All the Feels, page 33
This time, his snort was loud and lusty. “Shrew.”
He was grinning again, though, and his hand on her hip was exploring now. Gliding over her belly, along her thigh.
“When you look like I do, cruelty is unavoidable.” His hand stilled on her leg, and she covered it with her own. “People will say terrible things. And when that happens, I want you to let me deal with it. You won’t need to defend me, because I’ll defend myself.”
Because she was important. Too important to let herself be abused without consequence.
It was killing him not to interject. She could feel it in the twitch of his fingers, see it in the agitated rock of his body. But he let her speak without interruption, and she loved him for that too.
“I still won’t give the unkindness of others unnecessary space in my life. If I got angry every time someone insulted me, I’d spend my life that way, and I don’t want that for myself.” The pain and rage in his eyes were for her, she knew. All for her, and she stroked his cheek in thanks. “But I also don’t want to act as if cruelty toward me is acceptable and doesn’t merit pushback. So I’ll set boundaries and consequences, and we can talk those through ahead of time. Maybe if a fan is rude, we walk away immediately. If someone in the press says something offensive, we refuse to cooperate with their outlet in the future.”
Some of the vibrating tension in his frame eased, and his shoulders dropped.
But his lips were still pursed tight as he looked up at her, his disapproval more than evident. “Wren—”
“Alex.” She cupped his bristly cheek in her palm, the searing heat against her fingers mute evidence of his outrage. “Honey, please trust that I’ll advocate for myself. Please trust me, even though I know I’ve given you good reason not to.”
He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. “You are the absolute worst.”
Suddenly he was tugging her closer, until she stood between his knees, their faces almost level. And she would have kissed him—she desperately wanted to kiss him—but he was still grumbling, in typical Alex Woodroe fashion.
“You complete, raging harpy.” His caressing fingers somewhat undercut the impact of his aggrieved glare, but only partially. “When you put it that way, there’s nothing I can do but agree, right? Because if I don’t, I’m saying I don’t trust you. And we both know I do, and always have. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I trust you so much, I tattooed your first words to me on my fucking forearm—”
She gasped, jerking in his grasp. “What?”
“—even though you dumped my ass in a goddamn hotel room. Which, to be fair, I maybe kinda deserved, but—”
She clapped a hand over his mouth. “Go back to the tattoo part, Woodroe.”
This time, she knew to expect it. His tongue swirled over her palm, and although the wet heat and sinuous motion arrowed straight between her legs, she only raised a brow.
“So demanding,” he complained when she removed her hand, but his mouth had curved into a smug, self-satisfied grin. “I stole that note you wrote to the B and B housekeeper and kept all the sticky notes you left for me at the house, so I had all the necessary words in your handwriting. And this morning, before I left for the airport, I had them tattooed on my forearm as a reminder.”
Try as she might to follow him, she was lost. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”
“I know who you are. The first thing you said to me.” His smile faded into solemnity, and his eyes were bright and earnest in the moonlight. “And you do. You know who I am, and you told me I was a good man. Since I trust you, that means it must be true. And now, if I doubt myself, I only have to look at my arm. For the rest of my life.”
Carefully, he pushed up the sleeve of his Henley and exposed his left inner forearm, now covered by some sort of clear, shiny bandage.
Beneath that protection lay her words. In her writing. Tattooed onto his body in what appeared to be green ink with a hint of blue, although it was hard to tell in the darkness.
She kicked out a leg, then waved an arm, and the lights illuminated overhead, and yes.
His tattoo was the exact color of her eyes.
She covered her own mouth with the back of her hand, but only managed to half stifle her sob.
He’d essentially branded her words on his skin. And he’d done it that morning, before she’d appeared at his door, even though she’d left him so abruptly and with no good explanation. He’d done it with no expectation of her ever seeing it. He’d done it because he believed in her more than she’d ever believed in herself.
The profound sweetness of his gesture racked through her in another sob, and he gathered her close with his right arm, until his shoulder absorbed her tears.
She sniffled. “Is—is that a soul mark?”
With a gentle hand against her wet cheek, he raised her face to his. Then he kissed her, trembling mouth to trembling mouth. She tasted saline and sweetness, saw entire beaches of rainbow glass behind her closed eyes, felt the warmth of her silk blanket in the curve of his lips against her own.
“I fucking love you, Wren, and you’re obviously my soulmate.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Of course it’s a goddamn soul mark. Have I taught you nothing, you obtuse harpy?”
Delightful. Asshole.
If she didn’t love him so damn much, she’d wash his mouth out with soap, just like the killjoy nanny he’d once accused her of being. But his name was irrevocably embedded in each insistent thump-thump of her now-full heart, so instead she simply kissed him back.
And truly, it was the only reliable way to shut him up.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Fandoms: Gods of the Gates – E. Wade, Gods of the Gates (TV)
Relationships: Cupid/Original Character
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe – Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Cupid Is Extra, Happy Ending
Stats: Words: 509 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 8 Kudos: 54 Bookmarks: 9
Rainbow
RobinUnleashed
Summary:
Robin has lived in black-and-white so long, she’s forgotten color even exists for others, people who’ve found their soulmates. Then she meets Cupid, and everything changes.
