Chapter 17
OLI
My mind whirled and weirdly felt like it had grown teeth and was gnawing on itself. I had trouble making sense of what was being said to me while my chest ached and I fought to drag in air.
“Why do you care? You were . . . . I mean, I know you blew me, but—” My cheeks burned. It began to filter into my mind that my ass was cold. We were on the floor. How did we get on the floor? “What did you ask?”
It was a shock when Ren’s tattooed muscular arms tightened around me.
I brought my knees up between us, forcing him to move back a bit, and wrapped my arms around them.
The lack of artwork on my skin seemed weird next to him.
Emotions rippled across his face and landed on irritated as he covered my kneecaps with his palms instead of hugging me.
KC moved around until he was behind me, and I flinched when he wrapped his arms around me, trapping me.
A thousand sparks rippled across my back when he pressed his warm, strong chest close.
Earlier, I would’ve killed for this. He carefully settled his hands on my shins and tugged me tight against his chest.
My heart rioted.
It was obvious he was trying to comfort me, which I wanted, but after the way I’d been restrained . . . . I shivered as he planted his chin on my shoulder, completing that caged-in sensation.
Ren blew out a long breath and squeezed my knees. “How are you feeling?”
My mind blanked. “Don’t really know. How can you ask right now?” I sucked in a deep breath and blinked as sweat gathered on my eyelashes.
“Shh.” KC cuddled closer, and I shivered.
“Try to answer.” Ren’s steady tone made me sit up straighter.
“It’s a hell of a lot to go from getting ignored—” The bones in my chest were shrinking. “—to this.”
“Being the center of attention?” Confusion was heavy in KC’s caring voice. “But if you didn’t want to be ignored, wouldn’t this be what you need from us?”
“I don’t know!” I slid my hands up and tugged my curls.
Ren grabbed my wrists. “Stop. You will stop hurting yourself.”
At first, I wasn’t sure what he was telling me not to do, but then I registered the pain in my scalp and let the strands go with a shaky breath.
“My stomach hurts,” I whispered.
One of KC’s big hands began to massage my abs, and even though that felt good, it was also overwhelming.
KC wrapped his other arm around my chest and the sensation of ants crawling over my skin had me whimpering.
I shot to my feet, but it was an elbowing, shoving maneuver that left KC and Ren leaning away from me on the floor.
KC’s brow was furrowed and the hurt in his blue eyes was impossible to miss.
Ren’s eyebrows were near his hairline and his lips were parted.
I snorted because even though I felt like a thousand different kinds of hell, I’d never shocked Ren, not once, and that was something to savor.
“What’s happening?” Ren muttered.
“I can’t. I can’t talk,” I said, then my body was moving. Sweat trickled down and stung my eyes, and I grunted while swiping drops away with the heel of my palm.
“Stop!” Ren called.
Feet pounded on the floor behind me. I broke out into a full run. I had the front doorknob turning in my hand as a draft hit me and I glanced down. I flinched as I caught sight of my swinging dick. I shuddered. Shit, I was still naked.
“No, no, no,” KC chanted and shoved the door closed, an awful, upset look plastered on his normally cheerful face. A soft gray blanket wrapped around me, and I sort of sagged into its fuzzy embrace. KC locked the door and rested his temple against it while he stared at me like I was a crazy person.
“What were you thinking?” KC asked. His tone wasn’t mean, but the words made a big, unhappy feeling well up in my chest and hot tears splashed down my cheeks again.
I shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got you.” Ren scooped me up, blanket and all, and I smothered a yelp as he took me to the couch.
Had anyone ever carried me this way? Even as a kid, it was mostly just me and Mom, and she was petite.
I had no memories of anyone ever picking me up.
I couldn’t clutch his shoulders because he had me wrapped up pretty good.
He sat with me firmly in his arms. I struggled a bit against the restraining blanket, and he shushed me as he peeled back the fabric and released my hands.
“Flex your fingers,” he whispered in my ear. “They’re free. Good. Now stretch your arms over your head.”
I began to breathe easier as Ren led me through moving my entire body, bit by bit. KC paced nearby, a walking ad for anxiety medication, and my heart swooped when he sat down next to us on the couch, but I was feeling so odd I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“Now, stick your tongue out,” Ren said, and I was surprised at his amused tone as I finally relaxed against his solid chest.
