Chapter 21
E verly
A hairdryer waited on the bed, along with one of Connor’s notes.
USE ME.
Sighing in agreement, I dried my hair in soft waves. Connor and I were using each other, but I couldn’t regret it. Safety surrounded me like a warm blanket, and I dressed in a pair of leggings and a long t-shirt. The apartment was cosy for a big space, but I grabbed a hoodie to wear downstairs when we left.
My phone vibrated on the bed. I ignored it.
I had missed calls from my father along with a string of messages, the last of which I’d scanned the preview.
Father: What the hell was that email to work? You cannot simply disappear like this. I will expect you home…
The rest of the message was off-screen. I didn’t bother reading it.
Another buzz came but from somewhere out in the apartment. I left the bedroom and peered into the living room. On a stool by the kitchen counter, under a bright lamp, Connor had a device in his hand—a tattoo gun, I realised—and was scribing on his arm.
He lifted his focus to me. It sank to my chest, then he shook his head once. “Off.”
My cheeks flamed. “I thought we were going downstairs?”
“In an hour. Get them out.”
Holding his gaze, I pulled my t-shirt over my head.
“And the bra.”
I unclipped it and let my breasts fall free, discarding my unneeded clothing on the sofa.
Connor stilled, and under his stare, goosebumps rose on my skin. My nipples pebbled, aching with the need to be touched.
“Fucking hell, Everly,” he finally released. “Come here.”
I drifted closer, intrigued with what he was doing and liking his attention. His house rule was ridiculous but also fun. For as long as I needed to hide out here, I was going to get off on stripping for his pleasure.
“What are you tattooing?” I asked.
Connor set down the tattoo gun and wiped the place on the arm he’d been inking. “‘Property of Connor Michaels’ across your tits.”
He reached for me. I slipped away.
His lips quirked, but he didn’t chase me down, letting me circle him.
“I’m never satisfied with any designs.” He extended his arm. Twisted it. “There’s always something to add. Drawing on myself calms me.”
He had so much ink. I drew my gaze over the nearest arm, from the skull’s jaw on the back of his hand, to scored knuckles, to black flames behind a splay of knives.
“Talk me through them?”
“Let me touch ye first.”
At my head tilt, he beckoned. Damn him, because I couldn’t resist. He’d had sex with my unconscious body all night and again when we woke, yet neither of us were sated. From his attention alone, I was wet. Needy. Wanting more.
Barefoot, I padded across the polished wooden floor to within arm’s length of him. The high counter he sat at sectioned off the kitchen area from the rest of the living space and was L-shaped, made of a dark-grey polished stone. On the other side, it dropped to a regular work surface with the usual appliances around.
He circled my wrist and pulled me in until I was between his knees, my back to his front. Both his hands went to my breasts. He cupped me, stroking over my skin, his huff of breath disturbing my hair.
I watched his inked fingers move on me then dropped my head back to his shoulder, the feel as good as the sight. I was so sensitive that fire trailed his touch. “Better?”
“I will never get enough.”
I knew the feeling. I’d lived for so long without him that this brief interval of time together had no right to hit me so hard.
Connor moulded me, taking his time over playing. “Pick up my gun.”
I blinked my eyes open. “The tattoo gun?”
“Aye. I wouldn’t put a loaded weapon in your hand unless ye were face to face with one of the men who hurt ye. That’ll come later.”
He was joking, probably.
I collected the tattoo gun. Examined it. The sharp end. The little well of black ink.
Connor released one breast and extended his left arm. “Draw on me.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s either that or I’ll carry out my threat and write on these.”
He tapped my boob. I glowered back.
“I don’t even know how to use this.”
“Easy. It’s already set up. Hit that button.” He pointed to a pedal on the counter, attached by a wire to the gun and to the wall socket the other way.
I pressed it, and the buzzing started again, vibrating my fingers.
“You’re crazy for wanting me to do this.”
“I’m crazy for a lot of reasons, sweetheart.”
