Her scent.
Her eyes.
The way, in those last few moments, that she’d looked up at me. As if realizing at the same time as me that we had more than just a mental and emotional connection. That I wanted her. I knew that had been obvious. I’d been fuckin’ seconds from kissing her.
And she’d known it, too.
Had she been daring me to? Would she have let me? Would she have kissed me back?
I flipped the sign to closed—it was ten at night and I was done for the day.
No more clients until noon tomorrow.
I went home, started some eggs and tried to think about anything but Cassie.
Anything but her lips. Anything but her eyes—how wild and quicksilver they were, reflecting her mercurial moods in the changing colors.
Her skin was art. I usually looked at skin as a canvas, tried to picture what would go where. The few girls I’d been with, that’s where my mind went. Oh, I appreciated them for what they looked like, but another deeper part was just appreciating their skin as a canvas for ink.
Cassie was different. Her skin was flawless. Cream and ivory, perfectly silk, not a blemish. It would almost be a shame to ruin her skin with ink, and that, to me, was a nearly blasphemous thing to say.
I couldn’t improve on perfection, not with my best work.
I burned my eggs, thinking about her.
Need was building inside me. Need to see her, need to talk to her. Need to know if I’d imagined the moment between us, if I’d imagined her wanting me to kiss her.
Need to touch her skin, to know if it felt as soft and perfect as it looked.
I threw away my eggs and leaned back against the wall, groaning in frustration.
I’d kept a tight lid on my sexuality for a long time, now. Years, in fact. It was just…simpler. Less painful. I knew it wasn’t healthy, psychologically. I knew I had issues I should deal with, but it was just easier to focus on tattoos twelve hours a day. Easier to lock that part of myself down and pretend it didn’t exist. It makes it easier, certainly, when a beautiful woman comes in requesting a tattoo somewhere sensitive. Makes it easier for me to remain neutral, to view the process as clinical. I’ve done plenty of pieces on breasts, thighs, buttocks, inner thighs, and even a couple around nether regions. Not a problem. Just a tattoo.
Years of doing this…no problem.
I’ve sort of thought of myself as a kind of ascetic, living a monkish life.
Then Cassie comes along, and wrecks all that in a matter of days. I haven’t even seen her naked. Haven’t touched her. Haven’t kissed her.
But the old desires, so long buried, are coming back with a vengeance. Surfacing and doing so violently, demanding release…and with a drive due to the years of neglect.
“Fuck,” I snarled.
I flopped down onto my couch and snagged a drawing pad and a pencil. Started sketching.
I got about ten minutes in and it became obvious that sketching wouldn’t serve as a distraction either.
I was drawing Cassie.
But my imagination was having a fucking field day. My sketch, which at this point was little more than an outline, was obviously her. Facing me, nude, head turned aside, chin dropped, one hand up in the back of her hair, the other draped casually over the apex of her thighs.
God, I’m drawing her naked, now?
Something wrong with me, for sure.
I wasn’t any kind of a regular exercise kind of guy, but I decided to try to work off the pent-up junk in my skull—I got down and did pushups until my arms and chest and shoulders burned. Squats until my thighs burned and turned to jelly. I faced away from my couch, stuck my feet onto the coffee table while propping my hands behind me on the edge of the couch, and lowered my weight slowly, pressed back up, again and again until I couldn’t anymore.
Yet still, sweating and shaky and sore, the moment I sat and closed my eyes, I saw Cassie. Bare. Standing in the pose I’d drawn her in. Staring at me, into my eyes, her gaze sensual, chest heaving. Sweaty, from dancing maybe.
God, god, god.
Never going to happen.
But the way she looked at me at the laundromat…makes me wonder.
Gives me a hint of hope.
And that shit is dangerous.
I tried to banish the thoughts of Cassie from my head, but I couldn’t.
See her bending over at the laundromat, midriff shirt gaping, letting her bare breasts sway as she moved. Her taut round butt spread apart.
Gahhhh.
I felt a temptation to do something I hadn’t done in a long time.
No.
I fought myself.
No.
Don’t do it. Don’t think of her that way.
She’s a friend. Just a friend.
I imagined that look in her eye.
She’d never look at me that way. Would never think of me that way.
I tried to meditate, to think of anything, of nothing. To breathe. To imagine myself in the woods, birds singing, wind blowing through tall pines. Standing at a waterfall, the crash and roar deafening, shaking the earth. Standing in the pool at the base of the waterfall.
Cassie would be there.
Standing near the fall—not under it, you’d get flattened. Just near it. Letting the spray wet her naked body. Her perfect cream skin would glisten. One thigh drawn up against her core, arm across her breasts, glancing at me with a laugh.
Ducking her head near the spray so her platinum hair goes wet and flat against her back. She’d drop her arm as I approach. Smile at me, laugh, eyes wild and bright. Reach for me.
Wrap her hand around me. Small, soft, quick hand. Sliding up and down, in no hurry.
I clenched my teeth, pretending my hand is hers.
Fuck.
I let my imagination take over and pictured her pressing her body against me, touching me, touching me in a way I hadn’t been touched in a very long time.
You’d think after so long it would be quick, but it wasn’t. Now that I’d allowed myself to think about Cassie like that, I couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop.
I realized, belatedly, that I hadn’t thought about where the mess was going to go. It’s not like I kept Kleenex next to the couch.
I stumbled awkwardly into the bathroom, leaned back against the door, snagging a handful of toilet paper off the roll. Killing the mood, sort of, but I was out of practice doing this, and I felt dirty enough as it was, like I was taking advantage of her somehow, like I was using her or insulting her.
But I couldn’t stop, not now.
I felt myself shake, curling forward, reached my release and groaned through it, pouring into the wadded toilet paper.
Finished, I groaned, feeling dirty. Feeling…ashamed.
Which was also not healthy, I knew. But I’d used the mental image of a friend to jack off. Classy shit, right there.
I threw the mess in the toilet, flushed it, washed my hands.
Left the bathroom…
And found Cassie on my couch, the drawing pad in her hands, looking at the drawing I’d done of her.
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Um. Hey.”
She looked up at me, and I couldn’t read her expression. Was she mad? Disgusted? Curious?
I just couldn’t tell.
“I, um.” She set the pad on her knees. “I probably should’ve knocked.”
I laughed. “I mean, it is kinda customary.”
“What I mean to say is, I did knock. You didn’t answer. I thought you were at the shop. I went around the back way instead of through the front door, in case you were doing a tattoo. I didn’t want to disturb you. I…” She glanced at me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was nervous. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just shown up like this.”