first time she had taken the time to do a close study of it. Again, the artist had chosen a sword as the central part of the design, though this one was of a more dramatic size. This sword had been tattooed from the base of his neck to just above the cleft of his buttocks. The hilt was simple, the blade polished silver gray, but from hilt to tip the weapon was wrapped in a barbed vine. Here and there a rose bloomed, perfect in detail, but mostly there were thorns and barbs, stenciled as if pricking his skin in many places, with a tiny black drop of blood here and there. In one place, the drop had fallen upon one of the roses, spreading and staining the pure crimson petals. It was some of the best work she had ever seen, and yet it offended her. Someone had marked what she now thought of as hers, and there was inherent cruelty behind the choice of the artist, as if the intention was to make him feel the sharp dig of the thorns.

The choice of the artist. The impact of that hit Lauren, and she leaned over, trailed her fingers over it.

"Your wife was a marvelous tattoo artist," she observed.

Josh flinched as if, in truth, the tattoo caused him pain.

"I'm sorry," she said. He shook his head, but turned his face away. She could have pushed it, but he had given her enough for the moment, on several different levels. She lifted herself into the beach chair. The open sides of the chair were just above Josh's gaze, so that he could turn his eyes upward and see the curve of bare buttock and point of her left hip when he had a desire to do so.

Marcus knelt on his opposite side, and brushed the sand off of Josh with a towel. Then he poured the oill into his hands, rubbing his hands together to warm it. He glanced up at Lauren, gave her a half smile, reassuring but somber, and put himself to his pleasurable task.

Lauren sighed herself as Marcus's long-fingered, elegant hands began to spread the oill over Josh's back, polishing the lean, muscular physique of the naked man beneath his touch.

At the sound of her breath, Josh turned his face back to her, the pain again shuttered in his eyes. Liquid need uncoiled within her, and with studied casualness, her hand dipped. She traced the remains of the sand sculpture Josh had made on her, drawing his eyes there as she dipped her fingers into the small valleys where his fluids had collected, not quite dry, viscous satin to her touch.

He moistened his lips at her motions, and the need tightened, reminding her of how close she had come to orgasm just from watching him above her. However, as much fun as it was to hold his attention with her movements, it reminded her that she had some nurturing to do.

She stretched and pulled the duffel over to her. While Marcus continued his languorous massage, and Josh's eyelids drooped, she made up another small plate of smoked gouda cheese on cornbread crackers, and brought out a bottle of cold spring water, the outside of the bottle wet with ice and its own condensation.

"Something to drink or eat?" she asked her reposing charge. At his nod, she fed him from her hand, watching with a thickness in her throat as he took each small cube from her fingertips, his lips and tongue caressing her with each bite, his eyes never leaving her. She put the bottle of water to his lips often, to replenish his fluids and to be enthralled by the rise of his Adam's apple with each swallow. He lifted his hand to her wrist to steady her hold on the bottle, his eyes promising her...anything.

When he'd had enough, Lauren wiped the corners of his damp mouth with her knuckle. He caught it between his teeth and stroked it with his tongue a moment before releasing her. His gaze dropped as he did so, a flirtatious motion of deference that had the added perk of allowing him to slide his attention over her aching nipples, as hard as any coral forged by the ministrations of water and sun.

"Close your eyes," she commanded, and Josh obeyed, with a slight frown. She was pleased with his reluctance, but she wanted his body to relax, the muscles to go smooth and flowing under Marcus's touch. He needed rest, because she was far from done with him.

His initial tension about Marcus's touch seemed to have melted away. Lauren did not know if it was because her presence gave him the illusion of protection from unwanted advances, or because of the longstanding friendship between the men, and Marcus was behaving himself. Or maybe the environment they had been weaving since the onset of Marcus's card game had made nothing taboo or to be feared, simply experienced. Like being at an amusement park, they knew it was all there for pleasure and enjoyment, and therefore non-threatening, an escape from reality. The intrusion of reality too often could turn pleasure into something as warped as the reflection in a fun house mirror.

After a few more moments, she rose, leaving him under Marcus's capable hands as she strolled naked down to the water's edge. She lifted her arms to enjoy the feel of the warm sun and breeze move along her body.

The island did have magic. She felt decadent, sensual, a creature of sex rather than a woman with tedious emotional baggage. She again felt that sense of being a goddess, standing naked on a sun-drenched beach with a breeze caressing every crevice.

