How did I fight against that? How did I convince her when she seemed so certain that if she let go and trusted the feelings building between us instead of worrying about what might happen or what had happened, we could make the here and now something that lasted forever?

I wanted to keep arguing, to keep pushing her to see that this was more than a fling, more than two people who were s.e.xually compatible. I wanted her to feel, to know I wouldn't have been able to make it through everything going on with Phil and the shop without her kindness, her gentleness and care. However, she had her hands under my clothes and her mouth settled over mine, and even though I knew she was trying to distract me from the conversation, I decided not to stop her.

If this was the only way she was going to let me connect to her, I would just have to make do with it for now. I was a guy after all ... and there were far worse things in life than having a gorgeous girl want you for s.e.x. Plus, she wanted me, had proven that time and time again. I guess I would just have to ultimately decide if what she wanted me for was going to be enough when I felt like I needed to give her everything else I had.

CHAPTER 14.

Saint

I was going to screw all of this up. I felt it all the way down to the marrow of my bones.

I had to touch him. Had to try and soothe the way I was cutting into him and making him bleed. There was no hiding the way my hesitation, my resistance, made his eyes go dark and his mouth go hard. Even with his obvious disappointment, he never lashed out, never got nasty, which made everything even more convoluted in my head. I did what I knew would make it all go away for a while, I kissed him, started pulling at his clothes and pressed up against his hard body. He was stiff and unresponsive for a half of a second, but like always when we got together like this, his big frame started to loosen.

Seeing Royal making herself at home on his couch had made every concern, every worry, every insecure part of me want to run away from him and never look back. All those questions of why he would want me, of how long would it take until he found someone without my hang-ups, someone not stuck in the past, barreled through my head like a runaway boulder falling off a cliff. If there hadn't been real joy, real grat.i.tude glowing out of his violet eyes when he saw it was me at the door, I would have bolted and never spoken to him again. I hated that this thing with him made me feel that way, brought such a ridiculous weakness to the forefront of my mind. It made me feel like I was stuck in time. I just couldn't handle that, so I blew him off when he tried to explain. I was protecting myself, insulating my heart, but little did I know my words were drawing a line in the sand where he was concerned and his heart very well might be just as fragile as mine.

When he had told me to go, walked to the door like he was really ending it all, my breath had been sucked out of my lungs and my blood had frozen still in my veins. I couldn't give him everything he wanted, that left me far too vulnerable, but I had to make him see this was just as important to me as it was to him. The only way I could do that without getting stuck on words was with my body. Sure, I wanted him and he knew it, but I don't think he knew it was so much more than that. I just couldn't figure out a way to explain it all to him without sounding like a nut job or an uncertain and immature child.

I made a startled noise when he pressed me back fully into the door and tangled his fingers in my hair. His eyes burned down at me in endless rivers of purple and blue.

"This is a conversation we are going to have to finish at some point, Saint."

I put my hands under the hem of his shirt so that my palms could skate up the divots and hollows of his rib cage. His skin was always so warm. He always felt so strong and vital, so resilient and secure. That he let me call the shots, let me set the pace when we were together, made me feel like the most powerful and most desirable woman in the world. It was intoxicating. I couldn't just walk away from it even if that was ultimately what was best for both of us.

"But it can wait, Nash." I brushed my lips across the base of his throat and felt him swallow. I hated that he felt like he had to deal with me and all my issues on top of everything he was struggling with in regard to his dad.

He kissed my temple and then used his tongue to trace the sh.e.l.l of my ear. It made me shiver all over even when he whispered, "No, not now. But soon."

He pressed even more fully into me, making me spread my legs. He let his hands fall to the round curve of my a.s.s and I gasped when he shifted, hefted me up, and urged me to wrap my legs around his waist. I was tall and not a pet.i.te girl. There wasn't much about me that I would ever consider dainty, but he was a monster in comparison, so he didn't even seem like he noticed my weight when he moved away from the door and headed down the hallway that led to his bedroom. I curled my arms around his shoulders and sealed my mouth over his while he walked. I loved the way the motion rubbed our bodies together. Even through my work scrubs and the layers underneath, I felt my nipples pebble, felt his body respond through the thick denim of his jeans. I twisted my tongue around his, twirled them in a sucking, breathless kiss that had both of us needing to come up for air by the time he got to the bedroom.

