Page 48 of Cross To Bear

Me, I was, but for what I had planned, I needed Hawk with me.

“I was thinking we take our girl to a movie. Get some popcorn, some chocolate and let her kick back and relax at the end of a long week,” I told Hawk.

“What’s that got to do…” He could be a little slow on the uptake, my brother, but I caught the moment when it came to him. His cheeks got all red even as he tried to mask that. “So you’ll… And we’ll…”

“Speak in full sentences, Hawk,” I told him with a smirk.

“You want to edge Maddie in a cinema?”

“A quiet one, without many people buying tickets.” I nodded to his pocket. “Take a look at the local cinema and look for something arty most people won’t want to go to. She’ll have to stay real fucking quiet, which will just make the tension even better as it builds.”

“And what if Maddie’s not into this?”

There he was, my big growly bear brother. His deep frown, the way his arms crossed his chest, it made it clear that if she wasn’t into this idea, it was never gonna happen. I just grinned slowly.

“Well, we’re gonna ask her first, aren’t we, numbnuts? So take a look at the movie theatre schedule and see if there’s anything that fits the bill.”

I liked planning shit like this, coming up with ideas to torment a girl just a little bit, only to make her come a whole lot harder when she finally got there. Before Maddie it was just some dumb thing I indulged in some of the time, and Razor was usually the one who helped me double team our willing ‘victim’. But Hawk? I knew my brother well, knew he’d never put himself forward, and if I didn’t bring him with me, he’d just get left behind.

Like he had when he was a kid.

His mum and mine weren’t the same, thank fucking god, though I wished Hawk was my mother’s son. Mum tried to do the best she could to mother him, but by the time the dads worked out the girl they fucked some years before meeting my mother had had a kid, Hawk was well and truly a teenager. Mum’d seen the haunted look in his eyes, just like we all had, and she’d rushed in and brought him into the fold. But Amber, Hawk’s mum, she left her mark on him, something that persisted still today. He did as he was asked though, finding a movie that was on the very tail end of its season, with no pre-booked seats sold and then, at the end of the day, we’d made our way to Maddie’s.

I liked walking through these neatly organised cubicles on Maddie’s office floor, knowing they’d never contain me in one of them. I liked the curious looks as we walked past, each person wondering what the fuck we were doing here. Any thought of anybody else evaporated the moment I walked up to Maddie’s door and that’s when my resolve faltered. I didn’t want to pretend, play, do anything other than drop down onto my knees and beg her to look past Jesse’s shit, but even as I felt that urge pulse inside me, I knew. Once I was down there, my hands would be going to her knees and I’d be pushing them apart so I could get between them.

Just like I had last night.

Which was why as soon as the door was closed I was fucking begging our girl for the opportunity to kiss her, right before she said the magic words.

“Yes.”

I had her up on the desk, her skirt seams straining as I pushed my body between her legs, needing to get closer to her. My mouth was on hers, sucking in her gasp, then her taste with one brutal kiss, then another. Movement out the side of my eye made me remember I’d brought my brother with me, so I pulled away then and did something completely unselfish.

“What about Hawk?” I smiled down at her. “He’ll never fucking ask himself—”

“Shut up, Cayden,” my brother growled.

“But I know he’s dying to kiss you too. You want that, don’t you?”

We both turned to see a tense looking Hawk hovering just out of our orbit, staring at the two of us, like he wished he was where I was now, right before he strode over, placing his fingers on Maddie’s bottom lip.

He stared at it, touched it, like someone else would a sacred relic, and in some ways that was what Maddie was for us. Something so precious, once she was gone, it’d never be replaced. I tried real fucking hard not to think about that, about her potentially leaving us, instead, bringing her forward slightly.

“Kiss her, dickhead. You know you want—”

Anything I might have to say was cut off as his hand slapped over my mouth, right as his came down on hers. Slowly, real slowly at first. When she let out a little moan, he moved faster, harder, claiming her mouth, and that was when I saw what people got out of watching. Me? I liked to be right in the thick of things, feeling, touching, burying myself balls deep, but right now it hurt and felt awesome all at the same time. My mouth still throbbed with the after effect of the kiss, so it was easy to imagine me doing the plundering of her lips, not Hawk. Hopefully tonight we both would until we were satisfied. I jerked my head away from his grip then and said, “We need to get a wriggle on if we’re going to make the session we have booked.”

“What session?”

Maddie looked slightly dazed as she pulled away and by the smile on my brother’s face, he caught that too.

“It’s Friday night,” I said, watching her responses closely. “I figured we’d take you out to catch a movie.”

“A movie?” That slight look of disappointment, there and gone again, told me everything I needed to know. She liked movies just fine, loved them even, and what we were doing wasn’t making her think of snuggling down into her couch to watch her old favourites. She might not be in leather and denim, but that girl lurked beneath this smart business wear.

As did an impediment to my plan.

I skimmed my hands up her thighs, loving the way they shifted beneath my palms, right up until I found the waistband of her panties. She let out a little yelp, then stifled it as I yanked them down and over her low heels, her hands grabbing for them as she blushed bright red. I had them off and then shoved down the front of my pants before she could do a thing about it.

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