I swallow dryly. “I’m—”
“That should do it,” Charlie says loudly on his return. Too loudly for my liking, as if he’s purposefully making his presence known less Hudson and I are mid-fuck behind the closed door.
My core spasms again at the sheer thought.
Charlie folds himself to sit down on his stool, picking up his tattooing gun and begins to change the ink cartridge. He snaps on a fresh pair of latex gloves, picks a clean wipe from the crinkly pack to sanitise my skin with and then turns to me.
“Whip off your shirt Giselle and we can get to applying the stencil.”
Hudson is so close beside me, his arm grazing mine, that I feel him tense up.
I flick my eyes to Charlie, whose too busy adding an extra bit of shading to my tattoo stencil to notice, and then back to Hudson. His dark pupils are blown wide, leaving only a slice of green around the edges.
Crunching my abs together, I hold Hudson’s stare as I sit up, my fingertips reaching for the hem of my plain black long-sleeved t-shirt. Slowly, and with my more care than I usually would give removing my clothes, I peel the soft material upwards, feeling the cold air kiss the skin of my lower stomach… tummy button… up the ladder of my ribcage… and finally the ridiculously sensitive skin of my collarbones.
When my shirt gets stuck around my neckline, I give it a harsher tug, obscuring my face while I desperately try to free myself from it’s confines.
I jolt when a second pair of hands, warm but calloused, join mine, smoothing over the bare skin of my chest and then pulling my tight shirt up and over my head in one smooth motion.
Hudson’s eyes are practically black, the whole ring of his iris swallowed up, as our eyes catch once again. Except now he holds my clothes in his obviously very capable hands and I’m almost naked from the waist up, nothing but my thin bralette covering my nipples.
“If I was a better man, an honest gentleman, I’d ignore that little show you’ve just put on, Giselle,” Hudson whispers lowly. If Charlie can hear, he pretends not to be able to. “So, it’s a good job I never claimed to be.”
As his words pour from his lips, Hudson’s eyes dip from my body on purpose – the sweet curve of my neck, my heaving chest, my puckered nipples…
I wish I could say they were standing to attention because of the cold air in the studio room, but both Hudson and I know that’s not true.
He’s the reason why.
No matter how much I wish he wasn’t.
In any other lifetime, Hudson would have been exactly the type of man I’d gravitate towards. Tall, handsome, cheeky… He’d tick all of my boxes and the way the universe had just thrownus together would have seemed like fate. Maybe we’d have dated for a while, fallen madly in love, and been happy. Maybe I’d have a ring on my finger within a year of us knowing each other and we’d spending our evenings in bed discussing baby names and who we think they’d look like.
But it’s all just a fantasy.
Reality isn’t like that. In fact, she’s the biggest bitch I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.
Because it isn’t an engagement ring on my finger, or even a wedding band, no, it’s my golden ring to remind me of my celibacy and why I’ve chosen to follow this path.
Maybe any other girl, celibate or not, wouldn’t have an issue with sleeping with Hudson. But I do. He’s a playboy, I’ve seen it with my own eyes and that’s not what I need. It’s not what I know I deserve. I’m not willing to give myself away to someone whose most likely just going to be done with me after we spend the night together.
Even if my body vehemently disagrees with me.
I wholeheartedly meant what I told him about us not sleeping together, even if, yes, I have thought about it and imagined it one too many times to be appropriate.
It’s not the proper thing to do to keep teasing him, playing along with the game he’s created, all the while knowing I can’t give myself to him.
I need to stop. I need to stay away.
But every drop of willpower I thought I possessed seems to have disappeared.
“Lie back, Giselle,” Charlie directs, holding aloft the thin piece of paper containing the stencil of my tattoo.
The leather material of the reclining chair, with the easy wipe down plastic wrap covering, sticks to my shoulder blades as I lie down, gathering strands of my hair out of the way.
Charlie leans over me, placing the stencil down on my sternum, in the space between either of my breasts. Once he’s smoothed down the edges, so they won’t lift and smudge the outline, he reaches for a small handheld mirror.
“Are you happy with that placement?”
