'Oh, God,’ I whispered as it circled there, a caress as light as air, but so potent it brought tears to my eyes.
The touch flittered to the sensitive skin beneath my upraised arm, then darted back to my toes, my belly. I never knew where it would land or how long it would stay, and the anticipation aroused as much as the moments of contact.
I heard Joe breathing hard and deep. I smelled the musk of male arousal.
He touched a point midway between my navel and pubis that almost made me see stars. Energy rushed out from my centre. My back arched off the bed.
'Ah,’ he whispered, 'we're getting closer to the warmest spot.'
He drew the brush up my clitoris, a light, glancing stroke. He repeated it. The sensation changed as the brush grew slick with dew. I felt it more, needed it more. The brush lapped me like a tiny tongue. My thighs trembled. My head thrashed back and forth on the pillow. I tightened my inner muscles, trying to pull myself to climax but the delicate stroking held me on the edge - pushing me up but not over.
'Please,' I groaned, forgetting all my promises to myself. 'Please, Joe, I need to come.'
'Do you?' His lips tickled my earlobe, setting off a new set of sparklers. The brush continued its ethereal torture. 'I wonder if you need it enough to do me a favour.'
'Anything,' I said, and meant it.
'How you tempt me.'
The wistful answer made my eyelids flutter open.
'Anything,’1 repeated.
His eyes darkened, pupils swallowing up the glowing gold. 'I don't want what you think I want - not sexual favours, not a night of fucking.'
'What do you want?' I sounded drugged. I couldn't help it. He'd never stirred me this way before. No one had.
The brush dipped for one aching moment into the well of my sex. 'I want you to marry me.'
My mouth dropped. I tried to summon the outrage I thought I should feel. 'You can't coerce a person into marrying you.'
'Can't I?' The brush flicked up my labia and circled my clit.
'No! Oh, God -' My breath caught as he increased the pressure by the smallest, most excruciating margin.
'Even if you could make me say "yes", what's to keep me from going back on my word later on?'
'But you try very hard to keep your word.' He said this slowly, deliberately, as if the phrase held a secret meaning. 'You try very hard to keep your word.'
At the second repetition, I remembered. I'd made that exact claim to Sean six months ago, when he hadn't believed I meant to stay friends. It had been a private moment, the turning point in our relationship, the day our real friendship began.
'Sean told you that?' I couldn't hide my hurt.
Joe smiled with his eyes alone, gently, and with genuine compassion. 'He told me everything. He knows what I'm here to do. He wants me to be happy. He wants you to be happy.'
'I can't make you choose.' The words were out before I knew it. Abruptly, I knew I was taking this proposal seriously.
'Choose?' His brow furrowed. 'I told you, I'm not in love with Sean - or do you mean choose between men and women?'
'I don't want you to look back twenty years from now and feel you've missed out, that you denied half your sexuality.'
With one finger, he teased a damp curl from my cheek. 'Everyone who marries chooses between the rest of the world and the person they love. Whatever I give up will be nothing compared to what I gain.' His gaze narrowed, a golden laser to my soul. 'I want all of you, the light Kate and the dark Kate. You gave me your heart before. Now I want the rest. I want it for myself and I want it for keeps. I've had six months to think about this, long enough to be sure I love you more than all those other choices.'
This time he didn't ask if I'd marry Sean. My answer would have been the same - that Sean wouldn't ask me. But my feelings about the answer were different. Sean and I had been in each other's pockets for half a year.
We'd been friends, partners and lovers. We respected each other, relied on each other.
Didn't Sean mind? I wondered. Not just losing Joe, but losing me?
Joe waited, following the conflict in my eyes.
'Everyone has to choose,' he said quietly.
I wondered if he meant me this time. But was it such a close race? My heart wanted Joe. My heart said: this man will be true to you all his days. This man makes you want to surrender in a way no man ever has. If a corner - perhaps a substantial corner - of my heart belonged to Sean, then so be it.
'Yes,’ I said, and a bolt of pure gladness flashed through my being.
Joe released the breath he'd been holding. 'You'll marry me?' The old Joe struggled in his face, fighting to believe. 'Really?'
'Really.' I laughed, not believing I was doing this, giddy as a schoolgirl on champagne.
'Yes!' His fist punched the air as if his team had won the cup. 'Oh, but I have to get you out of this.' He reached for the scissors.