She reached down and combed her fingers through his hair, pressing his face tighter against her. “It’s who I am. My art is my dreams. Some are painful, like this memory of when my mother was a vibrant, interesting woman who did her best for me. Others are painful because they remind me of past troubles that I overcame. But some are very powerful and wonderful and exciting, because it’s my hope for the future. My story is written on my skin.”
“Which is exactly why I want to know it all.”
Chapter Nineteen
She was beautiful, obviously. He’d known that from the beginning. He loved her curves, the long lean lines of her incredible legs, the proud lift of her head and shoulders. She was like an Amazonian warrior, beckoning the lost explorer deeper into her jungle.
But the more he knew her, the more he burned to really know her. To know her story and share in her dreams that lived on her skin.
Listening to her talk about the dragon curled along her throat, how it made her feel like a queen, as if it were a living, breathing creature ready to do her will, he couldn’t help but wonder. Would she ever write this dream—this fling, relationship, whatever she wanted to call it—on her skin? Was he even part of her dreams and her life yet? What would that mean for them both? He didn’t want to be a painful memory like the last sugar skull her mother had made.
He wanted to be powerful and full of hope, something that brought her joy. Like her pet dragon sitting on her shoulder.
Kissing his way down her arm, he pressed his mouth to the crown on the inside of her wrist. She tensed against him, which told him this would not be a pleasant memory. He almost moved on. Took this back to lighthearted play, like their big bad wolf jokes earlier. He could slide down and make himself at home between her thighs.
“Ask,” she whispered. “You ought to know. This mark is more a part of me than any other.”
The lines weren’t as sharp and clear. In fact, it reminded him of a prison tattoo—something done by hand with a nail in secret. “It looks old.”
“Yeah. It’s my first tattoo. I did it myself my senior year of high school.”
“Wow. You were young.” He traced his finger over it, feeling the hint of scar tissue beneath. Her other tats hadn’t damaged the skin, but this one had. I wonder what damage is hidden beneath the surface where I can’t even feel. “Did you want to be a princess?”
“I was the queen.” She smiled, but her eyes were sad, haunted by the past as she stared up at the ceiling. “The Blow Job Queen.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he simply kept stroking and kissing the crown on her wrist, waiting for her to tell him what she wanted to share with him. It was a painful memory, not a joke, and he didn’t want to make her relive it.
“My dad worked in the mines. I always thought that’s why we never had a lot of money, until I got old enough to know the signs. He was an addict, and nothing me or Mama could do or say could keep him off the streets. He died of an overdose when I was twelve.”
Guilt swelled in his throat, choking him. No wonder she’d gotten so angry at the thought of him using. She’d already lost a loved one to addiction. The last thing she’d want to face again.
“Things just fell apart for us, then. Mama already worked at the diner, but her income alone wasn’t enough to keep our house. We ended up selling everything we owned to get into a trailer park on the other side of town. Not only did I have to change schools, but I was also going into seventh grade, a rough age for girls. They bullied me, but I expected it. I was tough. I kept to myself, lived in my art, did my time, and moved on to high school. Mama worked two jobs, waiting tables and cleaning office buildings late at night. I took every odd job I could at my age, babysitting, running errands, delivering groceries on my rusted out bike, whatever I could do. Over the summer, I even got a job cleaning and ironing for a rich lady who’d just moved into town. She had a son a year older than me, and I was surprised how nice he was. No one had been nice to me in a long time.”
God, he wanted to beat the shit out of someone, hearing that aching sadness in her voice. He couldn’t imagine strong, proud Diana being bullied, but it must have been brutal.
“We hung out a lot that summer. I even showed him my drawings. For my birthday, he gave me some really nice, expensive oil paints, something I’d been longing to try, but couldn’t afford. I really thought he was my friend, my only friend I’d ever had since changing schools. But it all ended once school started up again. Honestly, I was surprised he even went to my public school rather than Sacred Heart. He was instantly one of the popular kids, rich, handsome, a talented football player. I made the unforgivable mistake of approaching him at lunch one day to give him my latest drawing, a sketch I’d made of him catching a leaping pass.
