Branded Sanctuary (24 page)

When Marguerite stepped closer to her, closed her hand fully on Chloe‟s arm, she realized she was shaking with the effort of holding her ground, not flying into pieces.

“Deep breath, sweet,” her boss murmured. “Take a deep breath.”

“I‟m sorry,” Chloe managed, though she wasn‟t sure she was. She still wanted to scream and rant. She wanted to throw off Marguerite‟s touch, but she didn‟t.

With a light touch to her chin, Marguerite drew her gaze back up to her face. “Trust and surrender is what all this is about, Chloe. But you don‟t have to understand Dominance and submission, and people who practice it as we do, to understand that those two elements are at the center of
every
relationship, the core of what every person who falls in love is seeking with another. My concern isn‟t so much with you using him to heal, but to fight demons. Careful of the latter, or it may take you down a path you don‟t want to go, a place that, once you‟re there, will be hard to find your way back.” Those words made her want to break, spill out everything, and she couldn‟t. She was pretty sure once that glue came loose, she‟d never put it back together again. Hell, why was it she could tell herself she wasn‟t ready for any of this, and yet she still kept trying?

“I should leave. You probably want me to go, anyway.”

“Chloe, I would tell you if I want you to go. I‟m not in the habit of concealing what I want and do not want from the people around me.” Marguerite‟s hand tightened on her chin, a seamless transition from concerned employer to that „other‟ quality. Chloe‟s body stilled, held by the tone and the look in those direct eyes. “What I want is for you to heal. Which means whatever infection you‟ve been trying to bury since you were injured needs to be drained.” Her touch became a caress on Chloe‟s jaw as she closed her eyes, unable to face Marguerite‟s. “You just have to find that trust within yourself, and surrender to it. It‟s time, whether you tell me, Gen, Brendan or even that confused cat of yours.”

It startled a half-chuckle out of Chloe, though her eyes were burning and her throat ached. “St. Frances isn‟t confused. He just refuses to be defined by his predatory nature.”

“Hmm.” Marguerite cocked her head. “Chloe—”

“I have to go to the restroom,” Chloe said desperately. Pivoting on her heel, she made her getaway between the tents.

* * * * *

Brendan had hit four out of ten, but when he looked over his shoulder to see if Chloe was indeed impressed, he‟d seen her and Marguerite engaged in what was obviously not a good conversation.

Tyler had held him back, telling him with the pressure of a hand and a look that it was best to let the two women finish their conversation. But when Chloe dashed off, her cheeks too pale and eyes too bright, it was all Brendan could do not to follow. However, Tyler kept him at his side as they returned the gun to Jack and came back to Marguerite.

The husband and wife exchanged a glance that was a communication all its own, the language that people in love, in perfect sync, shared. People with no secrets.

Brendan knew if Chloe had followed through on the platform, the orgasm they would have shared would have been intense, overwhelming. Physical. The moment she‟d brought him to the platform, he‟d known it wasn‟t a good plan. She‟d taken away the gift of intimacy, withheld it, a punishment. She wasn‟t experienced enough to recognize it that way, and her decisions had been about what was going on inside her, not a loving or healthy expression of the lust between them. Even knowing that, he‟d have let her do it. Even knowing it was wrong, because his job was to give pleasure, make her happy, keep her in a safe place to help her experience that. He hadn‟t done what he should have to help her get there.

As he bowed his head, thinking about that, Marguerite touched his hair, a soothing caress. She didn‟t offer such things often, which made it that much more potent when she did.

“I‟m not going to allow this to continue. I knew this wasn‟t a good idea, and I should have handled it that way from the beginning.”

Before he had a conscious thought as to the wisdom of doing so, Brendan had closed his hand on her wrist. “Mistress, let me solve this one on my own. I don‟t need you to fight my battles.”

Her blue eyes went to frost and fire. But she inclined her head and extricated herself with a sharp movement and an even sharper glance. “Then start fighting them.” When she moved away, she‟d added to that weight of immeasurable failure in his chest. Tyler put a brief hand on his shoulder. “She‟s angry with me,” Brendan observed tightly.

