Page 82 of Hard to Love
Next time. There would be no next time.
The room was all slate shadows, so hopefully she couldn’t see the truth and pain on his face. She ran a hand down the center of Alex’s chest. “I want to see them. Really see them this time.”
Alex’s muscles tensed. Those tattoos were the story of his life. At least the stories he was forced to remember every time he looked at himself in the mirror. But if he was going to leave Greer, shouldn’t he leave her with something?
He stretched and clicked on the bedside lamp. The lightdiffused through the shade meandered over his body, setting some areas of his skin aglow, casting others in shadow.
Greer trailed her fingers over his naked collarbone, so slowly, so carefully, her touch was almost reverent. “You have such a beautiful body.”
“My mamá cried when she saw my first tattoo.”
“Why?” Greer’s touch—now on his pectoral muscle—both soothed and aroused.
“She said I was abusing the only temple God had given me.”
The feel of Greer’s nails over his ribs and down his side was enough to lift Alex’s hips from the bed. Since she was draped over him, his dick nudged the underside of her breast, and she chuckled and told it, “You’ll get your turn.”
Alex squeezed his eyes shut against images of his cock getting its turn. That way, he didn’t have to see Greer skimming the sensitive skin along his hipbone, but the feeling was so erotic, so intimate that he felt a hot pressure behind his eyes.
“Are any of these gang symbols?” she asked softly.
He tried to push a word out of his throat, but it was closing up on him. A couple of breaths, and he was finally able to say, “No.”
“Did you design them?”
“Javi and me.”
“Is your younger brother half this talented?”
Jesus, he had no idea. When he’d left home, Nicolás was still coloring inTransformersbooks with broken crayons. “I…I don’t know.”
“Now that they’re back in Texas, will you spend more time with him?”
Not the topic he wanted to discuss. Not at all. Hegrabbed Greer’s hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “In case you’ve forgotten, it’s just you and me in this bed. And we’re naked.”
She wriggled from his hold and sat back on her heels to gaze down at him. Her small smile was directed at his dick. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten.” Then she touched him, just a light stroke from his sac to the tip. “Why didn’t you have your penis done?”
Jesus, that had his hard-on wilting a little.
“I mean, you obviously have a high pain tolerance.”
“Pain tolerance doesn’t equal complete batshit fucked up. You know any guy who’d willingly stick a needle in his dick?”
That made her laugh, and she circled him, squeezing on the downstroke.
Unfortunately, she abandoned his newly re-inspired erection and concentrated on tracing the designs on his thigh instead. “Is this a phoenix?”
“An Egyptian eagle. The symbol of authority and protection.” Not that it had done his family a damn bit of good.
“And this—” she finger-painted the curve of his calf, “—is a flower.”
“Lotus.”
“Which means rebirth.”
“How did you know?”
She looked up, met his stare with her own. “Because I know you. And you don’t think you deserve another chance even though you desperately want one.”
