“What are you thinking about?” He finally asked after a few moments of watching me trying to figure him out.
I shrugged my shoulders, and thankfully, the waiter who arrived to take our orders cut off my answer. I never did get up the guts to ask what this was all about as we sat and ate the most scrumptious food I’d ever put inside my mouth. Every bite was a taste explosion, and desert was a dive into chocolate decadence that I would probably not survive a second time. This was definitely something I would compare future dates too, even if this hadn’t actually been a date, because it was still perfect in its own way.
As we left the restaurant the sun was setting, leaving a warm orange-pink glow in the sky. The night had cooled a little, but just so that I was not uncomfortable in my jeans now as opposed to how I had felt earlier when I first stepped out of the shop in them.
“I was going to take us on the sunset sail, but I’m pretty sure we missed it,” Deck informed me as he tossed a leg over his bike, straddling the thing as if it were a second skin he was putting on. It was such an effortless task that I was suddenly in awe, because now I knew what it felt like to have to situate my body just so. I placed my hand on his solid shoulder, and repeated the motion, throwing my leg over the bike. It took me a minute longer to get sorted, and when I thought I was doing just fine, I learned I was so very wrong. Deck took hold of both of my thighs with his hands and pulled me forward so that our bodies were molded to one another, my front to his back.
“Oh!” I called out in surprise, thinking back to our ride over here where I definitely hadn’t gotten this close until the speed of the bike sort of forced me to settle in a bit more than when I had originally gotten on.
“Now we don’t have to worry about you sliding around. You can hold on to me with your arms and these thighs of yours,” he added as he gave each of my legs a quick squeeze before turning the bike on.
“It’s okay about missing a sail I didn’t even know about, Deck.” My response was late, but my brain seemed to be operating at half its normal speed as my heart pumped all the blood in my body to tingly places instead of the brain I normally hid behind. “That was the most amazing dinner I’ve ever had. I don’t think even a Carolina sunset from over the water could compete.”
Deck turned his head enough that I could see the grin on his face as I put my helmet on and strapped in. “Good, I’m glad you enjoyed it, babe. Now, let’s get you back before we end up ruining a good thing.” He swatted his cheek. “Damn mosquitos are coming out with a vengeance.”
I laughed at that as I wrapped my arms around his body and held on tight to his chiseled abs while the bike roared underneath us as Deck pulled carefully out of the lot and back onto the road. Once again, I lost myself in the ride, the feeling of gliding through the air overwhelming my senses and dimming everything else out as we moved through the light traffic heading back towards the side of town the shop and my apartment were on.
Once we were back, we took the stairs on the side of the building up to my apartment. I unlocked the door and looked back at Deck expectantly. I didn’t know if he was coming in, or just making sure I got inside safely since it was already after dark by the time we arrived. What I didn’t expect to see was the heat in his eyes as he looked at me. They were damn near molten as his gaze dropped from my eyes down to my lips and lingered there. Without warning his arm shot out around my waist pulling me into his body while the other hand tugged up on my neck as his fingers curled into my hair at the base of my skull guiding me where he needed me. My head tipped back slightly with the pressure of his hand tugging on my hair and then his lips were on mine, warm and soft as the hint of stubble on his face abraded the tender skin around my lips.
The sweet kiss lasted only a moment, one that seemed like an eternity, and then, with a swipe of his tongue across my still sealed lips, it heated and became something far more. My mouth parted slightly in surprise and Deck did not hesitate to swoop in with his tongue, hot and delicious, exploring my mouth as I tentatively started returning the favor. Our mouths suddenly finding themselves in an all out war as we jockeyed for position, dominance, whatever it was we were each searching for in that kiss. A vibration between us caused him to pull away from me reluctantly. I watched in a lust-induced haze as Deck plucked a cell phone from his pocket, swiped the screen, and announced, “Yeah?” His voice was rough, almost like I would expect it to sound after a full night’s rest, but slightly more interesting and intense. “Shit,” he hissed out, his eyes telling me more than that one word he’d spoke about how he regretted picking up the phone. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
He clicked off the phone, stuffed it back in his jeans, and ran his hand back behind my neck and under my hair again. His fingers trailed there for a moment, sending shivers up and down my spine as he did so. Deck grinned at me. “Our next date won’t be interrupted, I promise!”
My hand inadvertently went to my lips, tracing the tingly sensation left behind by Deck’s. “Date?” I asked dreamily causing his eyebrows to scrunch in confusion.
“Yeah, date, babe. What we just did…” He let the words trail off as he watched my face.
“Oh, I’ve never been on a date before,” I muttered around my finger that was still trailing across my kiss-swollen lips.
“You, what?” They were just two words, but the surprise in them startled me back to the here and now with Deck.
“I’ve never been on a date before, Deck. Never been kissed either,” I admitted foolishly. I watched as Deck’s eyes grew larger, rounding out in surprise, awe, or something I just couldn’t wrap my head around.
