Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

“I want it in your writing. Your mark on me. I’ll coach you through it,” he offered huskily when we broke apart. “I’m a good teacher. Remember how well I taught ya to take me in your virgin ass?”

“Nova!” I protested even as I laughed. “Fuck, you’re outrageous.”

He grinned shamelessly. “I got some outrageous ideas of how I wanna celebrate afterward, and they all involve a fuckuva lot less clothes. Actually, why wait? Lose the dress.”

Before I could move, he was bunching the fabric in his hands and lifting it off me. I obliged by raising my arms.

A low growl rumbled through Nova’s chest as he ran his hands over my mostly naked flesh. I grinned, a feminine smugness tucked into the expression because I’d come prepared.

Dark purple satin lined with black lace, the bra a demi cup that lifted my breasts into sinful swells, the thong cut high over my hips.

Nova dipped his head to my breastbone and pressed a kiss to the top of each breast. “Fuck me, thinkin’ about all the things I’m gonna do to your fuckin’ sinful body makes me feel like an animal. Wanna take you in the shop, our bed, the meadow, on my bike… anywhere with a flat surface and a fuckin’ modicum of privacy.”

I tipped my head back to moan as he sucked hard at one nipple through the satin then startled when his hand smacked down on my ass.

“Let’s get to work,” he growled, dragging the table of tools closer then laying back with his hands behind his head, arms flexed in a way that made my mouth water. “Come sit on my hips so you can feel how fuckin’ hard you make me as you ink me.”

I swallowed thickly as I straddled his narrow waist and followed his instructions. I started by placing the tracing paper in the valley above his mountainous pectorals, following the design with a special skin pen so the barbed wire heart and stylized initials were replicated perfectly on his golden skin. I’d held a tattoo gun before, years ago when I’d expressed curiosity about it during one of my first sessions, so I was prepared for the violent buzz of it in my hand, but learning about how to dip the inks was specific and nerve wracking.

Nova remained calm throughout, as if I was just getting ready to shave him instead of inking something permanent into his flesh.

The muscle flexed beneath my hand as I pressed the gun to him, but I braced on the chair and bent so close I ws nearly lying on him to make sure I followed the lines just right.

There was a palpable tension in the room, an electric heat in the air like the atmosphere before a storm rolls in. It made me squirm slightly over the crest of Nova’s half-rigid cock.

“Be still,” he ordered, roughly. “Or we’ll both ruin the tatt ’cause I’ll be inside you, fuckin’ you up and down my cock in a way you can’t keep that hand steady.”

A shiver zipped up my spine. “It’s just so sexy, my hands on you, this big, beautiful body all laid out for me like this. Getting to put something on your skin you’re going to see every day that reminds you of me.”

“Got that wrong, Li. I’m not puttin’ it there as a reminder to me. Every thought I got in my head finds its way back to you, like the ocean always rollin’ back into the shore. Don’t need a reminder so much as I want you to know the love I got for you is more permanent than any ink. I want you to know I wear your heart proud as fuck in my chest.”

Tears pricked like hot needles at the backs of my eyes. I tried to blink them away, concentrating on the left arch of the barbed heart.

“Hey, Li, don’t cry, my gorgeous girl,” Nova crooned softly.

“I’ve just loved you for so long,” I whispered past the obstruction in my throat. “Hoped for so long. It’s hard to digest the fact that the love I’ve had sitting in my chest for years is finally yours. Honestly, I thought it would always be the perfect gift ungiven.”

A soft, broken sound of grief vibrated his chest under the tattoo gun.

I didn’t look up into his eyes, those eyes that always read my thoughts and wrecked my emotions. I was too shook up, like a can of upended soda, and I was afraid too much more would make me burst open.

As if sensing my need to focus, to settle, Nova stayed quiet, a hush, contemplative silent overtaking him until, fifteen minutes later, I finished the flourish on the ‘B’ of the design.

“I’m done,” I whispered, leaning back to survey the art. “Actually, I don’t think I did a bad job.”