She bit her lip. Chris was a quiet presence to her left. "May I touch, Master? If it's okay with . . . both of you."
She wondered if she needed to explain that it wasn't about touching another man. Shale couldn't have described it more accurately. Her fingers were itching to touch evidence of a type of play that intrigued her, that she might want her Master to do to her.
Geoff glanced at Chris, but whatever he saw there satisfied him. He nodded. Sam slid her fingertips over the marks, just below where Shale kept her hand against Troy's nape. When Troy turned his head to look at her, Sam had to ask, "Did it hurt?"
"In all good ways. It gets bad at a certain point, and I think I'm going to safe-word, but I break through that point. It's like I'm channeling how she feels about it, which balances the pain. And then . . . I fly."
Sam took her hand away and murmured her thanks. Geoff spoke to Troy another few minutes about the cross, then they left Troy and Shale to visit the next booth. The vendor there was a man whose short limbs and stature indicated dwarfism. When Sam met his steady blue eyes, she was intrigued. Studying his strong features and atypical stature, she wondered what his story was, how it had brought him here. From the quirk of his lips and gleam of appreciation in his gaze as he studied her, she was pretty sure he was a Dom. He had a square jaw and a tangled mop of dark hair, but the handsome face only contributed to the compelling attitude he projected.
His card read Grant Juneau. Grant was offering different strike-branding techniques. Electric, freeze branding, heat. Sam thought any of it would be terribly painful, but Grant explained that when being done for marking, the contact was quick. The mark would remain anywhere from six to eighteen months.
"Hurts less than tattooing," he said to Geoff. "And a lot less expensive way to put a mark of ownership on your sub or slave."
Geoff glanced at Chris quizzically. Chris lifted a shoulder. "I don't really want to mark her skin that way."
"How about me marking yours?"
Chris blinked. Geoff's hazel eyes were sharp. "You remember that blood oath we made?"
"A blood oath?" Sam asked.
Chris grimaced, with humor. But she noticed his brown eyes were bemused, showing how very aware he was of Geoff as he shifted behind Chris, stroking his back around and beneath the hold of the harness straps. He tugged on a metal link hard enough to make Chris brace himself against the pull before Geoff dropped lower, fondling the curve of Chris's ass in the formfitting pants. Chris's head tilted as Geoff tucked fingertips beneath the waistband, caressing the dip between his buttocks.
"Watch her breathing, Chris. She gets so turned on when I touch you. Think she'd get even hotter if I branded my initial into your shoulder, here?" He traced the spot as Chris's eyes moved to Sam's entranced face.
Geoff lifted his gaze to Sam. "We'd just turned twelve. The oath was a promise to never let women come between us, inspired by the sudden loss of three of our friends who'd fallen under their diabolical spell. It ruined our afternoon baseball games, because those guys wanted to hang out with icky girls instead of meeting up to play."
Sam smiled but the smile died as Geoff wrapped his fingers around the base of Chris's throat on one side. When Chris's muscles tensed, Geoff soothed him by sliding the other hand back down his arm, threading it between elbow and back to put him in a light restraint hold. Chris could throw him off, but when Geoff tightened his grip, Chris went more still.
"His pulse is hammering." Geoff pressed against Chris's back. "You feel my cock? I plan to have it in both of you tonight. I like the idea of branding your flesh, Chris. I like it a whole fucking lot. What do you think?"
Chris was silent for a moment, then Sam saw him curl the fingers behind his back into Geoff's shirt, as much as the position allowed. "I want that," Chris said. His gaze met hers, and suddenly an erotic moment opened up into something far more, bringing forth everything that had led to this moment. Chris's expression became brilliant with emotions that tied her heart up in a dozen ways, all of them connected to her two men.
"I want you both to know I'm yours," he murmured. "Every part of me. If I could figure out a way to brand it on my heart and soul, I would. You can destroy me with nothing but a word. It fucking scares me like nothing else, and it makes me happier than I've ever been in my life."
He'd mesmerized her, drawing her closer with every word. She gripped the straps of the harness as Geoff slid an arm over his chest, overlapping her tight fingers. He pressed a hard kiss on Chris's shoulder and Chris brushed his head against Geoff, a fierce gesture of tenderness.
"Sam, go pick out a G," Geoff ordered roughly. "And one you'd like him to have."
There was no shame and definitely no choice in her need to collect and compose herself before approaching the vendor. Grant had busied himself in his booth, but Sam knew he'd stayed tuned in to them, and not just because he was a smart man who understood when he was close to making a sale. When she stepped up to his table, his expression was warm and knowing, as if he understood just what kind of feelings she was experiencing from Chris's unexpected declaration. "These two," she said quietly, touching a brand shaped like a bird and the G brand next to it.
Grant's blue eyes passed over her outfit, the bird mask, and he nodded with a faint smile. "The G is a freeze brand, and the bird is a heat brand." He quoted the price to her as Geoff and Chris drew closer, standing shoulder to shoulder again. Geoff handed her the money. After pocketing it,
the vendor motioned to Chris to come around into his application space. Gauging Chris's height, he pulled over his taller stepping stool. "You sit on this. I'll step on the other so I can get the right angle to apply them evenly."
Chris complied. Sam shifted so she and Geoff could face him together. Geoff took her hand. "Breathe," he said. "If you pass out, I'll make fun of you."
She rolled her eyes at him. Grant had said it wasn't any worse than getting a tattoo, but she still held her breath a little bit. Sensing her trepidation, Chris grasped her other hand and smiled. It was quick, no more than a blink, and Chris didn't even flinch. She came around at Grant's gesture so she could see the new imprints.
"They look pretty widely spaced out, but that's because they'll get a lot bigger over the next few hours. You can touch it lightly, but try not to touch it too much during that period." Grant picked up her hand to rest her fingertips on the G representing Geoff's name. Grant's grip was surprisingly firm and strong.
"You can look at them to your heart's content, beautiful bird. He looks like he spends a lot of time in the sun. Even when they start to fade, they'll remain lighter than his natural tan, so you'll see it show up that way for quite a while."
He gave them the rundown on the safety tips to keep it uninfected, and then he was turning to another knot of customers. They'd drawn an audience, people wanting to watch Chris be branded, and several now took advantage of Grant's services.
Sam wanted to touch the brands again, but mindful of Grant's warning about overdoing it, she settled for just looking at them. "I should pay for the bird," she told Geoff. "That one was more for me."
Geoff shook his head. "No. It's proof that you're his as much as mine, something I particularly want him to remember."