Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

“And you are surprisingly traditional for a girl with this many tats.” I run a hand across the ink on her shoulders.

She arches, pressing back into my touch even as she shivers a little. I can’t help but grin as I trace the intricate lines of the dandelion tattoo she has over her left shoulder blade—and the windborne seeds caught tumbling in midflight just above it.

“I think this is my favorite,” I tell her as I press soft kisses to the wandering seeds.

“Oh yeah?” She tilts her head a little to the side to give me better access. “Earlier you said the stars were your favorites.”

“They’re definitely in my favorite location,” I agree, tracing my fingers over her hip bone and down to the top of her thigh, following the pattern of the stars she has there by memory now. “But there’s something about this flower, about the freedom and the grace of it. I like it.”

“Me, too.” She leans into me, rests the back of her head against my chest in a move so fleeting I might have thought I imagined it if my skin hadn’t sizzled with the contact—as it always does when she touches me.

“So why a dandelion?” I ask, curving my other hand around her other hip so that I can hold her in place against me. “Why not a more traditional flower?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs.

“Sure you do.”

She turns, gives me an arch glance that I meet head-on. She doesn’t have to tell me if she doesn’t want to, but I’m not going to play dumb just to make her more comfortable. Not on this, something that I know has everything to do with who she is versus who she wants the world to think she is.

“Fine,” she says, and it’s half laugh, half sigh as she turns away. “I guess I’ve always admired the resilience, the determination, of dandelions. They’re weeds that don’t just grow, but thrive where they’re not wanted. They put down roots and grow a beautiful yellow flower that’s impossible to ignore. And then, when they’re ready—and only when they’re ready—they move on, on their terms. The wind may eventually blow them apart, may scatter their seeds all to hell and back, but then they just start over in a new place. In several new places, which just gives that first dandelion more places to shine.”

Her words slam into me without warning, ripping through my chest—my heart—like a freight train that leaves me stunned, destroyed, in its wake. Tori doesn’t notice—her back is still toward me as she reaches for the wine, pours it into the two glasses she’d picked out from the bar while we were waiting for the food delivery—but that somehow makes it all the more real.

Her flippant tone, the easy acceptance of the dandelion’s fate—of her own fate—breaks me to pieces even as it fills me with rage…and with emotions I never expected to feel. Not now. Not for this woman who has spent most of our acquaintance hating me—and making sure I know it.

But how can I not feel deeply about Tori when she exemplifies all the strength and power and beauty of the dandelion on her shoulder, the dandelion I’m still tracing with an errant finger?

“Ready to eat?” she asks, completely oblivious to the chaotic thoughts churning inside me.

When I don’t answer right away, she glances back at me. Her eyes are wide and vulnerable in a way they almost never are, her lips curled in one of the first unguarded smiles I’ve ever seen from her. And just that easily, all my rioting emotions coalesce inside me and I tumble straight down the rabbit hole…and straight into love with her.

It’s a powerful realization, one that has my stomach doing somersaults and my knees trembling for the first time in my life. Actually trembling, like some damsel in distress or some kid with his first crush. I want to reach out, grab the counter to steady myself, to give this sudden understanding of my feelings for her a chance to sink in.

But she’s still watching me, her eyes growing careful and her smile starting to flag as seconds continue to tick by without an answer from me. Which won’t do, not at all.

It takes every ounce of self-control I have to school my face before she can see it, to hide the love I have for her and the rage and the sorrow I feel on her behalf. She won’t thank me for my feelings—will read them as pity—and after the near miss this morning, the last thing I want is to alienate her all over again.

So I do the only thing I can do with all these emotions rampaging around inside me.

I spin her around and growl, “I’m ready for something,” as I pull her into my chest and lower my mouth to hers.

She laughs as she kisses me back, then plants a hand firmly in the center of my chest to push me away. “You’re always ready for that,” she tells me.

“Is that a complaint?” I fake offense even as I wonder how I can make her fuckhead of a father pay for what he’s done to her. How I can make Parsons pay.

“It is absolutely a complaint. I’m starving and you’ve barely let me eat all day.”

“Oh, right.” I pull her chair out for her and wait until she’s seated before moving to my own. “Like it’s my fault you haven’t been able to keep your hands off me all afternoon.”

“Oh, is that what’s been going on?” she asks as she dishes up two plates of salad. “Me not being able to keep my hands off you?”

“Or your lips.” I tilt my head to show off the tiny lovebites she sucked into my jaw earlier. “Not that I’m complaining or anything. Just stating a fact.”

“Of course you are.” She rolls her eyes. “It must be a curse to be so irresistible.”

“Yeah, well, everyone needs a little suffering in their life. It builds character.”

“And you handle it so well.”