Page 78 of Sugar Rush
Snorting, I nearly fumbled the tablet at the mental image. It was definitely a good one.
“Did you have to say it like that?”
Retreating back to the table, his playful giggle indicated that he was already feeling a little better. At least, I hoped he was.
“I’m kidding. It’s not really about that.”
“What’s it about?” I asked, pinching the screen to zoom in a bit so I could whip up a few little feather details. I wanted him to say it out loud, that he wanted the wings because that’s what I call him. I needed him to say it.
Maybe that was why he could express everything so easily, and admit things that I would have died before ever being able to say out loud. Because that was what I always needed.
“I want your mark on me,” he said simply, like it was nothing. The double entendre, something I think I’d been subconsciously avoiding until that moment drilled into my ears like an ice pick, sending adrenaline roaring through my veins. My muscles clenched, my heart rate soaring up like a rocket going to space. “And… I love it when you call me angel. I love that you look at me like that. I want to be your pretty little angel and make you happy.”
“You are,” I said, my voice coming out quiet and rough, even though I didn’t mean it to. “You make me so fucking happy I can’t even explain it.”
“You don’t have to,” he assured me. “I know. And I know I make you miserable, too.”
“It’s not you. It’s everyone else.”
“That part’s going to get better,” he said, his words doing nothing to quiet the thrashing of my emotions. Reminding myself to keep my eyes down on my tablet, I made a noise of assent, but didn’t otherwise answer.
I didn’t know what to say or what to think. I knew what he was implying. I knew what he meant when he said he wantedmy mark on him. Could he really mean that? I’d forced myself to believe that he was only infatuated with me in the beginning, but… I’d only been lying to myself. It was obvious now that he didn’t have some shallow, childish crush on me. He saw me as his comfort, his protector… His alpha. He seemed to love everything about me, even the parts I was so desperate to keep hidden away from him. He wanted me, and everything that entailed.
But first, he wanted a different mark from me. Something only I could give him. That part, I knew I could do.
He was quiet until I finished, but when I handed him the tablet to get his approval on the sketch, he let out this unbearably adorable little gasp.
“Oh, Kieran, it’s so pretty.”
“I wasn’t going to put something ugly on you,” I said, feeling my face get hot. His unencumbered praise always did that to me.
“You really are amazing,” he gushed, as I ran the drawing through the thermal printer to make a stencil. “I just love the way you draw.”
He said he loved my art, but it sounded like he was saying he loved me. But if I lingered on that thought too much I’d start hyperventilating.
“Alright, you can, uh…” I was used to taking his clothes off by now, but doing it at my work in a sort of professional context felt awkward and somehow illegal. And after hearing all that devoted adoration in his voice, I was starting to get turned on.
He shifted, laughing at me with his eyes. “Are you getting shy on me, Kieran James?”
“Just take your pants off,” I amended quickly, trying to suppress a grin at his playful tone. Sinful little brat.
“Don’t say it like that,” he said, giving me a mock pout as he flicked open the button of his jeans, peeling them down his legsin a way that made it obvious he wanted me to be thinking about fucking him. “You’re going to get me all horny.”
“You’re not going to feel that way for long,” I promised, gently guiding him down into a laying position. “Hipbone is not really a placement I’d recommend for a tattoo virgin.”
“It’s going to hurt, right?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, feeling a little bad already. “But I’ll be gentle. And you can tell me if you need a break.”
Shrugging off my own jacket, I draped it over his lower half like a blanket so he wouldn’t get cold, and also so I wouldn’t keep imagining spreading his legs and pushing my dick inside him.
When I popped on a pair of gloves, Jordy gave me a stupidly suggestive look, wiggling his eyebrows. Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes. He was so good at making intense things feel light and bearable. Without him doing that all the time, I might have already died from a stress aneurysm at some point in my 21 years.
Pushing the jacket I’d laid on him to the side so I had access to his hip, I poked at the spot he’d touched out in the lobby with Barbie. “You want it here, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing down at where I touched him. “You like it there?”
“It’s not for me,” I said automatically. I was used to saying that to customers when they asked for guidance on placement or preference. “It’s for you.”