I breathed through my nose, then accepted the challenge. “Take your shirt off, then. I don’t want it in the way.”
Connor released me and tore his shirt off in one easy move, then returned to surrounding me. The warmth of his chest thrilled my back.
He tapped the hilt of a broken knife on his forearm. “Practice outlining that.”
“How hard?”
“Work it out.”
I leaned closer, and Connor took another delicious squeeze of my breast again.
I hovered the needle over his skin, suddenly scared. “I don’t want to mess this up. It’s a permanent scar.”
“Everything ye do to me fits that description.”
“Be serious.”
He pinched my nipple. Hard. I gasped.
“Focus, Everly. Every time ye stall, I’m going to ramp up what I’m doing to ye. Put your mark on me.”
His touching me more didn’t sound like a threat, but I concentrated on the design on his skin. There were several knives together in a display, the hilt of the broken one more faded than the others. As lightly as I could, I touched the needle to his skin. Pierced it. I danced the gun back.
“Good girl. Mark my skin.”
“But…”
“It’s a very fine needle so ye cannae go wrong. Keep going.”
I moved in again, drawing the tip down in a straight line, concentrating on getting it right. “Am I doing okay?”
He groaned and kissed my shoulder, his fingers of both hands flexing, one set on the polished counter and the other on my skin.
“Don’t stop.”
I took a breath and started again, moving to the other side of the knife. Connor’s fingers landed on my hip, and I jumped.
“You’ll make me mess up.”
“Then concentrate better.”
His hand moved to my waistband, then without warning, he yanked down my leggings and underwear and palmed me between the legs. I moaned, my eyes closing. He speared over my soaked centre, his gruff sound of need boosting my throb of desire.
Instantly, I wanted more, no matter how much we’d already done, but also I was embarrassed by how wet I was for him. A glance spared for the tall window not ten feet away sent another spike of panic and lust through me.
“Why have ye stopped?” he asked.
“I…I…”
“Keep drawing on me. Score my knuckle while I finger-fuck ye.”
He tapped the counter to bring my attention back there, and I focused on his knuckles, noting fully the black lines that scored and crisscrossed him there. There were hundreds. On both hands, hashing out his fingers.
I went still. “Are those a record of your conquests?”
Connor teased my entrance. “There’s one for every time I had a dirty thought about ye. I hurt myself to make it stop, including when I pierced my dick, then it became an addiction.”
My disquiet turned to wonder. I spread his fingers, examining them one by one, then gazed down to where he held me between the legs, counting more than I could guess. “So many.”
“I had to change it to once a month because I ran out of space.”
All this time and he’d thought about me like that? My heart thrilled in happiness, and fresh need streaked through me.
Connor pressed an open-mouthed kiss to my neck. “I never stopped thinking about ye.”
One long finger eased inside me, and lazily, he opened me up. I winced at the rebound of slight pain from so much use.
He noticed. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
“Good. Need ye to feel me for days.”
He removed his hand and wrangled his jeans, then his hard dick slid between my legs, getting slick in my arousal but not going inside. I peeked at the window again. People down on the cobbled harbour path far below could look up and maybe see in, or someone in the fancy tower block apartments further along the river could spy on us.
Then again, they could’ve already got an eyeful all yesterday evening judging by what he’d told me.
“Give me the details of what you did to me in the night,” I asked.
“Pick up the gun and mark me,” he countered.
I breathed through utter need and took up the tattoo gun, my fingers shaking. “I love your ink. I could never have any but…”
His dick glanced over my clit then back. My words dried up.
A fresh challenge awoke in me, and without any further thought, I touched the needle to my knuckle, scoring myself like he’d done to himself over and again.
Showing him how those lustful thoughts were shared and giving myself an exquisite burst of pleasure-pain to add to the mix of desire in me.
Connor huffed a laugh. “Aye, ye could. Now I’ll need an even darker line for how ye just made me feel.”
Holding his hand steady, I found a tiny patch I could draw on and drew the needle over his skin.
Connor fucked inside me.
