“I know.” Frustration thickened in his voice and he tensed farther under me. “You’re making this harder.”
“Shh.” I laid my hand over his and caressed his knuckles. “Loosen your hold, relax your muscles.”
“Are we having aGhostmoment?” He smirked at me.
“Depends. Are we going to have sex after this?” I teased. “And how do you even know that movie?”
He snorted. “I’m not that uncultured. It’s a classic.” His smirk turned wicked. “And Patrick Swayze was hot.”
“So fucking hot,” I agreed.
We stayed silent as I worked on his grip. Even though he was less tense now, leaning back into me with a relaxed posture, there was something missing in his inking. His lines lacked passion, and his love for his art didn’t translate from paper to flesh. The boys were right—this wasn’t Oliver’s calling.
“Kitten....” I smoothed my palms across his wrists and along his arms. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Mm-hmm. Sure.”
“Are you enjoying this?”
He paused immediately and held his breath. The only sound in the shop was the gun buzzing, and finally, he shut it off. He pushed away from me and spun around on his stool. “Why are you asking me that?”
Shit.What the hell was I supposed to say?Sorry, baby, I don’t think you’re cut out for this job, and you don’t have the skills.I was going to break his heart all over again.
“I’m going to say one thing and I want you to think about it, okay? Promise me.”
He pressed his lips tight together but nodded sharply.
“Sometimes, the direction of our life, including our career, isn’t the right direction. There’s nothing wrong with pivoting and changing the course of our future. There’s no shame in it. What we expect and what happens are two separate things.”
He blinked. “Are you saying I’m not good at this?”
“No, I’m not saying that. But what I am saying is that you have no passion for it. Look at this.” I waved my hand at the fake skin, at the choppy artwork and the bleeding ink. “And look at your drawing pad. It’s almost like they’re done by different people. Are you truly enjoying this?”
Attention sliding to the ink, Oliver bit down on his bottom lip.
“You don’t need to make a decision now, Kitten. But think about it.”
I cradled his face between my hands and laid a soft kiss on him. I resisted the urge to bite his bottom lip. I’d promised myself I’d be gentler. No hurting him. Why was this so hard? All I wanted to do was bend him over my knee and spank him, watch his cute asscheeks turn red. But I wasn’t going to cause him pain again, not after taking his virginity so roughly.
“How about we go home? Looks like we’ll have a few days to relax and KC’s waiting for us.”
He didn’t smile, but he did nod, and I took that as a win. “Yeah, let’s go.”
23
OLI
Ren leaned forward and squinted over the Jeep’s steering wheel. “This is an absolute nightmare.” No matter how high or low the headlights were as he switched between the choices, the snow was nearly blinding us.
“The weather app did call it a bomb cyclone blizzard.” I shivered, even with the heat blasting directly toward me. The wind was so cold outside, every part of me that hadn’t been covered by my coat during the mad dash to the Jeep had ice needles stabbing it. “Are the headlights even on anymore?” I was scared because I genuinely couldn’t tell.
“Yeah.”
“Where are the fucking plows?” I grumbled. It was only a bit after four in the afternoon, but the sky was dark gray already with the swirl of snow and the heavy, low clouds hanging overhead. Fear made it difficult to breathe as the Jeep slid around on the street, winter tires be damned. My stomach lurched hard with each wobble toward parked cars or snowbanks.
“Is the four-wheel drive locked in?” I asked, gripping theoh shithandle.
“Yes,” he growled out between clenched teeth.
