“See, this is why we gotta talk before we get to the good stuff. You thinkin’ I’m gonna fuck and run is fuckin’ whacked, Lila.”
“Is it?” I hissed, anger sneaking in through the fog of lust clouding my resolve. “Says the man who told me off for wanting him when his dick was still wet with another woman’s orgasm? Says the man they call Casanova for a reason? You want to make me feel stupid for expecting the worse when that’s all I’ve ever seen from you?”
“With you?” he demanded, one hand diving into my hair to twist through the strands and pin me with my head angled back, his face looming dark and sexy as the devil above me. “You sayin’ I’ve only ever shown you the worst? Or other women? Women who knew the score ’cause I laid it out for them like I’d lay it out for you if you gave me a goddamn chance to do it!”
“So lay it out,” I said through gritted teeth.
Because I was tired and scared and the hope I’d nurtured for so many years, a beautiful garden in my chest, was razed and plucked free of petals by the tempest of his hot and cold regard the last few months.
I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
My heart had faith, my head held doubt, and my gut was currently occupied with the fire Nova had lit the second he laid those smoldering eyes on me as I entered the shop.
He stared down at me, his eyes burning over my skin as they trailed across my features. I wanted to close my eyes, hide the vulnerability of wistfulness, lust, and love swirling through the green and brown, but I didn’t. Instead, I met his gaze boldly and dared him to damn me for my passion.
He didn’t.
Instead, his whole countenance gentled. The hand fisted in my hair unclenched and moved to cradle my head in his wide palm, the arm banded at my waist shifted so he could cup my hip and curve me into a hug.
I let myself be moved into the center of his embrace, heard him breathe deeply into my hair as if chasing the scent of me.
And I fought the overpowering urge to cry.
How was it possible that every time I wanted to rage at him, resolved to hate him, determined I would move on from my childhood love and find something new, he drew me back so gently, so coaxingly and inexorably into his orbit that I wondered why I had ever wanted to leave in the first place?
“You gonna stay mad while I ink that fleur-de-lis into your pretty skin?” he murmured, still clutching me close. “Or you gonna be good while I work so I can reward you after?”
A shiver rolled through me, cool and tingling as morning fog across the mountains.
He chuckled darkly into my hair before releasing me. “I’m gonna take that as a yes.”
I stumbled slightly as he stepped back then tipped my chin into the air and turned my back on him, walking to his station so I could have a brief moment of privacy to find my balance.
It didn’t work.
My nipples were beaded so tightly they ached. For his touch, his mouth, even his eyes on them. Greedy and desperate, my breasts were swollen and throbbing with the hard beat of my pulse.
I could feel the moisture between my thighs as I walked, clenching my teeth against the feel of the seam in my shorts rubbing on my clit as I dropped into the chair.
“Shirt off, babe,” Nova reminded me, a rich vein of humor in his voice as he leaned against the half-partition and watched me stretch out in the purple chair. “Need access to all of that skin for what I have planned.”
I shivered at the double entendre then bit my lip to keep from squirming under the heat of his gaze as I lifted my cropped tank up and off, revealing my black lace bra.
“Fuck yeah,” he growled softly as he moved to the side of the chair and palmed the heavy ridge of his erection through his jeans. “See what you’re doin’ to me, Li?”
I licked my dry lips. “I’m sure you see naked women in your chair all the time.”
“Yeah,” he agreed easily, dropping onto his stool and rolling even closer. “None of them were you.”
“You’ve had celebrities in this chair,” I argued, staring at the ceiling so I wouldn’t have to look at his face and imagine him tattooing popstars and actresses.
“Yeah,” he repeated gruffly, as he snapped on his gloves and gently laid the stencil of the design we’d discussed over the left side of my waist, right in the dip before the flare. “None of them were you.”
I bit my lip but didn’t say anything. If he wanted to flatter me, I’d let him, but I was going to be smart. Or at least, smart enough to know that I was just new, a novelty, and a forbidden one at that, and he would get tired of me just as he tired of all the rest.