Page 110 of Cross To Bear

“I don’t have any lube,” I said, even though that wasn’t precisely true. There were other things I could use to get her slick enough to take the toy.

“Oh, OK, we could…”

I flipped her skirt up and pulled her underwear to one side, suddenly in too much of a rush to slip them off. My tongue plunged in, shocked and then elated to find her hot, wet and waiting for me. There was no way I couldn’t slurp up her taste, circling her clit until I heard her start to moan, then shoving my tongue up inside her, just to feel her locked around a part of me. I couldn’t get too caught up in this though, the need to drive my cock into her fighting with the need to do the same with my needle, so I settled for this. Setting the weird little butterfly inside her, watching her lips fall over as she felt the shaft push inside, right before I turned it on.

That look, rosy cheeks, shining eyes, and a body pulled tight as pleasure thrummed through her. That’s how I wanted to see Maddie all the time going forward, but right as I soaked the sight of her in, I held up the remote that came with the butterfly.

“You’ll need to be super still for this to work. I mean it, Maddie.” She nodded without even finding out why. “One little jerk and it’ll fuck up the design forever, and you don’t want that, do you?”

“No-o?”

That lack of certainty should’ve stopped me in my tracks, but good sense had no place in this room.

“You can be a good girl for me. I know you can.”

She went still then, relaxing against the bench, her focus entirely trained on me, and I would never get used to that. Feeling her see me, feel me, as I settled back down on the stool. I picked up the gun and looked down the line of her body, the buzz of the toy a perfect counterpoint to that of the tattoo gun. Together we would create a symphony of pleasure as well as pain and that started now.

Chapter 62

I was in hell, and I was the one to put myself here.

Bjorn had tried to warn me how much this would hurt, but I blamed both my foolhardiness and the fact I’d survived the other tiny tattoo with little pain on my decision. I was questioning my wisdom right now. It hurt. There was no other way around to describe the process, the insistent drone of the tattoo gun reverberating all the way through me, bringing with it a hot, pricking pain.

Then there was the butterfly.

It buzzed as well, the two mechanical sounds twisting together like rope, but it heralded something else. Washes of pleasure just as intense as the pain, ones I wanted to dive into, let them tug me along, have me floating right out into a sea of ecstasy, but the pain was like a safety rope. It was tied around my ankle, not letting me get free. I couldn’t just let go, release into the pleasure, because as soon as my guard was down, the pain would rush forward to take me over too. So I was caught between the two extremes, stretched taut and quivering, but not daring to move. Not to flinch or to cry out, not even to come, which had me simmering on the burning edge of something intense.

“You OK, Maddie?” My eyes rolled sideways to meet Bjorn’s. I couldn’t answer, couldn’t make a sound, because once something came out, the rest would. A yelp of pain or whimper of pleasure, each getting louder and louder until I shattered into a million pieces. “It’s starting to really hurt now.” He nodded to himself. “The outline is the worst bit, and it’s nearly over.” My breath came in little pants now, but not enough to force my body to move. “We can stop—”

“No.”

My mind said yes, but my lips moved of their own accord, because apparently my whole day was going to be one of contradictions. But somehow that made sense. I was Bjorn’s brother’s ex-girlfriend and his fated mate. The woman he spent three years pining for and the woman who demanded he claim her in a way that could not be erased. But last of all, I was his fantasy, his reality, clashing together in one big sobbing mess, but as I fought to keep the tears back, he pressed down on the remote, ratcheting the speed and intensity of the toy up.

There comes a point when you can’t fight things. It happened when I gave up on Jesse, then again when I accepted the bond between me and the sleuth, and that same viciously sharp pleasure of realising I cared about them just as much as they cared about me, that we had a future we could build together, was what I rode the edge of now.

I was completely focussed on Bjorn in a moment that stretched on for seconds, minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell. Every dot marked on my skin happened simultaneously, the regular shift of the gun, the pinprick of pain, then the swipe of the wipe to clean my skin rocking me back and forth, back and forth, just as the toy throbbed between my legs. I couldn’t tell which one I wanted to pull away from and which one I needed to rush towards, so I clung to both of them, those intense bursts of sensation leading me to him.

“Bjorn…” I barely whispered his voice, but his focus shifted in an instant, zeroing in on me.

“Something you need, sweetness?”

“Bjorn…”

If I could get the words out, I knew he’d give me everything I needed. I couldn’t though, my throat feeling too damn full. With cries stuffed down and moans too. With all the words I wanted to say, needed to, but hadn’t, along with the ghosts of those that I had. But three swam to the top, the pain cutting through all the bullshit, even as the pleasure swelled in my heart.

“I…” He nodded, encouraging me to say my piece, even as he wiped my skin clean, making every tiny wound he’d inflicted bleed just that little bit more. “Bjorn, I…” This fantasy had become so much more, turned from a man pining for a woman who didn’t even know he wanted her, to two people who saw each other never more clearly than now. I blinked and tears, so many tears rolled free. He frowned, rushing forward, wanting to wipe them away, but what I felt wasn’t ink and blood, it was this. “I love you.”

There. It was done. Branded across my chest as surely as if he’d written this in big words with his tattoo gun, I gave the feeling burning inside me a name and with it came everything else. A recognition of all the little things he’d done to try and ensure my happiness, the fact I was with his brother no barrier to that. He and the sleuth put me first, my needs, my wants always the highest priority, with no expectation of anything in return.

But I was ready to give back now.

The gun stopped its whirring abruptly, then was tossed into the little trolley, right before he leapt up on the bench, leaning over me.

“What did you say?”

“I love you, Bjorn.” My hands pawed at his plaid shirt and he tore at it, sending buttons everywhere, just to make it easier for me to get to him. My hands slid across hot, bare skin, and it was only then a sob fought its way free. “Fuck, I love you. I’m in love with you. I—”

He slammed his mouth down on mine, no longer needing my words, just the silent message communicated by my lips on his. Because they were hungry, my blunt teeth nipping at him until I caught the coppery blast of a drop of blood, and that’s when he let out a strangled roar.

---