Tattered Love (Needle's Kiss) (8 page)

“I’m just going to put some tattoo cream on it and wrap you up. You know the drill, yeah? Take the covering off in an hour, wash it with warm antibacterial soap and pat it dry with a soft towel.” He just stared up at me with hooded eyes making my breath hitch. I started smearing the cream across his ribcage as I was talking, concentrating hard so as not to look at his face. Usually, I was all business when inking somebody, but having my hands on Mace affected me like nothing else. Feeling his steady heartbeat under my fingertips, the pure power that radiated off him, couldn’t be missed. There was something so erotic about my hands marking his skin. I was so turned on by then I could barely stop myself from licking him head to toe. “Make sure you keep applying the cream, morning and night until it’s completely healed. Don’t scratch or rub at it and try not to stretch the skin.”

My fingers tingled every time they swept over the taut skin of his side, my nipples already hard peaks brushing against the cotton of my dress with even the slightest movement, my core muscles clenching with want, panties drenched. Mace had such an effect on me, his mere presence and the feeling of his watching my every move made me crazy with lust.

Trying to be some kind of professional and not wanting to rip his clothes off and pounce on him in the middle of my very sterile shop, I turned away mentally shaking my head to clear the dirty thoughts running through it. I bent to retrieve the roll of plastic wrap from the bottom drawer in my rolling table. As I stood, Mace’s large hands gripped my hips and pulled me back into his body. He’d sat up on the table; I could feel his choppy breathing brushing across my neck and back, making my control slip just a little further. My back to his front, I could feel his racing heartbeat as his fingers gripped harder into my hips.

“If I don’t taste you soon, Scar, I think I might go out of my mind.” His gravelly voice came close to my ear, sending an involuntary shiver through me. Mace’s lips came down gently just behind my ear. I felt rather than heard his deep inhale. “You always smell sweet, like cherries.”

My pulse picking up speed at his hushed words, I murmured, “It’s my body wash.” Was I mentally challenged? That was the only thing that came to mind. He’d once again scrambled my brain with a touch and a few words.

God damn him!

“Mace, I need to wrap your side.” Mace of course ignored me, his hands roaming up my thighs p
ainfully slow. When one hand reached the apex of my thighs, brushing across my soaked panties, a whimper escaped my parted lips.

Mace groaned deeply from his chest. “So damn wet for me, baby. I need to taste you right now.”

“We shouldn’t do this here,” I spoke, not sure who I was trying to convince.

His fingers moved my panties across, and one of his long thick digits parted my folds, swirling the evidence of my arousal around my clit in a torturously slow circle. “Mace,” I whispered, not sure if I wanted him to stop or give me more. The moment his hand left my aching sex, his finger went to his mouth tasting my wetness. My body vetoed my brain and went with “hell fucking yes, more baby more”.

“I’m gonna take you right here on this table, Scar, so every time you’re sitting here working, all you’ll be able to think about is coming apart on my mouth. Me fucking you hard, you screaming for me.” His words tore a moan from my throat. “You want that don’t you, Scar? You want me to drive my cock into you right here on this table.”

“Please, Mace, please, I need it, now,” I begged, panting, squirming to relieve some of the aching between my legs.

Mace abruptly stood, coming around behind me and spinning me so I was facing the table with him behind me. “Bend over the table.” The commanding voice he used sent an electric jolt straight to my pussy as he put his hand on my back, one at my waist, and bent me over, chest down to the red leather-covered tattoo table. He lifted my sundress and ripped my panties clean off, causing a flood of arousal from me. I was so turned on I couldn’t think straight. I just needed him. I needed to come. Somewhere in the back of my lust-dazed mind, I realized we were about to have sex in my shop, not the most hygienic activity, but I just couldn’t bring myself to give a damn.

Mace’s fingers invaded my aching pussy fast and hard, his other hand running slowly up and down my ass cheek. I became frustrated; he had two of his glorious fingers inside me perfectly still, not moving, I needed him to move like I needed to breathe.

Taking matters into my own hands, I started rocking my hips gently back and forward, even the slightest movement causing heat to bloom all across my body. Moaning and rocking, I started to move a little faster, Mace still running his hand across my backside. “That’s it, baby, ride my fingers.” His voice was heavy with desire.

Mace reached up under the front of my dress and pinched one pebbled nipple between his thumb and forefinger; at the same time, he made a come hither motion with the two fingers he had inside of me. “Oh, fuck, Mace, I’m—I…Oh…” I lost the ability to speak, my body afire, what threatened to be an all-consuming orgasm barreling toward me.

Mace moaned deep, his hand coming back to my ass as my walls started to contract. Rocking back and forth faster and harder, a quick sting came across my backside.

He’d spanked me. I’d never been spanked before.
Holy shit, that was good; it
was enough to send me free falling over the cliff into an orgasm like never before. Shouting out my release and stilling, Mace suddenly filled me with his thick cock, slamming in, prolonging the shudders wracking my body.

Sweet heaven above, I think I might black out.

Mace pumped hard and fast gripping my hips as I used the edge of the table as leverage, pushing myself back into his groin, meeting him thrust for thrust. Another orgasm tore through me as Mace thrust deep one more time and stilled, his cock jerking inside me as he came. Collapsing over me, one shaking forearm holding him up so as not to squash me, he groaned.

