“Umm…I can’t say I’m sorry I just wanted to know what I’m in for here.”
She’s stopped looking at me now, staring instead somewhere over my left shoulder.
“You’re as deep as I need you to be. If you want to know something specific, ask.”
She squared her shoulder and met my eyes now. “Am I going to have to kill someone?”
I looked her over trying to piece together what went through her mind. After all the things she’d done in her life, was murder her line in the sand?
After studying her, I realized she asked a serious question. “I’m not going to kill anyone. A merciful death is a kindness and I don’t intend to be kind in the least.”
She searched my features. “You’re so calm.”
“I like to think of it as resolved.”
Without looking down she asked, “do your tattoos go all the way down?”
I licked my lips. “Do you want to see for yourself?”
She skittered backward, tumbled over the arm of a plush chair and into its embrace. I surged forward to grab her before she got hurt, but stopped when I caught her giggle from the other side. I skittered around to look at her.
Her ass was still propped up on the arm and her legs dangled, her upper body flat on the cushion. Her black hair framed her face which scrunched in laughter. I couldn’t help but smile down at the scene.
She opened her eyes and stared up, the laughter slipped away, but it lingered at the edges of her lips and eyes.
God, she was beautiful. She’d always been beautiful, but age only intensified her beauty.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I couldn’t tell her, she would take off running before I finished the sentence. Instead, I said, “there’s nothing to find in here. You should go.”
She spun around on the seat to face me now. I mourned the loss of all the skin bared to my sight.
Then she stood and advanced. I wanted to back up, put distance between us, but I held my ground. She stopped after one step and put a hand to my chest to trace the outlines of one of my tattoos. “Did you get these in prison?”
I stopped her with my own hand. If she continued I’d flip her over my desk and hold her captive until she screamed my name. “No, I got most of them when I left.”
“Why?”
I chuckled. “To cover what I did get in prison.”
She licked her lips and continued her inspection of my ink. Part of me prayed she’d go to my towel and find out how far it trailed.
“Did they hurt?” She whispered.
I took her hand again and led it to my nipple where a swirl of ink barely grazed. “It hurt here.”
She swallowed heavily. I dragged her fingers up the side of my neck. “And here.”
Because I couldn’t resist I dropped her hand back down, under my towel right below my belly button. “And here.”
Her mouth opened and she drew a few heavy breathes.
“Do you want to see?”
She hesitated, and then gave me a swift series of nods.
I released her, and took both ends of my towel in hand. Then I slowly opened the white terry cloth. I watched her face closely so I could read what she wanted as if she actually spoke the words. “Do you want to see everything or just the ink?”
