Page 37 of Hostile Cravings
“Maybe,” I purred.
He brought his finger up and followed the path of my freckles, emotion in his eyes that he shadowed when he caught me watching him.
“Why do you hide them?” he asked.
He was avoiding talking about the tattoo, which irked me, but with a sigh, I gave up pushing him, knowing it would only piss him off again. And as much as I enjoyed him like that, I was enjoying this moment more.
He continued to caress my cheek, so I leaned into it, saying, “They remind me of my mother.”
His eyes flashed to mine, creasing as he tried to understand. It was something I’d never shared, keeping it to myself where I kept all my emotions aside from disgust or annoyance.
“My mother was beautiful. She could walk into a room and command everyone’s attention with just her presence. I was young when she passed, but I remember how I’d watch her, so graceful and confident. She was classy, never flaunting her body, but knowing how to dress her curves. Her beauty was natural and enchanting—sun-kissed skin, hair that I loved tangling my small fingers in, and the largest brown eyes that when they fell on you lit you from the inside out.”
I stopped, pushing back the surge of sadness that wanted to sneak past my borders. Tyson waited, his eyes intently watching me while his fingers played in my hair. Taking a breath, I continued. “She would tuck me in each night, and kiss each one of my freckles, ending with my birthmark and telling me how it was special. A sign that the gods watched over me, she would say. And no matter how the other kids made fun of me for it, her words emboldened me.” The memory of the teasing was one I’d squashed along with the memory of her words, and remembering them hurt. “My father called us twins we looked so much alike, and I loved that, because my mother was the standard of beauty for me…until she died.” I dropped my eyes, noticing how my thumb had been subconsciously tracing his viper tattoo. “I was only ten when she died, but every time I looked in the mirror, I saw my mother. As I aged, I could see it in my father’s eyes, the sadness there when he looked at me. I covered the birthmark first when the teasing overshadowed the memory of her words.”
Tyson’s thumb brushed across it, and I looked back up at him. “And then the freckles. Each time I covered more, my father relaxed when I entered a room. My brother’s eyes no longer seemed so sad. The clothes came next, as I cleaned out everything that reflected what she’d taught me about fashion, replacing it with more skin, less material. And by the time I was sixteen, my glasses were gone, and my hair was lightened. There was nothing left to remind me of her, nothing left but the emptiness in my chest, which I filled with my pettiness, my demands, and my attitude. All things that went against everything she was.”
I looked back down, the guilt I’d hidden away with everything else surfacing. He tipped my chin up, forcing my eyes to his.
“So you’re telling me you’re not a natural blonde?” His question brought only relief that he didn’t judge me for dishonoring my mother’s memory, for burying my emotions, and for being the brat he’d always known me to be.
“Guess you had no way of knowing,” I replied playfully.
His other hand rubbed down my smooth body. “That’s just downright deceitful. What color is your hair, baby?”
Unable to stop my smile, I said, “Strawberry blonde.”
“You’re a red-head and you hide it? Shit, that’s even hotter. You’re growing that out. No more dye jobs for you.” He yanked me off him and flipped me, hovering over me in a protective position. “No more hiding from me,” he said.
“But Tyson…” I didn’t want to say it, to ruin the moment with the truth.
He wrapped his hand around my waist and pulled me against him, my back rising from the mattress. “What, Anj?”
“You can’t expect me to make those changes when we…we…”
“When we what? Hate each other?”
“Yes.”
“Of course I can because I own your bratty little ass, no matter how much you annoy the shit out of me.”
My smile threatened to escape. “You don’t own me. It’s temporary until this shit with Joey calms down. Then you have to give me up.” Saying it burned my throat, and I saw the flinch he tried to hide from me.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.” He rolled from me and rose, walking across the room and grabbing his phone. I propped myself on my elbows, watching his ass and loving how the muscles in it and his thighs moved.
“Stop licking your lips like that, Anj, or I’ll put them to use again.”
He brought the phone up to his ear, and I wondered what he was doing until he turned and I took in the sight of him from the other angle again. There was no stopping how wet it made me and, as if he knew, he threw me a lopsided grin.
“Get us some dinner,” he said into the phone. “I don’t care if you already brought her dinner. It’s cold.”
There was a moment of silence, one I took to peruse his body again.
“Whatever you brought last time is fine.”
He hung up, and walked to the bar, pouring himself a glass of liquor before walking to the balcony and grabbing the bottle of wine and my glass. He didn’t seem to care that anyone could see him out there, and I shook my head as he walked back to the bed.
“What?” he asked, setting his glass down, then filling my wine glass and handing it to me.
