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What Marco didn’t know is that I had trained for it too.
I took in a breath, trying to keep that calm.
“Well, beauty.” He grins an inch from my face. “What have we here?”
He presses his lips to mine.
I keep my mouth shut.
He pulls back. “Did the fool not kiss you?”
“No,” I whisper. I’m pretending to be as childish as possible, since he seems to like that.
Really, I just need to get him to get closer to me.
I have an idea.
“You have a lot of tattoos,” I whisper, keeping my eyes lowered. I’m locked onto his knife, but it has the advantage of making me look demure.
“Aye, I do.”
“Can I touch them?”
He laughs. “Elio doesn’t have tattoos, does he?”
“Not like yours,” I whisper. It’s an easy lie because it’s kind of the truth. Elio’s tattoos are to show that he can be his own man. He might be part of the mafia, he might be in charge of an organized crime organization, but he is still his own person.
He uses his scars as an opportunity to remember who he is.
The way Kieran’s tattoos are so bright, so bold, there’s no doubt in my mind that he doesn’t have the tattoos for himself.
They’re for others. Like a predator, he wants people to know him. He wants people to see him as a dangerous predator.
“Yours are so detailed,” I purr.
I can tell the compliment works for him. He preens like a darn peacock, literally puffing up his chest. “Well, who am I to deny you, little one?”
I hate that he uses that diminutive. It makes me terrified that if Luna was part of his life…
I shut that thought down. I can’t think about that.
I refuse to think about stuff like that.
Tugging on my wrists, I glance up at him. “Can I touch them?”
“Do you want to touch them?”
“Yes, please,” I whisper.
When he reaches up and tugs the silk cord undone, I want to cheer.
Step two.
I make a show of shaking my hands, trying to show him that I’m weak. “That hurt,” I say in a small voice.
It didn’t. But I want him to think it did.
Not surprisingly, he clearly likes the fact that I was in pain. His lips part and he lets out a little puff of air.
