He nodded, digging through his backpack for his clothes and toiletries before slipping into the tiny bathroom. In less than ten minutes, he was out, and I thought I'd died. Wearing only a pair of his beloved black basketball shorts, it was a miracle I wasn't standing because I would have fallen over. Sacha had some serious definition to his upper body; there were planes and crevices of muscles over his frame had me drooling in approval.
And the bastard knew it because he just smirked in my direction.
"Shut up," I mumbled as I slipped past him only to reach back and pinch his butt cheek before closing the door. I could hear him laughing from the other side while I showered quickly.
Once I finished getting dressed, I opened the door to find him sprawled on top of the bed, still shirtless, flipping through the channels on the small box television. I smiled before taking a seat next to him. He looked over at me before reaching out to place his hand on my thigh, rubbing up and down the length of it.
I took the time to count the solid bands of ink that striped up his arm. There were thirteen of them total, starting at his wrist and going up his shoulder in perfectly even spacing. "Was there a reason for these?" I asked, knowing his gaze was still on me.
Sacha took my hand with his free one, and placed it on his forearm. "Each band is a reminder of the number of labels that rejected us before we got a yes," he answered. "I like remembering that no matter how successful I might be now or in the future, it wasn't an easy journey." He paused for a moment. "Is that cheesy?"
"No," I snorted, because it wasn't. This was my pretty humble guy who didn't act or look in the way I'd expected him to in the beginning. "I think it's neat." I slid my fingertip around the band covering his elbow. "And the one on your chest?"
He looked down at the thick swirl of black on his pectoral. "I just thought it looked good," he laughed.
I shook my head, snorting. "You're an idiot." I poked his taut stomach. “The one on your neck?” I grazed the piano keys with my fingers and watched as his tipped his head to the side to capture them against his skin.
“It’s my favorite instrument. Did you know I started playing when I was three?” I shook my head. “I did. I’m classically trained. I remember my mom sitting behind me on the bench before I was old enough to reach the pedals, trying to teach me.”
How cute would that have been? A pale-skinned little boy with crisp black hair and huge gray eyes? Bah. I kept that to myself and instead asked, "You have any more tattoos?"
"One," he said in a flat voice.
"Where?" I asked him suspiciously.
Pale eyes blinked. "On my ass."
"No way!"
"Yes way."
A second later, I was trying to roll him over to look at his ass cheek, but he grabbed onto my wrists to keep me from doing it. "Let me see it," I begged.
"No."
"Comeon."
He shook his head, sternly.
"Why not?"
"It's the first tattoo I ever got," he admitted.
I smirked at him, reveling in the fact that he was still holding my wrists. "It can't be that bad." When he didn't say anything in response, I got a little scared. "Seriously. What is it? As long as it isn't a tribal tattoo, it can't be that horrible."
Sacha looked at me for what felt like a long time. "It's of my dog."
I blinked at him. "Shut up."
"It is," he snorted the answer out, smiling too wide for me to take him seriously.
I tried pulling my hands out of his hold, but I couldn't. "You're a damn liar.”
He pulled me to him, kissing my throat softly. "Okay, I guess you can see," he murmured against me. A moment later, he was flipping over onto his hands and knees, and I was pulling down his shorts and boxer briefs to one side.
There was nothing there.
I pulled down the other side, and there was nothing there either.