“No.” Tyler shook his head. “You‟ve been around Marguerite enough to know she‟s unique in how she loves others. It isn‟t always an easy love. I‟ll take care of your Mistress‟s heart. You take care of Chloe‟s.”

He nodded, letting him know that Chloe was coming back.

Brendan turned. The young woman‟s face was as fragile as glass, and she looked like she was ready to go home—alone. Yet he also had the memory of her heat pressed against his back on the platform, and before that her broken rasping breath after the climax they‟d shared in her bed, her fingers clutching his skin. She was seeking that connection subconsciously, even as so many of the other things she did were attempts to push it away.

“When‟s the last time you rode a Ferris wheel?” he asked as she got within hearing distance. He nodded toward it, the multi-colored lights bathing her unsure face.

“Brendan…”

He took her hand. “C‟mon. Don‟t think. Let‟s just go do it.”
Chapter Twelve

As the wheel hitched upward one click at a time while people were loaded into the cars, Chloe watched the world below become a tapestry of colorful tent tops. The moving people looked like they belonged in a macabre version of the glittering carnival world, with all the sensual trappings, manacles and leather straps. She saw the silver sparkle of Mistress Lyda‟s embellished corset.

Brendan‟s arm slid around her shoulders. “You won‟t fall out if you stay really close,” he said somberly, the twinkle in the hazel eyes giving him away.

In answer, she laid a hand on his bare chest, pressing her ear to his heartbeat. He did pull her closer, so her hand fell on his thigh. “This is weird,” she said with a strained smile. “You‟re half naked, you know.”

“Well, if you want to join me so you won‟t feel self-conscious…” Instead, she traced the attractive thigh muscle under denim. “You‟re a very strange man, Brendan. You let me do…what I almost did to you. You‟re part of this world, but you ask me to ride the Ferris wheel like we‟re fourteen. You like to hold hands and bring me stuffed puppies. And have phone sex with me at three a.m.”

“You wear pink Save the Whale sleep shirts, make great cupcakes and debate whether or not you‟d like to push a six-inch dildo up my ass.” His eyes laughed down at her, though his mouth remained in a serious line. “We‟re all a mix. We see things through the eyes of the child we once were and the adults we become. This place, this way of thinking, brings that out.”

He covered her hand with his own, lacing with her fingers. “For instance, if I could have what I want most right now, I might pull you onto my lap, sink my cock deep inside you, and then hold you as you lay back against my hands and let the wind blow through your hair.” He leaned down, but instead of going for her mouth, his lips found her neck below her ear again, that erogenous zone which made her teeth sink down on her bottom lip. “Your body would be arched back by the gravity of the ride,” he continued in a sensual murmur. “I‟d listen to your breathless laugh, see the sparkle in your eyes from the wonder of it, making love on a Ferris wheel, keeping the best of child- and adulthood together.”

He straightened then, after a quick nuzzle of her hair. “But I also like being here with you like this, pressed hip to hip, holding hands. Getting the chance to put my nose into your hair, smell you, feel you. It‟s as good, in a different way. I want both.” As he met her gaze, he let her see that he meant what he said, that he was holding onto nothing bad about the evening, choosing to immerse himself in the simple pleasure of being here. With her. It lessened the humiliation of the platform, the pain of Mistress Lyda‟s words, the discomfort of Marguerite‟s. Her anger had dissipated, and some of the awkwardness she‟d been feeling as a result began to do the same, because of him.

Plus, for right now, he was all hers. Up here, floating up into the sky, where the only stimulus was each other, the word had a different, more poignant and wondrous quality to it. Her own prince of the fairy tales. Being hers in all ways, handsome and attentive. When he leaned over to glance over the side, she studied his profile in the magically lit darkness, the flutter of his hair over his brow and across his throat from the breeze.

As they ticked up another car, she saw an even more elevated view of the carnival, details lost and everything becoming a flirtation between shadows and light. Just like he‟d said. The best of both worlds.

Her gaze drifted further, to the darkness beyond the carnival grounds. That darkness covered the inlet and the large spread of oaks that surrounded and buffered Tyler‟s property, and yet there was always an extra component to darkness, a weight to it that suggested it was a living thing, not just a curtain.

