HoldingtheCards Read online

  Lauren heard Josh swallow. Her hand rested on his collar bone, so she felt the pulse jump.

  “Butterflies, Josh?” she asked.

  His eyes tore from Marcus and came back to her. “No,” he managed.

  “Good. You tell me, you tell us, if you get them, at any point.” She flattened herself against him and captured his mouth in an open, hot kiss. She fisted her hand roughly in his hair and moved in, straddling his erection, sliding his aroused member along the slick channel of her clit and labia, rubbing. He rocked forward, just the small amount his restraints permitted, and groaned again as she moved over his sensitive head.

  She felt like groaning herself. His brief contact on her clit was unbelievably powerful, her response as close to an orgasm from just a brief touch as anything she’d ever had. The friction of pulling off of him, going over that thick ridge of the glans, was worse. She had to tighten her grip, steady her breathing.

  Fortunately, her captive was distracted from pressing his advantage. Marcus had moved around them during the kiss. Lauren smelled the exotic scents from the bottle of oil as he uncorked it. Josh went rigid, and there was a shift in his eyes, apprehension.

  “Sshhh,” Marcus made a gesture only Lauren could see, and she nodded, sliding her arms around Josh’s waist. She turned her hand over, accepting the small pool of oil into it, the texture slippery like her own fluids.

  “Just some lubricant, dear one,” Marcus murmured and laid Lauren’s hand, palm down, in the indentation right above Josh’s buttocks.

  Lauren let the liquid drain onto his skin. At Marcus’s guiding touch, she slid her oiled fingers down along the inside of the curve of Josh’s ass, then deeper, letting the oil follow the impression of her fingers. It flowed over and into the tight opening that fairly radiated Josh’s tension. She ran her fingers around and over it, and transformed the tension of fear into the strain toward release, his breath beginning to grow rapid. She was pressed full against him, her head lifted to watch what she was doing, and she gasped as he sank his teeth into her jugular. It was a non-puncturing grip, but strong all the same. He sucked harshly on her skin. The lack of finesse tightened her own nerves, a spiral from breast to groin. She turned her head to dislodge his mouth but recaptured his lips in a damp kiss.

  Her hand slid up the small of the back, and Marcus’s touch smoothly replaced hers. His long fingers fondled Josh’s buttocks, squeezing, a stronger, more masculine touch that she was not sure Josh noticed immediately, due to the seamless transition dance of their hands and her efforts toward keeping his attention on plundering her hot mouth, fused on his.

  Marcus had changed the music when he went to get the lubricant, and the beat was building again, a deep drum rhythm at once complex and primal. It vibrated through the floor, through the soles of Lauren’s feet, tingling in the contact between her palm and Josh’s shoulder and neck. She pressed herself even more tightly against him, now holding his head still with her touch so she could nibble on his neck.

  “I want to touch you,” he muttered against her cheek.

  She smiled, which did nothing to dispel the raging, aching need in her own eyes, a need as much emotional as physical. “Tough,” she whispered, with a slight catch in her tone. “You’ll wait for me to take you.”

  “God,” his breath exhaled in a rush as she worked the dress up with her movements and rubbed herself along the top of his engorged head again. “Please…I’m going to explode.”

  Marcus had loosened the drawstring of the silken pants and they pooled around his ankles, revealing an impressive erection rising out of a curling thatch of black hair.

  “First, you take Marcus,” she caught his shoulder in her teeth, channeling the shudder that rippled dangerously along her skin into the fierceness of the bite to gain some control of herself, “Then, I take you. But if you come when Marcus goes in, you get nothing but my whip,” she nipped sharply on his nipple and he gasped, “on your adorable ass.”

  “I can’t…”

  Lauren glanced around his arm and saw Marcus removing a condom from his robe.

  “You better,” she said without a break, covering Marcus’s muted rattling of foil. “Because my pussy is dripping for you. Feel that,” she rubbed it along his length again and managed a strangled chuckle when he let out a noise, part animal, and part inventive curse. His muscles strained so hard against his bonds she could see the flesh reddening around the imprint of the straps again, hear the material creaking to contain him. “Tell me you won’t come.”

