Page 66 of Cross To Bear

“I’m so fucking close.” Kisses, more kisses, that stung just like the tattoo on my inner thigh. “You are too, aren’t you?”

I went to nod, but instead let out a wail as whatever control I had snapped. I wrapped my arms around him, clinging on for dear life as my whole body shook. His lips against my neck, his mouth on my skin, his filthy, beautiful words rasped out as he erupted all over my stomach were the perfect ending. Then there was only the buzz of the toy and our ragged breaths, right before we pulled back to stare at each other.

Regret or rejoice, those were the only choices right now and when my face cracked in a wild grin, his did the same. We laughed like car crash victims, just fucking grateful we’d survived, looking around at our surroundings, at our companion, seeing them in entirely new eyes.

“So was that…?” I winced, the toy way too intense for my now sensitive flesh. He reached down and pulled it free then turned it off so that the silence made what happened later so much clearer. “Was that how you imagined it’d go?”

“Are you fucking serious?” His sharp words were softened by a broad smile. “It was better. So much fucking better. Jesus, Maddie—”

The sharp jingle of the bells at the door had us both stiffening and Bjorn pulled away regretfully, putting his dick away and zipping up before exiting the room. Muffled voices, his and a female, had me stiffening. The room came back into focus with a snap, because the woman’s voice was familiar.

“Don’t go in there!” Bjorn growled and I leapt off the table, kicking my torn underwear under a table and then jerking my dress back into place, even as I became aware of a sizeable wet patch in the stomach area. But she didn’t listen to her son, because Nelly jerked the door open with a smile, one that faded as she saw who was inside.

The rooms stank of sex. Her son’s jizz was splattered all over my middle and right up high on my thigh, my skin now ached sullenly. My hair was a mess and so was I, something she took in with one look. Nelly set down the washing basket full of clean towels, shook her head, and then frowned as she looked at me.

“Maddie…?”

Chapter 38

Bjorn

“I said don’t go in there!”

The way I grabbed Mum’s shoulders and turned her roughly around would’ve had my dads growling, but they weren’t here right now. Maddie was. This was supposed to be the moment when I held her close, rocked her in my arms and let her come down slowly from whatever the fuck we were doing.

Applying my art to her skin, had my dick already wanting to harden again at the thought of it. Something primal in me had always wanted to brand her with my designs. I’d even offered to do a tatt for free when she was still with Jesse, as my brother’s eyes bore into mine. Maddie had blushed and said no. And now I had… I glared down at my mother, my lips twitching, wanting to bare my fangs at her if that’s what it took to protect my mate.

“Thanks for washing the towels,” I told my mother in a much calmer voice, “but as I’ve said before, I’m big enough and ugly enough to wash them myself. Now you need to go.”

I’d hear about this from my dads, because I was forcibly steering Mum towards the door and after she’d done something nice for me, because they didn’t see it. Maddie’s wide-eyed gape as she stared at Mum, but worse, the way my mother looked at my mate.

Her mouth became pinched as she took in the state of my girl’s dress, which was fucking rich from a woman who I’d caught plenty of times in post coital bliss. Our parents didn’t have sex in front of us or anything, but once we were old enough to understand why they were slipping away in the afternoon, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. They’d appear sometime later looking flushed and all too pleased with themselves, Mum wearing one of their shirts as a dress. But when the shoe was on the other foot, my mother seethed.

I could see it in her grip on the basket, feel it in the way she resisted my push, planting her feet, every muscle tensing with the effort, though when I heard her suck in a breath, ready to say her piece, I stepped in front of Maddie, blocking Mum’s view of her.

“No.” I said that just as firmly, just as decisively as my dads would. “You want to talk about this? We’ll do so at home later. Not now. You need to go home now, Mum.”

It felt like my mother saw me for the first time then. She certainly studied me with way more interest than she usually displayed, her eyes narrowing. When I refused to back down, or because I just couldn’t, she shook her head and then turned on her heel, dumping the basket on the floor before she walked out the door. For a moment, all I could do was breathe. Aftercare, that was the jab in the ribs I needed, forcing me to turn around and face Maddie.

“Hey—”

“Oh my god, your mother…” Maddie pointed a shaking finger at the door. “She…” Her eyes jerked down to inspect the mess I’d made of her dress. “And I—”

“Nope.” I moved forward, picking her up and holding her to my chest like I should have the moment we were done. “We’re not doing this.” She was open, vulnerable, shaking, and I needed to protect her until she settled. “We’re not doing regret, especially after…” I kicked my studio door open and brought her back into the smaller space, sitting down on Cress’s chair with Maddie sitting across my knees. When her head settled against my chest, something loosened inside me. “Not after the most perfect morning of my life.”

“Perfect?”

She peered up at me then, the calm, decisive woman she usually was gone right now. Because I’d cracked her wide open. I smiled then, trying to reassure her.

“Perfect,” I confirmed. “You were just…” I smoothed a hand down her outer thigh. “Perfect. Better than I imagined, and my fevered brain spent a damn long time concocting that scenario, imagining every detail.” Her little gasp had me looking down at her. “I hope it was OK for you.”

“OK?” Her voice got all quavery again as she shifted restlessly in her arms. “OK? I got a damn tattoo today—”

“About that.” I’d filled the bear silhouette in with a variety of stormy greys in a watercolour like pattern, then added a couple of simple tree shapes around it. Not my best work, but certainly not terrible. “I know some reputable people who can remove it for you and—”

“No.” My eyes jerked down to lock with hers. “No, I want to keep it. I think.” She frowned slightly. “Are you going to show it to me now?”

I laughed then, a weird bark of a thing, before reaching over to my desk and pulling a hand mirror out of the drawers. My hand moved slowly to hike up her dress, then part her thighs, before the other directed the mirror at the tattoo. She was forced to crane her neck to see it, but… My heart beat way too fast as she gazed at it, the silence feeling like a thick smog that threatened to choke me.

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