“I don’t know, maybe he wasn’t a complete jerk. Maybe things could have been different if one of his buddies hadn’t jerked the paper out of his hand and passed it around the table. They all started laughing and jeering, making fun of him as much as me. What would the cool, rich kid be doing with a trailer-trash loser like me? He shrugged off their laughter and made a joke. Of course he’d hung out with me awhile, because I’d given good head.”
Jackson pressed his mouth fully against the crown, trying to kiss the hurt away.
“So then the jeers and jokes took on a decidedly sexual tone. At first, I just ignored them. I kept my head high and blew them off, but that only increased the ‘queen’ catcalls. Sometimes I would walk by his table and see him watching as his friends invited me to give them the same treatment, and I thought his eyes were sad, but I’m not sure. He never spoke to me again and I returned the favor. I burned that picture of him and almost quit art entirely. I never even opened the paints he’d given me, even though I’d wanted them so bad for so long.”
Keeping his mouth on her, he glanced up her body, trying to see her face. She still stared up at the ceiling, but her fingers twisted in his hair, not pulling, but holding him firm. Maybe to keep him doing what she wanted…or simply to anchor and steady her as she laid this old memory bare.
“One day his best friend started in with the usual shit, but then took it to my dad. I’d probably learned it from him. Was I a good little girl? Didn’t matter, because I’d end up dead on the street just like him. Shit like that. I lost it. I leaped over the table and punched him in the face. I rode him to the ground and just pummeled him for all I was worth. Here was this big lineman on the football team, flat on his back with a girl beating the shit out of him, and no one dared lay a finger on me. Finally one of the teachers pulled me off. I’d broken his nose, blackened his eyes, cut his lip, and later I heard I’d almost knocked two of his teeth out.”
“Good for you,” Jackson murmured against her skin.
“I was suspended, of course. Mama was beside herself. She marched down to school and told them those boys had better leave me alone or they were going to have a fight like that every single day, from both of us. But while I was away from school, I decided to do something about the horrible nickname. If they were going to call me that, I was damned well going to earn it.
“There was an older guy in the park a few trailers down. Loser reputation, like all of us, but he’d never been mean to me. He drank too much and his place smelled like weed, but he worked hard and was alone. Alone, like me. I asked him if he could teach me. I figured he’d leap at the chance, but he was actually a pretty good guy, though he had a bunch of porn he gave me to use as my lessons. When I went back to school, I picked my first victim. I did it at a football game behind the snack shack. It wasn’t as awful as I’d expected. In fact, it was pretty sad, really, how quickly it was over. How eager and shaky and shy he got when he realized I was really going to do it. That’s where I learned my power. I learned how easy it is to bring a man to a quivering, slobbery wreck. How to really make him beg. I learned to draw it out, to play with them, and make them my slaves. The next da
y, he blushed every time he looked at me, and when I told him to get me another milk for my lunch, he did it. Even though everyone stared at him with their mouths open. So when they called me the blow job queen after that, they meant it, by God. I was the Queen.” She whispered the last fiercely.
He wanted to rage at those boys. To beat some sense into them when no one had stood up for her.
She tightened her fingers and made him lift his head. She searched his face, looking for condemnation or outrage, but all he wanted to do was cry at her loss of innocence. The thought of her going to some skeevy guy to get training… God, she could have ended up raped and dumped in a river somewhere. He could have lost her before he’d ever found her.
“I wanted a visual reminder that I was the Queen, that no one had beaten me down or conquered me. There was no way I could afford a professional tattoo artist, so I researched how they did them in prison. It hurt like hell and bled more than I expected, but I cut that fucking crown into my flesh so I’d always remember. No one’s words define me. No one can defeat me. Not if I refuse to give them that control over me. Control over my emotions, my actions, is always mine. Always. I choose how I’m going to respond. What I believe. And no one can possibly humiliate me when I wear my pride and confidence on my skin for everyone to see, whether I ink it into my flesh or not.”