It reminded her of Marguerite‟s words, what would wait for her on the ground, what would continue to follow her. When Brendan had been holding her earlier, she‟d been so close to letting it spill out of her soul. What if she could let some of it go up here? Would it float away and lose her, not be able to find her again? Would the rest lose some of its ability to cling to her so hard? Could she release a portion of it, just to see? Hell, it could be no worse than some of the other things she‟d done tonight.

Trust and surrender. She bit her lip.

“Chloe.” It was a soft murmur, and he laid his hand on her temple, letting her drop her head to his chest, tucking herself under his jaw. Her hands rested on his lap naturally, one finger worrying the inseam accessible from his casually splayed thighs.

“You can trust me with anything, you know.”

Maybe it was his timing. Or what had happened a little while ago. The knowledge in Marguerite‟s eyes that had hurt and yet not been wrong. Or maybe it was as simple as this Ferris wheel going up, one click at a time, like a clock face going toward the top of the hour, when all things started over, or began. Maybe it was the fact she wasn‟t looking into his face that made her finally decide to open her mouth.

“The thing with Marguerite‟s dad… More happened that day.” He remained silent, but he curved one finger over her unoccupied hand, lying limply along the same thigh.

“He… When he pulled Natalie away from me, and I was fighting him, trying to get her back, he shoved her and she fell down. She was too frightened to run, even though I screamed at her, told her to. Then he started hitting me…” She drew a deep breath.

“When he broke my leg, had me on the ground, he…fell down on top of me. Pushed himself against me, from behind. Through my clothes. He grabbed my hair. It hurt so much, because he‟d hit me in the face, but he whispered, „I‟m back. You thought I‟d gone, but I‟m never gone.‟”

“Chloe.”

“Please don‟t say anything. Not until I‟m done.” She stared out into that darkness.

“He didn‟t do anything else. Just picked her up and left. I was… I mean, I know I couldn‟t have stopped him then, but I would have tried, would have tried to get up and go after them, but that single moment, it held me frozen. I know what he said was a message for Marguerite. He was delusional, imagining I was her for that second, when he did that horrible thing.” She closed her eyes.
Oh Marguerite.

She still didn‟t know all of it, but she didn‟t need to do so. She‟d cared about Marguerite from the beginning. Even when the reticent tea shop owner had held her and Gen at such arms‟ distance, she‟d still seemed to be yearning for a closeness she wouldn‟t allow herself to have. With that intuition Marguerite had praised so highly, Chloe had responded to it, trying to offer it to her in every way she could. She‟d wanted M as a friend, as much as she wanted Marguerite to view her as a friend, as much or little as she could handle.

“Anyhow,” she continued. “When he said that, he opened this door in my head that I‟ve kept closed for a really, really long time. I‟ve always known it‟s there, but I thought I‟d figured out a permanent lock for it.”

She stopped. “I don‟t know if I can do this. I really, really feel like I should, but I don‟t know…”

Both arms closed over her, and he drew her upper body further across his bare chest, as close to being in his lap as the restraining bar would allow. She could flatten herself against him as he held her head tucked under his with one of those long fingered, large hands that covered almost the entire side of her face. He stroked her hair. The cars ticked up again. One from the top. They were so high up, above everything. His thigh pressed against hers, her hands gripping that anchor of solid flesh and bone. His heart beat under her ear. Then he said just the right thing.

“I‟m here, Chloe. I won‟t let it have you.”

The monster in the darkness. She closed her eyes, gave herself to a darkness that was all Brendan‟s scent and closeness, his heat in the middle of the night, a ward against all fear. And she said what she hadn‟t said since she was nine years old.

“When I was in grade school, I usually walked home from school with two other girls. But every Friday, I liked to take a different route. I‟d go to the railroad tracks, and walk home along them, because of the wildflowers that grew along them, because of how quiet it was. I‟d see rabbits and deer, raccoons. Angela and Tina didn‟t go with me, because it was a longer walk, and our parents had told us not to do that. They were worried about a train coming, hurting us. But I knew if I was old enough to cross the street, I didn‟t have to worry about being hit by a train.” She couldn‟t summon a smile, didn‟t even try. “To be honest, I kind of liked going alone, because if I was really quiet too, the animals would come close to me.”