He leaned forward and dropped me on the center of the bed while pulling back and pulling his shirt up and off over his head. Now, that was a sight that would never get old. The muscles and golden skin stretched so tautly over them was always mouthwatering and made my fingers tingle and itch to stroke all over, but the designs, the markings that defined him, decorated him, and made him his own walking art gallery were just as alluring. The ink that curled and twisted up and down his arms was brilliant and eye-catching, but it was that dragon, that other part of him, that I always wanted to touch. The wings, the fire, the scales that covered so much of his big body ... it was like he had a second skin and only a few got to see it in all its grandeur and I was one of the lucky ones.

He popped open the tab on his belt and lifted an eyebrow at me. I sat up and pulled my top off. Hospital work clothes were not the most flattering thing a person could wear but he didn't seem to mind them. His gaze did that thing where it went almost all the way black when I was left in front of him on the bed in nothing but my underwear. He reached out a single finger and trailed it down the valley between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"I love your freckles."

It made me shiver, but the look in his eyes, and the expression on his face, had my body going liquid and warm all over. I went to reach for him, to pull him over me, but he bent down and used the same finger to pull the cup of my bra down off of one of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The tip eagerly surged up to meet his descending tongue. I squirmed and wiggled under him as he licked at it, circled it, sucked it into the warm center of his mouth. I was pawing at his nonexistent hair, tossing my head back and forth across the comforter because he was being so meticulous, so thorough with his attention to what he was doing to me. I lifted my head to tell him to stop, to get his pants off and get the show on the road, when he moved on to the other breast and that one was the other end of his pleasurable torture.

By the time he was done, I was panting and ready to explode just from his attention to my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He pulled my bra all the way off and pushed me back farther on the bed. I thought he was going to just pull my panties off and get on with the s.e.xy time. I wanted him desperately, felt my body weeping in welcome and antic.i.p.ation, but Nash seemed like he was in no hurry and he wasn't letting me call the shots tonight. He let his jeans drop, and I took a minute to really appreciate the bulge that was in the front of his boxers. There wasn't anything I would change about him, and the wings inked all along his sides seemed to flutter when he took a deep breath and let it out slowly while working the last of my clothing out of the way.

His eyes were indigo and there was a flush under his burnished skin. Something was going on in his head, something I wasn't privy to, but when he crawled on the bed between my legs and put a biting kiss on the inside of one thigh before lifting it up and over his shoulder, I knew.

We had had plenty of s.e.x over the last several months, plenty probably being an understatement. Nash using his mouth on me was no longer foreign or scary and new. He was good at it, I always enjoyed it, but this was different, all of it was different. He wasn't just making love to me, he wasn't just trying to turn me on or wind me up. He was worshipping me. He was trying to show me in yet another way just how beautiful and perfect he saw me as being.

"Nash?" I said his name ... well, more like choked it out, because his mouth and his hands were doing things that were making me come undone. I felt my hands twist into tight knots in the sheets as he stroked the flat of his tongue over a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves.

"Hmm?" He hmmed back at me and it made me cry out because when he did it he trapped my c.l.i.t between his teeth and the vibration made my eyes roll back in my head.

His hands were on either side of my hips, both my legs were dropped over his wide shoulders, and his dark head was buried quite thoroughly at the heart of me. It felt wanton and decadent because of how intent he was on proving his point. I tensed, felt small tremors start in the base of my spine, and when his mouth was replaced with exploring and stroking fingers, all it took was a gentle shove and I dropped over the edge. I vaguely felt him kiss along my quaking stomach, felt his fingers moving, playing with me to draw out the response, but it was his eyes, so dark, so focused on me, that had my heart surrendering and all the noise rattling in my head finally going quiet.

He let my legs slither to either side of him and traced a pattern on the soft skin right below my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"You are so sweet. Inside and out." His voice was gruff, so I reached down so that I could pull him up and over me.

He always said stuff like that to me. Told me I was beautiful, told me I was nice and fun to be around. He often told me I was his favorite in bed. I never replied to any of it, but there was no getting past what he had just given to me.

