At least this parallel dimension had its perks. Being carried up a hill in a strong man's arms was decidedly pleasant, though unsettling, since her right bare breast was pressed into his unshirted chest, and she felt every shift of his fingers along her spine and thigh.

"You could have at least let me adjust my towel," she said.

He glanced down at her, and with her arm occupied in holding on, there was nothing she could do but endure the heated perusal.

"Why would I want to do that?" he grinned.

Her eyes narrowed.

"He's always been this way, Lauren," Marcus commented. "God knows I've tried to beat it out of him."

Josh snorted. "Like a little prissy fairy like you could beat up anyone."

"If you're going to act like a homophobic Neanderthal," Marcus remarked, moving ahead to open the side door of Lisette's house, "I'm not going to play with you anymore. Do you need some help?"

Josh's grip on Lauren tightened and Marcus clucked. "You see," he informed Lauren. "He doesn't share."

Josh's face suffused with color. He looked as if he might defend his actions with some excuse, but in the end he said nothing. He shouldered by Marcus, jabbing him in the chest with his elbow.

"Ow," his friend said mildly, and shut the door after them.

Outside, where her options were limited, being half naked had been embarrassing but not fatal, just part of the whole ludicrous situation. Carried up the stairs and into Lisette's living room, furnished with every comfort of the civilized world, Lauren felt a keen urge to have the floor open and suck her in. It was so much easier when she was in control, with all the right trappings in place. Even though she knew they were just trappings, and the real control came from within.

"Put me down, we're in the house," she said, struggling a bit to underscore the order.

"I don't think it's going to do you much good to stand on your feet," Josh observed. "Where do you want me to put you down?"

"Over there," she snapped, pointing at a comfortable chair. Her robe lay on the ottoman, next to the cursed sliding glass door that had started the whole incident.

Josh nodded. "Marcus, go see if Lisette has an ice pack and some bandages."

"I don't need - " Lauren closed her eyes and fought the desire to scream as he sat her gently in the cushioned embrace of the chair. They had helped her. There was no reason to take them off at the neck because she felt helpless.

"Lauren," Josh's fingers touched her jaw and she opened her eyes. That lean, half-bare body curved over hers. His eyes were on her face, not on her naked breasts or the low riding towel.

"Shit happens," he said quietly. "We're not teenagers here. We all know what we look like under our clothes. You were in trouble, we're neighbors, we helped. There's no 911, nothing but the three of us to take care of one another. If you're going to look at this in any way, think of it as a good story to tell Lisette later. Don't beat yourself up over it."

"Easy for you to say," Lauren managed, trying not to look away, a cowardly way to deal with the overpowering sense of invasion his sincerity caused. "You weren't the idiot that  - "

"You're not an idiot." Lauren jerked at the hand that came down and clamped on hers. Josh squeezed her fingers. "You didn't know the door would lock behind you, you didn't know if someone would be coming to give you a hand, so you took the initiative and tried to help yourself out. That took guts.

Okay?" His tone softened on the last word, and he released her fingers to touch her face again, one light brush, tentative.

Lauren studied him, swallowing at the sheer...energy she saw behind those marvelous gray eyes. She had read a book, or maybe it was a sci-fi movie she had seen, where an entire galaxy was enclosed in a pendant. What she saw in his gaze reminded her of that. His proximity, his words and those eyes were all dragging her under. She struggled to stay above water. "You're being too nice about all this," she said.

"You're right about that," he said, surprising her. "If you'd stop being so pitiful, I could drop the whole chivalry thing and stare at your tits."

Lauren choked on a laugh. A smile eased across his face, stopping her breath. He rose, moving out of her personal space, physically at least. "I'll see what we can make for dinner," he said.

"Dinner?" she squeaked at his back as she snatched the robe and worked her way into it. "I don't need... I don't recall inviting you to dinner," she wiggled the towel out from beneath the robe and belted the latter just as Marcus returned.

"But you were going to, because we rescued you," Marcus pointed out. "Besides which, Josh is a terrific cook. Here," he knelt before her with a first aid kit and a brush. He opened the kit and unrolled a bandage. "First I'm going to rub this with a wet cloth, and get a bit of the forest off..."

* * * * *

Lauren found herself at the mercy of a miracle, two nurturing men. Marcus cleaned and wrapped her ankle and then applied warm and cold compresses to it, exercising consideration to both her physical and mental discomfort. He dropped the arrogant wit in favor of comfortable questions about her visit to the island. Her history with Lisette, how she had gotten here, and then how she had learned to sail so well.