“Like this?” KC asked, and I couldn’t hold in a watery chuckle as he touched his tongue to the tip of his nose.
“That’s why you’re so good at head,” Ren said with a snicker that jostled me.
“I can’t do that,” I whispered. My throat felt tight and raw from crying.
“Just stick it out,” Ren said.
“Okay.” I stuck out my tongue, and Ren hummed. But he was right. The stretching and moving around had gotten rid of a lot of my tension. A few of my brain cells were able to spark together now. The way I’d been feeling was scary and had left me trapped in my head.
KC swooped close and licked the tip of my tongue, and I flopped back against Ren, feeling wrung out while they chuckled.
Ren brushed a few glinting red strands off KC’s forehead, and KC’s expression softened in a way that left me feeling a little jealous. “Oli needs to hydrate and maybe eat a snack. I have electrolyte mixes in the kitchen and some grapes.”
The world felt fuzzy as Ren cuddled me close. I drifted as he swayed a little from side to side, and he tucked the blanket more firmly around me. I stared at the floor and the wall and the ceiling, thoughts drifting in and out but not really sticking.
“Sometimes people come into your tattoo parlor and they want a tattoo you can’t bring yourself to ink,” Ren whispered in my ear as the soft sounds of KC moving around in the kitchen tickled the edges of my attention.
“They want something that doesn’t fit their body.
Or that you know will ruin their life if you place it where they want it.
Even a rainbow in the center of someone’s forehead will be an issue.
Or they want something disgusting and hateful.
I have no problem telling those people to go elsewhere.
Whatever you put on a person, for the rest of their life they will tell people you did it.
You really need to know yourself to have a handle on what you’re willing to permanently ink on another human being.
You need to know your own limits. You must be able to guess at other people’s limits when you’re scheduling their time in the chair.
Do they love pain? Hate it? Will they need breaks?
Would they lie there forever and let you tattoo them from head to toe? ”
Ren’s voice was a melody I didn’t want to end. I glanced over my shoulder at him, too fucked up to formulate a good response to anything he was saying. I was shocked when he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. It seemed impossible that he was capable of such a gentle touch.
“I fucked up tonight. I didn’t know what I was willing to do to you, what I was willing to put you through, or your limits.” He leaned forward and rested his cheek alongside mine. “I’m sorry. I’ll take better care of you from here on out. I didn’t enjoy the way this ended.”
KC came over carrying a water bottle with something red sloshing around inside and a bowl just in time to catch the tail end of what Ren had said.
He frowned as I snatched the bottle and gulped whatever was inside.
The taste of sweet cherries had me shivering.
It was like someone had melted a popsicle into the bottle, and I loved it.
“Easy.” Ren grabbed my wrist and made me stop guzzling. KC put the bottle on the coffee table for me.
“This was really intense.” KC frowned and set the grape bowl next to the bottle on the table. “Should we keep doing this? A-any of it?”
Ren became a stone statue underneath me.
A new wave of emotions, all bad, rushed over me, and I clawed at the blanket until I had more range of motion and it was around my hips. I swiped toward KC and ended up with one hand engulfed in his larger one. Ren took my other one.
“This was a lot,” I murmured.
KC nodded and curled forward, face scrunched worse than the time he’d been hobbling around with two busted ribs from football practice.
Ren said nothing, but his fingers bit into mine.
“I don’t want to stop,” I whispered. “Let’s not stop.”
Ren laughed while KC flung his arms around me, crowding me between the two of them. “Thank God, me neither, but you were crying!” He bonked his forehead against mine.
Ren huffed. “Tears aren’t bruises.”
KC glared at him. “I mind bruises less.”
“It was a bad rush. Too much of something that I didn’t enjoy and not enough of other things,” I said, resting my face in the crook of KC’s neck and filling my lungs with his woodsy scent. The sex musk had my stomach tightening in a pleasant way.
Ren kissed the back of my neck, making me weirdly swoony. “Oli, I’d like to suggest total immobility is a hard limit for you. Totally immobilizing you is definitely a hard limit for me from now on.”
