Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
“How was I looking at you, then?” I ask.
Without discussing it, we drift to the edge of the room. My pulse is pumping far too quickly, hammering inside of me, as though my instincts are telling me to leap forward, wrap my legs around him, grind against him, and kiss him.
And then lie in his arms, let him hold me.
Julie, before her dad, would’ve done something crazy like that if she liked a man. She’d throw herself at him without shame, enjoying the ride if he accepted her or rejected her.
Back when she was determined to be a writer – when we often talked about producing a graphic novel together – she might’ve done something like that.
Felix has answered my question, but the music and my thoughts make it difficult to focus.
He makes it difficult to focus on him.
How can that be possible?
“So you run a studio?” I say, trying to keep the conversation going.
He winces as though my question is somehow offensive or off-putting to him.
After a short nod, he says, “How long have you wanted to be a tattooist?”
He asks the question with genuine interest, looking at me in that nothing-else-matters way again. I’m sure there’s a chance I’m imagining this. Felix isn’t really fantasizing about me the same way I am of him.
But I can’t shake the feeling, the hope.
“Since I was a little kid,” I murmur. “My mom has quite a few tattoos…not where people can see them, but they’re there. And each one means something. When I was a kid, she’d take me with her sometimes. I fell in love with those notebooks in the lobby, with all the designs. I started copying the designs and then….”
“What?” he asks when I trail off.
I shake my head, though I’m not telling him no. I’m not exactly sure what I’m trying to tell him, except that when he stares at me, I want to share every little piece of my soul.
“You don’t need my whole life story,” I say, laughing a little.
“You started copying designs,” he prompts with a smirk. “And then…?”
My fingers twitch as though telling me to touch him, reach out and squeeze those heaving arms, and drag my fingernails down his muscled skin. Not just for the sheer steamy feeling of it, him, but for the security.
With Felix, I don’t have to worry.
We’re in it together, everything, whatever it is.
Okay, this is getting absurd. I really need to slow down.
“And then I began making my own,” I go on. “I need experience with the tat gun, but I think I’m a decent artist. Plus, I’ve been practicing on fake skin.”
“Fake skin?” He smirks. “That sounds macabre.
“It’s just material that feels like skin. Nothing…spooky.”
I cringe inwardly, wondering if I sound as dorky to him as I do to myself.
“Fake or real, I’m sure you’re more than decent, Freya.”
“Oh, really?” I say. “How’s that?”
“You’ve been doing it since you were a little kid. You’re obsessed, and I can hear the passion in your voice, Freya. I can see your passion. It’s difficult to do something for that long, maintaining that level of passion.”
“Maybe I’m just passionately terrible, then.”
He laughs, holding me captive in his gaze. I haven’t taken a sip of my drink, haven’t even wanted to.
I could stand here all night, dreams of networking forgotten, just being with him.
“I find that hard to believe,” he says.
“This almost feels like a job interview.”
It takes a lot of effort to push those words out, but I refuse to be the meek, scared girl from high school. I made that promise to myself when I graduated that I’d start saying and doing the things that normally had me balling up with anxiety.
Yes, it’s hard. And I fail. A lot. But when Felix steps forward, letting me feel the heat radiating from his rock-solid body, it feels worth it.
“If I worked with you, I’d be too distracted,” he says, moving even closer, so he could lean down and kiss me without taking another step.
“R-really?” I murmur, hating the stutter. “Why?”
“Because….”
I yell as what looks like a six-limbed creature falls to the floor next to us. My drink flies from my hand… and then Felix grabs it before it falls, the soda swilling over the edge, but the glass is saved.
He places it on a nearby table and turns, looking down at the mess.
Three men are involved in a fight, one of them yelling, fists flying.
Everybody is shouting and running around, but Felix just walks over and separates them. He does it the same way a father would separate children, and that has my mind spinning to truly ludicrous places.
Can I really be thinking about having this man’s children the first time we met?
The men yell at each other. It seems one of them had sex with the other’s girlfriend, and the third got roped in to defend his friend.