Page 34 of Possessive Ink

“This one?” he asks, lifting up the pale pink case on wheels that I bought when I attended Harold and Kumar’s out-of-town wedding a few years ago.

I nod, then shake my head. “Wait. Why am I packing again?” I question.

Lowering the case to the floor, he closes the distance between us, capturing my face in his hands. “I want you to stay with me until Monday,” he says, his voice soft and persuasive.

“It’s only Thursday.”

“So you need four outfits,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and not like he’s a man I just met who is asking me to stay with him for a full weekend.

I start to shake my head, but he curls his finger under the necklace I’m wearing and tugs lightly.

“Do you have any other plans this weekend? You don’t have work, and you don’t start your new job with Tori until Monday morning. It seems like your diary is wide open. So why would you want to spend the weekend here with your angry roommate instead of with me?”

“We don’t know anything about each other,” I whisper unconvincingly.

“But by Monday we’ll know practically everything,” he coaxes, adding a hint of demand into his tone, like his patience is wearing thin. “Do I get to pick your outfits from this packed closet?” he asks, deciding my answer without me actually agreeing.

“No, absolutely not,” I hiss, outraged at the suggestion.

“Then get to it, Princess. Tori is coming for dinner at six p.m., and Felix is pretty rigid on timing.”

Leaning forward, he presses a soft kiss to my lips, then spins me toward my closet, slapping me playfully on the ass to get me moving. I’m not sure that I actually agreed to this, but I still find myself perusing my packed rail of clothes looking for outfits.

When my eyes land on a long pink and white flowy floral-patterned dress with spaghetti straps that crisscross over my shoulders and down my back all the way to my butt crack, I can’t stop myself from dragging it out and placing it on the bed.

Atticus’s eyes land on the dress, then me, but he doesn’t speak as I go back to the closet and start fingering through my dresses to find a second outfit.

When my hand lands on a white strapless corseted dress, I just can’t move past it, dragging it out and placing it beside the other one on the bed. It takes longer than it should to pick two more dresses, but I end up choosing a short red peasant dress and a black lace-sleeved dress that makes me want to put it on and spin around so that the short, but full skirt poofs out as I twirl.

Gathering underwear, accessories, shoes, hair stuff, and everything else I need, the case is so full I can barely close it as I lean all my weight on the top, trying to fasten the zipper at the same time.

“Here, Princess, let me,” Atticus coos, moving from his spot leaning against the doorjamb for the first time since I started raiding my closet. Gently moving me to the side, he presses down on the case with one hand and effortlessly closes the zipper with the other.

“Thanks,” I say, a little breathless from the exertion of fighting with my bag.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“I think so, but I should shower and get changed before we go.”

“Just grab what you need and get changed at home,” he says.

“Nothing else is going in that case,” I admit, laughing and cringing at the same time.

“You won’t be needing all those panties you packed, so we could take those out.” He smirks.

I’m not sure if he’s joking, but I ignore him and quickly grab one of the more casual dresses I own from the rail, hooking my arm through the hanger as I shove fresh underwear into my purse. Kicking off my blue shoes, I swap them for white leather ballet pumps and then turn to see him holding my stuffed bunny.

“Does the bunny need to come?” he asks, wiggling the stuffed toy at me.

It takes everything in me to shake my head. “No,” I tell him. I’m not a child. I can sleep without a stuffy, but my mom gave me the bunny when I was a kid, and it’s come to every sleepover, vacation, and overnight trip with me since then, even if it never came out of my bag.

Scowling, Atticus narrows his eyes at me. “Put him in your purse, Princess.”

Freezing, I stare at the toy he’s holding out to me. I don’t know how he knows that the bunny is important, but instead of asking, I snatch the pink ball of fluff out of Atticus’s tattooed hand and shove him into my purse, silently apologizing to my childhood best friend for handling him so roughly.

Smirking, Atticus doesn’t even try to hide his smugness as he lifts my case off the bed, then takes the dress hanging from my arm and drapes it over his own. “Grab whatever you need to take to the dry cleaners, and we can drop it off on the way home.”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot again,” I gasp, pulling the handful of dresses that I need to take to the cleaners from the bathroom door.