Chapter 38 Monroe
MONROE
Desire and fear bounce between us, colliding along the mess that’s our bond.
I’m not sure who feels more trapped right now.
Briar, caught with his hand wrapped around himself or me.
I stare up at him from my knees, enveloped in his jacket, inhaling his rich vanilla scent.
The inside of my thighs are damp, slicker from watching him fuck his fist across the glass.
There’s no pretending we don’t know what we are to each other, even though the denial was a godsend while it lasted.
Briar releases his dick and— Holy hell. Of course I’ve seen it before, but not like this. Not erect and wanting.
Wanting me.
The purple-stained evergreen tip weeps thick drops of cum on the floor. I’m glad for the barrier separating us because I’d be crawling to lick it up.
So wasteful…
Wow. Not sure where that thought came from.
While I still have a bit of clarity in my randy rabbit haze, I tug the jacket around myself. “You went through my nightstand.”
“Would you rather someone else have done it?” His attention lingers over my shoulders draped in leather.
“I guess that depends.” I slowly inhale. “Why did you?”
“You know why.” He lowers to his knees so we are nearly level.
I avert my gaze, but he doesn’t continue until I meet his lavender eyes. They shine like a pair of brilliant amethysts beneath his glasses. “You’re my mate. I understand you don’t want this, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do whatever I can to help you through your first solstice.”
His tone is sturdy and smooth. An honesty that says I dare you to run from this.
Any other day, I would have, but not today. “How long have you known?”
“Since the moment ink covered my last bit of available flesh.” His eyes drop to the mate mark then shift to mine. His cock twitches, and another pearlescent droplet seeps from the tip.
“My eyes are up here,” he teases.
I snap my attention up. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you said you didn’t want to know, and after everything you’ve been through because of me, I knew I could give you that.
” He draws in a deep breath. “How was I supposed to go against your wishes, look you in the eye, and tell you I was the mate you were so desperate to cleave yourself from?”
“Did you even ask Fate to break our bond?” Heat fills my rib cage, unsure what to trust.
His face falls and he clasps his hands in his lap. “Of course I asked Fate. I begged her. I may not have been forthright about who I was when you arrived, but I have never outright lied to you.”
His eyes don’t leave mine and the corner of his jaw ticks.
“I pleaded with her to take away a bond I’d waited decades for. One I somehow managed to ruin before it took hold.” He sucks in a breath, stare hard and unforgiving. “Maybe I should have told you sooner, but I know you don’t want this. You don’t want a mate—much less a mate that’s me.”
Perhaps deep down I was always aware he knew but denying it was safer. If I denied what I was and what we were to each other, I could leave. I could fight the cards Fate dealt me.
“If you wanted me so badly, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you let me touch you before we came back?” Shame heats my chest, knowing how desperate I was. Briar had been in control, logical—everything I prided myself on being but hadn’t been when solstice took over.
“I’ve spent hours fisting my cock raw over the memory of you begging me to take you.
Your fingers glistening with your cum, tasting like carrot cake on my tongue.
” The angle of his jaw shutters, a vein throbbing along the vines on his throat.
“You didn’t feel that through the wall? Or the months where I went painfully rigid every time you spread your legs and made yourself come?
” He shakes his head. “You’re telling me you’ve never felt that?
Because I did, Monroe. Every. Damn. Day. ”
I can’t look away from him and I’m tired of running. Hiding. I stare at the blooms inked on his chest. Now that I get to finally drink it in, I study the lines and shading. It’s not just any peony, it’s an Ever Briar wrapped up with my foxgloves.
I’ve never seen something more beautiful in my entire life.
He’s spent months keeping his distance, yet despite every action I took to bury the truth, he still protected me. Cared for me. When I ran away, he came for me, putting himself at risk, refusing to leave me behind.
I don’t know what I have left in me to give him, but he’s also not asked anything of me.
“Did you make this?” I summon the white toy in front of me with a flick of my wrist.
“I did.” He swallows thickly. “Why do you ask?”
My eyes drop to his lap. I drag my finger along the veins, tracing the vines mapping the toy’s thick shaft. Briar may have his hands clasped in front of himself, but I don’t miss the flicker of movement. “It looks exactly like you.”
“Didn’t realize you were paying such close attention,” he huffs.
And despite his cocky demeanor, his tone is a bit breathless.
“It is meant to be as close to the real deal as possible to satisfy your lock.” He shifts a bit, and I sense apprehension through the bond, like he’s choosing every word carefully—not wanting me to run again.
I sit there, silent, but my confusion must be loud because his tone takes on that professor persona, as if we aren’t naked and dealing with a bond making us supremely horny for one another.
