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I glance at him, a scowl on my face, but Gideon just answers, “Fuck yeah, I am. I am so fucking jealous I can’t see straight at the moment.”
Hardin comes over to us to hand me a bottle of water. “Drink that. If you can’t see straight, then maybe don’t tattoo our girl first, yeah? Don’t want you to mar her pretty skin.”
I snort at that because I’m already marred. The number of scars on my chest is proof of that.
“Oh, fuck off, Yorke. You know I’d never ruin a piece on her skin.”
Hardin just shakes his head and retreats to the kitchen again. I’m more than a little surprised to find that he’s pulled out actual food, not just a snack or the pizza leftover from when Merritt ordered it from a place in town.
Gideon tugs on my shirt, drawing my attention back to him. “You ready for this, Ro?”
“What? You mean you want me to go first?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah. We should get started. Hardin is obviously cooking and you’re the only other person here. I don’t want to be here until late.”
I push my fingers into his hair, loving the soft strands against my skin. “You’re always here until late.”
He gives me an eye roll that I’m proud of and then pats the table. “Come on, take off your leggings and hop up. I’m going to put the runes on your upper thigh on the back.”
Nerves grip me. But I still wiggle out of my leggings and scramble up onto the table, laying on my stomach with my arms folded under my head. Gideon takes a deep breath, and his hand smooths over the swell of my ass, tightening just slightly, before his touch is gone.
I’m vaguely aware of him moving things around as the scent of cooking food reaches my nostrils. I flinch when something cold hits my leg, and he chuckles. “Just cleaning your skin, Ro. Relax.”
“Relax,” I scoff. “I’m about to willingly receive countless tiny wounds, Gideon. There’s no way I can relax for that.”
He laughs at that, and then the buzz of a tattoo gun reaches my ears. His hand presses into my flesh and I wait for the pain. But it doesn’t come. I can feel his hands on me, feel the vibration of the gun, but no pain.
“That’s it? That’s what it feels like?”
Gideon laughs. “Did you really think that I don’t have a numbing cream, Ro? It’s mixed in with the cleanser I use.”
“Oh.” I frown. “You could have told me that.”
The buzz of the gun stops. His lips brush over the back of my leg, not where he’s tattooing just under the swell of my ass.
“This was so much more fun though, love,” Hardin calls.
Grumbling, I press my forehead into the hands. The buzzing starts up again, and Gideon gets back to work.
Eighteen
We settle into a routine, and I’m even more exhausted than I was before. I’ve doubled down on my witch work and as the end of the quarter moves closer, the amount of homework they give and projects that need to be finished increases.
I feel like I’m drowning and I can’t escape that sensation, no matter how far ahead I am in my assignments, no matter how much success I have with spells and casting. I always feel like I’m behind.
Fielder seems to be in an even worse state. Seeing as he’s graduating, he’s wrapping up everything and I hardly see him. Though he slips into bed with me late at night and holds me close, cuddles me to his body and breathes me in.
We haven’t talked about what next year is going to look like. What he’s going to do when the rest of us come back to Seven Stars. I can’t imagine that he’s going to be okay with being separated from us. Maybe he’ll take a gap year and move to the island, work from home or something.
God, I hope that’s the case. I can’t imagine only seeing him on weekends and during holiday breaks. How quickly I’ve come to need him, to depend on him, to trust him. Sweet baby kittens, when did I start to actually trust him? All of them.
The thought makes my stomach clench and panic set in. What if he does what he did the last time I put my trust in him? What if he uses it against me and I’m absolutely fucking devastated when he does?
What would I do if all four of them turned on me again?
Fuck… I think I would curl up in a ball and never recover. Eventually I’d get up from the fetal position and I’d move around the world doing all the things I’m supposed to, but I’d be only half a person, my heart ripped from my chest and stomped all over and my brain constantly reliving the horror of being the idiot for trusting them again.
I blink the thought away and focus on the camera in front of me. It’s late, nearly midnight. The guys are all asleep or still studying and working on assignments. I’m in my recording room, illusioned to look like Gany. I have a daily positive affirmations calendar in front of me and a timer on my phone, to give me an idea of how long I’ve spent on each affirmation. I’m ready to get started. All I need to do is hit record.