Pleasant small talk.

Josh cooked and threw a comment or question into the conversation now and then. Mainly he listened, with the same intent focus with which he chopped, sauteed and transformed grocery items she would have nuked or eaten raw into a culinary delight. The aromas drifted into the living area with the dim glow of the kitchen track lighting, rousing her hunger and relaxing her body, as the cloak of night took over outside the sliding glass door.

"Now," Marcus picked up the brush when he was satisfied with the skin temperature and level of swelling on her ankle. "Let's get you tidied up for supper."

Before she could utter more than a sound of surprise, he was freeing her hair from its banana clip and pins and spreading it out behind her to take the brush through it and unsnarl the tangles.

"No protests, my dear." His voice dropped an octave. "If I recall, you enjoy being served."

Lauren's gaze jerked up to him. The sensual mouth and soft fall of hair was the type of face a woman did not forget. Even as she had the thought, it was there, the vague familiarity sharpening onto a distinct memory.

"I remember you. You were... sitting with another man. A younger man." Her eyes danced at Marcus's quick, wicked grin.

"Close your eyes, dear," he suggested. "And just lay back and enjoy."

* * * * *

It had been during a pediatrics seminar on asthma and allergies in New York City. She had slipped away after the official dinner and visited a club recommended by Maria.

The place had been called May I Have This Dance? . IT had a hundred dollar cover charge to step into grace and elegance with a kink flavor.

Men dressed in black tie. The women wore formal wear heavy on corsets and long flowing skirts reminiscent of the Victorian era, and four inch stiletto heeled boots that were not. Diamond chandeliers sparkled, dimmed so they threw moving circles of light onto the ballroom dance floor but allowed the shadows to keep their secrets. Near the orchestra, bubbles drifted out onto the floor like schools of fish and dispersed among the diners like fairies alighting on flowers, touching a shoulder, a lock of hair, kissing a face before vanishing into moisture.

There was gallery seating, for those who preferred to watch the floor and sip a cocktail. Lauren had chosen that option. The mid-thigh sheath of black fabric shot with silver sparkles was somewhat inappropriate, in her estimation, for such a fantastical landscape. She wore seamed thigh highs beneath the dress that revealed a hint of their lace tops when she crossed her legs, and silver high heels fastened to her ankles with a swag of slender silver chains. It was fetish wear only to those who recognized it as such, in case she met one of her colleagues in the lobby of the hotel, on her way in or out. She hadn't even meant to go out, intending to skip Maria's suggestion. But something about a hotel room on a business trip, its odd combination of loneliness and temptation to indiscretion, had driven her to explore the boundaries of her world in a new place.

Marcus, though of course she had not known his name then, had come in from the bar. He had caught her eye, as he would any woman's, and she watched as he opened the door for the young man with him, guiding him through with a solicitous hand to his elbow. Marcus was wearing a tux with a swallow-tailed coat and white silk bowtie, his dark hair falling back onto his shoulders in perfect ebony waves.

She watched how he spoke to the waiter, while the young man looked about him uncertainly. She suspected it was his first time in such a place. He also had that anxious, anticipatory air of someone awaiting a Master's bidding, not sure what that bidding would be, and aroused by the very thought of what it could be. It was in Marcus, too, the studied, casual way he spoke to the waiter while keeping a proprietary hand on his companion's back. Behind the casual expression was something more, a still fascination, another form of anticipation. How would his companion react to what he would ask of him?

The waiter led them to the table directly beneath Lauren. Marcus pulled out the chair for his companion, seated him, then sat to his left, his arm laying along the young man's chair back, his fingers playing absently with the boy's nape. His companion was looking about, drinking it all in, his smiles quick and easy, and Marcus chuckled often during their murmured conversation.

They fascinated her, and at first she was not sure why, did not question why her gaze could not leave them. Marcus ordered for them both, and the waiter brought them drinks.

The young man picked up his napkin, but Marcus's hand closed over his wrist. "Leave it, Thomas," he said.

His words reached Lauren, a murmur rising above the undercurrent of noise around them. Marcus laid the boy's wrist on the table and his own hand dropped, a palmed caress of the boy's inner thigh that suffused his face with color. "I want to be able to see what I do to you."

Thomas nodded, settling his hand around the wine, but it trembled slightly. Yes, Lauren decided. They had played at home a good deal, enough that they knew one another's signals, but this was likely Thomas's first debut in public as a sub. It was enough to rivet any Dom's attention, watching a Master acclimate a sub to serving his pleasure before the eyes of strangers, though of course in a place like this,

"stranger" was a relative term.

