Holding the Cards

by Joey Hill

He cocked his head at her, considering. Marcus was a silent presence in her peripheral vision. Giving Josh time to think was no chore, and she made good use of the moment, sliding her gaze over the bare broad shoulders, the smooth chest, that tantalizing slope of hipbone exposed by the loose fit of the jeans at the waist. She let her gaze go lower, examining with frank interest the way the denim molded his groin and long thighs.

  She consumed the visual feast through all her senses, so it was no surprise to feel her breasts tighten, the nipples rise against the silk fabric of the robe, poured like water over her curves from the blessings of gravity. She knew without raising her eyes that his gaze would be drawn to that physical reaction. Unless his personal demons were too strong, her wary prey should almost be hers.

  By the time she got to his bare toes, they were moving toward her, and a moment later, he was sitting on the ottoman, lifting the plate and handing her the fork. This close, he brought back the smell of the woods, and his faint musky odor, the same dried sweat of a day's hard labor that she had smelled when he had carried her.

  "So," Lauren speared a tiny corncob and lifted it, "I know Marcus is a New York art dealer with a secret dream to be a hairdresser," she smiled as that one raised his glass with a devious grin, his composure recovered. "But what did you do before you were caretaker here, Josh?"

  "I helped Marcus," he lifted a shoulder, and she knew he was being evasive from the quick flick of his gaze away from hers. It was not yet time to push, too early in the game. She raised a brow regardless, letting him know he was not fooling her, but she changed the flow of the conversation. "Marcus, tell us the most wicked story you can think of from your childhood."

  "Before puberty, or after?"

  Lauren slanted a smile at him. "Before."

  She brought the glistening pale yellow vegetable to Josh's lips. When he had his mouth half open, she murmured "Wait."

  She traced it over his top lip, moistening the curve with a light sheen of soy sauce, as he had done to her. "Now," she said.

  His eyes were on her face, measuring, and she inclined her head. "Open your mouth wider."

  He did, sending a jolt of electric energy through her vitals. She placed the food on his tongue, already wet from saliva that she hoped was not entirely from a hunger for food. His lips closed on the fork, the soy sauce she had left there compressing between them. The lubricated tines withdrew with the same silken ease of a man withdrawing himself from a woman's aroused body. As she anticipated, his tongue automatically touched on his top lip after he swallowed, collecting the sauce. His eyes never left hers, and she wondered that she could have every considered gray a cool color. It could become molten steel, simmering with the fires of the forge, anticipating becoming an instrument to serve the needs of its master, or in this case, mistress.

  He was not a docile sub, which delighted her. The heat in those eyes could compete with the re-entry atmosphere of the earth, and she felt it building in the furnace of his body. He would become dangerous if pushed, and the anticipation of it shivered through her.

  * * * * *

  "This game is like a circus," Maria had told her once, during one of their many infamous "Corner Table Conversations", as Lauren had dubbed them. That was when Maria had a break and the two of them found a corner table in the shadows. Sometimes it was a time for Maria to hold her hand while Lauren had yet another post-Jonathan meltdown, but usually it was a chance to exchange wisdom and watch others together. The waitress followed the interactions of the other club attendees with the diligent attention of a NASA researcher.

  "Are we that ridiculous?" Lauren asked, too swamped at that point with bitterness to hear the undertone.

  "You're thinking clowns, honey." Maria said, her kohl rimmed eyes crinkling, the moist, full lips curving up. "Think of all the sensual, dark undertones of a circus. The life of the people involved, set apart from the rest of the civilized world in a mysterious society of their own. Those who walk the tight rope and run the trapeze, who must trust their partners completely. The delicate interplay between the animals and those who go into the cage with them.

  "Like you," she ran a sharp-nailed finger lightly down Lauren's face, tracing the tiny tab protecting the entrance to her ear. "You're a lion tamer. Jonathan belonged in the poodle ring."

  Lauren snorted with laughter, and Maria's teeth showed, but it was a half smile, most of her mind focused on a more serious point. "He was eager to please, never messing up, working for treats, regardless of whose hand gave them."

