“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say mildly, a more than casual curiosity starting to build. Just how would Alpha Stark treat a filthy little princess? Noemi could probably tell me. Goddess, this is not what I should be focusing on. There’s areasonhe’s here. “Anyway, the tattoos?”
“There isn’t much precedent for this type of marking,” he tells me, and gestures to the ink. Thank fuck, he’s letting me forget any of that happened. “Bonded rarely kill their own outside of training, so you can choose where you want them placed.”
The words spin me back into the gravity of the situation.
Bondedshouldn’tkill their own outside of training. It’s not what we do.
Only someone horrible would kill one of their own—never mind a dozen.
“It can be anywhere,” he says, interrupting my spiraling guilt like he saw it happening in my head and spoke to shut me up.
I swallow, thinking. “My ribs, then.”
Near my heart. So that if someone were to kill me the way I killed Henrey, they’d have to push their blade through the designs. It will be a permanent reminder of the pain I caused and how badly I need to control my power.
Stark doesn’t move, and I realize he’s waiting for me.
Jerkily, I reach up to untie the silk knots at my hips, then I pull my tunic from my shoulders. The undershirt beneath doesn’t provide much warmth, and the cool air nips at my bare skin.
Stark takes off his jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves, exposing his muscular forearms. The veins beneath his tattoos flex as he moves, and suddenly it’s entirely too much like we’re undressing for each other.
I look away.
Stepping to the chaise, I shove some of the clothes off it and onto the floor, ignoring the disapproving way his eyes track the movement. Then I sit and curl my fingers under the thin fabric of my undershirt.
I pull it up to just under my breasts, exposing the area where I want the needle. When I look up, Stark’s still standing there, not moving, staring at me.
“Stark,” I say. I sound calm, but the air in the room is suddenly thinner.
He turns and picks up the ink. “Your clothes may chafe,” he tells me in a level voice. “When we’re done, keep it bandaged until it heals.”
When his dark eyes land on me, tingles race along my arms and my exposed side. He kneels beside me, gaze unyielding. “Lie down. It will be easier that way.”
“Bet you say that to all the girls,” I crack, and then my traitorous mind goes instantly to Noemi and imagines the two of them tangled up in all sorts of positions.
He doesn’t respond, and I realize his eyes are locked on my exposed expanse of skin.
After that, I can’t find words. Or maybe I could, and I just don’t want to.
His tattoos flex around his fingers as he methodically readies the pen.
One of his calloused hands slides forward on my stomach, and I stop breathing entirely. The warmth of his palm presses into me, holding me steady. I haven’t been touched like this, skin on skin, since Killian. I thought I would find the sensation repulsive after everything.
Instead, it soothes me. Heals something deep inside.
I meet his eyes, and it feels like a lightning strike through my body. Quickly, I avert my gaze, desperate to stop the blush spreading across my cheeks.
Stark frees me from this torture by pressing the needle into my skin.
The bite is a welcome relief from the turmoil in my head, the reminder of why I’m getting these tattoos in the first place. Normally, I’d lean into it, let the physical pain ground me in my body. Free me from the chaos thriving inside my head.
But then I rememberhiswords from the other day. “Hitme. Hurtme.”
And I know that using one type of pain to cope with another probably isn’t the answer.
So I take a deep breath and try to let myself experience… all of it. The sting of the tattoo. The crushing guilt. This bizarre, unwelcome draw to Stark and the jealousy it provokes, and my still-broken heart, and my twisting confusion.
The storm of feeling rages through me, and I embrace it. It aches inside me, pressing on my heart, my lungs. His presence is crushing in its intensity.
