“Wait. Head off where?” she called.
“My place. Raf and Maggie are coming over for dinner,” he replied.
Blue opened her mouth to tell him she couldn’t come, but no sound came out. Instead, she simply watched in resignation as he reached the goal and stooped to sort his T-shirt from the tumble of discarded garments on the ground.
What are you doing?
She had no idea.
Then back out. Tell him you can’t do it.
She didn’t say a word when he returned to collect her, though, and she didn’t object when he offered to piggy-back her to where his car was parked, either. Instead, she clung to him, digging her fingers into warm skin over hard muscle, and breathed in the smell of good, clean male sweat. Every inch of her body was on fire by the time he released her next to his Ferrari and she slipped into his low-slung car in a daze.
Eddie rehashed the game during the short ride home, and she used his distraction to try to get a grip on herself.
Because she had to. Because letting herself get this wound up around him was dumb and self-defeating and pointless. Not to mention dangerous. Very, very dangerous.
There had been a moment when he’d been carrying her when her chin had bumped against his shoulder and she’d been gripped with an insane, almost irresistible urge to open her mouth and sink her teeth into his flesh. She’d barely caught herself before she’d acted on the impulse.
That was how far gone she’d been.
“I’m going to grab a quick shower,” Eddie said as he pulled into the garage at the rear of his house. “Grab a beer, fire up the PlayStation, whatever. I won’t be long.”
“When are Maggie and Raf getting here?”
“Maggie said she wanted to grab some wine from home, so they’ll probably be an hour or so,” he said.
Blue remembered the glint in her friend’s eye and guessed it wasn’t a bottle of wine Maggie wanted to get her hands on.
Eddie came around and held the car door for her while she levered herself out of the low bucket seat. He’d put his T-shirt on, thank God, but he still vibrated with good health and energy, and being close to him was enough to make the small hairs on her arms stand on end.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” she said, shooing him ahead of her as she made her slow way up the path toward the back door. “Go jump in the shower, do your thing.”
“I’m not in any hurry,” he said easily, and she gritted her teeth and did her best to complete the short journey as quickly as possible.
“Right. Off you go. I’ll sort myself out,” she said the moment she stood in his living room.
Eddie glanced toward the kitchen. “You want a beer?”
“I can get it myself. Go, before you stink the whole place up.”
He headed for his room, and the moment she was safely alone she closed her eyes with relief. She was such an idiot, agreeing to come here. If past experience was anything to go by, the night would be a late one by the time Raf and Eddie finished cooking and they played the mandatory game of Trivial Pursuit, Eddie’s favorite board game. She’d be lucky if it was midnight before she could get away, and even then Eddie would probably insist on driving her home.
She glanced around the living room, feeling more than a little desperate. The sound of the shower firing up filled her mind with images to match: Eddie, naked, stepping beneath the spray, tipping his head to let the water wash over his face and chest…
She swallowed, aware that her heart was pounding out an urgent beat inside her chest, pushing blood around her body in anticipation of an act that wasn’t going to happen.
Because she wouldn’t be joining Eddie in his shower. She wouldn’t be touching his hard, well-muscled body. She wouldn’t be wrapping her hand around his cock.
Her sex tightened, the ache between her thighs becoming a steady throb of need. She let her head fall back, staring unseeingly at the ceiling as she imagined how unbearable the next few hours were going to be now that she’d worked herself up to such a fever pitch.
Her jaw set, she made her way to the main bathroom. Once inside, she shut the door and locked it, resting her head against the cool wood.
After a few seconds of listening to her own too-shallow breathing, she leaned her crutch against the wall, then popped the stud on her jeans and undid her fly. Eyes screwed tightly shut, forehead still pressed against the door, she slid her hand into her panties, almost moaning at how wet she was and how good it felt.
Images flashed through her mind as she slicked her finger over her swollen clit. Eddie laughing at her. Eddie’s strong arms, lightly dusted with dark hair. His chest and flat belly. The curved perfection of his ass. The lean power of his thighs.
If he was here with her, if he walked through the door right now, she wouldn’t bother with preliminaries. She’d tear his jeans off and climb on board, no words, no explanations. She wanted his cock inside her so badly. She wanted to feel him stretching her. Wanted to wrap her legs around his body as he pounded into her.
Her hips tilted forward, curving toward her swiftly moving hand. She drew in a harsh breath, holding it as she shuddered into climax, her pussy pulsing against her fingers.
Only when the last echo of ecstasy had passed did she let her hand still, turning her head so that her cheek was pressed against the door. Slowly she opened her eyes, staring bleakly at the wall.
Start to finish, it had taken her less than a minute to come. If Eddie truly had been in the room, she guessed it would have been even less.
She straightened, zipping her fly and buttoning her pants. Making her way to the vanity, she washed her hands, fighting a growing sense of helplessness.
She’d just crossed a major line. For ten years, she’d lived by a set of rules where Eddie was concerned. She didn’t get sucked into any dramas with his women. She never slept with men who looked like him or reminded her of him in any way. Period. And she never, ever let herself fantasize about him when she touched herself. She’d always known that that way lay madness, and she’d always kept faith with herself, quarantining her love and need for him from her own sex and fantasy life.