It was not just her thighs that tightened at the interchange, but something in her throat, her heart. That dual sense of belonging, in the way of being equally possessor and possessed, the intimacy of it. She saw it in their tender play with one another and it made her miss Jonathan keenly, or rather, what she had wanted to have with Jonathan, and never had.

"I've a gift for you," his words drifted up, penetrating her pain, and Lauren gazed down upon them again.

"Your company is gift enough," Thomas said, touching his glass to Marcus's.

Marcus chuckled. "And here I've no hip waders for such flattery." At the other's cheeky grin, he fished something out of his jacket and laid it on the table.

Lauren leaned forward. It was an elegant gold chain, something a well-dressed man might wear, its simplicity and gleam speaking of its quality, but it appeared long for a man's neck.

Marcus leaned forward, and his voice dropped, husky. "It goes around your waist, my love, and you will feel its movement with every twitch of that delectable ass of yours. It will ride on your hip bones, reminding you of how my hands feel there, digging into your flesh when I'm driving into you, whispering your name, telling you to come for me." He lifted it, held it at eye level. "It symbolizes your willingness to be bound to me, obedient to me, for it is not my will alone that holds you, but yours."

The young man grasped Marcus's hand, the gold between their palms.

"Tell me you understand," Marcus murmured, his eyes on Thomas's, "And tell me in the way you have been taught."

"I understand, Master."

"And do you willingly belong to me?"

"With all my heart," the man's voice was ragged with emotion.

"Good, then," Marcus leaned back. "You will stand, remove your coat, tie and shirt, and unfasten your pants so I may place my collar upon you."

Thomas grew pale, but Lauren suspected she knew where the blood had gone by Marcus's appreciative chuckle. He eased forward again. Without any self-consciousness, he fondled his sub's groin, stroking the tightly packaged treasure there. "Keep your legs open for me," he said, so soft, but the steel of it thrummed through Lauren's own thighs. Her hand was tight on the rail, perspiration making her grasp slick.

Such behavior was expected in a D/s Club, but unsettling for a novice. The boy was not used to this intense level of play, she could tell, and he was mesmerized and terrified by it, ready for it before he knew he was ready for it. Embracing it.

"Are you mine, or not?" Marcus said, his voice an octave more stern. "Or do I need to whip you, to remind you who your Master is, and how quickly you should move to obey him?"

Thomas pushed back his chair, muffling a groan as Marcus's skillful fingers gave him a hard stroke. He stood.

"Keep your eyes on me, pet," Marcus settled back with his wine, "and it will not be so difficult. Or, perhaps you should watch the lovely Mistress in the balcony, who is being pleasured by the very sight of you."

Thomas's gaze shifted up and met Lauren's. She let an appreciative smile toy on her lips, keeping her eyes steady and expectant upon him, though it startled her to know Marcus had known she was watching. Marcus lifted his glass to her and she inclined her head, but they both instantly turned their attention back to Thomas.

He bit his lip, shrugged out of the coat.

"Slowly," Marcus barked, attracting the attention of two nearby tables. "You wish to please me, do you not? You have a beautiful body. Let them all enjoy watching it, but know it belongs only to me."

A subtle message of where the line was drawn, Lauren noted with approval. Thomas let the coat fall to the chair and undid the tie, careful this time not to rush, his eyes back on Marcus.

"It took me forever to tie this damn thing," he joked awkwardly.

"I will help you put it back on, dear heart. Or perhaps I'll run it beneath your chair and tie your wrists so you are helpless to me during your meal, and I will feed you, and stroke your cock at my leisure. Would you like that?"

Thomas stopped, his fingers hovering at the collar of his shirt, and met his Master's eyes. That silent moment, determining what he could bear and what he wanted. What he wanted was becoming rather plain, despite the generous cut of the elegant trousers.

"I thought as much," Marcus said, his gaze following Lauren's and discomfiting Thomas further. "Perhaps that is what I should do. But for now, the shirt, please."

Thomas darted a glance about, saw he definitely had the attention of the nearby tables. His fingers fumbled the first two buttons, but then he took a deep breath, met Marcus's gaze and held it, letting it encompass and steady him.

