Josh laid his arm about her waist. He did not fit his body to hers, but the invitation was there if she should choose to accept it. Marcus crawled in facing her. She felt his hand slide over Josh's arm so they were woven protectively around her. Josh did not draw back from his friend's touch, though the only place Marcus's hand could be resting would be on Josh's waist or the point of his hip.
Marcus had the faint smell of expensive cologne. It brought to her mind a chic night in a New York gallery, and an image of him dressed in a suit custom made in Hong Kong, finished with a silk tie and elegant cuff links. Josh was all musky male, earth and trees, evoking the vision of a native slipping through the forest, a shadow as lithe and intriguing as a passing wolf.
It was an unsettling contrast, and an altogether attractive one. Lauren slid one arm over Marcus's bare ribs, touching the light down across his abdomen with the tips of her fingers as she did so. She slid her other arm up to Josh's hand at her waist and tugged him closer. He obliged, sliding in and cupping her silk clad backside in the hot cradle of his thighs. He tightened the coil of his arm so his arm circled most of her waist, his fingers curved between it and the mattress. Her shoulder blades pressed against his chest.
His head was just behind hers, his breath brushing the nape and side of her neck. If she tilted her head just a bit, she would brush her jugular against his lips. Her fingers trailed Marcus's bare spine, an idle stroking gesture, just indulging the pleasure of contact. Her forehead rested against his muscular bicep as he lay his angel's head on his crooked arm and smiled into her near face.
Their legs were a delightful tangle; Josh's couched up behind hers, one calf insinuated between her calves, his toes idly stroking her curled ones. Marcus's leg lay over both of theirs.
Lauren giggled. "This is like a pile of puppies," she said.
Marcus chuckled in the dim light. "You're a bit less fuzzy, love, and Josh. . . Well, he has practically no chest hair. I've often wondered, does he even have hair - "
Lauren squealed as the blanket above her kicked up in violent disturbance as Josh fended off Marcus's playful grabs over her hips.
"You've seen it often enough to know," Josh said evenly. "The only reason you come here is to see me naked when I swim. "
"Yes, there are no good looking men in New York," Marcus said dryly. "I have to go a thousand miles to the middle of nowhere to get a look at a fine piece of ass. And a straight piece of ass at that. "
Lauren shrieked as the blankets kicked up again. Josh punched at his friend and Marcus retaliated, launching a brief tussle. Lauren struggled to get her own blows in and succeeded in swatting them both.
"Hey! Innocent civilian caught in the middle here. "
Marcus grinned over her head. "Saved from an ass kicking by Mom. "
"I know you were. "
Lauren choked on a laugh at the suitably childish retort and seized Josh's arm, clamping it around her waist. She used the same hand to shove Marcus's head back down on the pillow beside hers. "Are you sure you two aren't brothers?"
"No, thank God. I wouldn't want to endanger my soul with the kind of thoughts I have concerning Josh's straight ass. " Marcus's teeth flashed at Josh's snort, but he settled back in, laying his arm once again over his friend's on Lauren's hip.
There was a moment of silence, then Marcus's voice murmured just above the crown of her head. "We are brothers. " Lauren felt him squeeze Josh's arm. "Family formed by circumstance rather than blood. "
"Sometimes it's stronger that way," she said, and then they all were still, aware of one another, and not needing to say more.
The silence was a peaceful one, but as it settled over them like drifts of warm sand into hollows between rocks, Lauren's mind turned to the immediate physical sensations, and the input there was far from serene. The silk of the panties she wore with her oversized T-shirt was a transparent conductor of the heat of Josh's groin. The way they were nested against each other, his aroused member fit intimately into the silken channel of her labia and the crease of her backside, giving her a screaming urge to rub. His occasional slight shifts, which pressed him more firmly into that channel, were not easing that desire.
There was moisture dampening the cloth between them, the perspiration created by flesh pressed against flesh, and her body's response, oiling itself for penetration.
She could part her thighs, slide her finger along the fragile line of elastic, pull the undergarment aside and let him pull her down on him. She had asked him to be here, to sleep with her, for the intimacy. She had enjoyed her power over him. Now that had opened a door deeper within her, as such play always did.
She wanted to go beyond that, link her desire with his and let it overpower them, wrap them in its cocoon and let them sate themselves until the experience transformed them.
How could the emotional need vibrating from her in waves not be pounding against his senses? Her body was trembling with it. The men had to feel it. Josh had to know how close she was to giving in and letting him have her body to plunder at will.
His hand touched her hair, stroked, soothing her as she had soothed him. "Sleep," he murmured. "Just sleep. "
The warm, non-sexual touch was a sweet, searing contrast to what was happening below their waists, and it gradually balanced the scale in her mind, bringing her back to a more level perspective. He could not give her what she sought in one fell swoop, like sitting down to one meal to nourish the body for a lifetime. It didn't work that way, though many people, including herself, had often made that mistake, thinking one gigantic fuck would answer all the needs hungering inside. He knew it, she knew it, but it was him who took the reins at this moment and slowed the wagon down. He knew how to be strong.
His perception of her needs was unnerving, considering less than twelve hours ago they had been strangers.
She took a firm hold of Marcus's arm at her waist, like the safety bar on a roller coaster,
and focused on Josh's hand instead of his tempting cock. It took some time, but beneath his gentle touch, the dangerous intensity building within her eased, and at length she expelled it in a soft sigh. She rooted her cheek deeper into the support of Marcus's bicep and Lisette's pillows. With Josh's hand caressing her hair, she slid into sensual dreams with the two men intertwined around her.
* * * * *
Her dreams were a languid swim through warm liquid, populated by underwater plants of vivid colors, with fleshy smooth stalks that stroked her body like long, silken fingers. She swam through them and rolled lazily, feeling their touch all along her skin, naked in the substance of the womb.