As my pulse slowed and my breathing returned to normal, thoughts rushed at me. I’d been spanked, never in my life had I been handled with such raw need and power during sex, and I fucking loved it. Mace knew what he was doing. He knew what he liked, and even more so, he seemed to be in tune with what I needed even if I didn’t. He reached over, grabbed some tissues cleaning us up before pulling us both up onto the table. Tucking me into the side of him, with my head on his chest, his large muscled arm wrapped around my body and minding his new tattoo, I asked, “Did you hurt it?”

“Nah, it’s good.”

Lying in the aftermath of explosive sex with Mace somehow felt very right. My defenses crumbled even more as he held me in his arms running his hand slowly up and down my arm. If I was being honest, I really liked it—maybe too much.

Ah, shit.

My fingers running lightly over the intricate tribal ink of his chest, I’d not had time to study his previous artwork in the heat of the moment.

My hand stilled, running back over the black ink along his chest; something looked vaguely familiar about the lines and curves of his tattoo

Wait...was that? My fingers moved again, my eyes following their movements.

Spelling out the letters, he stilled, his body turning to stone when he realized I’d seen it.

A name, directly over his heart, how could I not have seen that? It was so intricately woven within the borders of the tattoo, you’d have to study it closely to see it.

Belle.

Who the hell is Belle?

She saw it. I had hoped she wouldn’t, but I should have known better. Scarlett was a tattoo artist for shits sake; it was her job to see what others didn’t. I didn’t know how to explain this to her. I didn’t know how to tell her about Belle. How did you tell the person you’re falling for about the only girl who’s even been in your heart?

I’d just broken through; she just started opening up a little, and then I couldn’t resist my sudden and strange urge to fucking hold her. I wanted her to know about my life, about my commitments. I wanted her to know me. That couldn’t happen unless I was honest with her. Though that right there was the catch. If Scarlett knew about Belle, she’d run a mile. I was sure of it. I wouldn’t expect nor ask her to stay once she knew the truth. One thing I had never been and never would be was a liar. I decided that if she asked, then I would tell. Just thinking about Scar walking away from me struck a pain in my chest and made my stomach knot up. I was into this girl more than I thought.

FUCK.

Scarlett sat up abruptly, throwing her dress back on sans panties that lay torn on the floor, and muttered quickly, “I should probably get this stuff cleaned up and I’ll need to reapply your cream and wrap it.”

Fuck it! Fucking hell! I could see she’d closed herself off again. She wouldn’t make eye contact and was clearly in a hurry to get me to leave her alone. I had to do damage control; I wasn’t ashamed of Belle’s name on my skin, her permanent mark over my heart, but I was quickly realizing Scarlett meant something more to me than I’d originally thought. Thoughts crowded my head, memories and snippets of My Belle. Anger started to take root deep in my stomach; Scarlett wanted to jump to conclusions, didn’t care to know who Belle was or what she was to me. Belle would forever be in my life, in my heart. It might not be an easy situation to understand, but it was a part of me. Reining in the overwhelming feelings, I sat still, staring down at Scarlett working on my side. I didn’t care if she wanted to know or not, she was going to.

“Scar—”

Shaking her head, she cut me off. “It’s not my business, Mace. It was fun, but I told you, I don’t share. So, great, let’s just move on, yeah?”

What the fuck?

She not only jumped to conclusions, but she’d decided I was a cheater. I didn’t fucking think so. That tightly reined-in anger flared back to life. My jaw was ticking as I ground my teeth together, stopping myself from saying something shitty I wouldn’t be able to take back. Instead, I ripped my wallet from my back pocket and pulled out a worn photo; its edges were frayed and the image was slightly faded from being pulled out and looked at so often. I put the photo down on the table in front of Scarlett who was packing things away. Her eyes lifted from the ink pots. She dropped the roll of paper towels she’d been holding, and picked up the photo looking back and forward between the image in her hand and me.

“Is she—?” The softly spoken question was left unfinished as she looked back up to me.

I nodded. “She’s mine. That’s Belle.” Now came the hard part. I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. “She died, almost three years ago. She was only two years old.”

Scarlett’s eyes dropped to my tattoo then to the photo of Belle still in her hand. “She’s beautiful, Mace. She looks just like you.”

I was immediately thankful she didn’t offer her apologies. Sorry is such a shitty word, used too often for the wrong reasons. I didn’t deserve or want her sympathy. Belle’s death was all on me.

Taking the photo from Scarlett’s outstretched hand, I noticed it was trembling slightly. I looked up to her face, a single tear falling down her pretty cheek. “Don’t cry, baby; it hurts when you cry, especially for me” I reached up and wiped her tear away with my thumb.

“I hate that you’ve lost like that. I hate that it happened to you, to her.” Right there I could see the pain in her eyes. Scarlett didn’t pity me; she felt some of my heartache. Just like that, I fell a little more, for all that was Scar.

I could see the questions running through her mind. Scarlett might play the tough, “nothing can take me down” chick, but everything she felt played across her face. I’d opened the can of worms and it was time to tell her all of it. The truth. I had dreaded the moment she would see me for what I really was, the reason my daughter was no longer alive. I reached forward, took her beautiful tear streaked face in my hands and gave her what I was sure was one last kiss. My hands framing her head, fingers splayed through the back of her soft hair, my lips touched hers whisper-soft. Pulling back slightly and leaning my forehead to hers, my decision was made. “Come and sit, there’s a few things you need to know.”