  Lauren's eyes darkened, but Maria kept on. "You were looking for the lion, the one who obeyed because he knew the reward for obedience was you. Not some treat from your hand, but you, everything, body, mind and soul. He knows he's bigger and stronger, but he'll concede your dominance and lower his eyes because you make him want to do it. Even so, he'll still occasionally test you, because that's the nature of the lion. That's what you were wanting, and that's the only thing that's going to work for you."

  * * * * *

  Maria hadn't needed to tell her that finding that man would involve a game of high stakes.

  She took a bite herself, and her eyes fell shut as a savory marriage of onion, pepper, soy and a mysterious dash of other spices awoke her taste buds. "This is marvelous. How did you make something this good in a half hour?"

  "Well, technically, you can reach orgasm in less than a minute, and think how wonderful that is," Marcus, pointed out.

  Josh grinned, and Lauren conceded the point with a wave of the fork. "I'm getting very little food here," Josh nodded to the plate.

  Lauren snorted and slid another forkful of sautéed vegetables into his mouth. "Marcus, we're waiting for your wicked tale."

  "A wicked tale,” Marcus mused, took a chunk of French bread from the board on the table, and smiled. "The word itself calls it to mind. When I was seven, I had a dog named Winslow."

  "Winslow?" Josh turned his head and Lauren bumped the fork against his chin, splattering his left pectoral with brown sauce.

  "Oops," she took her index and middle fingers and wiped them over the spot, gathering up the moisture. Her fingernails scraped his warm skin. She caught one of the drips alongside his nipple and traced the curve as she scooped up the liquid. The crinkled skin around it became taut at her touch and she brought the fingers toward her lips.

  Josh reached out and manacled her wrist, pulling her fingers away from her mouth and taking them to his, drawing them into the warm cavern and sucking off the brown liquid, tracing his tongue lightly over the delicate skin between the two fingers. The movement of his tongue was not like the flick of a flame, but a slow pressure that rubbed each taste bud against the crevices of her finger joints like moist sand trickling over bare skin.

  Lauren managed not to swallow her own tongue, barely. She began to draw her hand away. Her heart bumped up into her throat when he did not respond to the pressure, holding her slim wrist captured in his grasp for the space of several irregular beats before his grip loosened. Lauren tapped her moistened finger against his bottom lip reprovingly. "It's my card, Josh. I'm feeding you."

  "It rather looked like that's what you were doing," Marcus observed dryly. "Do you want me to continue, or can I just enjoy the floorshow?"

  Josh chuckled and Lauren smiled at the way it took ten years off his serious face. "No," she tossed her hair back. "I want to hear the story about Winslow."

  "Winslow was a wonderful dog who unfortunately had a penchant for chasing cars."

  "That dog's name was not Winslow," Josh shifted his intense gaze off her, allowing Lauren to take a deep, steadying breath without his scrutiny. "No kid names their dog Winslow."

  "All right, if you insist on mundane authenticity, it was Petey."

  "Like the Little Rascals?"

  "Of course," Marcus sighed. "I suppose I was as monotonous and tritely cliched as all children. Petey was the best I could do."

  "Does he always play the world-weary urbanite?" Lauren asked.

&
nbsp; Josh nodded. "Only in front of guests. Once he gets used to you, you'll see his real personality. Iowa farm boy."

  "No way," Lauren laughed at Marcus's woeful nod. "Your secret's safe with me," she raised her hand in pledge, then fed Josh another mouthful, her attention shifting back to the movement of his jaw, the flex of cords and muscle along his throat as he swallowed. "How did Petey fit into the most wicked thing you did in childhood?"

  "Well, loving though woefully misnomered Petey finally caught a car. My father assured me and my cousins that Petey would ascend to the place where dogs may cheerfully chase cars all day long without fear of harm. However, four days after Petey's demise, I came to my father in great distress. Petey had not gone to heaven."

  Marcus put down the wine glass and turned the stem with elegant fingers, the glass and burgundy liquid reflecting the candlelight. "'Of course he has, son,' my father assures me with great confidence, giving me that healthy backslap heterosexual fathers offer to ensure their sons need chiropractic care for the remainder of their lives.

