Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
In grief we must live.
Had nearly demanded that she tell me exactly what that meant, but I’d shoved it down because I didn’t have any space to get stupid like that. Wanting to know the details of her life when I knew there was no chance that I could care.
“Yeah,” she breathed, and I turned my attention back to the design, and I started sweeping the needle over her flesh that was blooming pink.
Could tell she was trying to hold her breath. Doing her best to ignore the burn that erupted on her skin as I marked her deep. Cutting into the lines and filling it with ink.
She squirmed and whimpered, and fuck me, my dick strained.
A twisted fiend who was eating up that little bit of pain. Consumed with the fact that I was causing it and wanted to soothe it at the same time.
Loving that I was the one etching her permanently. That she was going to walk out of here and forever carry a piece of me.
I edged back, wiping up the excess ink and the bit of blood with the towel before I leaned in and blew across the heated skin to give her some relief.
Yeah. It was a line I crossed, so goddamn irresponsible and against protocol I deserved to lose my license, but it was a whole lot better than dipping all the way in and swiping my tongue over the wound like I wanted to do.
Depraved, disturbed urges hitting me from all sides.
She whimpered a soft sound, and I murmured, “Just relax, I’ve got you.”
She gulped and kept watching me as I pressed the needle back to her flesh, wild eyes raving as I worked, woman so fuckin’ distracting with that heart-shaped face and those cherry lips that I was lucky I didn’t slip.
Pausing for a beat, I glanced up at her, and those lips parted, air rushing up her throat as our gazes tangled, and I wondered if it was from the pain that she was gasping or if she might be imagining the same salacious things as me.
Me peeling her out of those little shorts and dragging her tank up so I could get to those sweet, tiny tits.
Sinking my cock deep into the well of her squirming body.
Fucking her right here on my chair, something I’d never done before because it was fuckin’ unprofessional.
Yet there I was, itching to get shady.
That deviant part of me that wanted to devour her, anyway.
The tattoo didn’t take long to complete, and in less than an hour, the phrase was forever imprinted on her skin. I sat back to appraise my handiwork, chest glowing for a beat because I was fuckin’ pleased. Pretty much was every time I completed a piece.
“What do you think?” I asked her.
And fuck, the girl had moisture glinting in her mesmerizing eyes, and she bit down on her bottom lip as she whispered, “It’s beautiful.”
“Worth it?” I asked.
A smile tipped down at the edge of her mouth. “Yeah. I needed to feel it. I need to remember it.”
Heaviness swam in my chest, thick and sticky as she looked at me with all that innocence, but carved beneath it was a sorrow so bleak I was slammed with the need to wrap her up and hold her in my arms.
And that was the most twisted urge of all.
Should keep my mouth shut and my hands to myself, but I was reaching out and running my thumb along the curve of her cheek.
“It’s the only thing we can do. Live. Put one foot in front of the other.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.” Her voice was soft, and I wanted to lean forward and inhale a bit of it. Her belief. A fucking glutton because I knew the only thing I would do was destroy it.
I cleared the roughness from my throat, and I applied the ointment and bandage. Peeling off my gloves, I ran through the care instructions with her then gave her the sheet that reiterated them.
“Do you have any questions?” I asked.
She slipped off the chair, coming to stand a foot away from me, gnawing that lip in uncertainty. Then she seemed to shake herself out of whatever trance she was under and grabbed her jacket from where it hung on the arm of the chair. “I think I’ve got it. How much do I owe you?”
There was no resisting the impulse, and I reached out and brushed the pad of my thumb over the divot in her chin. “How about you do exactly that—live—and we’ll call it even?”
Heat rushed, and her cheeks pinked. “I don’t like owing anyone anything.”
“Told you tattooing you was going to be my pleasure. I meant it.”
Redness swept her chest and rose up to her cheeks, and that energy swelled. The two of us were trapped, the already cramped walls of my station closing in.