They’d said no games today, but he couldn’t hold that fierce gaze. Every bone in his body demanded that he bend to that formidable will. That he respect it, and more, show her how much he respected her. He pressed his face to her stomach. “Your Majesty, I am your slave.”
Hoarse from talking so long, she tried not to tremble. High emotion always made her a little shaky, and none of her memories or tattoos carried as much power as the crown. After baring her soul like that and admitting her ugly past, the last thing she wanted was for him to think she was weak.
Weakness was a vulnerability she couldn’t afford. Ever. Letting him in was dangerous. So dangerous. All she could think about was Kevin. How she’s let him into her heart that summer, and told him about her dreams, and let him see those fragile, precious first dreams on paper. Then he’d torn them up and stomped them into the dirt along with her heart when he’d failed to take her side against his “real” friends.
Jackson rubbed his face against her stomach, his breath a warm caress. He said the right words, but did he really believe it? Did he believe in her, even after hearing what she’d done? She pulled his head up by his hair, deliberately trying to hurt him a little. To remind him of the darkness that hid inside her. “I probably gave fifty blow jobs my senior year. I did the entire football team except for Kevin. I refused to ever touch him. He might have helped give me that name in the beginning, but he sure never benefited from it when I earned it.”
“He failed you.” Jackson gazed up at her steadily, his attention level and intent, but not accusatory or disgusted. “I won’t.”
“Don’t you care that I sucked at least fifty boys’ cocks? And I haven’t sucked yours yet?”
“Do you care that I probably had sex with the same number of women through college? Maybe more, and it was full penetration, baby. Sometimes so drunk or stoned or both that protection was the last thing on my mind. Blurred faces, hurried hands that meant nothing, bodies warm and soft at the time, but in the end, gone. I was always alone. I hated that feeling more than coming down from a high or waking up in a strange bed stinking of sex and vomit and having no idea where I was. I would’ve rather risked my life than go home and sleep alone. How sad is that? Because now that’s all I do.”
She could see it, the toll that terrible loneliness took on him, even when he was surrounded by people all the time. She could also picture countless women all those years throwing themselves at him in the hope that he might stay more than one night. But he never did. He couldn’t. He’s not the staying kind of guy.
“What are we doing here?” she asked softly, more of herself than him.
“I’ve fucked up a lot. I’ll be the first to admit it.” Scooting lower on her body, he lowered his head, ignoring the pull on his hair. “But right now, I just want to hold you and never let you go.”
She let his hair glide between her fingers rather than making him stay put. She hadn’t given him an order and they’d agreed no scene was in play, and besides, she wanted, needed, his touch. She wanted his mouth and hands, the way he treasured her skin and lavished every inch of her with such passion. She’d never known this feeling. She couldn’t even describe it. How he could make her feel so good, so cherished, and not diminish her authority or control in any way. In fact, he only fortified her position of power, by desiring to pleasure her and calling her by a title. Just because she’d told him a story from her past.
Only the story that defines who I am. He’s the only person alive who knows the whole story start to finish, except maybe Arlene. Though she’s never called me Your Majesty. And meant it.
He settled in between her thighs and began worshiping her with his mouth. She didn’t guide or hurry him, but let him leisurely lick her outer folds and stroke the tender skin with his tongue, without once touching her clit. This wasn’t about pleasure, though it did feel damned good, good enough to make her spread her thighs open wider, lifting her hips in encouragement. He was simply keeping his promise to kiss every inch of her, though she sure didn’t have any tats in the panty region.
Rocking her hips against his mouth, she didn’t dare close her eyes. She didn’t want to look away from the sight of his blond head buried in her heat. She didn’t want to miss the small flicker of his gaze up to hers as he moved up and down her slit. His eyes, God, so blue. So keyed into her pleasure, her will, her desire. She made herself wait, drawing out the exquisite stroking of his tongue as long as she could stand it. Moaning, she tangled her fingers in his hair and arched her back more, a silent plea from her body for release.