The first wave curled around her ankles, barely kissing her toes with foam before it rolled back, but by the time it returned she had moved up to her thighs into the cool water. She loosed her hair, shook it out so it tumbled down her back. Another step and she was able to lift her feet and roll to her back like a sinuous mermaid, passing her hands over herself to clean off the sand and the arousing evidence of Josh's desire. Her body quivered under her own touch, but she did nothing more than tease it.

She had held Marcus's hands, deferring her own climax. She was on that sharp, sparking edge of sexual arousal, where the body was so suffused with the weight of it that it could balance on the brink, hold to it without going over, as long as the host did not give in to gravity.

The rewards of not giving in grew proportionately with every moment of resistance. Nature taught a person every lesson they needed to know, and Lauren knew lava sealed in the earth grew hotter over time, until the eruption was capable of moving tectonic plates. As she rolled and stroked herself, dipped her head beneath the waves, she felt like molten fire being contained but not cooled by the grasp of the surf, a part of the changing earth herself. The temperature of her inner fires was rising with her play with Josh and Marcus, and she wondered if the eruption for which she was headed could consume the pain and mistakes, burn them away and leave dark, rich soil for new things to take root.

She came out of the waves; her hands raised to twist her hair back up onto her head. Marcus watched her approach, the languorous movement of her bare hips, the water rolling off her breasts, small drops poised on her nipples and thighs, sliding down her neck to pool in her collar bone. She was fully into it now, he could tell by the sinuous way she moved, sure of her power. Though his affections were reserved for men, he had a special appreciation for women Doms. The good ones were in touch with themselves, with the Divine Female within, so to speak, and it showed in their movements and words, the calm coolness of their eyes. She reflected those traits in every aspect of her being at this moment. It was a breathtaking sight, and gay or straight, one had to revere it. Whatever she had lost, she was getting it back.

Josh watched her as well, lips compressing over an audible swallow. Marcus suppressed a smile. "You might close your eyes, mate," he murmured. "She did tell you to shut them."

"It's worth the risk," the man under his hands said, and Marcus could only agree.

Lauren retrieved her swimsuit bottom and stepped into it, shrugging it back up over her close shaved pussy and sliding her fingers along the elastic leg seams to position the garment over the curves of her buttocks, thrusting her breasts out with the movement. She saw Josh looking at her beneath his lashes and let him get away with it. She enjoyed the idea that he would be getting hard for her again, his cock painfully stiff between his stomach and the sand beneath him.

She also liked the way a man's hands looked against another man's skin. Marcus's strong fingers stroked and kneaded their way over broad, glistening shoulders, caressing Josh's hairline. With a sidelong glance at her, Marcus worked his massage down Josh's back, the knuckles turning to knead the dip in the spine, the point of the sword, then his palms smoothed down the tight buttocks.

Marcus traced the inside curve of one muscular cheek with a fingertip, grazing the fine hair there with a nail. Josh's thighs tensed, creating an attractive rigidity to the territory above them.

She studied his face. His expression was intent, aroused, and disturbed. There was a plea in his eyes as he looked at her, but now she knew that he knew he could stop it at any time.

Lauren could see those changes happening in his face. When she had told him about butterflies, and let him say what he wanted, his response - the sexy smile, the reassuring strength of his hands - those things said he was making his own choices. And that was important. The sub had to make the choice to give up choice, and keep reinforcing that for the game to work.

The fact that he wanted her to play Mistress, wanted to leave the decision up to her, meant he didn't dislike how it felt. He just was uncertain. He needed her validation.

She responded to his pleading look with an indifferent, I-want-you-suffering look. She retrieved her bikini top and re-hooked the lower strap around her back. She raised the bra and wiggled her still-wet breasts into it, tying the strings around the neck and then made further adjustments to the fabric, shaping them around her breasts, sliding her hand in to lift them into the correct position for the shelf bra style.

"So, Josh," she gazed down at him, her voice falling like silk, "who is making your cock hard again? Me, or Marcus?" She squatted by his head, making sure her thighs were spread so he could see the way the crotch of the suit barely covered what it was intended to cover. Lauren cupped his chin, caressing the jaw line.

"Who's making it come to attention again? Mommy or Daddy? Don't you dare lie," she said sharply, as his eyes flicked away, color staining his cheeks. "I know the truth, but I want to hear it from your lips."

"Lauren - "

"Mistress," she corrected, tightening her grip so her nails dug in. "Tell me."

