Chapter 11
Wyatt didn’t know where he’d found the courage to tell Izzy he wanted to see all his ink, because the moment Izzy closed the bedroom door behind them, suddenly his hands were shaking. Izzy was leaning on the door—how did he always look like he didn’t give a fuck?—and if it hadn’t been for Izzy’s admission that he’d never done this with a guy either, Wyatt might have thought he was totally relaxed about the whole thing.
Which, maybe he was. Maybe in Izzy’s head it was all just body parts, and he figured it was just a matter of adapting, or just going with the flow, or something. Maybe he’d seen so many naked guys in prison that even if he hadn’t done anything before, it didn’t seem like such a big deal to him. Or maybe—Wyatt saw a flicker of something in Izzy’s dark gaze that made him rethink that—Izzy was just better than Wyatt at hiding his nerves.
For some reason that made Wyatt’s courage swell again. He took a step toward Izzy and reached out to grab the hem of his thin T-shirt. “I saw some of these the other day in the greenhouse.”
Izzy exhaled, lifting his arms so Wyatt could pull the T-shirt over his head. He was lean, almost wiry, and muscled in ways that Wyatt wasn’t. Wyatt made the muscles in his abs dance as he traced his fingers along them, following a line of ink. Most of Izzy’s ink was black, but there were a few color pieces here and there. The tattoo on his abdomen was a bird. Wyatt didn’t know what sort, but it had trailing tail feathers that curled around toward his hip, and Wyatt followed them with his fingertips.
“Does it mean anything?” he asked, looking up.
Izzy’s gaze was fixed on his mouth. “Not really. None of them do, really. Just stuff I liked.”
“You like birds?”
“Yeah,” Izzy said, but if he had anything he was going to add to that, the words were lost in a moan as Wyatt’s hand slid up, his palm grazing a nipple.
Izzy’s skin was a picture book. Birds and animals and geometric designs and patterns. An ornate cross on his ribs on one side and a compass on the other. His arms were more heavily covered, with a full sleeve on his left arm, and a half sleeve on his right. There were stick and poke designs on his right forearm that looked a little faded compared to the others. Prison tattoos maybe. There was no theme that Wyatt could make out, nothing that tied them all together except they were all Izzy. Every cross and skull and bird and arrow and animal and dagger and rose.
“You look like a rock star,” Wyatt said, turning Izzy’s wrist over in his hand to see the scales inked there.
“I look like a con,” Izzy said. “That’s what my stepfather told me when I got my first one.” His mouth twisted into a grin. “Guess I proved him right, huh?”
Wyatt lifted Izzy’s wrist and pressed his mouth to the scales. “People aren’t always right about people.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say, but Izzy’s sharp grin faded into something softer, and his eyes widened a little as he stared at Wyatt. And then he reeled Wyatt in for a kiss.
Wyatt went willingly, opening his mouth and pushing his tongue against Izzy’s. It felt weird to do that, and kind of gross if he thought about it, but it also felt really, really good. It took him a moment to realize that Izzy was teasing him, drawing his tongue back to encourage Wyatt to follow, teaching him how to kiss in a back-and-forth exchange that left Wyatt breathless, and not just because he still hadn’t figured out when to breathe.
“No,” Wyatt murmured at last, pulling back. “I haven’t finished looking at you yet.”
Izzy ducked his head forward again, and sucked Wyatt’s bottom lip for a moment, like he couldn’t get enough of it. Then he leaned back again, his dark eyes dancing. He pushed Wyatt gently away from him, Wyatt’s shoes scuffing on the thin carpet, and then he turned around.
He had wings on his shoulder blades. Intricate, colorful wings, and Wyatt’s hands shook as he traced them. “They’re amazing!”
Izzy rolled his shoulders so the wings shifted. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said, and leaned in to press a kiss against Izzy’s spine.
Izzy turned around again.
“Is that all of them?” Wyatt asked. He reached for Izzy’s belt. The metal buckle was cold and smooth. “Or are you holding out on me?”
Izzy shuddered out a breath. “I’m holding out on you.”
The same reckless courage that had seized Wyatt before he came in here caught him again. He smirked and tugged Izzy’s belt open. He could see that Izzy was hard in his jeans, and he could feel his erection pressing up against his knuckles as he tugged Izzy’s zip down. Izzy was wearing gray boxer briefs, and Wyatt’s mouth watered when he made out the shape of his dick pressing against the fabric, and saw the dark spot where he was already leaking.
He peeled Izzy’s jeans down further, and discovered the large tattoo on Izzy’s left thigh. It was the Virgin Mary, with stars on her blue shawl. Not just any Virgin Mary, Wyatt realized, butVirgen de Guadalupe.
“What about this one?” he asked. “What does she mean?”
“My mom used to take me to church when I was a kid, back in Nevada,” Izzy said. “Our nearest church was mostly Mexicans, you know? I always liked the look of her. Always felt like she was watching out for me.”
“I used to get tutored in Spanish by this girl who lived with her abuela,” Wyatt said. “She had pictures ofVirgen de Guadalupeall over her house. And also those ones where Jesus’s heart is like radioactive or something, and it looks like it’s about to burst out of his chest.”
“That’s the Sacred Heart,” Izzy said, laughing. “You didn’t grow up Catholic, huh?”
“Not even a little bit,” Wyatt said.
