Shit. I’m getting really turned on. He’s twice my age and my dead father’s friend. This is so inappropriate, but it’s not like I can excuse myself and leave the room.
Caesar wipes blood and ink away, then finally answers. “I had the high score.”
“Really? Oh wow. What game was it?”
Another minute of work passes, the machine buzzing. “Charlie’s Angels,” Caesar finally answers, grunting the words.
I don’t know what I expected, but I’m caught off guard enough that I laugh. “Oh wow, I love that machine!”
He tightens his silver brow and grips my arm harder. “Don’t move,” he scolds.
“Right, sorry,” I answer quietly.
“You’re fine.”
As he goes back to work, the pain of the tattoo releases a steady flow of chemicals into my brain, a mixture of adrenaline and endorphins and I don’t know what else. I feel good, like I’m floating, but his strong hands keep pulling me back into my body, grounding me in reality.
An image fills my mind. It’s Caesar, hunched over aCharlie’s Angelspinball machine, pounding the side as the lights flash. A goofy smile fills my face as I think about it. He’s so distant, so unlike anyone I’ve ever met, but this one small commonality eases me.
It’s wrong to want this connection. My father might not have even known I existed, and it sounds like he treated the other people in his life just as poorly as he did my mom. So why do I care about having some connection to his world?
Except that, suddenly, I don’t feel connected to my own world anymore, either. Creekville, Indiana feels like a different galaxy. I’m floating, the same as how the endorphins make me float away, and I need his rough grip to pull me to something new.
Caesar’s body presses close to mine again. I’m drifting away, and I’m not sure how much time has passed, but when Caesar pauses to clean my arm and inspect his work, I realize something.
I’m rock hard. Like, painfully erect. My cock is stiff and aching, tenting in my tight jeans, and when I glance down, I’m certain that Caesar must have noticed.
I shift my weight to hide it, but when Caesar turns back, I notice something else. There’s a massive bulge in his black jeans, thick and distracting and so, so hot. I try not to stare, but it just fuels my own horniness.
“Almost done,” Caesar grunts, then grabs my arm again, lifting it. “Just like this.”
The sensations rolling through me rise with the vibration of the tattoo machine. I’m hit with Caesar’s smoky scent, the rough drag of his fingers and the piercing pain of the needle, the reality that he’s changing my body forever. Time seems to melt and bleed, and years of sexual fantasies leak in at the edges.
I’ve always wanted a man to treat me like I’m his. To claim me and care for me and pull me out of the life I know and into something different.
The scratchy stubble on his jaw…
The thin lines that crease his eyes…
Caesar’s sturdy weight, rough voice, thick bulge…
A shock of pleasure rockets through me. Then he pulls the machine back. I blink a few times, like I’m coming out of a hypnotic state.
“All done,” he tells me.
“All done,” I repeat, then look at my arm. Somehow, well over an hour must have passed, and the colorful outlines of spaceships and shooting stars fill my bicep.
I shift my weight, finally able to sit in a way that my erection isn’t quite so obvious. “This looks amazing, Caesar. Thank you.”
He places his hands flat on his desk, his back to me. “Glad you like it.”
My arm is throbbing, but my head is clear enough that I can think again. It’s only when Caesar turns back to me with the plastic covering that I know is meant for the tattoo, though, that I realize the mistake I’ve made.
Shit. I didn’t ask him anything about my father. Not a word.
I open my mouth, searching for a way to bring it up, but he starts talking first. He’s all business, reminding me to schedule my next appointment up front on the way out. I keep trying to catch his eye, but those little glimmers of connection I felt earlier are all gone, and Caesar can’t move fast enough to get me out of his face.
CHAPTERFIVE
