Page 55 of Love Me Darkly
She kissed him back, short and sweet. But she couldn’t hide her anxiety when they broke the kiss, her eyes wide as she peered up at him.
“I was joking, baby girl,” he assured her. “I told you, no pressure tonight.”
That seemed to ease her mind, and she relaxed, laying her head back down.
“Baby girl?”
“Hmm?”
“You called me baby girl just now. And you did it earlier when you were …”
“Making love to you,” he filled in. He had no choice but to call it what it had been. He hadn’t approached a woman with such purpose and attentiveness since Mari. Learning about Melody’s background and what it implied, he had suffered no end of guilt over his handling of her in the storage room. It had been one of the rawest, uninhibited sexual experiences of his life, but he had been driven primarily by his own need. His need to placate the brute inside of him that craved to possess every inch of her. Tonight had been about atoning for that, for giving her no less than she deserved. He wasn’t ready yet to grapple with what it might mean.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
“It kind of just came out before I could think about whether you would like it.”
“I did like it.”
She sounded almost ashamed of the fact, which sent another laugh up out of his throat. He turned on his side to face her.
“It fits, you know.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “It’s cute, but you have to admit it’s a little misogynistic. I’m neither a baby nor a girl.”
He traced a fingertip along the line of her jaw. “But you have a baby-doll face. A sweet face. Therefore, you’re a baby girl … my baby girl.”
She chewed her lip thoughtfully, studying him in silence for a moment before she responded. “You shouldn’t say things like that to a girl like me.”
“And what kind of girl is that?”
“The kind who’s never known tenderness or love. The kind who might take you seriously and get the wrong idea.”
The same visceral reaction that had swept over him when she’d disagreed with his opinion of her reared its ugly head. He tightened his hold on her until she gasped, as if fighting for air. He eased his arm a bit but didn’t let go.
“In the short time you have known me, have I given you any indication that I am anything but serious?”
That got a giggle out of her. “You got me there. I can imagine you terrify the shit out of your suspects.”
“Certainly seemed to unsettle Suede.” He cringed. “Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Said what?” she teased, grasping his point.
He slipped a hand beneath the comforter and ran his hand down her belly. Encountering her mound and the landing strip of dark hairs leading the path to her seam, he had a sudden thought. Yanking the blanket down, he reached for the flashlight on the nightstand. The lamp wasn’t bright enough for him to see what he was looking for.
“What are you doing?” she asked, squirming under him as he pointed the light at her lower belly.
“I saw something earlier and wanted to get a better look.”
She went still as the light illuminated a tattoo. Etched from hipbone to hipbone was a vine in black and gray lines and shaded dark green. Along the vine, little roses bloomed, most of them in a shade of rich, deep red. A single blossom toward the middle was shaded a vibrant golden yellow.
“It’s gorgeous,” he murmured, sensing that it meant something to her. All of his tattoos were personal, and Melody seemed like the kind of person who wouldn’t take permanently inking her skin lightly.
He traced a finger over the vine, finding puckered, raised skin beneath it. It was a scar, he realized, and it was thick and ropey, as if it hadn’t healed properly. It was only visible when he was close, but he could feel the devastation beneath his fingers.
“What happened?”
He turned off the flashlight and put it aside, laying his head on her belly and keeping his hand over the tattoo. She rested her hand on his head and twined her fingers in his hair.