  “I won’t.” He fisted his hands as she slowly, slowly slid herself up his length again. “Jesus, fucking…Lauren, stop…”

  She paused, let him feel the rippling through her sensitive tissues, revealing how close she was herself. “Marcus.”

  “I’m here, dearest.” He moved up behind Josh. He was somewhat taller, so when he moved Josh’s hair aside to kiss his exposed neck, he only had to raise his eyelids to meet Lauren’s gaze. His arms lowered, his hands coming to rest on Josh’s hips, his long, strong fingers caressing the lines just below the restraining strap on his waist. Josh’s thigh muscles tensed in a fascinating display of virility that Lauren admired as she slid away from him, standing back a step to lock eyes with him.

  “Remember,” she said softly. “You can’t come until I say so. Forget, and you’ll feel my whip.” She moistened her lips, watching his glazed, frantic expression take in every curve of her body, the jutted hips, the tilt of her tight breasts, the light play of her fingers along her thigh. She inched the fabric up, up again exposing only the very tip of what she was offering him, a cloven fruit, the ripe, succulent inside exposed to his gaze, just out of reach.

  Marcus’s eyes were very green and alive, and yet very much in control. It could not help but elicit the greatest admiration of another Dominant, or make a sub go weak with obedience. Lauren thought she could have simply stood back and watched him with the quiet joy of watching a master of any type of art work his magic.

  His chest pressed against Josh’s shoulders. “Lay your head against my jaw,” he ordered, the command delivered in a voice like a sensual caress. Josh obeyed, tilting his head. He bucked, startled, when Marcus’s hand reached around, closed around his cock.

  While Josh had thus far demonstrated an amazing level of control that she suspected was the result of a successful artist’s discipline, Lauren knew that what Marcus was about to do could in fact cause Josh to explode, despite his best efforts to hold himself back. The only thing that might prevent it was the fact this would be a virgin fuck, so to speak. His nervousness, and the unusual feel of it might combine to keep him from losing the grip.

  “Easy, love,” Marcus crooned, tightening his grasp in delightful conflict with his soothing words. “Mustn’t disobey your mistress. What a fucking, gorgeous tight ass you have. You want me in it?”

  Josh nodded, one jerk of his head. “Tell me,” Marcus said sharply.

  “Yes.” Josh was panting and Lauren saw a convulsive ripple under Marcus’s slowly stroking fingers, resulting in a small explosion of fluid. A slight smile curved her lips and she picked up her whip. Josh’s eyes jerked to her. “No,” he protested. “I won’t.”

  She nodded, flicked it around his feet. “I know you won’t, Josh. You’ll take every inch of him, but you’ll save all that for me, won’t you?”

  He nodded, almost beyond speech. He wasn’t going to make it, despite his best intentions. Lauren thought if she had touched herself at this moment she would go off herself. Lord in Heaven, she had never had the opportunity to experience the sexual high this type of power could bring, power based on trust and emotional bonds. What she thought she had with Jonathan did not even compare.

  “You need the harness, Josh.”

  “I don’t, Mistress,” he promised her, a fierce light in his eyes. “Only for you. Please don’t. I’ll wait for you.”

  Her heart tugged at the ragged fierceness in his voice. His vow was like a knight’s oath of abso
lute fealty and protection to his lady, a promise fate could easily overturn. But it was not the success of the vow, but the intent of it, that mattered.

  “I didn’t make it a question, Josh,” she said.

  Marcus removed his hand, and Josh groaned as she retrieved the harness and buckled it around his shaft. Se made it tight, holding in all the juices that wanted to flood themselves in her. Lauren stood back, fondly caressing the recaptured cock with her fingers as he twisted and squirmed in futile torment. She couldn’t wait to feel his orgasm explode inside her.

  “Take him, Marcus,” she said.

  Marcus’s grip had risen to Josh’s shoulder during her ministrations. Now his fingers shifted, closed on Josh’s throat. His gaze on hers, he drove himself in, his fingers tightening, creating pain with pleasure.

