Page 95 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

Bare. Smooth, in the pale light.

The tattoo on his shoulder blade wasn’t one I’d been able to stare at much in the past, but the light from out back came in across it now. It was so abstract that until now, I’d never known what it was, exactly, but I could make out the shape now.

It was a huge stylized rearing horse with long, looping reins. The reins went up to his shoulder and around to the top of his arm, curving almost as if they were a snake. The lines looked beautiful on his skin.

Beneath one edge of the loop, there was a date tattooed. February 7th. On the top of the opposite side of the anchor was another date, October 26th. That ink looked fresher, less faded.

What is the story behind those?

I shifted my naked legs underneath the sheets, my mind wandering blindly, like I was in the forest at midnight without a flashlight.

There was so much I didn’t know about Draven.

So much history about him that he maynevertell me.

He’d told me one dark story about his past, but what about all of the other things that he wasn’t willing to tell me? What if there were things that were so much worse?

And why was he so concerned with my e-stalkers, enough that he would invite me to sleep over when he clearly didn’t want me anywhere near him?

A surge of anger bloomed out from my chest, all at once.

Fuck this.

I wasn’t going to let myself lose sleep over someone as confusing as him, and I wasn’t going to share a bed with someone who apparently didn’t even want to touch another inch of me.

I slid my legs off the end of the mattress and sat up to get out of bed, the mattress shifting slightly as I changed positions.

But right as I moved to stand up, a strong arm looped around my waist.

He yanked me back into bed. I fell onto my back, and he kept an arm draped around my waist, the weight of his forearm resting on the bottom of my stomach.

“The fuck?” I murmured.

“Stay here.”

He was facing me now. From my peripheral vision, I could see him, his eyes pinning me in place just as much as his arm was.

“What if I was just getting up to piss? Or I wanted to grab a glass of water?”

“Is that what you were doing?” he said. “Or were you trying to leave?”

I pulled in a breath and sighed. “Maybe I was trying to leave. What’s it to you? I thought you were already asleep, anyway.”

“Not asleep,” he said.

Finally, the invisible line between us in bed had been breached. Draven moved his arm downward, stroking it along my still half-chubbed up dick, and I swatted him away.

“Ignore that,” I mumbled.

“You like me pulling you back into bed, huh?”

“Was hard before that,” I tossed back, but when I turned and saw that it had made him smile, I realized I’d only made the situation worse.

But he removed his arm a moment later. I missed it, which I hated. I shouldn’t havelikedhim being all controlling and possessive, but as usual, it was some sort of strange catnip to me.

Just like it had been all night.

Like when I’d let him graze over my prostate.

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