Notes:
You said you didn’t need a present, but I disagreed.
Thank you to AeneasLovesLavinia for the beta read.
__________________________
The man is ludicrously handsome. She might even say he’s offensively handsome. He’s smug too, with a sly grin and a wicked twinkle in his eyes. She can’t determine the color of those eyes, but whatever the color is, it’s surely beautiful, like the rest of him.
No doubt he can see the many shades comprising his agile body and perfect features, because a man like him has to have a soulmate. A man like him has surely met that soulmate and caused her a great deal of bother, despite the happy future awaiting them.
He settles in the seat designated for patients in the triage room, one ankle crossed over his opposite knee, as if he came to the ER for an idle chat.
“What seems to be the problem?” she asks in her normal unflappable-nurse voice.
“I’m researching for a role. I need to speak with hospital employees, and I didn’t want to wait until Monday to get permission from the administrators.” He leans in close, as if sharing a secret. “I’m not always the most patient of men, Nurse . . .” He glances at her name badge. “Robin.”
Now she recognizes him. The man in front of her is Cupid, an award-winning actor who’s famously talented, famously gorgeous, famously wealthy, and simply . . . famous.
But in her ER, that doesn’t matter.
She stares at him stonily. “If you’re not injured or ill, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“Killjoy.” He sighs and rolls his eyes at her. “Fine, then. My heart is hurting. Do something about it, Nurse Wretched.”
She fights the urge to roll her own eyes. “I believe that’s Nurse Ratched.”
“I said what I said.” That obnoxious grin is back.
So she asks him to roll up his crisp white shirtsleeve, and she prepares to take his blood pressure. Only—
The standard, rote procedure has never felt like this before. The contact with his arm zings through her with surprising heat. Alarming heat.
“Oh, my goodness,” she whispers.
Cupid jerks away and stares at his arm as if it betrayed him.
“Ridiculous,” he says, and then it happens.
He gives a choked-off exclamation and flaps his arm, as if in pain, but she can’t pay him the attention a nurse should right now. She can only feel what’s happening on her own arm.
Robin gasps at the sensation she’s been waiting for her whole life, the sensation she never actually expected to feel.
The letters appear one by one on her forearm in an unfamiliar, messy scrawl.
As a child, she imagined those letters might itch and burn, might feel foreign on the skin, but they don’t.
They’re a caress instead, a tender stroke of her flesh. They’re as ridiculously beautiful as him, each one a rainbow of jewel tones frosted like sea glass.
Ridiculous. It’s a lamentable soul mark, to be sure, but it’s hers.
When she looks up, his gray eyes are wide, his cheeks flushed a vivid pink.
He’s her soulmate. Her soulmate.
It’s a shame he’s such a pain in the ass.
Epilogue
VIKA ANDRICH GLANCED AT HER NOTES FOR THE NEXT question, and Lauren braced herself.
“Tell me about the experience of filming with Carah Brown, Alex.” The blogger leaned toward the couch where Alex and Lauren were seated thigh to thigh. “You two had a few key scenes together in Gods of the Gates, but now you’re on the road in each other’s company for weeks at a time. How has that been?”
Lauren’s heart rate slowed once more.
Marcus had encouraged Alex and Lauren to accept Vika’s invitation for a New Year’s Day interview, and Francine—now Alex’s agent too—had concurred. She’s sharp but not unkind, Francine said. She’ll do right by you both, and a joint interview is a good way to appease your audience’s curiosity on your own terms and help guide coverage of your relationship.
So they’d said yes, but Lauren was still watchful. So was Alex, especially since they hadn’t been given the interview questions ahead of time.
If something went awry, though, Lauren could handle it, and she intended to prove that. To herself and Alex both.
But this was another question that didn’t require her input. Even better, it was one Alex could answer without hesitation and with total honesty. Unlike, say, Vika’s queries about the final season of Gods of the Gates—which had just finished airing and been shredded by fans and critics alike—and whether he still wrote fanfic. Which he did, under the anonymous handle Pegosaurus, as part of the Cupid’s Cuties community. But he couldn’t tell Vika that.
He could, however, rave about Carah.
“She’s fucking awesome,” he declared with a grin, one Lauren knew was heartfelt.
On and off camera, the two former Gates costars bounced off each other like the good friends they were. Together, they’d made the show exactly what they wanted it to be.
Each episode took place in a new town or city. They explored its sights together, driving everywhere in one of Carah’s many sports cars, bickering amiably the entire time. In each location, she tried a trademark regional food on camera while he highlighted a local charity. The production donated to that charity, and so did he. So did Carah. So did plenty of their viewers.
“We have a great time, and I think that’s obvious to our audience,” he summed up after a characteristically long-winded discussion of Carah’s greatness. “I’ve never had more fun filming. Ever.”
Vika smiled at them. “As cohosts, you and Carah are there for every episode. But other people often join your expeditions as well. Including you, Lauren. Can you tell me more about how that decision was made?”
Lauren’s turn had finally arrived.
