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“Yeah,” he agrees finally. “I did.”
“Now he’s fucking covered in them,” Ransom says. “I mean we all have some, but not like Mal.”
I’ve seen Malice naked before, and I remember the flash of the tattoos that covered his arms and spread across his back, chest, and legs. I’ve seen some of Ransom’s since then too, but none of Victor’s.
“How many do each of you have?” I ask, sitting up in my chair.
Ransom stands up and takes his shirt off, smiling at me as he does. I’ve seen him shirtless before since we’re sharing a room, but I take full advantage of the fact that now I’m allowed to openly study him, leaning forward to get a better look.
His tattoos are all in black, except for one on the inside of his arm that’s done in splashes of green and white. It’s a flower, and when I look closer, I can tell it’s a kind of lily. Vines trail from it, wrapping around his arm and down to his wrist, circling it. When I look closer, I can see that there are thorns in the vines that don’t touch the flower, leaving the flower itself seeming untouched and almost pristine.
“Our mom’s favorite flower,” he explains, his voice soft.
My heart aches at the love and pain in his voice, and I rise from the chair to come closer to him.
The rest of his tattoos have less purpose and form. Like Malice, he has some that are just lines and patterns, not quite tribal, but blackwork designs that circle his other bicep and forearm. A larger piece spreads across his back, and it looks like the arching branches of a tree, with flowers woven into and through them.
They’re oddly beautiful for being harsh black lines inked into his skin, and I reach out, trailing my fingers over them softly. Ransom shivers, and when he looks at me, his blue-green eyes almost seem to burn.
“What do you think, angel?”
“They’re beautiful,” I whisper.
A grin curves his lips, making him look boyish and almost a little shy. “Thanks. I’m glad you like them.”
“Your turn, Malice,” Victor says.
Malice stands up next, peeling off his shirt. I suck in a breath, and even though I’ve seen him naked before, this feels… different. We were different then, the two of us, and the situation was different. He was naked for some other woman then, and now he’s taking his shirt off for me.
It’s a silly thought, since he’s only taking his shirt off to show me his tattoos, but I can’t help but think it all the same.
Malice’s entire upper body is littered with various tattoos. I already know the one he got for their mother, her name and the date of her death on his arm, but the rest are more of a mystery.
I peer at the one he was working on when I found him the other day, and I notice that it’s not really anything. Just images and shapes, swirls and lines, a kind of almost organized chaos that seems to fit with how Malice is most of the time. The lines are sharp and cutting, but there are some gentle curves in there, little moments that break up all the darkness.
It’s interesting to see the growth in his abilities as a tattoo artist, from the ones that are older and more crude, a little or a lot faded with age depending on their quality, to the newer ones that look more clear. Some of them dip down, trailing over his hip bones and the front of his stomach, to disappear into the waistband of his pants, and my face flushes a bit when I remember that his dick is tattooed too, unless I’m mistaken.
“So many,” I finally breathe, and unlike with Ransom, I don’t reach out to touch Malice.
“I like tattoos,” he says simply, lifting one muscled shoulder in a shrug.
That makes me smile. “I see why. They kind of suit you in a weird way.”
I don’t know how to describe it, but something about them just fits with his whole… everything.
He catches my gaze, and although he doesn’t look boyish like Ransom did, something hot and sort of possessive glints in his gray eyes—as if my approval means something to him. Then he looks away from me, lifting a chin at Victor.
“Now you.”
I half expect Victor to decline, even though he was the one who suggested Malice take a turn. But to my surprise, he stands up and peels off his shirt. Unlike how Malice and Ransom just took theirs off and tossed them onto the couch, he does it with much more precision, tugging his dark Henley off with one hand and then folding it and setting it down on the couch.
When he straightens back up, I find myself gaping at him.
I’ve never seen him anything less than fully dressed before, and now that I’m finally seeing him shirtless, I’m amazed by how ripped he is. It’s nowhere close to how jacked and intimidating Malice looks, but he has a whole lot more muscles than I expected. For all that time in front of a computer, he’s not soft at all, and it’s clear that when it comes to a physical fight, Victor could definitely hold his own.
A memory flashes through my mind of him taking down Carl in my apartment, and I realize I’ve seen firsthand how that ruthless, almost robotic precision of his can combine with his physical strength to be deadly.
Almost unconsciously, I step closer to Victor, curiosity burning inside me. He has some newer tattoos, but a lot of them look old and very rough. They’re a totally different style than the newer ones he has, and I tip my head to one side, glancing between him and Malice as I make the comparison.