"Both," he mumbled, trying to pull his face away.

She clucked at him, jerked his chin back to her, and enjoyed the flash of temper in his eyes. "I didn't hear you."

"I said...both."

"Good boy. Such a good boy deserves a reward."

Josh made a sound, part protest, part involuntary sound of pleasure, and Lauren shifted her gaze to Marcus. He was running an oiled index finger slowly up and down the cleft between Josh's buttocks, his thumb stroking circles at the base of Josh's heavy testicles, revealed by the spread of his thighs.

"Mistress," Josh swallowed, "I can't - "

"I know," she said, her tone softening. "But he'll just touch you. Just touch you. Nothing goes inside. And if it makes you hard for me again, I like that. See?" She slid her grip to his hair, pressed his face closer, brought her crotch up to his nose. "Smell how much you please me."

She felt the stir of air as he inhaled, and his tongue flicked out to swipe his lips, less than an inch from touching her. Her body moistened instantly, and she had to stifle her own moan. Damn, but this could be tough. Marcus looked at her with amused eyes, but she saw he was suffering in the same delightful way she was.

"See how much we desire you?" she murmured. "How much you are adored, cherished?" She bent, pressed her lips to his forehead, just a light brush. He nuzzled his nose against her cheek. The tears that pricked her eyes at the easy, intimate gesture were unexpected. Lauren cupped his jaw, held him to her a second more in a moment more tender than sexual, then slid away from him abruptly, back into her chair.

She stretched out her legs before him, and lay her hand on the point of his shoulder as Marcus continued his ministrations. Now that he had sharpened the blade of arousal with anxiety, Marcus eased off the more intimate contact, returning to a general massage of the back and buttocks, thighs and shoulders.

She was sure the continuous touch, the even, slow circles, would keep his subject stirred. The lull of it would bring Josh's thoughts back to those more intimate touches and the unsettling effect they had on his body.

For she had no doubt Josh had been aroused. Lauren suspected men sometimes longed for a non-feminine strength in a sexual touch, a matching of body power fraught with delightful possibilities.

"I'm not gay," Josh muttered suddenly, shifting under her hand. He looked back at Marcus, challenge in his gray eyes.

"Of course you're not, silly boy," Marcus chuckled. He caressed Josh's jaw with light fingers, his face reflecting his pleasure when Josh did not pull away. "No more than two college girls exploring one another under their nightshirts, trying their first taste of what lies between their thighs. The body has no sexual preference. Our hearts choose who we love; only our minds try to give it a classification. But when we strap our minds down and give control to another," his fingertips slid down Josh's ribs, lingering at the top of a bare hip, "our bodies have free and delightful rein to experience, enjoy, endure. The sensations take over... anticipation, nervousness. What will this feel like? Taste like?"

His voice was soothing, melodious. Lauren was as enthralled as Josh, watching the movement of Marcus's hands, but they stilled at that moment, so that Josh's pensive glance flicked back up to Marcus's face. "I've been your friend a long time, Josh," Marcus said quietly, his eyes serious. "I know what you are, and what you're not. Trust me...trust Lauren, and be still." He shifted his gaze to Lauren. "I believe you indicated you were going to give our boy here a reward for good behavior."

She started out of the reverie his words and movements had woven over both of them. Marcus grinned, though he dropped his attention to Josh and got his hands working on his charge again.

There were grades of Masters, she realized. The most common were probably those like herself, who sought physical and emotional fulfillment. Then there were those like Marcus, who had taken it to an art form, as a man who appreciated art certainly would, honed the game to a level of craftsmanship spellbinding to watch.

She took a moment to enjoy the way he looked, his expression absorbed in the beauty of Josh's body, his hands glistening with the sandalwood oil. Idly she wondered how Marcus would look, slicked down in it, polished like a gem, the same way he had rubbed Josh, and the image was a pleasant one.

There were a million facets of this diamond to explore and cause to sparkle. However, at the moment it was the banked fire in Josh's dark eyes she wanted to bring back to full flame.

"So I did," she smiled. "I'm letting Josh choose. What would you like as a reward?" she asked, tilting her head toward him.

Josh reached out a long, brown arm and laid his palm over her bare foot.

"I want to know about the man who hurt you."

Oh, he was clever. And if it was just cleverness, she could have been angry. But those gray eyes, soft now like a dove's breast, filled with gentle curiosity, were not hiding his feelings. He was interested in her, wanted to know what was going on in her heart. It was something she found she could not deny him.