"Thank you." It sounded rusty and underused to my own ears. Taking a compliment shouldn't be that hard. The way Nash saw me, the reflection of myself in those endlessly purple eyes, was the most beautiful thing in the world, and I was having a much harder time pretending like I didn't see exactly what he saw in me.

My simple words had shadows and light shifting in his beautiful eyes. He levered himself up and over me in a stiff push-up so that I could work his boxers off and around his straining erection. It sprang free, thick and ready, wearing a new adornment. I blinked at it and then looked up at him in question.

"Why is your p.e.n.i.s wearing a ring?"

He snorted out a laugh that I think had more to do with the clinical term for the body part in question than it did with my actual question.

"I just switched out the barbell."

Behind the ridge of the head of his engorged erection was a thin hoop that circled the entire circ.u.mference of his c.o.c.k. The little silver ring was fascinating. I wasn't an expert on body piercing by anyone's standards, but I had never seen anything like it, especially paired with that piercing at the tip that he used to its full advantage and I had to admit I was a huge fan of.

"Your d.i.c.k is wearing jewelry."

That made him laugh for real and he hooked an arm around my shoulders and rolled us over so that I was straddling him. He stacked his hands behind his head and grinned up at me.

"I like to switch it up. It'll feel good, trust me."

I didn't doubt it, and for the first time since we started having s.e.x, I really wished I wasn't so scarred, so scared about talking to him about what this thing we were doing really was. If it was a relationship, a committed partnership, I would be on birth control and get to feel all that hard and hot flesh against the cool slide of metal without latex between us. That sounded divine and I was mad at myself for being my own stumbling block in figuring my life out, in figuring out what I was doing with this gorgeous and engaging man.

I leaned back and dug around in his nightstand for the box of condoms I knew was in there. While I was all stretched out he used his thumbs to trace the line of my ribs on each side of my body. He was always so reverent, so tactile, when he put his hands on me. Even a simple caress like that had my heart rate speeding up and my blood heating in antic.i.p.ation.

Before I covered him, I took a few minutes to play with his new hardware. The ridge it left, the way it got hot against his skin, promised a good time for sure. I wanted to put it in my mouth but he stopped me with hands in my hair.

"Not this time."

I lifted an eyebrow at him as he took the condom from me and covered himself. He urged me up higher on my knees and placed me over the tip of his straining erection. I got that he was trying to make a point. That he was trying to show me something I just wouldn't accept or hear, but there were two of us involved in this and I wanted to make sure he knew just how much I felt for him as well. I was just confused about it and trying to be realistic, keep it all in a box I was comfortable with.

I didn't get the chance to reciprocate the feeling or emotion because he tugged me down over him and I lost the ability to think. Nash was a big guy, everywhere. He was already thick and turgid, so after that initial penetration, having that ring he was wearing stretch me apart even further, having it drag along my sensitive inner flesh with a rolling, warm glide ... it made me incapable of being able to do anything but feel. The pressure was greater than usual, the slither of our internal flesh was s.e.xier. I thought I was going to come before he even got all the way inside of me.

"Oh my ..." I'm pretty sure my eyes rolled all the way back in my skull.

He chuckled, which only made the sensation sharper, and I pried my eyes open to look down at him once he was fully seated inside of me. I think he liked it best when I was on top because I had no choice but to look at him. Right now he looked smug and pleased with himself.

"It gets better. You have to move, Saint." He lifted both of his hands and cupped each of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I threw my head back and groaned. I took his advice and did as he asked. I started to ride him, the up and down, the pull and push of that hoop plus his PA all along the inside of me, was so good. I curled my hands on his chest and watched him watch me. If it was possible, his eyes got darker and darker the closer I got. I shifted, clamped down on him, listening to his breath come faster and faster and reveling in the way his chest moved up and down more rapidly. I was close, so close, and knew if I asked him to touch me just a little bit more or just reached between my legs to touch myself, it would be done. I opened my mouth to plead with him, to ask him to finish it, but before I got the words out, he suddenly jackknifed up into a sitting position and rolled us over.