  "'No, he hasn't,' I insist. 'Come see.' For I knew my father had to see proof of what I was saying to understand. I took him to Petey's grave and pointed down at it. 'See? We buried him with his tail sticking up out of the grave so we'd know when he went, and it's still there!'"

  Lauren choked on the wine she had raised to her lips for another sip and caught the juice as it tried to escape down her chin. "Marcus, that's terrible," she giggled, unable to help herself. She scrabbled for a napkin to prevent the escaped wine from running down her throat and staining her robe.

  "Allow me," Josh leaned forward. Lauren followed the direction of his eyes and felt the wine trickle down into the hollow formed by her collarbone. He paused briefly, his cheek almost brushing hers, and looked sidelong into her eyes. She gave an almost imperceptible jerk of her head, a nod of assent, and his head dipped, his dark hair brushing her jaw line.

  His eyes promised revenge for her earlier torture. There was playful mischief in his expression, as well as serious, sensual intent. It was a combination she found as thrilling as her first Ferris wheel ride, which had happened on a crisp fall night filled with sparkling lights, the smell of popcorn and funnel cakes. She teetered on the edge of womanhood that night, made even more ripe and confusing by the knowing, secretive gazes of the male carnies who ran the rides.

  His warm lips covered the area, that clever tongue creating a warm, spiraling friction against her heated skin. Lauren sucked in a breath, which brought the top of her breast into contact with his chin. Sensation prickled to the tip and a light shudder ran from breast to thigh, making her toes curl.

  Most men did not know what an erogenous zone a woman's neck was. Whether he did or not, Josh was giving it special attention, rubbing his lips up the side of the main artery, and Lauren had to keep her hands clenched at her sides to keep from taking him to the floor and devouring him whole.

  Marcus kept his eyes on hers throughout the moment, like a naturalist in a secluded glade, unobtrusive and yet very present, enjoying the experience of watching the interplay of God's creations.

  However, when Josh straightened, Marcus's gaze dropped from her face and followed the ridge of the other man's spine.

  "Lauren," Marcus said, "I think you were deciding your next wish was that we play Monopoly."

  "What?" She blinked at him hazily, feeling somewhat like a person who has misread an invitation and shown up at a neighborhood barbecue in formal wear.

  His gaze slid back to Josh's bare skin. "Well, the high card belongs to you, and you just strike me as an obsessive Monopoly player. I also happen to know Lisette has one in her closet. She plays herself, you know. Actually, four of herselves. A game will stretch on for days, in between her writing sessions. She says when things get too intense, when reality intrudes and locks up her creative mind with fretting about deadlines or editors, or other such drivel, she goes and plays a few rounds."

  "And just how long does the game say I hold the high card?"

  "How long did you say you were going to be here?"

  Lauren decided that Marcus was altogether the strangest person she had met in quite some time, and that she liked him intensely. "Josh, Marcus," she shifted her attention between them, "I command you to play Monopoly with me."

  Chapter 7

  Three hours later, they all had had second helpings of stir-fry, Josh had made cookies, and crumbs were scattered as liberally on the floor as hotels on the board. And most of them were Lauren's. The hotels, that is.

  This, despite Marcus's blatant cheating. Josh was not a tremendous threat, having a penchant for landing on the Go To Jail corner mark, and possessing pathetically poor judgment when it came to selling and developing his properties. Lauren had not had so much fun in…well; she couldn't remember when life had stopped being fun. Her mind wanted her to start the clock with the break up with Jonathan, but she wasn't sure that was true.

  "Well, I guess we don't have to ask what you do for a living," Marcus said darkly, as he landed on Boardwalk, parking his pewter iron next to her three glossy red hotels. "You're a corporate raider."

  She chuckled. "Worse. A pediatrician." She extended her palm. "Fifteen hundred dollars."

  "That was going to be my next guess, right after loan shark," Marcus said. "I'm done. You've cleaned me out."