The sudden penetration of his fingers made her toes curl and her breath rush out on a gasping cry. He pumped her hard and closed his mouth over her clit. He didn’t lick or suck, but just held it in his hot, wet mouth until she exploded. She could feel her heartbeat in her clit, so he must feel it on his tongue, the heavy beat of her heart in his mouth. It was more intimate than anything they’d shared.
He moved up her body, dropping kisses all the way up her belly, stopping to suck both nipples hard enough she raked her nails down his back to encourage him to move faster. She clutched one buttock but worked her other hand around to wrap her fingers around his cock. He’d already slipped the condom on, though she didn’t know when.
Hovering above her, he waited, panting, his eyes blazing with desire, but he didn’t advance. The evil Mistress in her wanted to tell him to lie down beside her and go to sleep, to watch him whimper and toss and turn, quaking with pent-up desire until she allowed him to come. But not today. Not when he had to catch a plane soon.
The weak afternoon sun shining through the window illuminated his head, making his golden hair a nimbus to frame his handsome features. “Angel,” she breathed. “My sweet, dirty Angel. Give me this cock until I come again, and don’t make me remind you that I’m not here to fuck a gentleman. I want the beast in you.”
He surged into her, his entire body flexing to drive as deep as he could. Eyes rolling back in his head, he groaned like he was dying, as if she’d tormented him for hours and hours before letting him find release. He reared back and pistoned forward again, pounding into her with that hard, fast rhythm she loved. She dug her nails into him, clutching him closer, whispering against his ear. “Harder, Angel. Show me how high you can fly. Take me with you. Take me all the way. Don’t hold back. Give it all to me. Everything. Everything you are. Come with me, Jackson. Come!”
Roaring her name, he gave one last mighty heave and buried himself to the hilt inside her. Her muscles clamped down so hard on him that she had the distant thought she might break that gorgeous coc
k inside her, but he didn’t seem to mind. Spasm after spasm shook him until he collapsed down against her.
“Am I too heavy?”
“No.” She burrowed her face into his neck and breathed in his scent. So sweet and musky, a hint of spice and hot-blooded man high on lust. If she could figure out how to bottle that scent, she’d have more money than Lilly’s billionaire. “You’re just right. I could sleep like this all night.”
“Me too.” He didn’t move, trying to stay inside her even though his satisfied cock was limp. “I could…” He sighed and turned his face against her so they were breathing the same hot air. “I don’t want to go home.”
Oh, how she wanted to tell him to stay. But it was a selfish wish. He wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment, and honestly, neither was she. Not yet. “I know. But your firm needs you.”
“Yeah.” He rolled off her but stayed close, tangling his legs with hers. She cuddled closer, pillowing her head on his shoulder. “Diana?”
“Yeah?”
It took him several moments to answer and intensity radiated from his body, his muscles tight and coiled despite their release just a few minutes ago. She could almost hear him running arguments through his head, as if coming up with the best defense to sway her toward whatever he was going to ask. “Would you like to come to Chicago in two weeks?”
She rose up on her elbow so she could see his face.
“The firm always has a holiday party, a big swanky affair that’ll probably bore you to tears. But I’d love to take you if you’re free. I’ll invite Donovan and Lilly to come too, so we both have someone to hang out with other than old judge farts and snake-oil lawyers.”
She laughed softly and cupped his cheek, though her inner thoughts were heavy and solemn. This was their chance to see how she fit in his world. Sure, most women probably dreamed of the filthy rich businessman sweeping her off her feet and drowning her in diamonds and expensive gowns. It might even be fun for a weekend. But her entire life? Hardly. Though for Angel… “I’d love to come, even if it’s boring.”
The Billionaire's Ink Mistress: Billionaires in Bondage, Book 2 Page 14