42. Cross

Awad of cash, an indolent threat, and a quick pulse of my gift clears Ake’s Tattoos for the night, complete with locks on doors, curtains pulled and carte blanche approval from Ake’s owner herself.

Lounging in the polished leather tattoo chair, Leni’s at home, hands easing down the padded armrests, frosty eyes sticking to me. Perfection. Clad in a silver two-piece outfit of straps and fantasy, with my Blackguard leather draped over her shoulders, she’s ruined me.

Her body is a mosaic of memories and pain. Black swirling over her skin. Half her time she spends in and out of needles and bandages. She does the tattoos herself, talking while she works, associating words with the pain,

Needles and dyes and stencils scatter a metal rolling tray at her fingertips. She pokes at a fresh cotton ball and smiles up at me.

I stand in the doorway, encased in dimming purple neon, boots firmly planted on the rubber mat to keep from getting close. Being near her means touching her. Touching her inevitably leads to kissing and kissing her—I grit my teeth.

Not ready.

Before I was her last resort, and a lucky, indulgent scoundrel.

I’m not anymore. Now, I want her to kiss me because she likes me. Not because I’m the best option or because I’ll cause the least bloodshed. I want her to choose me like I would choose her out of a million.

To do that, she needs to understand who she is, realize that she can have anyone in the world, and then and only then, Gods willing, pick me as her partner.

“What’ll it be today?” I ask, pressing my shoulder into the wall. The shop smells like cleaner and weed, and a drop of sweet.

She traces the skull and crossbones stitches in the seat of the chair, right between her legs. “Isn’t this place cute?” she asks, all innocent. “It’s private and extremely exclusive.”

“You must know everything about it, then.”

Her smile is mischief, and I lock my knees. “If it’s such a big secret, people shouldn’t discuss it in public.” She brushes blue ringlets over her shoulder. “They think I never listen.”

“They underestimate you.”

“You never do.” My brow quirks up, and she cants her head, ankles crossing on the footrest. “Sin once told me he tried writing your name down ten times in a row, but when he read it back, he’d written his own name.”

“That says more about Sin than me.”

She laughs. “Atlas says he can only ever picture you as a mortal in your military uniform. Apparently, you had a scar right here.” She draws a gruesome line down her cheek.

I offer a tight, comforting smile. “Your guess as to what caused it is as good as mine.”

“He told me your rank,” she says carefully, watching for a reaction I fight to smother. “I don’t think he meant to, but he did and I …” she trails off with a curl of those pink lips. I dig my fingers into the steel doorframe to anchor myself. “I like to read, so I looked you up. I searched for the stricken names, soldiers lost in action.”

My breath hitches. “Don’t.”

“Don’t you want to know your name?”

The name of a male the world forgot? What’s the point? Except for her to say it. “I—eventually? Maybe. Not—I just want to be Cross to you first.”

Her features soften. “I like him.”

Zeus, she’s killing me. “Good. And you can just be Leni.”

“If I must.” She’s teasing me now, bent forward in her seat, toes wiggling.

I’m across the shop before I realize it, a pool of black flooding the tile behind me. “Only after we figure us out will we introduce past selves, deal?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No.” Her gaze sinks to my mouth, studies me intently. “It’s true though.” Her finger hooks on the pocket of my jeans. “Your name doesn’t matter to me. We’re magnets. To find you, all I have to do is close my eyes, and to want you, I need only open them.”

I inhale a deep breath, exhale slowly, fisting and unfisting my hands. No closer. Enjoy the honeysuckle and sweet, revel in the bead of sweat gliding down her chest over empty skin.

Do not wonder what it tastes like.

Do not ask to find out.

It takes active effort to pry my attention from her mouth. “You’re just an extremely skilled tracker.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m not honored by the Gods with natural, ichor born talent?”

“Cut out my tongue if I ever do.”

She grins. “I’ve been thinking about your tongue.”

I hesitate, allow myself seconds to enjoy the pour of whipping desire before I warn, “Leni.”

“Cross.” She’s still smiling. “Come here.” A tiny wiggle of her fingers and I’m helpless to comply.