“It is something only Blooms can enjoy with their mate. Once their cum makes contact with your lock, it activates, keeping your mate held in place.”
“Lock-activating serum,” I mutter under my breath, glancing at the tube to my left and following its path up to the ceiling, over the wall, and down to where bulbs line a shelf along Briar’s wall.
“The lock pulses and draws out pleasure until it can’t any longer… Until your magic is fully replenished. In our case, it will continue to do so until I’ve fully emptied myself inside you.”
I think my entire body just went up in flames.
Meanwhile, he’s keeping himself distanced in how he explains it…professional. But the truth is, it’s not his fault there’s a wall between us. I blamed him. Denied our connection. Kept secrets and ran away. But now, I stare at Briar across the pane of glass, and all I can think is…
Mine.
“So if I do this?” I sit back and spread my legs, keeping my eyes on him.
“What are you—” Briar’s Adam’s apple bobs, his tone aching, drawn from within his ink-covered throat. Hypnotized, his hands fall to his sides in fists.
“I’m implementing your instructions, Professor Briar.” Tightening my grip around the shaft, I drag the tip of Briar 2.0 up and down between my soaked lips. “The real question is, what are you going to do about it?”
Holding out his hand, he reaches into thin air.
A moment later, something white flies across the room.
It’s a large cylinder with a bulb like I have beside me connected to its base.
His emotions pull taut through my chest, hopping between reckless desire and careful restraint.
“The toys are linked. If your lock activates, it will mimic the movement.”
He turns it around to show me where the faux lock is. I let my instincts take over, unwilling to deny them, and feed the coated tip inside myself.
“Good,” I rasp and work the toy in and out a few times.
Briar groans. His knuckles turn white, jaw tight, but he doesn’t hesitate.
In one fluid motion, he’s up on his knees, one hand splayed on the glass, supporting himself.
The other holds the translucent cylinder in place as he curls his pelvis into it.
He moves in time with my strokes, his cock slipping in and out of the toy.
Pressure coils below my belly, and I thumb over my nipple with my free hand. He grunts in approval, and when his attention drifts between my breasts to the mate mark, his hips hasten their pace.
I memorize every flex of muscle, every thrust.
Is this how he’d fuck me?
I’m desperate to know. It’s everything I could want, the pressure building until it’s almost unbearable.
“Fuck. Wait,” he demands, and I have half a mind to chuck the dildo at the glass, but I halt in place, awaiting further instruction. He twitches his nose, and a moment later, my flower vibrator flies into the glass, dropping in front of me. “That too.”
I use my free hand and turn on the vibrator, holding it against my clit while I pump the dildo in and out. Briar’s desire sweeps through me, primal and proud. Frankly, I’m rather impressed with my multi-tasking.
He doesn’t take his eyes off me, fucking the toy in silent answer to my earlier question as if to say, yes, I’d fuck you like this and then some.
Hips curl. Nails scrape glass. I’m a whimpering, soaking mess. The toy slips in and out of me and my hips punch up from the ground to meet it, deepening the strokes. But I need more.
Lock-activating serum.
With a twitch of my nose, I summon the bulb I’d haphazardly left on the floor.
Briar’s pupils bleed into his lavender irises until all that’s in them is dark need.
It runs through me, my instinct driving me.
There’s something disturbingly thrilling about knowing he’s filled that ice chest for me.
Proof of his desire despite the boundary between us.
I open the bulb and pour some along the dildo’s shaft.
Briar hisses out a groan.
I twist it around until the tip is evenly coated, that sweet scent has me salivating. I want to drag my tongue along the shaft and taste him, find out why he smells so…mouthwatering.
Instead, I take Briar’s toy deep, the end nudging my sensitive nerves, and I press the flower back to my clit. The suction blows my pleasure into oblivion, and my stomach clenches, the tension zipping down my pelvis.
I whimper through my orgasm, unsure for a few moments if I’ll survive it, and as the lock activates, stars pepper my vision.
Briar’s legs buckle and he growls a slew of mismatched curses. My lock doesn’t just hold the dildo in place, it strokes it from the inside, rippling up and down the shaft.
Pure bliss.
Briar’s eyes roll back into his head as cum paints the bulb and canister in wild, messy, streaks.
“You’re so Fate’s-damn perfect,” he says, rocking and groaning in time with my fluttering. His praise warms me, my body tingling all over. He works to catch his breath. “Everything I could ever fucking want.”
Shuddering, I bite my lip and come again. So does he, inevitable, unstoppable.
Eventually, he has to summon another bulb.
I savor every ounce.
Look at what I do to him.
Until his body goes slack, the pair of us falling asleep with a slip of glass between us, I shamelessly take what I want and leave the fallout for another day.