You are in so much trouble.
She was — and she had no idea what to do about it.
Not a single damned clue.
Every day she hoped it would get better, and every day it seemed to get worse.
So what? Suck it up, princess. A little bit of thwarted desire never killed anybody. And if you need sex so bad, go find it someplace else, like you used to.
It was a good idea. There were half a dozen guys in her contacts folder who would be at her place like a shot if she sent up a flare. Reid, for starters. Then there was Mac, and Lucas. She could call one of them right now and know that no matter what Eddie did or said tonight, no matter how many times he touched her or laughed with her or looked into her eyes, she had it covered.
Her phone was in her back pocket, but she didn’t reach for it.
The sad truth was, she didn’t want to sleep with any of her former lovers. She wanted Eddie.
Only Eddie.
Eddie stepped out of the shower, aware of a few new aches and pains thanks to the action he’d enjoyed on the soccer pitch. The Ink team had kicked ass — but that was always a given, considering how good he, Raf, and Renarto were. In fact, Renarto had been skilled enough to play soccer at state level when he was younger — a little fact they’d withheld from the guys from the coffee shop until after the game. Eddie laughed out loud as he remembered the chagrined looks on their faces when they’d heard the news.
He toweled himself dry quickly, aware that Blue was waiting. Man, it had been good to look up and see her on the sidelines. He’d been almost sure he’d convinced her to come, but not one hundred percent. She could be hard to pin down, sometimes. But she’d come, and now he would stuff her full of good food before whipping her at Trivial Pursuit. Just like old times.
He was pulling on a pair of jeans, his head full of the dishes he wanted t
o cook, when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, and he hesitated a moment before deciding to take the call.
“Eddie speaking.”
“Eddie Oliveira,” a husky female voice said. “This is Cleo, Maggie’s friend. Remember me?”
Eddie tossed the damp towel onto the bed.
“Cleo. What’s happening?” he asked easily, even though his heart was sinking. Unless he missed his guess, shit was about to get awkward.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Cleo asked, laughter in her voice.
“I remember you,” Eddie said.
The first time he’d met Cleo, she’d come into Ink to get her butt tattooed. She was a very sexy lady, and one thing had led to another during her appointment — not something he was particularly proud of eighteen months later. Especially because he’d bumped into her a couple of times since, Cleo being one of Maggie’s close friends. Nothing like being forced to look a mistake in the eyes to really make you regret it.
“Good, because I remember you. We didn’t get a chance to refresh that memory at Maggie’s birthday, but I was wondering if you’d care to help me out and we could have another go at that?” Cleo said.
“That sounds pretty tempting, Cleo, but I’ve got a lot going on right now,” Eddie said, trotting out the same line he’d been using a lot lately.
“You don’t even know what I want yet,” Cleo said.
He could practically see her pouting. She was one of the few women he’d met who could actually get away with it, too.
“It’s probably not going to make much difference, to be honest with you,” Eddie said.
“Really? I can’t tempt you with an invitation to the Birdcage on Melbourne Cup day, followed by an A-list party? Hugh Jackman’s going to be there, and maybe Nicole Kidman.”
Her tone was supremely confident, but Eddie didn’t hesitate.
“Sorry, Cleo. You look after yourself, though, okay?”
“Well, damn, Eddie. That is disappointing. I was relying on you to come through for me.” Definitely she was pouting now.
“Sorry about that, but I’m sure you’ll find a taker. Have a good night, Cleo,” Eddie said before ending the call.
He’d been knocking back a lot of invitations lately, all from women like Cleo, women he’d slept with once or twice and who wanted a return engagement. In the past, he would have been happy to oblige in most cases, and an afternoon in the Birdcage — the members-only rooms at Flemington Race Course — on Melbourne Cup day surrounded by Australian Hollywood royalty was not an invitation to be sneezed at.
And yet he didn’t feel so much as a twinge of regret. Not even close.
He’d started turning down invitations out of guilt in the weeks after Blue left his house, determined to focus on her, even though she hadn’t been around. Somehow, that impulse had turned into nearly two months of celibacy. Blue had given him crap at her welcome home party, joking about parts of him atrophying due to lack of use, but it didn’t feel as though he was missing out. At all. If anything, the situation had forced him to be more conscious about the way he lived his life, to really think about what he wanted for perhaps the first time in his thirty-one years. And he was finding he didn’t mind the clarity this small time-out from adult activities had given him. In fact, he kind of liked it.
He pulled on a clean T-shirt, then slipped his phone into his back pocket, ready to rejoin Blue. He was on the way out of the room when he spotted the sketchpad lying open on his bedside table. He snagged it, figuring he’d take advantage of the fact that Raf and Maggie still hadn’t arrived to talk to Blue about the ideas he’d been working on the past few weeks.
Blue wasn’t in the living room when he entered, and he checked the kitchen before spotting her on the deck, chilling on the outdoor lounge with a beer in hand.