  She had knocked Josh out of the game ten rounds ago and now he lay on his back on the floor by the table, his bare feet curved against the arm of the loveseat. His denim-covered thigh rocked back and forth with restless energy as he laced his fingers behind his head and watched them.

  She picked up her wine glass, her gaze following the appealing way the jeans pulled along the inseam from his movement, and felt his eyes watching her.

  It was late, and she had drunk a bit too much wine, but it was the relaxed camaraderie that was so intoxicating. The playfulness of the past three hours had lowered her guard. Like a slumber party after midnight, things became far more easy and familiar, affection for one's companions increasing exponentially. Similar to the old adage - everyone looked good at closing time, because otherwise a cold, lonely bed waited.

  She had settled for loneliness, after Jonathan. In order to get the intimacy she craved, she had to deal with the demands and shortcomings of the guest invited to join her. She wanted the fantasy of a stranger spooning around her in her sleep, cradling her protectively against his body. Somehow they would know nothing and yet everything about each other, having connected far beyond the level of conversational inanities, those pathetic, required attempts to get to know one another in less than two hours over drinks.

  It was the "required" that had turned her away from the opportunities that had presented themselves. "Had to" was what you did as an obligation, the price of admission, and putting a price on the rare gift of intimacy… well, it was no longer a gift then, was it? Gifts were offered from love, affection, inspired by your lover, an offering at the altar of their presence in your life. She didn't inspire that in anyone anymore. Right now, she corrected herself fiercely, unwilling to fall into that dark abyss.

  The worry was there, though, that she was too tired to play hide and seek for love anymore. Maybe that was why the natural order of things was to marry and have children in your early to mid-twenties. It was something about the approach of thirty. You just ran out of whatever juice it was to play the games to get into a meaningful relationship. Once you reached thirty, all you wanted was to wake up and find love and a lifetime commitment beside you. The hunter instinct had dulled, and you were ready to reap and sow. Only the field was fallow, nothing planted and growing.

  But she didn't have to worry about that here, did she? She held the card. Anything she wanted. She knew firsthand that some things couldn't be had, the most precious things, just by ordering them. But something in Josh's gaze pulled the hunter instincts reluctantly out of her heart, and she thought maybe she could…just for tonight…

  She had stolen glances at J
osh while he was playing the board game, brief snapshots that kindled her inner heat. His mane of sun-streaked hair tied back on his shoulders. The oddly out-of-character tattoos layered over sleek muscle. A silver earring, a simple loop in his left lobe, also not quite him. Still shirtless, just in jeans. At one point, he had rubbed his eyes a bit, and then pulled a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from his pocket to help him focus on the board. The unconscious lack of vanity, the boyish charm when he gave her a quick smile, the serious cast the glasses lent his expression as he studied his next move, had been at once sexy and endearing. It had been all she could do not to draw him into her embrace, hold his head to her breast as tenderly as a mother and then ravish him with the ferocity of a she-lion.

  "You said," she cleared her throat. "That we should play this game like children. The fate of the Universe in the balance, and absolute trust in our companions."

  Marcus was putting away the board, but he lifted his attention at her quiet words. He nodded.

  Lauren looked back at Josh. His knee had stilled and he could have been a stag in the forest, watching her through foliage so thickly interlaced she could not see the shape of him, only the force of his presence by his liquid eyes, gleaming through the flickering shadows of the candlelight.

  "I want you both to stay here tonight," she said, and she made herself look at Josh as she said it, for she sensed it was important for him, more than Marcus, to see her face. He was more afraid of the intentions of this game. "I want you to sleep with me, in my bed." Now she did shift her gaze to Marcus, to ensure he understood her. "And I mean sleep. I don't want to be alone. Will you do that?"

  Translation: Do you understand me? Can I trust you? Will you play the game we all hope isn't a game? Can I believe, at least for tonight, that somewhere out there are people willing to comfort and nurture, love us and build us up instead of drain us, who won't rip our hearts from our chests and laugh at us?

  It was as clear in those four words as if she had shouted it, if they had the proper sensitivity to hear it.