Alex squeezed her hand in mute encouragement, which she appreciated but didn’t need. After a few months on the road with the television crew, she’d become largely accustomed to having cameras pointed in her direction and large chunks of her life available for public perusal. And after a few more months with her therapist, she had tactics for dealing with these sorts of situations and a good grip on what truly mattered to her.
She might be nervous, her fingers trembling, but she was also ready.
No matter how this interview went, she wouldn’t read the response on social media. No matter how this interview went, Alex wouldn’t detonate, because he too had been working with a therapist and learning to—as he’d put it—get out of his own fucking way.
No matter how this interview went, he’d still love her, and she’d still love herself.
That was enough. That was everything.
“Well, most of Alex’s best friends are famous, so having them show up on camera isn’t precisely a hardship for the production.” She smiled slightly, using what Alex called her Santa Ana voice. “But I’m not famous, of course, at least not in my own right, and that’s true for others who’ve joined us too.”
The rotating cast of friends and family who accompanied them on the road had been an unexpected joy, piercing in its sweetness. Some shoots, depending on scheduling needs, Marcus and April or other former costars might come along. Dina. His mother. Sionna, who now rented Alex’s guesthouse for the same price as the turreted duplex she and Lauren had once shared.
Even, occasionally, Lauren’s parents, once they’d all gotten over the awkwardness of discussing why she wouldn’t apologize to Ron and didn’t intend to have any contact with him in the future. Aunt Kathleen hadn’t spoken to her in over two months, and her mom and Aunt Kathleen still hadn’t entirely reconciled, but so be it. If Lauren’s parents chose to put her comfort before their own, she had to believe—she did believe—she was worth that sacrifice.
After that fraught conversation with her mom and dad, they’d started making an effort to see her, rather than assuming she’d always come to them. So whenever the show stopped relatively near California, her parents were likely to appear on camera.
And at some point during most episodes, so was she. Generally she stayed in the background, just another visitor on a tour, just another tourist taking photos. Just another explorer discovering the world and finding magic wherever she roamed, in between teletherapy appointments conducted in comfortable hotel suites.
Seeing clients long-term suited her, as she’d discovered. Tracing their progress and helping them surmount obstacles in their lives and minds week by week . . . it was hard but satisfying work, and it didn’t leave her scraped empty at the end of each day.
In fact, her life overflowed with so much friendship and love and warmth and adventure, she could afford to share some of it with an unseen audience.
Normally, she didn’t let herself be dragged directly in front of the cameras, but sometimes she did. By Sionna, or Carah, or—most often—Alex.
At their urgings, she’d take a deep breath, tilt her chin high, and describe what she’d seen that day, and she’d do so with absolutely no neutral remove. As a participant in her own life, rather than a spectator. Then Alex and Carah would tease her until she scowled at them and snorted with laughter.
In the third episode, Lauren had even kissed him on camera. Caught up in their usual banter, she’d forgotten their audience. But when she remembered, she didn’t shy away from his arms clasping her tight, because she wasn’t ashamed of herself or of him, and she refused to act as if she were.
“Here’s how Alex and I think about it.” Lauren took a sip of water, still smiling at Vika. “Unleashed isn’t just a show. It’s our lives on camera. And we want to share our lives with the people who matter to us, so we’ll always welcome our friends and family on set. We’ll always encourage them to come as often as they can and stay as long as they can, because their presence is a joy. We’re also grateful for StreamUs’s support of that decision and their help coordinating everyone’s schedules.”
There. She’d answered the question without fumbling her words, and her hands weren’t shaking anymore.
She could do this. With Alex at her side, she could do anything at all.
FOR A MOMENT, Alex could only stare at her beloved face, awash with pride.
Her answer had been confident and clear. More than that, though, it was diplomatic and thoughtful and sincere and kind.
It was Wren, laid bare to the world.
He pressed a kiss to her cheek, then forced himself to turn back to Vika. “Yeah, filming with our friends and family is great. Especially when a bunch of them can visit at the same time, like in Vegas.”
Vika leaned forward. “Speaking of Las Vegas . . .”
Well, they’d both known this was coming.
“So far, your Gold Coast visit with your mother is your most-viewed episode.” She was nearly vibrating with eagerness, her expression avid and delighted. “But I suspect the upcoming Sin City episode will surpass those numbers. Care to tell our viewers why?”
The Gold Coast trip remained special to him for so many reasons. The pleasure of revisiting treasured sights from his childhood. The extended time he got to spend with his mom, all without a decade of grief and guilt tainting their love for one another. The way she’d adored Wren. The moment she’d told the camera, tears pooling in her gray eyes, that she was so proud of him it hurt sometimes, and he’d cried a little too.
But even with all those amazing memories, yes, Vegas was better.
Not just the highlight of the show, the highlight of his fucking life.
“Ahhhhhhh. Good question.” Grinning like the fool he was, he kissed the top of Wren’s head and breathed in the familiar scent of coconut. “During our trip to Las Vegas, after countless weeks of pleading and lamenting my lost virtue, I finally got Lauren here to make an honest man out of me. On Christmas Day, because I’m clearly the most enticing present imaginable.”