  Josh cried out, a guttural noise close to a scream as the sensation swept from prostate to scrotum, nipples to cock in a wide, sweeping tidal wave. Lauren watched with wide eyes and parted lips as Marcus slid out, then back in, a slow rhythm that took the wave down, then built it back up, and up. The music of Josh’s rasping breath mingled with the hard slap of male flesh against male flesh, the bass of the music playing, and she felt light headed. She kept her eyes on them though, physically unable to look away.

  Josh began gasping, then moaning, then he was snarling like an animal, his eyes locked on her face. Marcus pumped harder into him, whispered into his ear. Both men were sweating now, all muscles straining. They were like two powerful stallions, too mesmerizing to express in words.

  Josh flung his head back against the wood piece behind him, but she didn’t think he even registered the blunt impact. Marcus’s skillful strokes were teasing the bundle of nerve endings within in the manner intended to drive a man to release. For Josh, it was a drive to insanity, an explosion for which there was no release in pressure. He jerked futilely in his bonds and spoke Marcus’s name, a snarling plea.

  Marcus gave a harsh moan, his fingers flexing, and emptied himself. He sank his teeth into Josh’s shoulder, drawing blood, but Josh’s head lay tense and helpless against him.

  His aching, needy eyes fastened on the clear fluid trickling down her thigh, her involuntary reaction to watching them, and she knew they had waited as long as they could bear. It was time to reward them both.

  Chapter Twenty

  She came forward, his tormentor, his temptress, the center of his universe. The whole world narrowed to her face, her body, her scent.

  He let his apprehension go with both hands, all his fears of doing something wrong. Winona had given him those fears, because he had disappointed her so often. Lauren’s touch, her voice, her eyes, they all said that he could do nothing wrong with her except turn away or hold back his desires. He was under her control, directed by her commands, but more than that, he saw in her aroused eyes her immersion in him as he was immersed in her. There was no detachment, no sense of distance.

  She had taken an enormous risk when she hadn’t untied him when he demanded it. He remembered the way her hand had trembled, not out of fear of his rage, but out of fear of taking the step that would lose his trust, and destroy the bond they had sensed between them from the beginning. That was what this was about. Something far deeper than two people who had known each other for such a short time should be experiencing, but deeper nonetheless. He could hope desperately that she would stay when this was over, let him learn more about her, cherish her. But, even if she didn’t, he could give her his absolute devotion now.

  They were all adults. They all knew sex, really good sex, could make the mind manufacture bonds and emotional involvement where there was nothing but lust. But sometimes sex was more than that, a transcendent experience where everything was stripped away except the bare soul, and a person found a permanent resting place for his heart. He saw it in her. He didn’t have to know anything more about her than he did at this moment to know it, to be sure of it. If he lived through the unbearable pleasure of the next few moments, he was never letting her go.

  With Marcus still hard and warm inside him, she slowly inched the dress up her hips, bringing the hem sliding up her thighs, a millimeter at a time, and then past the crotch. He saw the closely cropped area around her pussy, the short hairs curled around the opening moist with her arousal, and then she came to him.

  Marcus was moving again, slowly, keeping ripples of sensation going and attempting to defy the laws of nature and keep himself in an erect state, even after emptying his own seed. Apparently, he’d had some experience at it, for as he made some sinuous, circular movement of his hips, Josh could still feel him, feel his cock getting a bit stiffer, taking up more room, teasing him again.

  Lauren slid the chair she had used closer and stepped up on it, bringing her breasts to Josh’s eye level for a moment. She leaned forward, pressed the nipples pushing up the stretched cloth against his forehead, squashing the soft full part of the curves beneath it against his eyes, his nose, let him inhale her, strive to taste her. She was lifting the cross piece behind his shoulders, lifting it over his head and then re-anchoring it there.

  She used the bar to lift her legs off the chair, hook her knees up onto his shoulders and slide in, spreading her thighs before his face, bringing her wet center an inch before his mouth and resting her ankles on Marcus’s shoulders.

  “Eat, Josh,” she commanded.