Hell. She suspected she might be unable to say no to anything he asked of her. The ironic double-edged sword of vulnerability in the Dom and sub relationship, where a Mistress might do all manner of cruel things to bring her submissive, and herself, to greater heights of pleasure, but in matters of the heart she was as open as he was, perhaps more.

She wanted to close up. She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell herself it wasn't a problem, that she was on an island in the middle of Paradise, and she would walk away in two days and never see him again.

"His name was Jonathan." It was funny, how little she had said his name aloud since he had left her. It got clogged a bit in her throat, so she had to clear it, and it came out sounding garbled, but she didn't repeat it. Her fingers had tightened on the arms of the chair, but she didn't realize it until Josh's fingertip whispered over her big toe, and she loosened her grip on the grooved plastic.

"I like control, but I'm healthy with it. Control is just a dance; you can lead the dance, but your partner has to know how to match your steps, know when to go left when you go right. A lot of it is imagination, wishful thinking. You only hold power as long as those you hold it over want you to have it."

It helped to work from the general to the specific, like the absurd practice of dipping one callused toe in the water before plunging all the far more sensitive extremities into it. There was a reason that the crotch was the hardest part to submerge without shrieking.

She kept her eyes on the horizon and thought, as she often had, that subs were braver than Doms, ultimately. They obeyed when the Mistress demanded they meet her eyes while they answered a difficult question. She could not have looked at Josh now without the aid of a stereotaxic device.

"Sometimes, someone can be sneaky, exercise power over you in a way you don't notice until you're too deep in a pit to get out. The worst ones can put you there and you think you don't want out, even though you're abandoning everything you value about yourself." She shook her head. "Maybe I should stop."

Josh trickled warm sand from his cupped hand into the spaces between her toes. It made her toes wiggle, dislodge the sand. He repeated the action. It had a comfortable rhythm to it. "I want to hear your story," he said.

Lauren felt his attention centered on her every word, every movement, the working of her throat. Most men didn't look at a woman that closely. Most didn't want to hear anything about a woman's past lovers.

To a man, it infringed on his sense of possession, whereas for a woman, it was a way of revealing what she wanted and needed in a lover. She wanted to tell herself that Josh and she really hadn't had time to develop a sense of possessiveness, but she saw the tattoo on his back again, and felt the rise of white anger again at the woman who had inflicted it upon him. She watched the sand roll over the arch of her foot, his fingers hovering just above it. She was lying to herself, protecting herself.

He was a different type of man. For him, intimate knowledge of her past might be a type of possession.

It was something Jonathan had never wanted from her, but she had desperately wanted to give him. Josh wanted it, was asking for it.

"I met Jonathan in my favorite club, of course. I played with him. Nothing serious, just safe play. The D/s form of first date. But he was different. He had these brown eyes, these lips... ah, dammit," she closed her eyes, fought the moisture back. "My soul opened up to him like a flower to sun the moment, the second , I saw him, breathed him, touched him."

Neither man said anything, and Lauren sat in darkness a few moments, just feeling Josh's touch on her foot, hearing Marcus shift to her other side. She inhaled the comfortable normalcy of tanning oill and the sea and tried to get it to banish the dark shadows that had risen out of her heart the moment she gave voice to the name of her demon.

At length, she made herself open her eyes, watch the horizon again. "I should have known he was an obsession more than anything else, because I felt so damn drawn to him from the beginning. Why would I feel that way about him if he was the wrong person?"

She pushed down the sudden ice of fear in her throat. It was impossible to ignore the similarities in the picture she was painting with what was happening between her and Josh.

She swallowed the shards of glass. "I ignored all the danger signs. He didn't want to meet outside the club, not even for a cup of coffee. I thought he was just being cautious.

"Over time, even when I finally coaxed him into living with me, it should have told me he was only interested in the physical. Especially since that only lasted about a month, and he moved back out. He didn't want anything between us but the game. But he had such a way of making me feel like the center of the universe when I was playing Mistress to him. It's hard to explain, even to myself," she admitted. "I wanted him to fall in love with me as I had fallen in love with him. I assumed it was just something I would have to work harder at to make happen. At my home, he would play, but he gave me nothing more than that. After sex, he was always retreating to the study to work, or having to go out without me. We spent weekends in the dungeons. I devised so many ways to break him down, make him open to me. I'm a good Mistress," a smile touched her eyes as she curled her toe around one of Josh's fingers. "I believe a person plays a submissive because there's something inside they want you to break open." She noted the finger tensed a bit under her grasp. "I did break him open. I thought I opened up every room inside him, made him vulnerable in a hundred different ways. I stroked all those vulnerabilities, collected them to me and cherished them as gifts, the way a Mistress should, and gave him the best of myself."