Even as I tell myself to fight it, I’m walking toward her.

She sets her palms on my shoulders. “How long has it been?”

“Since you died?”

“Since we kissed, Cross. How long?”

My skin heats. “Twenty-four days.”

Leni doesn’t let me disappear in the answer, doesn’t let me drown in the misery. She takes my face in her hands and she kisses me.

I wish she’d shoot me again. I keep my hands fisted while my heart pounds, while my curse screeches. Do not touch her.

Too soon, she releases me, pulls back. She seems disappointed. Even if she’s breathless. Her eyes dilate, deathly blue getting boxed out by black.

Some complex emotion crosses her face. I lock up, fearing a memory, ready to soothe her, but she shakes it away. Arranges my hair with the softest touch. “I did some research,” she says. “Actually, Rune helped me a lot. I need more internet training, but we found it. The most painful place to get a tattoo.”

Holding my gaze, she tears open a sanitizing wipe and sweeps it across her cheekbone, just under the curve of her eye. “I’ll need you to do it,” she informs, retrieving a stencil from her impossibly tiny pocket and unfolding it. “Zeke did the design. He’s quite good.” She flattens the paper against her cheek, presses tightly, and removes it. “What do you think?”

On the rise of cheekbone in blue outlining ink is my name, a word mangled by the delicate calligraphy, the sweeping arc of the letters, the conjoined s’s. It’s brutality sweetened over.

I can hardly speak past the lump lodged in my throat. “No.” It comes out like a threat, rough and ragged.

Leni doesn’t bristle in the slightest. “Yes. I can’t forget you again.”

“You won’t,” I let out with a growl. “I’ll never let you die again.”

“But you’re worried it might happen,” she returns, the voice of reason. “Or you wouldn’t be taking notes. You wouldn’t give me a code. This realm is not friendly to us.”

“I will protect you,” I croak.

“Well, I want to protect you too,” she breathes out, earnest, beautiful. “Even if that means giving all this up. You’re not the only one with power here. In fact, you’re the one with the lame dead-means-dead power.” She turns on the tattoo machine and hands it to me. “Press hard.” Not advice. An order. “I can take it.”

Anything. I promised her anything.

And she’s remembered.

Leni keeps her eyes open the whole time, blue lashes barely flickering at the press of the machine on her fragile skin.

I try to be quick and steady, but part of me toils, terrified of the blank look on her face, of her flinching back from me. Part of me wants to make it last. Extend the pain.

I am every bit her monster.

As I trace the letters, I tell her things I need her to remember. I’ll never let harm come to her. I’ll never underestimate her, never ask her to be less than exactly as bright and gleaming as she is. I tell her if she ever asks me to choose between anything and her, I will choose her.

“I love you,” I finish, voice little more than crushed gravel as I pat away the thin drops of shimmery pink blood.

She’s breathing hard, icy eyes glistening as she allows me to be tender, as if she knows I need to fix it. Seal it, wrap it, kiss the bandage.

Then it’s done. And everything that I’ve been holding back from her sinks between us, raw and exposed.

Her eyes speak for her, narrowed and glassy, as they fixate on me, more satisfied and prouder than I’ve ever seen her. “You love me.”

I’m resigned to the truth. No gentleman’s approach now. “You knew I did.”

Watching her grin slowly unfurl is pure eroticism. Her free hand tangles in my hair and draws me into her. “Yes, but you were never going to admit it. Thus the plan.”

We’re at a good angle like this. Her perched on the chair, my knee pressed to the leather between her calves. Honeysuckle and blood. I silently bless the Fates. “The Plan?”

“The Plan.” She presses her forehead up to mine, obviously pleased with herself. “Chase you down in the club, lure you in here, make you realize that you’re a part of me, forever.”

My heart hurts. “Ah,” I rasp. “that plan.”

She steals the air between us to laugh. Rakes long fingernails over my scalp. Whispers, “I love you too.”