“Check it out, practically odor free,” he said as he joined her, holding his arms out from his sides.
“That’s what you think,” Blue said. Her gaze went to the sketch pad. “What’s wrong? You need me to come to the rescue and fix your art again?”
He smiled faintly. He, Raf, and Blue often consulted with each other over tattoo designs and techniques, a habit they’d developed early in their careers. He didn’t have a problem admitting that she’d helped him create some of his best designs, and vice versa.
“I was thinking this is more about me coming to your rescue,” he said, sitting beside her and opening the book to the sketch he’d been working on.
Blue went very still beside him as she looked at the stylized script intertwined with jungle foliage and bright flowers. He’d blacked in half the letters, so the other half were still in outline only, but the words from Corinthians 13: 4-7 were clearly legible.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Eddie slanted a look at Blue’s face, but she was focused on the page, her expression neutral to the point of blankness.
“What do you think?” Eddie asked. “I figure this solves the style issue you were worried about.”
Two years ago, he’d started work on a tattoo featuring the Corinthians verse designed to fill her entire back. He’d gotten as far as inking in the first letter of the text in the style of an illuminated manuscript when Blue had called a halt, claiming a change of heart. At the time, he’d been surprised — doubt of any kind was rare for Blue — but after a number of discussions trying to solve the issue and being unable to do so, he’d let it go, figuring she’d bring it up again when she was ready.
It had been on his mind lately, though, probably because Blue had been occupying so much real estate in his head, and he’d spent some of his spare time toying with possible solutions.
She reached out to shift the sketch pad so it faced her more fully, but she still didn’t say a word.
“That bad, huh?” he asked, feeling suddenly, unaccountably nervous. It had been a long time since he’d second-guessed his own skill and the feeling was uncomfortable, to say the least.
“This is a good idea.” Her finger traced the vine he’d woven through the words. “I like the way it ties into my fairies.”
That had been her major objections at the time she’d called a halt — that she didn’t want her body to look like Side A and Side B, with two very disparate styles of artwork.
“We can work on it more, keep finessing things,” he said.
She nodded, but he wasn’t getting the vibe that she was genuinely engaged.
“If you don’t love it, that’s cool, too,” he said.
She was silent for a moment, then she took a deep breath. “I’m just not sure I’m into this idea anymore, you know?” she said.
“Hey, it’s your back,” he said lightly. “We can work up something else, incorporate or repurpose that L into a new design. Whatever you want.”
They’d both done plenty of tattoo cover-ups over the years, inking a new design over an older, unwanted image.
“Let me think about it for a bit. See if anything comes to me,” Blue said. She slid the sketchbook toward him and gave him a little punch on the bicep. “Thanks for thinking of me, though. This would have been an awesome solution if I was still into it.”
He was disappointed. Surprisingly so. He’d really wanted to do this for her, but he forced a smile and stood.
“Better start on the food or you’ll be hassling me soon,” he said.
“I live to hassle you. You know that. It’s my calling in life.”
He risked another punch by ruffling her hair, giving in to the urge to touch her.
“Never mess with my hair, Oliveira,” she said, and he had to dodge as she tried to cuff his shoulder.
“Too slow, Sullivan. Way too slow.”
He shook off his disappointment
as he headed for the kitchen. He would have plenty of opportunities to give Blue something beautiful she’d have forever. There was no urgency, no need for him to feel rebuffed.
No reason at all.
Five weeks later, Blue finished shading the last line of the tattoo she’d been working on all day and wiped the excess ink from her client’s shoulder. A truck driver by trade, Billy had requested a steampunk tattoo that gave the illusion that the flesh on his shoulder and upper arm had been stripped back to reveal bio-mechanical underpinnings.
“Okay. We’re done,” she said, and his body relaxed beneath her hand.
No matter how big and strong a guy was — and Billy was both those things — no one liked having a needle jabbed into his skin up to three thousand times per minute. She patted his shoulder reassuringly.
“You did great.”
“Can I see?”
“There’s a mirror on the wall,” she said. “Sit up slowly.”
Guys in particular didn’t like to admit when they felt a little woozy after a long session. Blue backed up a couple of steps and rolled her shoulders as Billy crossed to the mirror to inspect his new body art.
“Dude. That is freaking awesome,” he said, the tentative smile on his face quickly turning into an outright grin.
Blue loved seeing that look on her clients’ faces. It meant she’d done her job, and then some.
“Okay. Wound care,” she said. “I’m going to put some antiseptic cream on it and a dressing…”
Blue talked him through his post-tattoo wound care as she covered his shoulder with a surgical dressing, making sure Billy was paying attention and not simply nodding along. Then she escorted him to reception, where the first thing she registered was Eddie talking to a client at one of the display cases, the two of them pouring over a series of sketches Eddie had made.
She allowed herself one look at his lean, muscular body clad in dark denim and a black tank top before handing Billy over to Hans and heading to the staff room to recharge before going home. The image of Eddie’s hard ass outlined in indigo denim stayed with her every step of the way.
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