She raised her arms, caught hold of the back of the chair, bent her elbows and stretched the muscles, tightening her fingers until the knuckles whitened.

"I wanted him more than air," she said, low, her throat choked with it. "Doesn't that sound like a pathetic cliche? All I wanted was to look in his eyes and see that connection I was sure was going to eventually be there. I can't explain now how I got so desperate. I had a full and happy life, career, family. All I lacked was a Mr. Forever, but that wasn't something I was obsessed with having. But I had weak points.

A Mistress ultimately has to be as vulnerable to the sub as they are to her, and the sub who knows how can push the right buttons, make the Mistress the slave of her own vulnerabilities. And Jonathan did.

Everything I wanted deep in my heart he dangled in front of me, just enough to make me keep grabbing at it. I neglected my work, my life. Every day came to be about getting to the club that night.

"I was going to make him love me," she said softly. "And the D/s game became the chess board, the strategy to make it happen. The more I craved his love, a sincere gesture of intimacy, the more he withheld it. I had never been aware of being lonely, and suddenly I was. I felt inadequate. My self-esteem plummeted and I didn't even notice. It's funny, how someone you love can break you down, take away your identity and recreate you, before you even realize that's what they're doing."

A sun-browned hand covered her left knee and she made herself look at Josh. It took such effort that her eyes felt glassy. He squeezed her, his thumb stroking the protrusion of bone, and his eyes were tranquil gray pools, strong and understanding. She had a sudden urge to crawl into his lap.

"I should say you don't have to go on, but I really want to know."

She tried for a smile, failed, managed a grimace. "You have this image of yourself," she murmured, shifting her gaze to her knees, "as someone competent and smart, someone somebody would like, not because of what you would do for them, but because of who you are. Then you let someone inside, they get your number. They can tear it all down."

Josh understood all too well what she was saying. She could see it in the shadows in his eyes, the flicker of comprehension.

"What happened to end it?" Marcus asked. Lauren tilted her head to look at him. He had drawn close to her chair, so Josh and he were coiled around her like two wolves protecting a member of the pack, their affection and anger for her palpable. She should have felt surprise, but sex, or sexual situations, did tend to create the impression of intimacy quickly, though it was often built on no more than the lust of the moment.

No. She wouldn't let Jonathan make her timid. This was more than that. The bond that had developed between the three of them in less than thirty-six hours defied description, even with the facilitation of their island paradise setting.

"A mirror." She moistened her lips. "One night, as I was getting ready to go meet Jonathan, I realized I couldn't meet my own gaze in the mirror. I had become ashamed of myself, so much that I couldn't face who I was. So I did the hardest thing in my life, because I knew how it would end. I went to the club that night, and told him I loved him, and I wanted more."

In her mind, she was back there, and the pain gripped her, such that she could not speak for several moments. She was vaguely aware of the two men exchanging a concerned glance, some slight movements of their hands upon her, comfort or encouragement, it did not matter.

"He put on this amazed expression," she said, her tone flat as stagnant water. "But there was this little smile around his lips. And I knew." Her voice shook and she clenched her jaw, forcing it to stop. "I knew. He had been playing me from the beginning. True subs don't do that. The whole point is trust.

Even if there isn't the intimacy of lovers, there should be the respect of friends. He had used me, twisted me up, and then when I broke, he dumped me. That's what got his rocks off. He had loved having me as a Mistress, but he didn't want Lauren, the woman. He never had. He was a sick, sociopathic son of a bitch and I had been totally gone over him."

Josh rose up on one elbow. With a gentle thumb, he pressed the tear from the corner of her eye, the rest of his hand cradling her face. She shut her eyes, leaned into his touch a moment, let his palm shut out the light so she could focus on the tranquil darkness.

"I stayed away from the club for months after that, but Maria said he never came back after that night.

She heard he had gotten some Mistress over at another competing club tied up over him."

She backed away from Josh's touch and he let her, dropping his hand back to her foot.

