323 Tender Way

When I’d break and wipe the tatt to see my progress, Madison never sat up, but I’d lean over and kiss her at every chance I got.

When it was finally finished, I helped her to sit up. She was flushed, pink cheeks, rosy lips and eyes gone glassy from the release of hormones. I wiped the tatt with paper towels after dousing it with disinfecting foam. We both gazed down at the little bird that was nearly identical to my own.

“I like that you put your mark on me,” she said.

I could tell that Madison was still in a state of arousal from the rush of endorphins. She watched me clean up my tools with a hunger that was palpable. When I went to take off my latex gloves, she unhooked her bra.

“Can you lock that door?”

“I can.”

“Lock it.”

I locked it.

When I turned around, Madison was straddling the black chair in just the turned-down blush-colored panties. They were now marred with black ink, cloudy residue of which clung to her abdomen and her left inner thigh.

“Duke, whatever you do, don’t say no. Don’t say not now or not here. Don’t say I’m too young or I should think about it, or even that I only feel like this because of the ink.”

I walked over to her and held her head in my hands. When I kissed her she wrapped her legs around me and her warmth was intoxicating.

“Are you sure?” I asked her. I tugged her hair back to tilt her head so she was looking at me.

She nodded, her eyes wide, her lips parted, her breath coming fast.

“I want to be with you,” she said. She closed her eyes and I kissed her pretty lips. “I want you to be my first.” My tongue delved into her mouth and she arched her back bringing her center flush with my arousal. “My first and my last.”

Madison was a virgin. I’d suspected as much, but the declaration still stunned me. Not many made it all the way to twenty-one with their innocence intact.

“Fuck, Maddy,” I whispered into her hair. She reached down with one hand and pulled her panties down to mid-thigh. When I backed up so she could remove them fully, I caught sight of her, wet and swollen for me.

Madison had the key to unlock all of the dark secrets I’d kept hidden.

And when she saw the monstrous truth, she looked it in the face and didn’t run.

Madison was less afraid of my demons than I was.

Chapter 9

Madison

I undid his jeans, my hands acquiring some sort of instinct I didn’t know I possessed. While my heart flew in my chest, my hands always knew what to do next. As I watched Duke step out of his pants and tear his shirt over his head, I saw only his artwork, only his aspirations, his love and his future. My eyes rejected the scars from his past. They didn’t make him, they had tried to take him, but this man found his way back. I knew Duke would never lead me astray or break his oath to himself. I trusted him; he earned it. His past was only a pathway that led him to his present self.

His lips fell from my mouth to my neck and chest and my flesh exploded into a minefield of goosebumps. When he took my nipple and sucked, the wetness between my legs was enough to make a slick spot on the chair. I reclined and pulled him with me, now naked with a massive erection that I slid my hand up and down. Duke groaned as his body lay over mine and as I rotated my hips, my legs naturally spread open for him.

“Maddy, you want your first time to be here? Are you sure?” His voice was strained while I remained steadfast and sure. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of what I was doing, but I knew I wanted it to happen with Duke and I wanted it to happen now.

“Oh my God, yes!” was all I could think to say. I pressed myself into him with a frantic possession I’d never felt before, I wanted him inside me, I wanted to feel taken and filled up with everything that Duke was, his pain, his past, his earnestness, his intensity, his drive, strength, all the beautiful and varied pieces of him, the good and the bad.

“Maddy, I haven’t been with anyone since my recovery. It’s been ten years. Celibacy, to me, was part of my process. But I also didn’t ever feel tempted. I never felt connected to anybody. I didn’t want anyone until I met you.”

His hands were in my hair and on my face and I rolled my forehead against his neck and chest desperate to pull him in closer to me.