AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had to do it myself.
Starting with the obscuring of the red flower that had been part of my identity for much too long.
Burned into my skin, a permanent designation of who I was and why I existed.
A condemnation I’d lived with since… pretty much since I could remember, which wasn’t saying much. My very,veryearliest memories, the ones I could only barely touch, even when I dug for them… they weren’t of swings or bike riding or recitals or hanging out with friends at the mall.
They were of theGarden.
It wasn’t so much that I needed to forget, more that… I needed something else. Different memories, from a different life I had yet to actuallylive.
So,I focused – again, on feeling it all.
Every prick.
I’d gotten much too good at feeling nothing.
Pain was a luxury I’d been mostly stripped of long ago – something to channel into a more beneficial feeling, but never sat with, or explored. Now that I was free to do and think and feel what I wanted… it was mine to reclaim.
As strange as it was.
“Never seen a woman bethisserene about my needlework,” Tristan said from above me. “At least not without a little assistance.”
I shifted my gaze from the mural to his face – thatfrustratingly goodface.
Dark brown skin, obsidian eyes, that thick, soft-looking beard that would likely feel good against the back of my hand.
Probably even better between my thighs.
“Is that a compliment?” I asked, meeting his gaze. He was looking at me, sure, but alsointome a little too, in a way that was almost too much.
Almost.
I felt the invasion, but didn’t look away.
I waited.
He’d already pulled the tattoo gun away from my skin, but the motor kept buzzing as he stared. “It is.”
“Okay. What exactly do you expect me to say?”
“I tend to shy away from those, sweetheart.” Without warning, he brought the tattoo machine back to my skin, but I didn’t flinch.
Not even because he’d called mesweetheartagain.
“Away from what?” I asked.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “Expectations.”
Ha.
He was indulgently tall, sinfully handsome, an immensely talented artist, based on what I’d seen, and in high demand, if I took into account how Pri had been sure to tell me he was expensive.
Of coursehe shied away from expectations.
“I bet you know a little about that,” he said, when I hadn’t spoken after a moment. “I get the feeling you defy a few expectations of your own.”
“Nobody expects anything of me.”