I yelped a cut-off sound of pleasure but forced my brain to stay on track to turn the black dot into a solid line. He returned his free hand to my breast and tugged on my nipple, timing it with a series of strokes which stretched me and filled me so well.
“I placed ye in front of that window and cut off your clothes. Your naked body needed me so much, your pussy was desperate to be owned. Ye leaked for me, Everly, even asleep. I fucked ye over and over again. I took everything I needed as often as I liked.”
I whimpered, and inside, he hit a place that sent sparks through me.
The knowledge that he’d lusted over me long after we’d parted smashed out another brick in the wall I’d put up to protect myself from memories of him. Still holding the tattoo gun, I splayed my hand on the counter, mindless, and jerking with his increasingly frantic thrusts.
“How many times?”
“Did I fuck ye? I lost count.”
Again, I touched the needle to my knuckle. Ink welled, and my skin stung in the second line I drew. I added two more in the opposite direction, a tally, and undisguisable now.
My mouth dropped open, and surprise caught me. I’d never once wanted a tattoo, never considered it. The vibe didn’t go with my good office girl aesthetic at all.
But this month was all about firsts.
My first love. My only love. The start of my awakening from what I’d done to my life and what had been done to me.
Connor stared down at what I’d done and made a sound of pleasure. Pulling out of me, he stood and stripped my clothes from my ankles then reached to push away all the tattoo kit items from the raised counter down to the work surface below, the clatter loud in the otherwise quiet room. Ink spilled.
He lifted me so I landed face down on the cool countertop, then buried his face between my legs from behind. While I mindlessly worked my hips, chasing friction, his tongue slid over me, inside me, taking me to the edge of a quick orgasm, then replaced by the broad head of his dick.
He must’ve knelt on the stool behind me, I dimly realised, as the overhead brass lamp swung out, casting light and shadows over us. I turned my face away from the window, moaning again at the first deep thrust into me.
“I want this one around my dick. I plan to fuck ye on every surface in the place.”
Braced over me, he drove in and out in a series of hard thrusts. I saw stars. My mind stopped working. All I knew was need and him. Everything, him.
The climax raced through my body and wrecked me. I keened into the polished stone beneath me, my throbs extended by Connor quickly following me over the ledge. He stilled and held his dick in place deep inside me, coming in pulses that matched mine.
Bright satisfaction rolled over me.
“Never going to get over how good that feels.” He hauled in a deep breath and climbed off me, helping me down. “Put your underwear back on but don’t clean up. I told ye I want ye wearing my cum all day.”
I flushed hot and tugged on half my clothes. We still had thirty minutes until we needed to go downstairs, so I didn’t bother even trying to put on my bra.
My gaze kept straying to the floor in front of the window, my brain summoning image after image of his frenzy there.
“What you did to me last night…”
Connor curled his arms around me from behind, possessive and his skin hot against mine. “Did ye like it?”
Confused at myself, I inclined my head. “But I liked it more this morning when I was conscious but unable to move. God, that sounds messed up.”
“Not at all, and I can use a different drug to recreate that. I fucking love it.”
“Why?” I twisted in his arms.
He released me. “It’s safer for me that way.”
“When I can’t touch you back?”
“Can’t touch me, tell me no, or hurt me.”
My heart sank. I’d bruised him so deeply that this was our reality. Sorrow chased away the bloom of happiness and pleasure he’d gifted me. I’d broken us. I’d done it because I loved him so much, but the crime still stood. “I want to explain.”
“Don’t. At least not yet.”
Confused, I waited for him to continue.
“Later tonight, I’m taking ye out somewhere. If ye feel the same once we’re done, try to explain yourself then.”
“Nothing will change my mind. What are you going to show me?”
Connor raised a tattooed shoulder and turned to his display of knives on the wall. He picked one up, a savage-looking double-edged blade, then tested the sharpness on his nail. “The real me, Ev. Beyond the room I showed ye and my life with my crew. I’m not the boy ye once knew anymore. You’re in the hands of a monster.”