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“Twenty-three barbs in total.”
I blink twice. “Why twenty-three?”
“A reminder of the lives I’ve taken.”
The lives I’ve taken.
“Oh.” My bottom lip tips out, and I tilt my head, looking at the ink once again.
“Does that scare you?”
He speaks of death and murder like he would the weather. There is no caution to his tone or halting of words. They touch his tongue as his breath does, part of him.
I hold the sheet to my chest, sitting up, my back straight. “When did you get the last one?”
He sips his coffee again, turning away from me briefly to place his empty cup on the small table to his side. He sits in pajamas the way he does a suit. Legs splayed, arms resting along the sides of the chair he’s dwarfing. He’s a vision, one I shouldn't want to carve into my memory for always.
“Two days before we were married.”
I think back. “The day you gave me this?” I lift my left hand.
“Rightbefore I gave you that.”
I gulp. “How soon after killing someone do you have the tattoo done?”
“I didn’t see any tattoos on your body.” He ignores me.
“I don’t have any.”
“Clean skin.”
“Yes.”
We stare at one another, and I wish he’d come to me. I wish he’d put me out of my misery and kiss me. I should feel ashamed that the souls lost are forever immortalized on his body, but I can think only of touching that very skin. Running my hands over his shoulders and arms. Dragging my fingertips over the indents of his abs. Feeling the heat of his body against my palms.
“When you look at me like that,” he whispers. “The thoughts that run through my mind, Bianca... the things I think about doing to you. It makes me think you want them too.”
I’ve come to learn that his voice drops when he’s turned on. His voice just whispered words brushing along the most sensitive parts of my body.
I close my knees, trapping the sheet between my thighs.
“Will you...”
“Will I what?” he asks.
“I...”
He closes his eyes in disappointment, and I want to beg him to stay. I don’t understand myself. I can’t reconcile how much I want him with the hesitation in my will to ask. I fear his rejection more than his wrath, and I know how foolish that is, but his anger I can steel myself against. His disinterest would cut away my confidence and leave it forever lost.
Vincent stands, and the indents of his hips drop sinfully into his black sleep pants.
I long to reach out and touch him.
He approaches the end of the bed and my breath catches, hope firing in my stomach.
He leans toward me, fists pressed into the mattress. I try to concentrate on his words, but his body is close enough to touch. His muscles protrude with the effort of holding his upper body up over the bed. My breathing changes, and my face feels hot. “I’ll give you what you want when you give me what I want.”
I lean toward him without conscious thought. “What do you want?”