“You’ve never?” Deck looked away quickly, running his hand through his hair as he released me. “Shit, if I had known…” Again, his words trailed off and I wondered if it was a good or bad thing for him that I had never been on a date before him, or been kissed. “I will make this night up to you, but unfortunately, I have to get going, babe. And don’t think we won’t be talking about the fact that this was your first experience for both.” He moved, heading down the stairs of my apartment as I stood on the landing watching him go.
“Is that a good thing, or…?”
The answering grin he threw back over his shoulder stopped my heart for a minute. “Babe, it sure as shit isn’t a bad thing from my perspective. Now, get your ass inside before I go. I want to make sure you’re safe so I don’t have to worry while I’m out.” I got myself inside the apartment, and watched through the window as Deck took off for wherever that call was sending him. I figured it was club business, and so I knew better than to ask. Not that anyone told me anything anyway, but I knew that was the rule of the club. Women don’t ask questions unless they want to hear the generic, “club business” excuse bantered back to them before their men roll out to parts unknown.
As soon as Deck was out of sight I moved to the bathroom to look at my face. My lips were actually slightly swollen giving them that bee-stung look so many women pay a fortune to achieve. Then there was the slight bit of reddening on the skin around my lips from Deck’s stubble. Holy crap! I had beard burn on my face. I giggled at the thought, because just a couple hours before I was the girl everyone loved to hate. The one that had never been on a date with a boy, and now I was the girl who had her first date and first kiss with a man instead. Things were starting to look up in my life for the first time in a very long while. I realized as I looked at myself in the mirror that Zeke had been right earlier. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a smile on my own face, and I had to admit I enjoyed seeing it. Apparently, I was beautiful when I smiled.
Chapter 13
~ Ever ~
Crow was up first since his would be the easier of the two tattoos I had to do. He and my father had come in together and insisted they were to be the first to have theirs done. Crow’s tattoo was going on his left forearm since he didn’t really have room to ink anything anywhere else. I figured it would be fitting since he’d have to see it every day for the rest of his life tho
ugh. Maybe it would serve as a reminder that he needed to be nicer to people, at least to people he was supposed to give a damn about.
I had Crow’s transfer all ready to go on his skin, but as per our agreement, none of the men could see the tattoos until they were all completely done and healed since we were going to have a ceremony to reveal them to the entire club. In preparing for that eventuality, I had come with a blindfold at the ready. I turned to hold it out to my dad. “Could you do the honors? I don’t think Crow would take too kindly to me blindfolding him since he doesn’t even like me.”
I felt Crow wince beneath my hands as I shaved the fine hairs off of the inside of his forearm to prep for the tattoo. He was watching me, but said nothing to either affirm or deny the accusation. Instead he just nodded at my father who took the blindfold and tied it around Crow’s head making sure that his eyes were covered to a point where he could not see what I was doing. “Now, you need to go, because you can’t see it either. You can either wait in the lobby or in the lounge we have in back.”
“Come on man, I’ll take you to the lounge so our other customers don’t bother you,” Zeke called out to my father as I began prepping the transfer on Crow’s arm.
Once they were gone I finished applying the transfer and got to work, bending over the arm I was working on and doing my thing. I got lost in the work for quite some time before Crow decided to speak. Actually, it startled me a bit, because I hadn’t been prepared for him to talk to me at all through this process. He’d only ever had a very few sparing words to say to me over the years, and nearly all of them were either filled with some sort of spite or hatred I didn’t understand or they were dismissive and left me labeled with a moniker I’d never be able to shake. The one that left me feeling like so much less than my sister and everyone else involved with the club for years. I lifted my iron from his skin as he spoke so I wouldn’t mess up by accident, or poke too deep if whatever he had to say pissed me off.
“I never understood how much of my anger about my own situation I had put off on you over the years. You never deserved an ounce of what I put you through, and for that I am truly sorry, Ever.”
Aside from the small noise I made in the back of my throat, I didn’t respond to that. What was there to say? Instead, I continued inking my pain on this man’s body so he would never forget what he was sorry for. I hoped it also kept him from judging people unfairly as he had done with me. I wasn’t naïve enough to think my tattoo would change this man’s views on the world, but hopefully, having it plainly visible on his body would at least give him pause so no one else had to suffer with the hurt he inflicted on them the way I had over the years.
When we finished up, I put a cotton bandage over the wrapped tattoo and explained the cleaning process to him. “Since your tattoo is in a heavily visible area, I understand you probably won’t be able to avoid seeing it, especially since you need to unwrap it and let it breathe. Just remember when you see it, you may not understand it until I explain it to you.”
“I’m not going to cheat and look at it. My old lady said she’d care for it until it healed. Otherwise, I’ll be wearing long sleeves to hide it. Damn shame we did this in the warmer months though. I’m going to be sweating balls while trying to hide this thing.” His attempt at a joke worked, and we both chuckled while I scooted him out of my chair and to the lounge where my father still waited. “Give me just a minute to clean up, and get your stuff all set,” I told my father and then I hauled ass out of there before I could hear whatever questions my dad was hurling at Crow.