Then she’s kissing me again. More sure of herself and of me, she winds her legs around my waist, until I’m crowded up against her, chest flush with hers. She kisses the spot I like to wreck on my lip, overly tender and sweet, flips princess eyes on me. “Cross, I—”

I retreat, bend away, mop through the heady thoughts swirling in my head, and seize the tattoo machine. “Now me. Leni. In the same spot.”

Silence. Then, “No.”

“Yes.” I almost laugh.

“No,” she repeats deadpan. “I’m not contagious. You’re not going to lose your memories.”

“No, but I’d like to build some.”

The neon flickers over her like little rippling waves of amethyst as she drinks me in. She shakes her head, bright bangs dancing. “You can’t have a face tattoo,” she informs, reaching up to run her fingers over the rough skin of my lips. “That’s not very stealthy.”

I press a kiss against her fingertips, and remind her, “You’re the only one who can find me, and I already have tattoos.”

There’s undoubtedly an argument waiting on her tongue, but she relents, seems to understand that I need this from her, despite the absurdity of it.

Carefully, she takes my hand, flattens it over her thigh, pins the finger that means more than the rest. The buzz of the machine fills the room, and I don’t think to register the pain as she draws on me, lashes casting tipped shadows on her cheeks, hair escaping the tuck behind her ear.

I fix it with my free hand.

I’ll never deserve her, but I’ll never stop trying.

“How’s that?” she asks, holding my hand up to the light. A black letter L with a heart nestled in its corner just below my knuckle.

The first tattoo I’ve ever asked for. “We’ll have to finish that.” I tell her as I drag her to the edge of her seat. “Eleni Amiace.”

A part of me. For eternity.

It scratches a deep, hidden itch that’s been unknowingly aching in my bones, and scorches through me, lighting the very thread of my existence in a blaze.

My control shudders and snaps and before she turns off the machine, I’m all over her, lips fused with hers in an insatiable kiss, running off fumes of raw animalistic need.

My palms trail up her thighs, fingers hooking under the hem of her skirt.

“I remember this,” she whispers into my ear, breath coming out ragged and heavy. My tongue is laving down her throat, sucking and mapping. “I get it every once in a while, snippets of you, of us. How perfect—” she gasps when I find the sensitive spot under her ear and buckle down. “Fuck, how much I want this, it scared me.”

The confession fractures something inside me.

That’swhy she flinched.

Because it was too much.

Because it was exactly what I felt, because it was intense and breathtaking and life changing and giving in meant giving yourself over forever, completely. Never going back.

If I had known—

My stomach tightens, a low coil of heat singeing bright red as I grip her thighs, hitch her leg around my hip, and kiss her, hard, the way she likes.

The edge of her skirt rides up as she spreads for me, leaving her bare against my belt and zipper, and I lose my mind a little. Buck against her. Press my fingers into the meat of her ass, pin her to me, and bite the tendon arcing from her neck to her shoulder.

She moans, throwing her other leg around me to ride me, all shaky breaths and little sighs. “Have we done this before?”

My lungs empty, my painfully hard shaft pulses against my zipper. I exhale harshly on her shoulder, pry myself back. “Yes. We have.”

“And how did I do?”

My blue haired professor wants to be graded. I choke on a laugh. “Have you been taking interrogation advice from Drake?”

A coy smile. “My technique’s better.”

Stepping back, I coast a heated gaze up and down her, lingering on the delicious spread of her thighs, the narrow white bandage on her cheek. “Obviously.”

“Cross?”

I graze my lips over hers. “Anything, love.”

She smiles against my mouth, Whispers. “Will you just fuck me already?”

This female. Will. Kill. Me.

Not thinking, just craving, I bury my face in between her thighs, reintroducing myself to my favorite place in the world.

She shouldn’t taste this fucking good.

I don’t deserve it. But I certainly take advantage. Licking and sucking, and nibbling. Gods, I’ve missed this terribly.

She cries out, scoring her hands over my scalp, clawing and pulling my hair.

I’m cheating.

I know exactly what she likes, and I don’t hold back—pinpointing the sensitive spots that send jolts of ecstasy coursing through her body, giving her the exact right pressure, the right pain. Her legs quiver on top my shoulders as I apply just enough pressure on her clit with my teeth; a sting that sends her spiraling over the edge, grinding against my mouth with wild abandon.

