Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

He led me through the dark shop, not turning on any lights except for the one at his station. I sat on the edge of his tattoo chair as he readied his tools.

“Am I getting another tattoo?” I asked, a smile in my voice because it was just like him to design something for me on a whim, and just like me to immediately, sight unseen, want it inked on my body.

Nova was one of the best tattoo artists on the west coast, and usually his designs went for a pretty penny, so I considered myself lucky I got the family discount.

“Not quite.” I watched as he printed a design on Thermafax paper, unable to make out what he’d drawn. “Wanna try somethin’ different today.”

I frowned as he rolled the tray close to the chair and handed me the paper. A simple but beautiful purple barbed wire heart with the initials JB + LM stared back at me.

When I looked up at him, he was taking off his tee, tugging it from the back of his neck in that way men did that I’d never understood but thought was insanely hot.

“Nova?” I asked quietly, afraid to disturb whatever was happening between us.

Then he was shirtless, the tapestry of ink on his torso moving with the flex and roll of his densely muscled chest. My mouth went dry as he hopped up on the tattoo chair and pulled me between his legs.

“Want you to tattoo it right here,” he said, thumping one of the only remaining bare sections of skin on his chest, just below the lotus bloom inked at the base of his throat. “Been keepin’ it empty for a long time now, waitin’ for somethin’ as important as Dane to ink there so me and everyone can see it all the time no matter what I wear.” He paused, lifting those deep brown eyes with black streaks like the ink on the wood grain of the Booth’s kitchen table up to me, the fans of his lashes so thick and long they looked almost unreal. “This seemed right, given the circumstances.”

My brows cut high on my forehead. “Circumstances?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, framing my hips in his hands, his fingertips expanding all the way to my back, his thumbs anchored on my hipbones in a way that made me feel feminine and small as much as it made me feel possessed and taken. “The circumstance bein’ us spendin’ the rest of our lives together.”

A strangled mewl burst through my slack lips as hope overinflated my heart and made it soar up into my throat.

Nova’s hands flexed on my hips, but he continued. “Not sayin’ it’s always gonna be a breeze, you bein’ with me, me tryin’ to be the kinda man worthy of the woman you are, the best kinda woman I’ll ever fuckin’ know, but you got patience, and me? I got time. That is, you wanna spend the rest of our life with me too.”

I opened my mouth to respond when he grinned wickedly and shrugged. “I mean, you’d be crazy not to wanna spend the rest of your life with all of this goodness, but I’m tryna be a gentleman here, so I felt I should give ya the option.”

I tried to say something again when he tugged me closer and nipped my bottom lip. “I should mention, that was total bullshit. There really isn’t an option. I’ll make you mine no matter what. Like I said, I’m not the kinda man who loses.”

I burst out laughing, sinking my hands into his hair to pull tight in a bid to shut him up. Then, still chuckling, lips to his, I said, “There was never an option. I’ve been yours since you told me I needed a dream for myself. I dreamed that one day I’d be a Booth, but over the years I realized I didn’t just want to be a Booth, I wanted to be yours.”

Nova grabbed my hand and pressed it to the middle of his chest. “You’ve been that since I first inked you. Now I want your ink on my body too.”

“I don’t know the first thing about tattooing, what if I mess up?” The idea of screwing with his gorgeous body almost gave me hives.

But I also loved the gesture, that he wanted not only a tat that represented me, but one done by my own hand. It was sweet and possessive in the way only Nova could be.

He snorted. “Babe, I’ve been tattooing since I was eighteen, and I still mess up, everyone does. Anythin’ can be fixed.”

“You’re not really inspiring confidence,” I muttered.

He laughed and while still laughing, he kissed me. A moment later there was nothing left to smile about because we were making out, his hand on my ass, mine in his hair, our tongues tangled together, warm and silken.