"I almost went vanilla. I ran from the truth. I wrote off the whole D/s set-up as destructive. Kinky games had destroyed our relationship, destroyed me. But if your blood runs with it, it's hard to shake." A painful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I got over that. As time passed, I realized it wasn't any different than a failed vanilla relationship. He's the guy who says he'll call and doesn't, the girl who says she loves a guy until she finds out he's borrowed the company BMW rather than owning it himself. Some people just fuck with your heads. Jonathan did that to me. It pissed me off, on about ten different levels, because he destroyed my confidence.

"I cried when I saw you with Thomas," she shifted her attention to Marcus. "Because I realized what the difference was between the two of you, and me and Jonathan. You and Thomas cherished each other.

You could feel it. You, as his Master, adored him, were enthralled by him as much as he was by you.

That's why I had kept hanging in there so long with Jonathan. Like anyone else, I wanted to believe I had found that love to last a lifetime and dammit, I thought endurance would manufacture it. But I learned the most important rule of D/s play; if there isn't already a spark of it between you in the mundane world, it ain't going to happen in a dungeon."

She turned her eyes back to Josh, whose hand was now curled around the arch of her foot. "You remember that kiss, last night?" she asked. It flashed through his eyes, and she nodded. "That's what that was all about."

He leaned forward, and touched his lips to her foot, gently, with an overwhelming reverence. Lauren made a soft sound in her throat, a sound of pain and longing at once. He lifted his gaze, looking at her with warm sympathy in his eyes and something else, something that fanned the spark within her into a shower, like firecrackers going off.

"I would have torn his fucking arms off for you," he said calmly.

It pulled at something low in her gut, something primal and right, and made her reach out and touch his face.

"So," she cleared her throat, tossed her head back, and risked a smile. "This is the moment when Obiwan is supposed to rivet us with some words of wisdom."

Marcus chuckled, though his eyes carried some of Josh's heat. "Relationship games always carry a risk,"

he managed lightly. "D/s can be dangerous, because it explores the most primitive sides of ourselves.

Those involved must have a high degree of trust and a very, very healthy devotion to one another. Like religion, it can be a spiritually enlightening experience, or it can be an expression of psychosis. And somewhere in between, it can be tremendously fun." Gathering his composure around him, he lifted his shoulder in a shrug. "Like chocolate."

Lauren looked at him blankly. "I was following until that moment, Obi."

Marcus glanced up as clouds darkened the sun. Lauren could have lifted her sunglasses, but her eyes still felt too vulnerable and open.

"Imagine how it feels to eat one piece of Belgian chocolate," Marcus suggested, moving to pack up the contents of their basket. "You inhale it, savor it on your tongue. The flavor of it is something that you can choose to let linger in your mouth, building your body's reaction to it, for once you swallow it, it's gone.

The pleasure is not in the consumption, but in the sensory experience. To bring it to its fulfilling conclusion, you will eventually swallow it, but the longer you draw it out...ah, the more satisfying that swallow is." He grinned at her expression and pulled a small tin from the cooler. "Bon bon?"

Lauren shook her head at his wicked ways, her mood lightening, and took one. "Okay, is this metaphor going somewhere?"

"Always," Josh predicted.

Marcus shot him a reproachful glance. "Now say you eat another. And another. Somehow, you still want them, you're still cherishing that experience, but the more you stuff in your mouth, the more elusive that sensation gets. But you eat them even faster, without really noticing how they taste anymore. And then, you're sick.

"This is the first piece," he leaned over to Josh, ran a fingertip down the man's throat and along the collarbone.

A flush rose in Josh's face as he made a visible effort to keep himself still. Lauren's breathing hitched, the chocolate melting on her tongue, as Marcus's touch trailed down the center of Josh's bare chest, stopping just above the heart, where his ribs met the surface of the sand. "That's how the game was meant to be played. Savoring, drawing it out, cherishing, never taking for granted the gift that has been given to your senses. You must appreciate it, worship it, even as you run your tongue over it and melt away the outer casing to get to the cream beneath. You hold it captive as long as you can, intending on bringing out its richest flavors before allowing it to explode, and be consumed.

"Jonathan," his lip curled in a sneer, and his eyes flashed back to Lauren, "had a serious eating disorder."

A drop of rain spattered on Lauren's knee. Thunder rumbled lazily in the distance.

"How about we take lunch inside?" Marcus offered. He jerked his head toward Josh, a twinkle in his eye.