“No underwear?” I ask, marking my teeth on the inside of her thigh.

“Not—” She’s shaking still, head rolled back, pulse pounding in her neck, “Not part of the plan.”

“Such a good little planner,” I growl, sliding two fingers inside her, reveling in her wet heat. It’s fumbling, near frantic as I claim her, muttering a strangled, “Fuck, Leni,” as my hand slips over her.

I breathe into the hollow space where her neck meets her collarbone, feeling her thrumming pulse beneath my lips. My free hand is greedy, stroking up her waist, over her stomach, higher, as I fuck her with my fingers, slow but rough, giving her wants she craves while getting her comfortable with the sensation.

Giving myself time to not completely embarrass myself.

Pushing under the slip of her shirt, I score my palm up where her damning tattoo used to lie, and spread higher, caressing the small swells of her breasts.

“Oh,” she gasps out. “Almost forgot.” Her words are hitching breaths against my earlobe as she unveils the last step of her brilliant plan. “A surprise.”

My whole body jerks in shock, mouth falling open on a tortured groan.

I can feel it. Her surprise. My fingertips brushing something hard beneath the silk of her shirt. Metal. A nipple piercing.

I share an exhilarated grin with her. “You are so fucking dangerous.”

The flush in her cheeks deepens and flourishes to near red—a testament to the pleasure simmering beneath her skin.

My exact match.

I’ll never forget the silent part of her lips, the soundless cry she makes when I tug at the metal rod. How she arches against the leather, into me, how her body flinches in pleasure and pain.

I begin to voice my worries amidst heavy pants. “Leni—”

She interrupts me with a forceful kiss that carries an unprecedented sense of urgency. As if she’s worried I’ll back out.

Not if the entire realm was burning.

“I want to remember …” she pleads. “Every touch. Every sensation.”

I am only a mortal when I’m with her. Weak and sinful.

Greedy.

Proud.

Lust filled.

Check check check.

She undoes my belt while I kiss her, fumbling and eager, and I remember that she said she wasn’t fertile, and tell her, and by the time she’s shoving my pants and underwear down, we end up sliding together. I’m a little too hard, she’s a little too wet. It’s all too right.

She gasps, loud, sucks in a harsh breath.

Smiles at me. Rocks against me, holds me, kisses me.

It’s what we should have had for our first time. She’s not nervous. She’s in love. I’m in love. And I tell her that. Every time I thrust. Every time she cries out and shudders around me. An erotic sonnet spoken only in the language of desire.

I play with her pierced nipples, eliciting tremors while she unravels my entire existence. Better than ambrosia, better than the Elysian Fields, better than anything. Better than me.

And yet she’s mine.

We’re slow and fast, and when I mutter about how I’m losing my fucking mind from her, she twists her new piercing like she’s taking a picture. She clenches around me and my fingers leap into a frantic hard swipe over her clit as I bite into her shoulder just in time for us both to succumb to euphoria.

Limbs heavy, breaths thin, I press a delicate kiss to her cheek, still deep and throbbing inside her. “Your best plan yet, pyro.”

Legs loose around my hips, fingers playing in my hair, she releases a stunted laugh before she sighs. “Cross?”

I’m numb from pleasure, exhausted and keyed up. “Anything.” I kiss the nearest swath of skin, the top of her shoulder and gather her closer.

“Can you …” She laughs again, fingers pressing into me. “Can you pull it back just a little?”

My eyes are heavy, thoughts slow. She’s fucked me senseless.

“Cross?”

“I’ll pull apart the realm for you once I can feel my legs, love.”

Another lazy, beautiful laugh. “In the meantime, gather your shadows. I’d really like to see your face.”

I hazily blink and realize that the entire shop is blacker than the depths of Tartarus, shadows spiraling out from me, curse surrounding us. Self-defense. Because the curse knows, just as well as I do, that Leni holds the key to my happiness, which makes her my biggest threat. I wouldn’t have it any other way.