“I need you to do something for me,” he says. “Come.”
He laces his fingers through mine and leads me out of our bedroom and down the hall to the room that he gave me for my Rosie board, along with space to tattoo. It’s my own workspace, and I kind of love it. I think I’ll keep it even after the studio is open because there’s also a big drawing desk under the window, where I can work on art pieces.
I set up the board like I did in my apartment, but I’ve added printouts of the photos that Julian sent me, along with the invitation for the gala on Saturday and a few other things. I like seeing everything in one place.
“What do you need?” I ask him, and feel my brows lift when he sits in my tattoo chair.
“I need your name tattooed on my ring finger.”
That’s hot as fuck.
But there’s just one problem.
“I don’t do names,” I tell him, and his eyes narrow. “It’s a policy I have. No names because I’ve had too many people come back and need to have them covered up.”
“I won’t ever need this to be covered up,” he says as he tugs me into his lap, cups my cheek, and kisses the fuck out of me. “You’re mine forever. We even have a piece of paper that says so.”
“But things can happen?—”
“No.” He shakes his head, and rather than looking mad, he smiles at me.
I love it when he smiles.
“You’re it for me. But I don’t want ‘Violet’ on my finger. I want ‘Savage.’”
“Oh, that’s very fitting for you.”
And the hot factor might have just climbed by about a hundred.
“Do you have a font in mind?”
I wiggle out of his lap, grab my iPad, and find my folder full of fonts. We scroll through them together until he finds the one he likes the best, and then I get it ready to be printed onto a stencil. I shave his finger and sanitize it and then blow out a breath.
“The fingers hurt,” I mutter as I painstakingly place the word on his skin and then peel the paper away. “First, make sure this is where you want it.”
“It’s great.”
I let out a gusty sigh. “Stop doing that.Look at it, Mateo.I need you to check it.”
He glances down and then back at me.
“It’s great,” he repeats. “I’ll always trust your judgment.”
“It’s not about trust. What if it looked crooked to you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“But what if itdid?”
“But it doesn’t.”
He laughs and drags his hand up my side and around to my ass.
“You just like to argue with me, Savage.”
“I’m not—you know what? Fine. I assume you want black ink?”
“No.” I look up at him and his lips twitch. “I wantvioletink.”