He was looming over me, his hand clasping either side of my face. His expression turned a little wild, and when I went to ask what was going on, he attacked my mouth and started moving in and out of me, thrusting against me, pounding inside of my body like a person possessed. All I could do was hold on for the ride because I was already too close to the edge. My nails dug hard enough into his shoulders that I felt the skin break. At the first stroke of his tongue against mine, the bite of his teeth against my lip, I broke apart under him in an o.r.g.a.s.m that felt like it turned me inside out. I just clung to him, let him surge and heave inside of me until he buried his nose in the crook of my neck and groaned his own completion. That wasn't just s.e.x; that was Nash giving part of himself over to me to keep forever.

His hand fell away from my face but he didn't move. His breath was ragged in my ear and I could feel his heart thundering rapidly against my own. I stroked a soothing hand down the spine of that dragon, felt Nash's body shake a little at the touch.

"You undo me, Saint."

"I'm sorry."

He sighed and rolled over so that he could pull me on top of his chest.

"Just try and put me back together when you're done with me, all right?"

I didn't know what to say to that or if that was a promise I could make to him. I curled my hands under his arms and rubbed my cheek against his pectoral muscle. It was way too hard to make any kind of comfortable pillow, but I didn't want to move.

"Can I stay the night with you, Nash?" I couldn't give him all of the things he wanted from me, but that I could do.

He sighed and it ruffled the hair on the top of my head. "At some point I really want us in a place that isn't even a question you think you need to ask."

I didn't know that a place like that existed for us, but it felt like if it did, it would be right here in this moment with the two of us still entwined and a part of one another.

The next morning Nash was running late, which might have had something to do with the fact that I woke up before him and couldn't resist putting my mouth around that circle of stainless steel. I'm sure he enjoyed the wake-up call, but he ran out of the door muttering something about calling a girl Phil thought could help him out at the shop and having to swing by the new shop and check in with the contractor. He was juggling so many b.a.l.l.s I had no idea how he kept it all straight or found the time to deal with me and all my issues on top of it.

He gave me a hard kiss, told me to make breakfast or whatever I wanted, and blew out the door like a tattooed tornado. He had spent many a morning in my place when I had to go to work, it was strange being on the opposite side of that. I was making coffee, wearing one of his T-shirts that was way too big and way too long, when there was a knock at the door. I was going to ignore it because I didn't feel it was my place to answer the door at Nash's apartment when I heard my name called through the wood.

"Saint? It's Royal. Can I talk to you for a minute? I know you're here because your Jetta is still outside."

Ugh. I didn't want to face her after last night. Didn't want her to see how jealous I was that she had spent a normal evening with Nash, but I wandered over to open the door anyway.

I had to do a double take and felt my jaw drop when I caught sight of her. Her fabulous auburn hair was coiled up on her head, she had no makeup on, and she was dressed in the basic bluish-black police uniform all the street cops in Denver wore. She had a hat under her arm and a gun on a belt at her waist. I couldn't believe this was the same girl who had on pink heels and skinny jeans last night.

"You're a cop?"

She pushed past me and walked into the kitchen, where the coffee was done brewing. She made herself right at home going through Nash's cabinets until she found a mug. I should have protested her forwardness but I was still in shock over the fact that she was armed.

"Yep." She let the p pop and poured me a mug as well. "Listen, I want to try and explain something to you about your guy."

It was on the tip of my tongue to deny he was my anything, but she scowled at me. "I'm cranky and armed. Don't start with me, girlie. Last night I locked myself out of my place. My phone was in the car, so I was screwed. Nash helped me out, fed me, and talked to me about you. Do you know how many a.s.shole guys would've used that as an excuse to put a move on me? Or how many would've tried something shady because I had no way to communicate or anyplace to go?"

She had a very valid point, so I nodded at her in agreement.

"Most guys are a.s.sholes. Seriously, Saint, Nash is not one of them. I know there is some history there between the two of you or whatever, but open your eyes, honey. That boy is sprung on you and he is a nice guy. A superhot, supers.e.xy nice guy. Do you know how rare that is? He's like a G.o.dd.a.m.n unicorn."

I picked up my mug of coffee and continued to watch her like she was some kind of wild exhibit at the zoo.

