Free Branded Sanctuary by Joey W. Hill

crease of her thigh, then crossed over her pubic bone, a gentle warning of his intent. His thumbs hooked the sides and he slid them off, moving in sync with her helpful wriggle to get them free from under her bottom.
    Now she lay naked, and she knew the nerves were going to start again. But he didn‟t lean over her, didn‟t suffocate her. Instead, he stayed kneeling as he had throughout and closed his hand over her foot, bringing it up so he could tease her sole with his mouth.
    It caught in her weirdly twisting mind, a really bad Haiku poem in the making. He enclosed her sole / A substitute for her soul / Since her soul fears him. He had to settle for her foot, for a homonym. A facsimile, something that wasn‟t what he really wanted. Word games. All of it games.
    A moment before she‟d been apprehensive of his more intimate touch, but now the sensual caress on her foot, her ankle, made her upper body cold and yearning for the same attention. “Brendan,” she murmured. “Come lay on me.” He rose. There was a clink as he unbuckled his belt again, the sound of it sliding free then dropping to the floor. At her curious glance, he brushed a light finger over her bare stomach. “So I don‟t hurt this soft skin.”
    Putting a knee on the bed, he braced himself over her, a handsome silhouette with certain features highlighted. The gleam of a shoulder and eye, the plane of his jaw, the angle of his hip. Reaching up, she spread his shirt open wide, fanning her fingers over the firm musculature beneath. “You‟re not one of those workout freaks, are you?”
    “If I am?”
    Curling her hands in the loose fabric, she wrapped her knuckles in it so they disappeared in the cotton brushing his sides. “We won‟t suit. I‟m allergic to exercise unless it masquerades as something fun and unrelated to fitness nazi-ism.” His lips curved. “I like hiking and swimming, because I don‟t like sitting still too long. Doing laps helps me get into that mindless zone, gives my worries a break.”
    “The Zen of YMCA Laps.” She found a smile inside herself and shyly shared it with him. “I can go with that. The Y‟s a place of great spiritual peace. And karaoke nights.” She tugged at his snort. “Why haven‟t you laid on me like I asked?”
    “I‟m getting aroused again, Chloe.”

    His impressive recovery time goaded the devil in her once more. She arched a brow. “Can you lay on me without doing anything about that, if I tell you that you can‟t?”
    “Yes. It won‟t stop me from getting harder. In fact,” his voice dropped, so it shivered along her nerves as his gaze slid down her face, touched her breasts and the slope of her bare belly, “It‟s likely to make things worse.”
    “Good,” she whispered. “Can you hold back, no matter how hard you get?” Was she trying to torture the poor guy? But she didn‟t take it back as his gaze returned to hers and held.
    “If you command me to. And if that‟s what you want.”
    In answer, she pulled at him again. This time he started to lower his body onto hers, but in an unexpected and pleasurable move, he slid an arm beneath her, palmed one buttock and shifted their bodies up the mattress so her head could be on the pillow, comfortable. Then he brought his body all the way down, readjusting his arms so his elbows were propped on either side of her head.
    Bliss. When his weight settled on her, it was perfect. Holding her down, pressed into the mattress, sheltered and anchored at once. Freeing her hands, she slid her palms with savoring delight down his bare back, following the line of his spine to the beginning rise of buttocks. As a result of his removal of the belt, the waistband rode lower on an ass she knew was delightfully bare. But when her palms brushed the small of his back, she found something the tail of his shirt had concealed in the Jeep.
    She moved her fingers over it more carefully. “Is this a scar?”
    “Yes.”
    Something in his voice drew her gaze