He gasped, shoving the jersey back down and slamming his hands over it.
“Fuck! You weren’t… I mean, I never thought you’d see this… well, any part of me, and I was living with unreturned feelings and watching you fall in love with that fucker, and I guess I just…” he trailed off and rolled his eyes, “and I’m rambling as usual. Okay. Just bear in mind I was brokenhearted when I had these inked.”
These? As in more than the one instance I saw? He sighed and lifted the jersey off, tossing it onto the floor, covering his face with both hands as I eyed the designs. Oh wow. It was my name, over and over across his abs, different designs featuring the letters woven into images, and as I traced my fingers over them,Henley sucked in a sharp breath, his muscles tensing beneath my touch.
“All these?” I felt like the world had just tilted on its axis, because this proved what he’d said. It wasn’t just words, or lip service. This was proof that he’d wanted me for years, that he’d been in love with me. Nobody gets someone’s name tattooed on them because they just like them, or care about them, and even if they did… they didn’t do it… I counted them up… eleven times.
“Eleven tattoos of my name?”
He lowered his hands and blushed, he honest to god blushed at me, and I fell even more in love with him.
“One for every year I was in love with you, and couldn’t have you,” he whispered, pressing a hand over his face again, like a slow motion facepalm, “I can’t believe you’re seeing them. I thought you’d never see them.”
“Do you regret them?” I stood up, one palm still stroking his inked skin.
“I regret the reason for them, the fact that I was without you, but no.”
He lifted my chin and kissed my lips gently.
“I’d do it a million times if it meant you’d be mine.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
How fucking humiliating wasit to reveal the depth of my obsession right in front of the object of it? I half expected her to get angry, or mock me for it, but she took it a way I couldn’t have imagined. She was flattered by it. Maybe even relieved. Did it prove the fact that I hadn’t lied about my feelings? Did it show her that she’d been in my heart, and… well, on my body, this entire time? She kept stroking my skin, alternating between the newer, and the older, less vibrant ink, and it was sending ripples of need every-fucking-where.
I grabbed her face, slamming my lips against hers, as I eased her back onto my bed, one jean-clad knee sliding between her legs to rest on the mattress.
“This’d be better if we’re both naked,” I murmured, my lips tickling hers because I wasn’t backing off to speak.
Glory’s palms pressed against my shoulders so I reluctantly backed up a touch. She wasn’t changing her mind, was she? Did the tattoos freak her out after all?
“What?”
“I don’t have… I didn’t do what you… I mean,” she sighed, “I don’t have tattoos of you, I’m sorry. That never even occurred to me.”
I hadn’t expected it to, but maybe it should have, considering her former career choices.
“That’s okay. I just want your skin against mine. I want us to heat each other up as we fucking ride out this burning need together.”
She giggled, reaching for the buttons on my jeans, popping the top one, and expertly tugging them open, so the rest popped open.
“That was oddly romantic, Henley. My god. I can’t believe we’re doing this. It’s going to be amazing, right? It won’t be weird.”
I pressed my fingers over her lips.
“Don’t start making it weird, and it won’t be, yeah?”
I started tugging at her thin sweater, and eased it over her head, tossing it who the hell cares where, and followed that up with the strappy top she wore beneath it. Then onto her bra, because the longer we took, the more desperate I was for that sensation of warm skin against warm skin. Hers against mine. Finally.
Seeing her breasts for the first time was the kind of thrill that punches you in the gut, and leaves you breathless, but seeing the scarring on her collarbone, where a tattoo used to reside, was a shock I hadn’t expected to feel. The tattoo was as familiar to me as my own, because she’d had it where everyone could see it. What had been there was a series of Japanese characters, which spelled out the words ‘live for now’. Why she’d had that removed, I had no idea, but when I ran my palms up her sides, I felt more scarring.
“The fuck?”
I leaned to the side, to check what I was feeling, right where the thorny vines were that she’d had painted up her side, but they too were gone.
“Glory,” I started, and she shook her head vehemently.
“No. That’s the past. We’re the future. Don’t kill this moment, Henley.”
