I pushed past her and stepped outside. I went around back, into the woods, barefoot. The air was cool on my overheated skin. Moonlight shone silver from a cloudless night sky washed by a countless million stars. I had a little spot, out here, a tiny clearing in the woods behind the shop and my house where I could lie down in the grass and watch the stars wheel overhead. I went there enough that I’d made a little path to it, lined with a few solar-powered tiki torch-like lamps. I sat down in the middle of the clearing and tried to clear my head.
She wanted me to kiss her?
She was attracted to me?
My brain couldn’t quite fathom it. It didn’t seem real, or possible, but there was no mistaking the look in her eyes, the body language which said in no uncertain terms here I am, for you, touch me.
I just couldn’t believe it.
And I couldn’t let myself have it. Have her.
Couldn’t let that beast out of its cage. Look what happened last time, after all.
I forced that memory away before it took over. I knew that’s what Cassie was angling at, but I just simply could not talk about it.
I felt her presence before I saw or heard her. Just knew she was here.
She sat down next to me, cross-legged in the tickling grass. Stared up at the moon. “Beautiful here, isn’t it?”
I nodded. Tugged the right leg of my shorts up, showed her the tattoo covering most of my right thigh—a drawing of this spot. If you lay down on your back right around eleven, just before midnight, you’d see the moon pass over the clearing. The tattoo on my thigh was of the ring of trees overhead seen as you’re lying down, with the full moon right overhead.
She looked at the tattoo, then up at the sky, where the full moon shone bright. “Wow. Just…wow.” She looked at me, then. “This is your happy place, huh?”
“I dunno about happy place, but it’s where I come when I need to find some clarity and some peace.”
Her fingers traced the tattoo on my thigh, as if she could feel the ink. After a moment, her hand just rested on my thigh, and I did my best to ignore that sensation, the thrill of it, the ache of it, the desire raging inside me to feel her hand slide upward, upward, closer to my aching erection.
“Clarity and peace about what?” Her voice was quiet, a whisper—suitably, to me; I am not a religious person, but I do have a spiritual sense of connection to nature, and this particular place has always felt sacred to me.
“Just…life. When things hurt, or are confusing.”
“So why are you here now, Ink? What’s confusing or painful for you?” Her eyes stayed on me, even though I was gazing up at the stars.
I sighed. “You. This. Me. Us.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I groaned. Flopped to my back. “You ask hard-ass questions, Cass.”
“I just…” She lay beside me, close, rolled to face me, eyes bright in the moonlit night. “You obviously want me, want this. But you keep pulling away from it, when I thought I was being pretty clear that I want it as much as you do.”
I nodded. “It’s not a matter of mixed signals from you. It’s all me.”
“Exactly. And that’s what I want to understand.”
“Why?”
A pause. “Because…” another hesitation. “Because I really like you. I don’t know what that means, or what it is, or what it could be. I don’t know what to do with it. I just know I want you.” A choked sigh. “And I want to know you want me. I want—”
I turned to look at her. Saw moisture in her eyes. Pain in her features.
“I want to feel wanted. I want to be desired.”
“Fuck, Cass. Ain’t that obvious?”
She shook her head. “Seeing it in your eyes, that’s one thing. Seeing it…” She rested a hand on my thigh, her meaning clear. “That’s obvious. But seeing it isn’t the same as feeling it.”
“Fuck,” I groaned. “Fine.” I reached out an arm, and she lifted, scooted closer to me, tucking herself into the cradle of my arm, resting her head on my bicep. “Ain’t a pretty story.”
“Are they ever?”
I snorted, shrugged. “Nah, guess not.”
She gazed at me. God, those eyes. So soft, so warm. Inviting me to trust her. “No judgment, Ink. No pity. Just…compassion and understanding, okay?”
I let out another long sigh. “Okay.”
Cassie
He was…cuddly. Seemed like a silly, cutesy word for such a huge, strong, masculine man. But it was the only word that really fit. He had just enough padding over his muscles to be cushiony under my cheek, yet it was obvious as he wrapped a massively thick arm over my waist that the layer of fat was minimal and that he was enormously strong. A perfect combination, if you asked me. I wouldn’t have thought so even a few weeks ago, but now it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.
Cuddling with Rick never lasted long—for him because I realized now that he really didn’t care about me all that much, and for me because he just wasn’t comfortable to lay on, being all lean, compact, hard muscle and bone.
Lying here with my head on Ink’s chest, and his bicep behind my neck, his hand on my waist just above my hip, I felt utterly safe, totally comfortable. I could fall asleep here like this. I wouldn’t even need a blanket, because he just absolutely radiated heat.
Then, his voice began rumbling, a low murmur that rattled my bones with the deep, bass power of it; if a mountain had a voice, it would be his. “Elise Achebe. Moved here from New York. She was a swimsuit model, fashion photographer, tattoo blogger, and Suicide Girl.” He paused, a long, cavernous silence. “Absolutely gorgeous. She came here to get away from everything, from the whole New York scene. She’d always had this cult following in the modeling and fashion industry, but then she created her own website and put up Suicide Girl-type photos of herself, and people just sort of lost their shit. Got judgmental and nasty. She lost some sponsors, got some hate mail and death threats, stalkers, just lots of ugly shit.”
“By Suicide Girl, you mean…?” I had an idea, but wanted to clarify.
“Well, it’s a specific thing. A movement, a community. They do pinup-type photography of themselves in varying degrees of explicitness, but it’s all girls with tattoos and piercings and unusual hair color, stuff like that. She was a photographer for an agency that specialized in that type of thing, mainly for tattoo magazines and things like that. She was really out there, really bold and just liked to put it all out, wasn’t ashamed of anything.” He hesitated, glanced at me. “So, quick aside. How real you want this story?”
“The realest.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, Ink, I’m sure. Don’t hold anything back.”
A sigh. “All right.” A moment of silence as he picked up his train of thought. “She came to me for a tattoo. She’d heard of me, of my growing rep for traditional threading and stick-and-poke style tats, and she wanted one.” He tapped his chest. “She wanted it, um. Here. On her chest. Super intricate design centered around each of her nipples and areolae. Several sessions, obviously private, and it required a lot of…uh, handling, I guess, of her boobs. I’m a professional tattoo artist, so I’ve done stuff in sensitive places before, but nothing even remotely that personal, before or since. Because even with a gun, it’s different. Threadwork is…slower. More painful. Just…different, in a lot of ways.”