Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
“No, let’s do it.”
As we walk toward the car together, I think about what I said in the office, the grim threats, and how true they are. If anybody threatens Evie, my wife-to-be, the future mother of my children, there’s no end to the darkness I’ll unleash.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Evie
I stand over the tattoo chair, the gun trembling slightly in my hand as I stare down at Brian’s naked back. His muscles pull tightly at his skin, the blank spot on his upper back taut with strength.
He looks over his shoulder, a smirk on his face, a different man to the conqueror who left Keith’s office—the wild animal he became, with his clenched fists and that darkness he talked about.
“You can do it,” he tells me, “and even if you mess up, don’t worry. You’re the one who has to look at it every morning.”
As we hold some steamy-as-hell eye contact, I wonder what he’d say if I used the L-word right now. For me, it would be a no-brainer. I’ve wanted to tell him I love you since this crush began, but I didn’t know what it meant before. I didn’t think he could ever see me as a potential partner, the mother of his children, his soon-to-be wife. Even now that I know he wants all the same things, I stop myself from saying it. What if I tell him, and then Dad forces us to end?
I remember the deal about telling Dad after the tattoo is done. I completely forgot about it when I offered to do the tattoo today. It’s cowardly, my thoughts straying to find a way to get out of it, a method by which Brian and I can be together without telling Dad. So what, then? Are we going to hide his own grandkids from him?
“Evie,” Brian says, cutting into my thoughts. “You’re an artist. You understand what it takes.”
I nod, breathing slowly.
“Focus,” he goes on. “You have to push everything else to the side, right to the edge of your thoughts, so that nothing else exists. You have to let yourself be in the moment, nowhere else. That’s true for sketching, painting, and everything. It’s even truer for tattooing. One wrong move—”
“I know,” I say. “I get it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. You never have to do that unless you touch another man. Then I’d expect an apology.”
“I’d never do that,” I tell him. “Well, unless, what if one of my tattoo clients is a man?”
He laughs gruffly. “I’m not a complete monster. Sure, maybe a part of me would want to charge in there, wrestle the man from the chair, roar in his face that you’re mine and mine alone, but I’d be able to tame that part. I trust you.”
“It’s not like I filled notebooks with dreams about anybody else.”
I put this out there as a gambit to see if he will find it gross. His expression flits with darkness for a moment, but then he smirks.
“Are you ever going to be okay with that?” I ask.
“As I said, I trust you. I trust that you, here and now, can decide what and who you want.”
“But will you always find it weird?”
He sighs, his back muscles tightening even more. “I don’t like thinking of you as a little kid, honestly. I don’t like making that connection. I prefer to pretend the crush never happened.”
I lay the tattoo gun down. “But what if I can’t pretend that? What if I see the crush as a good part of our relationship?”
Since I won’t start anytime soon, Brian rolls onto his back and sits up. His naked torso is tight with power, his pec muscles bulging, his biceps solid balls of muscle. He runs a hand through his wild hair.
“I like the sound of that. Our relationship.”
“I mean it,” I tell him.
He loops his arms around my waist and pulls me into his lap. I slide into position naturally. Everything with him feels natural and right and simultaneously new and exciting like each kiss has the spark of the first and the significance of the last.
“Explain it to me,” he says softly. “I want to understand.”
“I guess… it proves I’m not crazy?”
“Are you asking me a question or explaining?”
I give him a playful shove. “Okay. It proves I’m not crazy. Even Kelly thought I was nuts for holding onto the crush for so long, but the way I see it…”
I pause, looking around the bare room and the unpainted walls. I’m tempted to start a conversation about decorating, so I don’t have to discuss this.
“Tell me, Evie,” he says huskily.
“Do you believe in fate?” I ask.
“I didn’t before I met you.”
When I give him another shove, he wraps his arms tighter around me. Our eye contact blazes as he stares at me, making me feel so freaking special with his intensity.