  His mouth took possession at once, tongue plunging into the wet musk of her, a sound of pure animal pleasure rumbling like a growl in his throat. Lauren cried out and her skin rippled around his tongue, gripping it, in a small, squeezing pre-orgasm. She was close, and the only thing he wanted more than to fuck her was to hear her scream with release. His lips worked double time, sucking, kneading, tongue flicking, thrusting, until she was writhing on his shoulders, gasping, and he groaned in reaction to it, and to Marcus’s thrusts.

  He gave a frustrated oath as she pulled back, her body quivering and glistening with sweat under the glitter. Her expression was one of total hunger now, though, and he knew she was not going to leave him denied. She brought her legs down, slid her grip to his shoulders, and clasped her thighs around his waist, so her ass was brushing his cock. He saw her gaze flick to Marcus and then made a noise of pure joy as he felt Marcus loose the waist strap and pull the harness off his cock, without breaking his own rhythm.

  She braced the sides of her spike heels along Marcus’s hips.

  “Yes,” Josh murmured, every cell of his body roaring for her. “Please.”

  Her nostrils flared, taking in the smell of herself on his lips, glistening with her fluids. She lowered herself onto his erect cock which, despite the slightly off angle, easily routed itself into her slick wetness as if it knew it was coming home.

  Down, down, she went down on him inch by wonderful inch, and it almost overwhelmed him. God, she felt good. She was everything. So, perfect, so right. It sounded inane, but it was true. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, lifting her body so she was pressed against him from neck to joining, coupling her hips even closer. Marcus kissed her cheek, and then Josh’s temple.

  “Now, Josh,” she murmured. “Fuck me, now.”

  He wanted to hold out, wanted to build her as high as he could before they both leapt, but it felt too good.

  She rocked her hips, forward and down once, and the animal swept over them all.

  * * * * *

  She had never had the actual flood of a man’s climax stroke her over. Fire seared through her, burning everything else away and leaving only him. His scent became her air, his body the solidity of the earth beneath her feet, his orgasm a flood of fire jetting into her womb, and the slick sweat and oil making it possible for their coupled limbs to move in a tidal rhythm, higher, higher.

  Tantric sex focused on delaying physical release as long as possible, to build its pressure to heights overwhelming in their power. All she had done to keep him waiting, herself waiting, now exploded through the dam of restraint. His bindings became th
e anchor onto which they held to keep from being swept away.

  She swallowed his fierce cry of release into her own mouth and gave it back as his cock slid rapidly back and forth across the taut strings of her nerve endings and ignited a symphony of response.

  Emotion became pure physical, and her body bowed back, a raw scream tearing from her throat as the climax took her, too much to take. She was as helpless as he was to the overwhelming force of it, her juices flowing over him, her muscles gripping him, milking him inside her, squeezing every drop of his release into her body. He said her name, over and over, and his mouth was wet and open on her sternum as he sucked on her, muttered against her, touched her in the only way his bindings allowed.

  They both cried out as Marcus came again, and they were all carried forward on the wave of this additional climax, thrust into sensation so strong it was almost pain. She could not hear what she was crying out, but it was blending with their own words, a simple primal chant as old as the stone beneath their feet. She inhaled the smell of sex, of men’s bodies, her own musk, and thought she was going to lose consciousness.

  She might have done so, for it seemed a long, long while before the pounding surf eased and gave way to a smooth, rhythmic movement of smaller waves. The soft ripples deposited her back into the sands of reality, the warm, wonderful reality of Josh’s body, his closed eyes, hair damp at the temples. She was collapsed upon him, clinging to his neck, her trembling legs still somehow holding onto him, perhaps because Marcus was holding onto her calves.

  She opened her eyes to a burning sensation and saw the reddened tips of her fingers, where they had dug savagely into the wood of the cross.

  Marcus looked somewhat like an angel that had wrestled with a demon. However, he was the first to become a bit more in tune with the world around them. He slid gently from Josh, easing her legs down. He took care of his aftermath with one of the moist towelettes available on a built-in shelf next to each of the room’s devices. Lauren tried to keep the tile floor from sliding out from under her wobbly spike heels by gripping Josh’s shoulders for balance. He cracked open an eye to look at her.