I turned as much as I could to look at him and his hazel eyes gleamed with an emotion I couldn’t quite pin down. “You totally immobilizing me is a hard limit for you?” I frowned and tried to work out that riddle.
He shrugged. “I’m not willing to do exactly that to you again, but unlike KC, I do want to make you cry.” A wicked smirk curved his lips.
I shivered and dragged in a deep breath as pleasant tingles rushed across my skin. That very first day we’d met I’d been humiliated by what Ren had done to me, but looking back . . . I’d liked it.
I’d always loved clashing with him.
KC sat up and scowled at Ren, but Ren didn’t take back a word he’d said about making me cry, and besides, I didn’t want him to.
Heat slithered through me. “Crying and being mad doesn’t bother me. Or even, uh, perhaps being humiliated?” My cheeks boiled. “But not being part of things hurt.”
KC cocked his head to the side. “But Ren blew you. You can’t get much more involved than that.”
“He was already in a bad mental space by the time I did that. Is that right?” Ren bounced me on his lap.
I nodded.
“Why didn’t you snap your fingers?” Ren rubbed a hand up and down my arm, the touch soothing.
Embarrassment had me dragging the blanket over my head. “Forgot I could.”
“Oh no!” KC tugged down the blanket and peppered soft kisses across my face, trying to smooch things better.
Ren squeezed me. “Okay. I should’ve checked in more.”
Tears burned my eyes again, but I blinked them away. “I’m sorry I killed the mood. Game. Whatever.”
KC was still brushing his lips over me, but he’d moved on to my bare shoulder.
Ren slipped his hand inside the blanket and rested his palm firmly against my abs. “Did you enjoy seeing me fuck KC?”
What kind of a question was that? I scrunched my toes. “Yeah.”
“I thought about—” KC’s lips tickled along my collarbone, and I smiled. “—it all as a show for you.”
A thousand pointy spider legs scrambled through my chest. “It didn’t feel that way. It felt like I was being taunted. Bullied.”
“Next time you’re on the edge, you safe word or safe action out of the scene.” Ren barked the words, breaking the soft atmosphere that had fallen around us.
KC frowned over my shoulder at him.
“You don’t like me,” I muttered, crossing my arms.
Ren growled and jostled me. “That’s not true.”
I wasn’t sure why I was surprised—he was holding me after all—but my heart was pounding helter-skelter again.
“I like you.” KC kissed my jaw, and I darted back against Ren when he licked it because he’d managed to find a ticklish spot.
Ren leaned forward, tilting me with him, and grabbed a handful of grapes. “Close your eyes and eat.”
I settled back against Ren, and he scrunched his fingers against my abs until my eyelashes were brushing my cheeks, then gave me a little pat that had me feeling floaty.
“Open,” he whispered.
He pressed a grape past my lips, and I moaned at the sweet burst in my mouth as I crunched down and broke the skin. I’d had grapes a thousand times in my life, perhaps more, but I’d never had an appreciation for the way they were tart and sweet at the same time.
“These are really, really good.” I opened my eyes.
KC grabbed one out of the bowl and ate it, then pouted at me, his entire body slouching in my direction. “They’re okay.” He sounded suspicious, as if he thought perhaps I was making things up, but my grape had been the best one I’d ever eaten.
Ren chuckled and the vibration pelted through my body. “Oli’s swimming in the sub soup. Up, down, up. We’ll have to keep an eye on you for a few days,” he murmured, directly into my ear. “Sub drop is no joke. I think that’s what was happening along with a dash of good old-fashioned anxiety.”
I glanced back at Ren, and he was frowning at me like a logic problem he couldn’t quite work out.
KC ate another grape. “I want magic grapes. This isn’t fair.”
I burst out laughing and kept going until KC was smiling and my side ached. A few sobs slipped out before I finally stopped.
Ren dragged me back against his chest again because I’d wriggled loose while I was cracking up, then pressed his lips to my ear. “You tired?”
I shrugged but a yawn chose that moment to crack my jaw. “Mm.”
“If I break you, it’s going to be on purpose,” he whispered. “This won’t happen again.”
I moaned at his gruff words. I wasn’t sure why—considering he’d been absolutely fucking terrible to me so far—but I believed him.