It was always absorbing to Lauren, the way a man undressed; particularly when he was wearing formal wear. The way the crisp white shirt pulled over broad shoulders, how the starched button side curved like water along the contours of firm pectorals. The surprising delicacy of the wrist bones contrasting, in his case, with broad palms and long, capable fingers. Total male, total art. The dip of the head, the unconscious tense hold of the jaw as he worked the buttons free, the exposed nape. She wished she was standing close enough to inhale him, the soaps or colognes he used. Gay men knew how to enhance their own male scent so well, garnishing it with musks that underscored their masculinity, the blatant sexuality of it. Regardless of sexual preference, men were inherently primitive beings, and Lauren enjoyed them all the more for it. And watching a beautiful male such as this was like watching a work of art be formed under a Master's hand. It was an accurate description of what she was watching.

He shrugged out of the shirt, so nervous he forgot about the cuffs. When he realized he was stuck, his arms trapped at his sides in the sleeves, he made to slide the shirt back onto his shoulders to remedy the situation.

"No," Marcus stopped him. "I'll do the rest."

He reached forward, slid the belt tongue from its loop and through the buckle. His elegant wrists brushed the top of Thomas's erection beneath the pants, and Thomas sucked in a breath. A smile played on Marcus's lips, acknowledging Thomas's torture, his internal war between embarrassment and desire.

He worked the belt free of the tooth and then unhooked the trousers, lowering the zipper no more than an inch or two, just so the fine summer wool would drop lower on the young man's slim hips. He appeared to be wearing black briefs, perhaps thong or Brazilian cut, and his abdomen was well defined.

"Put your hands at your sides," Marcus instructed, noticing how Thomas had his elbows bent, his hands reflexively clenched up near his waist. Marcus's gaze flicked over the neighboring tables, and up to Lauren.

"Is he not beautiful?"

There was a heated murmur of assent, and the back of Thomas's neck, exposed by his closely cropped hair, flushed even redder under gazes of appreciative desire.

Marcus nodded, and sat back to take a sip from his wine glass. He studied his companion, allowing Lauren and the other diners a leisurely perusal. The waiter came back, refilled Marcus's glass, not looking at Thomas, though he stood between the two men for a moment. Thomas waited, suffering and aroused, while Marcus took another drink, sat the glass back down, touched a napkin to his lips. Then he lifted the gold chain from the table and leaned forward.

He ran it around Thomas's lean bare waist, adjusting the length so it indeed rode low on Thomas's hip bones, and left a fine double strand about two inches long hanging below the fastening, which appeared to be a flat engraved disk.

Thomas's head bent, nuzzling Marcus's fall of hair, his fingers clenching with the obvious desire to touch."There, now," Marcus slid the chain around, adjusting it so the dangling tips lay in that indentation where the spine ended and the vulnerable separation of buttocks began. "Once fastened as I have fastened it, it can only be unlocked by a key," he held it up for Thomas's inspection before placing it in his pocket. "But it is not unbreakable." Marcus's eyes were steady. "Should you ever desire to cast away your bindings, then you need only break the chain and leave it where I can find it. You understand? And there will be nothing messy between us. I will accept it as your farewell, and wish you nothing but joy and happiness. The engraving on the lock is simple," he palmed the disk, his fingers caressing Thomas's heated skin, and held the gold oval up for his inspection. "Mine."

Things had become very still at the surrounding tables during Marcus's speech. It was the point in the game they all knew, shared and sought. It was that moment when, even if there were a hundred others in the room, it was just the two of them. Thomas suddenly leaned forward, pressed his lips to Marcus's. It was a touch of lips only, as his arms were still bound by his shirt. Lauren saw the curve of spine, the slope of his buttocks in the loose ride of the pants. Thomas lifted his head, adoration shining from them.

"Yes, Master."

"Well, then." Marcus cleared his throat after a moment. He stood up and adjusted the shirt back on Thomas's shoulders, buttoning it down the lean chest, his fingers caressing, his face only an inch from his lover's. He was not touching him in any overtly sexual way, but the act of redressing him, not allowing him to tend himself, was expressive in its eroticism. Lauren felt damp all over, in and out. His hips brushed Thomas's aroused crotch with casual indifference, but not inattention.

Marcus refastened the trousers, belted them, and then began to work on the tie. Thomas raised his now free hand, closed it gently over Marcus's wrist.

"You promised to tie my hands and feed me, Master," he reminded him. "And I desire nothing more than to be yours in all ways." His eyes, his body, the light but insistent touch, all communicated his aching need to please his lover. An ache Jonathan had never had for her.

Lauren sat back, her heart breaking, and spilled her tears into her wine.