"Besides, my mom was the other woman. I was the milkman's kid ... well, the stockbroker's really, but that doesn't matter. I would never do that to another person, insert myself in their relationship, because I saw how hard it was on my mom waiting for that a.s.shole to leave his wife. I can't help it that I have an awesome rack and was blessed with fabulous hair. I'm not some femme fatale out to steal anyone's man."

It actually sounded like that was a sore spot with her, so I cleared my throat and tried to give her a semi-explanation.

"It doesn't help that you're beautiful and live right across the hall, but it could be any pretty girl, Royal. Men are easily distracted like that."

She let loose a string of profanity that made me take a step back. She was sure a contradiction. A really pretty girl with a badge and a really dirty mouth.

"That's insanity. No other girl is going to come along and distract him. He is absolutely focused on you. We are not interchangeable objects, LEGO pieces that click together just because the parts fit. If he is telling you he wants you, then no one else is going to do. If you can't believe what he's telling you because of whatever your ordeal in the past is, pay attention to what he's showing you. Actions always speak louder than words."

She took her hat and positioned it over the bun on her head. I c.o.c.ked my head to the side and considered her for a long minute.

"What does it matter to you anyway?"

She put her mug in the sink and rinsed it out.

"Nash is nice, you seem nice. There aren't enough good people out there that find each other. Plus I want you to be my friend."

That wasn't what I expected. "What? Why?"

"Because girls don't like me. They all think I'm out to steal their man or they get squirrely when they learn I'm a cop. I'm twenty-three years old, Saint, and I can't remember the last time I had a friend that wasn't a dude. My best friend in the entire world is my partner, Dominic. We went to high school together and struggled through the academy together. If it wasn't for him I would be really, really alone, and I don't want that."

I just stared at her, trying to figure out what I wanted to say to her.

"When you have a guy like Nash willing to offer you everything, don't risk losing it because of what was or because of what might be. Now I gotta go catch all the bad guys."

When the front door closed behind her, I took my coffee and went to flop down on the couch. I wanted to go to the grocery store before I had to go and put some actual food in Nash's fridge for him. The poor guy couldn't live on cold pizza and beer, not with everything else he had going on in his life at the moment. Really I had a burning need to try and take care of him working under the surface of my skin and I wasn't going to question it right now.

It had been an intense few days and my emotions were all over the place. Royal was right: Nash had been trying to show me all night long the things I wouldn't listen to and he was making it impossible for me to keep my head buried in the sand. Not only was the only guy I had ever really truly cared about demanding something more from me than I ever thought I could give, but I had a bra.s.sy, loud, bada.s.s female cop that looked like a movie star telling me she wanted to be my friend. I didn't know what alternate universe I had fallen into, whose life this was I was suddenly living, but it sure didn't feel like mine. Right now I couldn't tell if that was the best thing to ever happen to me or the worst.

CHAPTER 15.

Nash

The shop was coming along way better than I could have imagined. Zeb was a magic man and an honest-to-G.o.d visionary. The final concept he had come up with was an old-school carnival straight off some boardwalk, and since my life felt like a three-ring circus half the time now, it totally fit. It was old-timey and a little kitschy, but the idea was awesome and all of us liked how different it was from the rough-and-tumble way the original shop came across. Each of the six artist's stations was modeled after a booth that would be in a 1930s freak show-we had a strongman, a bearded lady, of course a tattooed lady, a fortune-teller, a lion tamer, a sword swallower, and a freaky-looking wolf man painted on the wall. Zeb wanted to install a vintage strength machine, a retro photo booth, and one of those old creepy fortune-telling machines, which I thought would send the concept and the shop over the top. All our portfolios and pictures of tattoos we had done were on a state-of-the-art LED screen that was constantly changing and operated on a touch screen so that potential clients could interact with it.

It was a fantastic mix of old and new, and while the actual tattoo shop probably only had three or so more weeks of work to make it a workable and usable s.p.a.ce, Zeb hadn't gotten around to the top floor yet. The idea was to keep that s.p.a.ce more modern, more boutique feeling. So far the bridge between the shop and the retail s.p.a.ce hadn't come to fruition, mostly because it was uncharted territory for all of us and I think we were all worried about s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it up or making it a joke when we had all worked so hard to solidify our reputations as the top tattoo artists in the Denver metro area. It was a brave new world and things were changing fast for all of us who called the Marked home.