Page 75 of Cross To Bear

“Yeah, you are.” His hand travelled along the side of my body, tracing the shape of me before he tugged me closer. “Sticky like a cinnamon scroll, and I always like licking the icing off mine first.”

“No licking.” My hand slapped down on his chest, and his expression of surprise was a mirror of my own. “I mean, I’m sticky because of you…” I frowned slightly. “Maybe you’re into eating your own cum. We’ve never really talked about that.” My thumb moved back and forth in a rapid little caress. “I don’t know, but I’m sore and I feel yuck and—”

Whatever else I had to say, it was cut off by a pair of hands collecting me up and off the bed. Not Razor’s. His eyes narrowed as I was whisked away by a tousle-haired Hawk. I just stared up at him as he walked me out of the room and into the bathroom. The big open space never looked so good.

“Towels are over there,” he said, nodding to a pile set in an alcove in the tiled wall. “Soaps in the dispenser, but…” He walked over to the sink and opened the cupboards, bringing out a paper-wrapped lump. This was removed to reveal a cake of soap that had the most beautiful floral scent emanating from it. “You might like this more.”

“Thanks, I—”

“What the fuck, Hawk?” Razor snapped, appearing in the doorway. “I let you stay in my room on the proviso—”

The big man went and stepped into the doorway, not letting Razor step into the room, and I was curiously grateful for that gesture.

“You’re crowding Maddie.” Hawk stated that so simply, but as soon as the words were out, the tension inside me eased. That was it, this weird feeling. “Give her some space. Let her have a shower on her own. You’ve got your whole life to be with her. Don’t ruin that now. I’m gonna make us some breakfast.”

He didn’t wait for an answer from Razor, pushing past him, but the other man remained in the doorway. Those sharp blue eyes, they seemed to take in a whole lot more than they did before. They studied me like a scientist might a particularly fascinating specimen. I could almost feel the harsh glare of the microscope on me.

“I’ll be right out,” I reassured him. “I just need…” Emotion rose then, like a wave summoned from the depths of me, ready to drown everything. “I just need a quick shower first.”

“OK, I’ll wait for you in the dining room.” He seemed to recover more as each second passed. “You haven’t had Hawk cook for you before. The man knows his way around a kitchen.”

“Look forward to it,” I replied.

So why wasn’t I feeling that as I stepped under the shower head after stripping off my clothes? Why wasn’t I just filled with the warm glow of happiness? Why did my fingers scrub my scalp and feel where his had been, both wanting Razor to come and finish the job and ready to shout at him if he did?

I knew the answer.

When I went to therapy, I thought I was broken, defective, because what else could it be? I was experiencing paralysing bouts of anxiety, felt stuck in cycles of behaviour that just made me miserable, but my psychologist had been super helpful. Schemas, she called them. Almost like tropes in books, they were patterns of behaviour we learned from our parents. Some were positive, helpful, like that feeling of being loved, of being worthy that people with functional parents carried with them, while others…

Mine had me feeling the most comfortable when I was helping people and uncomfortable when those roles were reversed. Or chasing guys who didn’t want me and pulling away from those that did. I was a girl with an overly compliant mother and a distant father, and while I could identify that clinically, it didn’t change the way it felt. I thought I was better than this, that I’d moved past it, but that feeling persisted: that anyone who had the poor taste to actually like me was not worth my time.

I rinsed off and then towelled myself dry, looking down at my dirty clothes with distaste, when I spied something hanging from the doorknob. Someone had snuck in with a big fluffy robe and left it there for me. I touched the plush pile and smiled, shaking my head as I remembered my therapist’s advice.

“Anyone who really pushed your buttons, who feels like ‘the one’ at first sight, is probably not the guy for you,” she’d said. I’d just stared in incomprehension. “I know the world is full of love at first sight bullshit.” She’d smiled as my eyebrows jerked higher. “But for a lot of people that’s just them recognising the same parentally inflicted wounds in another person. Can two people with distant fathers or overly enmeshed mothers find happiness?” She shrugged. “It’s definitely possible, but the path is such a hard one that it reduces the rate of success.”

Her fingers laced together in front of her.

“When two people grow up not being properly cared for, not having their needs met, it creates a strange kind of normal inside them. One where the patterns of behaviour their parents displayed, no matter how painful, feel right.” Her lips thinned into a tight smile. “And when you are exposed to a healthier relationship dynamic…”

“It feels wrong…” I whispered now.

Articulating that helped calm me. I didn’t want to run, didn’t want to bail on Razor after making such a huge commitment to him. In a fit of impulsivity, I’d probably reached out for something before I was ready, but… I moved closer to the mirror, looking at the bite mark that was on my neck, realising now I’d have a tough time hiding that at work, though that didn’t concern me. Instead, I felt a rush of warmth as I traced the edges. My therapist had talked about how scary it would be to change the patterns of behaviour I was used to, but she didn’t mention this.

Hope.

I had a guy wanting with every fibre of his being to join me in the shower, another cooking me something delicious, if the smells coming from the rest of the house were anything to go by. There were four men out there, just waiting for permission to pamper me, something few women could say. I might not have planned this situation, but I could hardly be horrified by it. I pulled on the robe, tying it tight around me, the pressure on my skin a comforting thing now, not oppressive, right before I walked out into the kitchen.

They all looked up as I approached, every single one of them. Part of me couldn’t believe it. Crash was standing there, just in a loose pair of sleep shorts and nothing else, looking like an angel with all of that blond hair I’d bound back in plaits and a devil with Bjorn’s tattoos. But it was the searching look that got to me, one that took me in, then the robe, a small smile playing across his lips making clear he’d been the one to fetch it for me.

Bjorn was all careful concern, looking up from his phone, then leaving it behind altogether, stepping towards me.

“How’d you sleep?” His hands went to my arms, then my face, tilting my head slightly to see the mark on my neck, then sucking in a breath at the sight of it. “Any pain? We’ve got painkillers if you need them.”

“I’m fine.” When I was first with Jesse, I’d felt this, a sense of disbelief as I wrapped my arm around his waist, just like I did right now with Bjorn, one that deepened when Bjorn pulled me close. “More than fine.”

“Yeah, you are.” Razor was holding himself back, but his eyes flared brighter the moment he let himself come closer; my lips tilted his way before he claimed them. “It’ll be all sunshine and roses going forward now, love. I’ll make sure of it.”

As we all sat down to breakfast, Hawk slipping far too many eggs and rashers of bacon onto my plate, as well as some freshly baked sourdough, part of me wondered. Was that possible? Did the course of true love ever run smoothly? I took a sip of my coffee and hoped for once, just this once, it would.

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