Dangerously Inked (12 page)
Authors: Eden Bradley
“Shit, Rosie—”
“I’m not done.” She took a step back and started to pace. “He said as much to me in court, and I know it shouldn’t matter, but it did! It does! He told me I was damaged goods, and the moment he said it I knew it was true. Oh, I’m a good person, a good friend. But to men? That’s what I am. I’ve tried to redeem myself in kink in maybe the same way you have, to cleanse myself. And it’s helped. But obviously this message is still in my head and I’m fucking
mad
because I didn’t know it until…” She had to stop, to bite back a sob. The God damn tears were leaking down her cheeks. “I didn’t know until I met you, until I fell for you, that it was still there, like some ugly
thing
inside me.”
“Christ, Rosie,” he said approaching her and trying to put his arms around her.
She shoved him away. “Stop it, Finn! God damn it! Stop it…because if you don’t then I’ll…” She buried her face in her hands, her throat closing up on her.
“You’ll what?” he asked, his voice low. “You’ll have to give in? I get it. I’ve had to do it myself. It’s fucking painful. But Rosie, we’re in the same place, you and I. I need you to listen to me now. Sit down and let me get it out. Alright?”
She looked up, saw the pleading expression in his eyes. She nodded and sat on the edge of the big curtained bed.
Finn sat on the old chaise. “I have a lot more to be redeemed from than you do. Not that this is a pissing contest. I don’t mean to imply that. But…I came to the States to get away from my past. I married Olivia to do it. But that’s not the only reason why I need redemption. You asked about my scars? They run fucking deep.” He stopped, looked down as he twisted his hands together.
“I haven’t told you this because…I don’t tell anyone. Even Mick doesn’t know. Kenji never did, and now I regret it. So…I was engaged to a girl named Ayla when I was twenty-two. I was too young to get married, but that’s not the point. My parents weren’t thrilled, but they were going along with things. I’d been a bit of a wild kid, and maybe they thought I’d settle down. We were on our way to dinner one night, all of us, and there was…an accident.”
His voice went so quiet on the last words she wasn’t certain she’d heard him right. “An accident?”
He looked up and the pain on his face made her heart hurt, a sharp, gaping pain. “I was the only one who walked away.”
“God, Finn. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. So am I. And even though some drunk hit us and it wasn’t my fault it still
was
, you know? And then I fucked it up even more by making Olivia pay for it because I needed to escape so damn badly. You want to talk about the need for redemption? That’s been my whole life. And then Kenji died. He died nearly alone, and there were five fucking people at his funeral besides me. One of them was a girl he’d been playing with at the club. One of many. But she was the only one who showed, and she was sobbing the whole time. He’d barely given this girl the time of day, and there she was grieving over him. She’s a great girl. They could have had something. Instead he died with nothing because he wasn’t open to anything but a good time. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to end up that way.” He paused, scrubbed a hand over his head.
“So I started thinking,” he went on. “Realized I had to change my life. That wasn’t long ago, but it started things in motion. Then I came here and I met you.”
“Finn, that doesn’t mean…I don’t know. Where do I fit into all this?”
“I don’t believe in fate, Rosie, I believe in cause and effect. I made a conscious decision to change my life and then you were put in front of me. And I’ve let myself feel something for you. I chose to. Because you are who you are—not because of random timing, Rosie—I fell in love with you the minute I saw you.”
“Don’t say that,” she protested, trying to absorb everything he’d been telling her. That he loved her!
He got up and came to sit by her. “I’m going to say it, and I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. I love you. I don’t care if it’s crazy. Do you? Aren’t we rebels, you and I?” He took her face in his hands. “Tell me you don’t care for me and I’ll go away, leave you alone. But if you do…”
“Finn…” His name came out on a sob. “I do, but—”
“But what? You’re too afraid?”
“Yes, damn it!”
He was quiet a moment and she thought he’d let her go. He didn’t. “Then I’ll be brave enough for us both.”
Her heart hammered, cracked, broke open.
“No, Finn. I can’t. I can’t do this.”
Finn’s gut twisted. It was do or die now. “Rosie, you can’t let fear make you throw this away. I’ve lived too much of my life that way, and now I have too many regrets. Don’t do anything here you’ll regret. And if I can make a case for myself, don’t do anything
I’ll
regret.”
She was silent, shaking her head. It struck him suddenly that if he was going to ask her to humble herself to what she felt, then he had to do it, too.
He slid down to the floor, knelt before her, took her hands in his. The tears crept down her cheeks. She was so damn beautiful, without a scrap of makeup on—just the true
her
.
“Rosie, don’t cry. You don’t need to. Just be with me. We’ll figure it out. We’ll do it together. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here, either. We’ll make mistakes. But we can find our redemption in each other. Don’t you see how true that is?”
He saw her expression shift, soften. “Finn…do you really think we can? Because I feel like I still have so much crap in my life to clean up. The crap I didn’t even know was there. I thought I had my shit so together.”
