“You got more balls than I do, then.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m afraid of getting hurt. But I’m already hurt, Ink. Rick hurt me, bad. The accident fucked me up. My dad fucked me up. Life fucked me up. But I’m more afraid of getting stuck than I am getting hurt. I’d rather go through life hurt and broken than stuck in place forever because I’m too scared to move forward.”
He winced, brow lowering. “Shit, Cass. That’s pretty fuckin’ harsh.”
I covered my mouth, aghast. “God, Ink, no—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that as anything about you. I swear I didn’t. I was just talking about me. That’s been my philosophy my whole life. Guys have hurt me before, and I just refuse to let it shackle me to the past, to the hurt. I guess I liken it to dance, to performing. I’ve twisted my ankle in rehearsal and I just refused to sit out the performance. I performed an entire weekend’s worth of shows with a badly twisted ankle and broken pinky toe, because I just fucking refuse to sit out, to let pain stop me. I won’t do. Not on the stage, and not in life.” I stroked his beard, from cheekbone to chin, down through the long silky mass. “I didn’t mean it as a criticism of you, I promise I didn’t.”
“But that’s what I’ve done, ain’t it? Let it stop me. Let it hold me back. Let it keep me down. Been stuck.”
“You’ve been through things I can’t imagine, Ink. Don’t judge yourself.”
“Kinda hard not to.” He sighed. “You’re somethin’ else, you know that?”
I just laughed. “So I’ve been told.” I toyed with his beard some more. “So, being afraid of rejection, that’s the first part. The second part that’s got you all knotted up and locked down, as I see it, is that you don’t trust yourself. You said so. You’re afraid you’ll lose control again and hurt me.”
He nodded. “Terrified of it.” He closed his eyes, pain written on his face in every line. “You shoulda seen her face, Cass. Pain. Fear. Not just fear, outright terror. Like I was…like I was a monster. Like I’d…done somethin’ horrible to her. I don’t know how to even wrap my head around it. What makes it hurt so bad is that I thought, until I saw her face, that it was good. For her. For us. I thought—I thought she wanted me, all of me. But when I let that out, all it did was fuckin’ wreck her. And that wrecked me.”
I settled closer, burrowing against him. Feeling his waist wedge my thighs open, feeling his powerful body against mine, over and around me. I ached to be touched—but instead, I buried my face against his neck. “What if we just…what if I just did this…?”
I kissed his neck. His throat. His cheekbone.
“What does that feel like, Ink?” I whispered.
His eyes were closed, screwed up tight. “Like heaven itself is kissing me with the lips of an angel.” He swallowed hard. “Makes my heart pound so hard it hurts. Makes my stomach do flips.”
His hands rested on my waist. I put my hands on top of his, pushed them down, so he was cupping my hips.
“Don’t think, okay?” I kissed his cheekbone again, and he gasped at the touch of my lips. “Just feel.”
“Tryin’.”
I slid off of his lap, settled in the grass beside him, sitting on my feet. Pressed a hand to his chest, and he complied by lying on his back, stretched out. He looked at me, wondering, curious, hesitant.
“I’m just going to…do whatever I want, okay?” I rested a hand on his chest. “For me. Because I want to do it. I don’t want, need, or expect anything from you. Since the moment we met I’ve been curious about this, about you. Wanted to know what it would feel like to touch and kiss and do things with a man built like you. So this is for me, okay? All you have to do is lay there and let me have what I want.”
“Cass…”
“I mean it.”
“Think I don’t see what you’re doing?”
“What am I doing?” I asked.
He tucked his hands under his head, elbows flared out. “Showing me that you want me. That I can trust in the fact that you want me.”
“Is it working?” I asked, grinning.
A shrug. “Dunno yet.”
“Then let’s find out, shall we?”
He sighed. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I’m asking. Just try. Just let me touch you. Because I want to.” I smiled at him. “Do you believe I want to?”
“Yeah, I believe that.” A pause. “What I don’t think I believe is that you don’t want anything in return.”
I laughed. “Of course I do. But only what you want to do, when you want to do it. For now, this is what I want.”
“This, being what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”
I rested a hand on his chest. Roamed the broad expanse of his chest, tracing the myriad tattoos. Bent over him, touched my lips to his skin. Flicked my tongue against his flesh, over a tattoo of a salmon. Let my hands explore his waist and stomach, and my lips descend in tripping kisses from chest to belly.
I glanced at him—his eyes were closed, but his face was twisted in an expression that seemed equal parts rapture and distress.
Resting my face on his diaphragm, I touched one leg. Just above the knee. Tugged the leg of his shorts up, baring his thigh. So many tattoos, mostly animals, nature scenes, or abstract lines, glyphs, and runic shapes. All tangled and jumbled and woven together into a tapestry on his skin. I ran my hands over his thigh, feeling the muscles at rest there. Rumpled the leg of the shorts up around his upper thigh, on both sides, tracing and touching each thigh, the tattoos, and the muscles.
Then I let my fingers walk up to his belly. A sunburst was done in wavy lines radiating out from his belly button, a piece that was clearly older than most of the others, done in either thread or poke-and-stick, which I wasn’t sure. The wavy lines of the sun merged with other curves and angles and dots and lines, all disappearing under the waistband of his shorts. I was curious, if nothing else, how extensive the tattoos were, between thighs and belly button. I looked up at Ink again, gauging him; brows furrowed, jaw clenched. Breathing hard. Utterly still.
“Try to relax,” I murmured.
He drew in a deep breath, his enormous chest filling and then his belly going taut. He held the breath. Let it out slowly, and some of the tension bled out of his features.
At least until I tucked three fingers under the waist of his shorts and drew them downward. The tension returned then, with interest. But yet, his belly drew in, and his butt lifted, letting me tug the shorts down past his buttocks.
He was bare underneath.
Not exactly slack, but not aroused yet, either.
And fucking enormous. Even at rest.
I bit my lip, hard. Ohhh god. Oh god.
So big.
Curled in a comma shape against his belly and hip. Lighter in shade than the rest of him. A close-trimmed thatch of curly black hair around it. Tattoos, runic and tribal, around the pubic area, down each thigh—his manhood was unmarked, however.
“Everyone’s question is if I have tats on my dick.” He laughed. “I like tats, but not that much. Hell no.”