Three Dirty Secrets (Blindfold Club 4)

I scrambled, desperate to find something in my blank mind. He’d reduced me to a total idiot, because the first thing to pop up was the night in college I’d walked home drunk from a bar with my best friend, and we fell into a bush. Seriously, brain? You fucking suck.

“Graduating from college.”

He paused. “That’s an accomplishment, not a memory. Go for something that’s more of a mental snapshot.”

I floundered. When was my last good memory? All I could see was Reno, so I dug back further. “Uh . . . the zoo.”

The side of his sexy mouth turned up in a half-smile, wordlessly urging me to go on.

“I was maybe seven at the time.” God, why was I telling him this? His hand was truth serum. “I spent the whole day badgering my father to buy me a snow cone. I was a whiny kid, and when my dad finally caved and did it, I accidentally dropped it on the ground.”

“This is a happy memory?” His voice had a hint of teasing.

“My older sister gave me hers immediately. I thought she was the greatest person in the world to do that.”

Holy God, his smile was a thousand-watt lightbulb, and my stomach clenched.

“So my whole family,” I continued, keeping my voice void of emotion, “sat on a bench in the shade of this big tree while I ate my sister’s snow cone. I felt loved and . . . happy.” I took a breath to even myself out. “Please don’t put a tattoo of a snow cone on me.”

He chuckled, his fingers eased away, and I missed their warmth.

“Tempting, but no.” He gestured toward the desk. “Come on, let me grab a pen. What kind of tree was it?”

“Oak? I don’t really remember. It was big.”

I followed behind Silas as he strolled to the desk, snatched up a pen, and dug a notepad out of his back pocket. The dark ink that covered his left forearm was an intricate pattern, traveling upward and disappearing beneath his sleeve. What did the rest of his tattoo look like? The arm flexed as he flipped the notebook open.

“Oh my God,” I said. Clearly I’d lost my mind and my manners, because I snatched the small, leather-bound book from his hands and paged through the designs. “Holy shit. These are amazing.”

He laughed and shot me a dubious look. “Okay . . . thanks.”

Intricate patterns done in pen. A couple kissing that was reflected in a puddle, sketched in pencil. “You don’t think these are good?”

The set of massive shoulders shrugged. “They’re fine.”

As I flipped through, I noticed jagged paper in the binding. “Some of the pages are missing.”

“Yeah, those ones were better.” There was an amused gleam in his eye as I continued to page through the drawings. “Go ahead, take your time.”

Shit. I closed the notepad and thrust it back toward him. “I’m sorry. I swear I’m not usually so rude.”

“You think wanting to look through my sketchbook and saying it’s amazing was rude?”

“I could have asked, rather than tear it out of your hands.”

He gave an easy smile. “If I had a problem with it, I could have stopped you.”

Desire corded tight around me, my body straining against its hold. I brushed a lock of hair back over my shoulder and feigned doubt. “Yeah, maybe.”

I was all over the place. Worried about the needle, off-balance and unconfident. And now . . . I was flirting. What the fuck?

Silas didn’t appear to mind as he leaned over the desk and began sketching in the book. I watched the long strokes of the pen as he drew, the image quickly taking shape.

“Wooden bench?” he asked. “What zoo was it?”

“Cincinnati.”

“Do me a favor. Look up some pictures in Google Images of the zoo and see if you can find a bench under a tree.”