“You did. You do. We all have something, don’t we? No one is perfect. Not even your sister.”
She smiled a little at that. “Maybe.”
“You want to know what’s fucking perfect? The way I feel about you.” He reached up and stroked her cheek, ran his fingers along her delicate jaw, across her bottom lip. “And not just because you’re beautiful, even though you are. And not just because of your talent as an artist. And not just because you are so exquisite in your submission, so perfect for me in that way. But because of who you are.”
“We don’t even know each other that well yet.”
“Don’t we? You know how they say people in kink relationships create these strong bonds more quickly than other folk because of how we put it all out on the table? Tell me you don’t feel it.”
“I do,” she admitted.
“Tell me what else you feel, Rosie,” he asked quietly, his chest wrenching, but he had to know. “Do you love me?”
She was silent for several long moments, watching him, emotion ranging across her lovely face. Then she reached up and traced her fingertips over his jawline, her blue gaze on his. “I do. I love you, Finn. I can’t believe I’m saying it. But it’s the truth. And you make me feel like…I can do anything, as long as it’s with you.”
He smiled as he pulled her in to kiss her, his mouth coming down on hers. He cupped her face in his hands, deepened the kiss.
Rosie pressed harder against his lips. She needed him to ground her, needed that physical sensation. When they pulled back to breathe, she started to laugh.
“Can you believe what an idiot I am?”
“You? What about me? I’ve been moping about like some schoolboy instead of coming right here to demand you love me like the good Dom I am.”
“You could have. I might have gone along with it. I did now.”
“Are you telling me you’re simply obeying me?”
“Nope. I love you, Finn.” She stopped, shook her head a little. “It’s such a relief to say that to you. To hear myself say the words. I love you.”
“I love you, pretty girl.
My
pretty girl. You know that, right? That you’re mine?”
“I wouldn’t want to belong to anyone else.”
“Good thing, because then I’d have to kill someone.”
“Hmm. There seems to be a lot of that going around.”
“What?”
“A family joke. I’ll tell you later. Right now I need you to take me to bed.”
In a flash he had her in his arms, lifting her. “Do we need a bed?”
“I only need you.”
It was true. God, it was true!
He set her on the old chaise and knelt over her. “Thank you for making my job easier,” he said as he whisked her nightie over her head, leaving her naked. “And thank you for…this.”
His eyes were shining as he ran his hands over her body: her breasts, her stomach, her thighs.
“Hold still,” he told her, that natural command in his voice that made her shiver with need.
He stood and stripped, his body all beautiful planes and angles of cut muscle. She wanted to run her hands, her tongue, over his ink, to taste the pain she knew he’d endured. But there would be time for that. When he bent over her once more, she stopped him and smoothed her hands over his scars: his ribs, his hip, the ones on his thigh.
He flinched. “Rosie, don’t.”
“No, it’s part of you. I needed to know. And Finn…the scars can be skin-deep now. Can’t they?”
“I love that you want that for me. I’m going to work on it.”
“We’ll both be a work in progress.”
“Yeah. And it’s okay.”
She leaned up and kissed the scar on his hip, then the one on his ribs.
He moaned. “Come here, girl.”
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her up, kissed her hard and long, like the mad making-out teenagers did. He kissed her until her body went limp and hot with desire. She dug her fingers into his narrow waist, ran her hands down over thighs that were corded with steel-hard muscle. Their hips worked together, her hot sex pressing against his solid shaft. He bent to kiss her neck, her breasts, pulling one nipple into his mouth and sucking until she cried out in pleasure, her body simmering with it.
“Finn, I need you now.”
“Yeah,” he murmured as he slid into her.
“Oh, that’s good…Finn…”
They moved together, breathing each other in, watching the pleasure on each other’s faces, gazes locked. And she saw the love there, so clear and strong she couldn’t
not
believe in it. Couldn’t fail to believe in the love she had for him. Amazing. True.
“Rosie, my girl.
Mine
.”
She knew that was true, too. Knew it even more as they came together, their bodies, their pleasure, in perfect synchronicity. She knew it after when he held her so tight she could barely breathe.
“Finn, I’ve never had anything perfect in my life,” she told him. “Until this. Until you. You are the only one I could ever belong to.”
“Damn good thing, Rosie, love. Because I’m never giving you up.”
He held her tight, held her safe.
“I’m yours, Finn,” she murmured, feeling it down to her bones.
In his arms she knew for the first time what truly giving herself felt like. And understood—finally—that love was the only rede
m
ption she needed.
As someone involved in BDSM practice for over twenty years, best-selling and award-winning author Eden Bradley aka Eve Berlin loves to write about the sensuality and complexities of kink. She has published dark, edgy erotica and erotic romance for Bantam, Berkley, Harlequin/HQN, Black Lace Books and Samhain Publishing, and more recently she’s ventured into self-publishing. Her books have been translated into German, French, Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Czech and Japanese.
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