Crow left the studio while my dad was in the chair still. Some sort of club business was going down. They’d actually taken a break half way through the tattoo so they could discuss whatever was going on before Crow took off to ‘handle it’ for them. I didn’t really care what their club business was, but it was interesting to watch the dynamic from the perspective of an inquisitive stranger rather than the unwanted daughter position I’d occupied for so long. It was interesting being this close the fray when I knew I didn’t belong in that world.
“Sorry about that,” my dad offered as he took his seat again, straddling the chair so that I could continue to work on his back, upper right shoulder blade where his tattoo was going. It was one of the few spaces he actually had left on his upper body, and I didn’t want to have to deal with anything involving working on my own father’s lower half where pants needed to come off. Nor was I interested in working on his front side where I would have to watch him looking at me. This was better, more impersonal, considering the extremely personal nature of the tattoo I was inking on him.
“It’s no problem,” I told him, and it hadn’t been. I’d been bent over Crow’s arm, and now my father’s back for the past three and a half hours so I used the time to shake out my hands and grab a drink anyway.
“How much more do we have to go?”
“Probably half way through at this point. Did you need to leave to go handle business? If so, we can wait and do the rest once this heals.”
“No,” my father protested quickly. “I think everyone would shoot me if I made them wait even longer to get to the finish line on this one.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t want to make anyone wait to get over their shit, huh?” I asked with a bit of a bite to my words.
“Ever,” he started to say, but thankfully the bell over the door tinkled, distracting me and forcing him to keep his thoughts to himself.
“Hey man, she’s still working on her dad,” I heard Zeke greet whoever had come into the shop. That meant whoever it was knew my dad and me.
“It’s okay, I spoke to Crow. I knew she’d still be busy for a bit.”
“How did the other night go for you?” Zeke asked, and I tried to tune out the answer as I got back to work and let the buzz of my machine still the conversations going on around me. That was to no avail though, because apparently my father had tuned into the conversation and was paying some serious attention to it.
“Deck took you out?” He finally asked as I swiped away excess ink and blood from where I was working.
“Yeah, the other day,” I explained without detail.
“On a date?”
“Um, I guess so,” I answered as I continued to work.
“What does that mean? Either it was a date or it wasn’t.”
“I didn’t know it was a date until he brought me back home,” I answered and my father immediately stiffened which bunched his shoulder muscles up forcing me to have to stop my work once again. “Calm down, I just didn’t realize. I thought he was just being nice to me. When he asked me on a second date I realized that had been the first one.” I said the words nonchalantly and as my father relaxed I started back in on my work once more.
“I didn’t realize you and Deck, um, you know, liked each other that way.” I shrugged my shoulders briefly in response, not that my father could see.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me. It’s no big deal.”
“Fuck!” The word hissed out of my father’s mouth unrestrained. “Ever, it is a big deal. It’s a big fuckin’ deal that I know so little about my oldest daughter. It’s not something I’m proud of, and definitely something I want to change if you’ll let me.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just didn’t. I continued to work, and let the buzz of my machine fill the silent gaps. It wasn’t that I didn’t want those things too. Hell, I’d dreamed of having my father be interested in my life for such a ridiculous amount of time. Even before I came to live with him, I had wished for a daddy to call my own. I longed for it my entire life. What I didn’t do now was trust his words, because there was only so much let down a person could handle before they gave up on the things they dreamed of coming true. For me, I had given up on my father being a part of my life two years ago. Now, it was hard to fathom that changing, even after the tattoos. Honestly, the whole idea of forgiveness through the tattoos, while wonderful, was still kind of an unknown
for me. I didn’t think it was going to be the insta-healer everyone else assumed it would.
As I finished up and explained to my father the dynamics of getting his wife to clean and care for his tattoo I noticed that Deck had edged closer to my space. He was trying to peek at the work I’d done so I moved in order to block his view. I heard him chuckle in response as he greeted my father. “Double-D,”
“Deck,” my father returned the one name greeting. “You getting some work done too?” My father asked.
“Nah, just here to see Ever.”
“Hmm.” Double-D made the non-committal noise and then grabbed my business card off the desk that sat to the side of my chair. “I’ll have Luce give you a call if she has any trouble with it. You know she’ll be able to see it if she’s caring for it though.”
“I don’t think she’ll spill the beans, so it’s fine.”
“You’re probably right. She thinks I deserve to wait it out with everyone else. Says you’ve had to wait years for me to step up and be a real dad, that it won’t hurt me to have to wait on you now.” I glanced up at my father then, because what he was saying seemed like more than just Lucy’s regurgitated words. “She’s not wrong, Ever, and I’m so damn sorry baby.”
Shit. He was making me tear up, and I really didn’t want to do that. Not here. Not in front of all the people I worked with and Deck. They all had gotten too many glimpses of my pain as is, I was getting really sick of having to share it with them. I just nodded at my father and then turned my back, cleaning up my space to keep my hands occupied since they were shaking. I heard what sounded like a hand slapping leather, and then my father’s gruff voice, low so as not to be overheard. “Be good to her,” he stated and then I heard the clomp of his boots on the floor as he walked away.
The Other Princess Page 13