Page 120 of No Apologies
“I’ve got something else to show you.”
“Well, I was hoping so.” She wagged her eyebrows and purposefully stared at the bulge in his pants.
“Perv.” He chuckled as his hands went to the hem of his shirt and pulled it up and over his head, “Not that. Well, not yet. Something else.”
At the sight of his broad, muscled chest she swooned a little. His entire body was made to be showed off. He would have looked right at home in one of those underwear ads in the glossy magazines. But it was the artwork that had always stolen her breath. The beautiful, slightly foreboding symbols that marked his skin, that he himself had put there, the ones that spoke of the dark, tumultuous soul beneath that beautiful exterior.
There were so many tattoos. So many dark lines and swirling words. There was the angel and devil depiction on his arm. The one she’d finally realized was his twisted version of them. On the other was a dark and ominous forest that rose up his forearm with stark black birds circling up his bicep as they flew away. And on his chest and abdomen, there were other smaller tattoos.
The oldest was a tree growing crooked and gnarled and wrapped around a full-scale, lifelike heart. She’d never had to ask what that one meant. It was obvious. The tree was the Bomars, a family tree, and as dark and twisted as it was, it had punctured the heart but it had also grown around it, protecting it and keeping it safe.
The one that had always drawn her attention though was on his ribs. In big, scrawling letters, it said,for those I love I will sacrifice. And if that didn’t sum up Colt, nothing did or ever would.
As had become a habit, her hand automatically reached for that tattoo. To trace the words that were so much a part of the man she loved. But Colt caught her hand and shook his head.
“There’s a new one.”
Her eyebrows winged up and her gaze raked over him, “Where?”
When he smiled softly and then turned around, her breath caught in her chest and tears rushed her vison all over again. On his back. The back that he had never let so much as one needle touch. The back that bore the awful, painful scars of his childhood. There, on the back that she’d thought he would always leave bare and unmarked because he needed to keep those scars and see them, not cover them up, was a new tattoo.
“Oh, Colt…” She traced her name across the expanse of his broad back, “It’s beautiful.”
He’d had her name tattooed on his back. It was a huge tattoo. Big and bold, just like the man that wore it. There was no hiding it. No denying it or ignoring it. This tattoo was a statement and when he didn’t flinch as she ran her fingers over the fresh mark, she knew what it meant to him.
Not just that they wore each other’s names. Not just that they had joined themselves in a more permanent way than rings ever could. It didn’t just mean that they belonged to each other. It meant that they had a future together, that they were putting the past behind them and Colt was finally ready to move on, with her, and be the man he was always meant to be.
“I’m yours and you’re mine.” He turned back to face her and she nodded quickly.
“I love you.”
“Love you so much.” He pressed a kiss to the outside of her eye and she knew a tear had escaped. “Forever.”
“Always.”
He pressed kisses across her jaw as she wrapped her arms around him, “I’m gonna make love to you, Sky.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not gonna fuck you. Not this time. So you’ll just have to crawl back into this chair for another tattoo someday soon to fulfill that fantasy. Because right now, I love you too much to be rough with you, angel.”
“Make love to me, Colt.”
Always.”
Colt had never even imagined this kind of happiness. Not once in his life had he thought that he would ever be truly happy. Not like this. Because even in his imaginings, in his dreams of his someday, he’d never really thought about what it would mean.
He was free of his debt to the family. No more fighting. No more random jobs. No more calling on his years of terrible memories, anger and hatred to get him through the bouts in the cage. He was free of it all and the person he had to thank for it was the woman he loved.
They were together. She was his. They were planning a future and a life together. And he would owe her forever for what she’d done for him. She hadn’t just set him free. She’d showed him what it felt like to be loved for the first time in his life. She’d taught him what it meant to truly love someone and she’d been there for him, protected and trusted him, even when he still wasn’t sure he deserved it.
But he would. He would deserve her. He would deserve this incredible life that she had given him. He would work his ass off to be the man that she deserved because he loved her.
This woman… his woman… she was an angel.
He stared down at her and almost couldn’t believe she was real. Her blonde hair was spread out all around her. She was already stripped down to nothing but a tiny little tank top and sexy black lace panties. And her ink, God he loved that he had put every single line of it on her skin. From the first shoulder piece to that last line of the garter he’d only just finished, he’d made every mark and now he’d branded her with his name as well.
His heart swelled in his chest, “Skylar?”
