These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

Because I’m a fiend for his body.

And also his silver watch.

Which I always tell him to wear. Especially during sex and painting sessions.

When I mentioned it the first time, he was confused. “My watch.”

Sprawled on him after sex, I smiled. “Uh-huh.”

“You have a thing for my… silver watch,” he asked again, tipping his chin down to look at me, all sexily.

“Yup.” I nodded, kissing his sweaty chest. “It makes you look all sexy and dominating. Authoritative.” And then I lowered my voice a little. “‘Do you know what time it is? It’s 11:15.’”

I chuckled and he grabbed my hair, pulling my head up. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

Widening my eyes in mock fear, I said, “No, sir.”

His fists tightened in my hair and his lips twitched. “You’re the…”

“I’m the what?”

His eyes roved over my flushed features. “You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met.” Then, pulling me closer to his lips, “And if you call me sir again, I’ll make sure that that’s all you ever get to call me.”

And then he kissed me and fucked me.

All with the silver watch on his wrist.

Because he lets me do everything my heart desires.

He lets me touch him, poke him, prod him with the blunt end of my pencil, stare at him for hours as I sketch him, trying to get all the details right. He indulges all my quirks and I indulge his: drawing him while naked.

Because he likes to look at me too.

Apart from his usual watching, he likes to look at the artwork on my body. His name decorated with roses and thorns.

In fact, he’s taken to writing his name on me himself. And he’s so sneaky about it.

Like he won’t do it when I’m awake or when I’m watching, no.

He writes his name on my body when I’m sleeping and he writes it in places that I can easily find. That I can easily make out in the mirror when I go to shower after I’ve woken up: my collarbones, in the valley between my breasts.

And when I do find it, I smile and make roses around it. Just to tell him that I saw and that I loved it.

He also likes my jewelry.

That he tells me to keep on even when he rips my dresses off my body.

He actually bought me one too.

Yeah. A belly chain.

Sort of like the one I wore the first time we had sex. His is simpler, a delicate chain made of gold, no dangling, tinkling things. And I love it more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life.

It’s totally him.

And so I wear it all the time.

Even at school, under my uniform.

But anyway, he likes to play with my jewelry like I play with his muscles.

He likes to reach out and flick a finger at my dangling bracelets, making them clink. Or stick his pinky in the little holes of my necklace and pull.

Sometimes he does it with my hair too, curls it around his large masculine digits and pulls.

And when he does that while I’m sketching him, I slap his hand away and tell him that I’m working.

That I’m trying to focus.

“You shouldn’t be moving around anyway,” I say, my eyes on the sketchbook, my pencil moving. “You’re supposed to be my model. You’re supposed to stay put, Conrad.”

He doesn’t listen.

He goes for my loose hair again and picks up a strand to rub between his fingers.

Finally I snap my eyes up to tell him to cut it out.

Only to find that his gaze is burning.

It has gone all dark and horny and the next breath I take is shaky.

My next words are shaky as well. “Conrad, stop.”

Again he doesn’t.

At my protest, something possessive flickers through his already heated eyes, something arrogant too, making me burn even more.

“I can’t believe this,” I say then, trying to be all strong in the face of his somehow both mature and boyish arrogance. “I thought you were good. I thought you followed all the rules. You were this uptight, disciplined, goody two shoes who would never even think of distracting someone from serious business.”

Propped up on pillows, he should look relaxed and lazy. And he does to some extent. But at my words, it seems as if his body thrums with a current. It vibrates with a thick pulse of domination as he tugs at my hair again before going for my wrist as he hums, “Maybe for you I’m different. I’m bad. Maybe for you, Bronwyn, I’m trouble.”

My breathing has gone all haywire now, given that he’s repeated what I said to him from so long ago. And even as I say these words, I don’t mean them at all. “I have to finish this.”

“Yeah?”

I nod my head as primly as I can while sitting naked in front of him, with my breasts exposed and heaving, and with only a pillow in my lap and my sketchbook open on it.