Chapter 15 #2
At the water’s edge, he tugs me back towards him in a move that feels reminiscent of our dancing from the first night, my body pressing flush to his.
This time there are no clothes separating us, and feeling his flesh against my fingertips has me sucking in a breath.
Bringing my eyes up, his face is soft as he watches me.
“Permission for my hands to be on your body once we get in that water?” he asks, eyes bouncing back and forth between mine.
It has me glancing down at his lips, swallowing thickly before I nod. “Permission granted in and out of the water. Permission granted until otherwise revoked for reasons I can’t imagine right now.”
He tilts his head down until his forehead touches mine. “Thanks. I’m not sure I can keep my paws off you for much longer. This bathing suit…”
Trailing off, his lips touch mine, and I sigh into his kiss.
“Not here,” I murmur, easing away.
Turning back to the river, I lead him into the water.
It’s not as cold as Liam made it seem. Warmer than the Pacific not far away.
It’s crisp, given it’s still mountain water, but the summer sun helps with that as we wade in up to our waists.
Across the river is a rock wall where some kids are climbing to a ledge and jumping into the deeper pockets of water.
The river flows gently along, and when I get to the point where I can’t touch, I turn to Wyatt, our hands still locked together.
He must realize that I can’t touch any longer, and pulls me to him, releasing my hand to slide his down my sides and around to my ass where he lifts me.
I’m already moving with him, my legs locking around his waist, my arms around his neck as he carries me down the river, away from the bustling bank of holiday swimmers.
There are still people milling about in the water downstream, but they’re fewer, and he finds us a spot closer to shore that has an overgrown tree hanging over the water.
The water is shallower here, up to his waistline.
He dips down so we’re both submerged up to our armpits, and I’m sitting on his thighs.
It’s comfortable and warm, the sun shining down on our little semi-hideaway.
I rest my head on my arm, my forehead pressing against the side of his neck. His fingertips trace up and down my spine, and I can tell he’s doing it to stop his fingers from wandering too far in any other direction. Even though I wouldn’t mind if they did.
From this vantage point, I study the end of a “Family” tattoo sprawled in a fancy script along the inside of his upper arm that’s just out of the water.
The flourishes from the word weave into the rest of the sleeve, drawing my eye to the hummingbird with fluttering wings just below the face of a bear at his shoulder.
It’s the hummingbird’s tail that makes up part of the ear of the cougar beneath it that I always see peeking out from beneath his shirt.
Lifting my head, I run my finger over a vine that starts over the “M” in family and turns into a branch beneath the hummingbird. “Your sleeve is really beautiful.”
Wyatt lifts his arm farther out of the water, standing taller so I can get a better look at the full length.
The cougar below the hummingbird. Silent.
Stealthy. The wolf that peers out between trees highlighting either side of his snout.
Its eyes have a wisdom I can’t explain. It reminds me of Wyatt, but darker, and it has nothing to do with the shading.
Again, I’m reminded of the haunted feeling, and my heart reaches out to it, wanting to help the animal.
Touching Wyatt’s arm, he turns it for me, knowing what I want. The wolf wisps away and transitions into an eagle, wings spread along the inside of his forearm. Soaring high above, free and powerful.
“Boone,” he says, pulling my eyes away from the artwork to dart to his.
He wears a small smile, nods back to the arm, and when I follow his gaze, I gasp when I see what he’s referring to. His brother’s name is written within the details of the bird. Something I hadn’t caught before. Grabbing onto his arm now, I turn it myself, looking at the wolf.
Gage.
The cougar, Beau.
The hummingbird, Mom.
Which means the bear must be his dad, and as I adjust to look at his shoulder better, I find the word written there.
“Oh, Wyatt,” I breathe, then bite down on my lip.
“What’d I tell you about your ‘ohs’ in my presence?” he teases.
I shove his shoulder playfully. “Shut up.” Tracing a tooth on the bear, my breath feels stolen by the art on his arm. “I didn’t realize this was all… them.”
“A family portrait without tattooing my brother’s faces on my arm,” he chuckles. “They’d give me so much hell if I did that.”
“Why these animals?” I ask, a finger tracing along the wolf’s long muzzle. There must be a reason he picked each one for each of them.
His eyes flick to mine, and the emotions I see swirling there almost make me regret asking.
The anguish, heartache, longing for home.
There’s one reason I recognize it within him; I know it too.
Even though I had the best years of my life after moving in with my grandparents, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world, I know what it’s like to leave.
“The eagle,” he nods to it, releasing his hold on me to tap it. With my legs locked around his waist, I don’t move from my spot. “Is because Boone sees everything and tries to bring peace to it. If he let himself soar, he’d fly so damn high in whatever he wanted to do.”
Wyatt points to the wolf next. “Gage is loyal, to a fault. It’s why he’s still on the ranch, why he won’t ever leave, even though my dad and him don’t get along. He’s an asshole, which sometimes makes him the lone wolf, but he’s also smart and trusts himself and what he knows.”
“The wolf looks haunted,” I say, almost absently as I trace my finger along its snout again.
“Nailed it. When I told the artist what I wanted, that was what I told him.”
My gaze jumps back to his, and I find a smile that’s almost a grimace waiting for me. It looks unnatural on his boyish face, like it has no place being anywhere near him. This man that’s usually full of laughter.
“Beau wasn’t happy when I gave him the cougar,” he tells me, the grimace transforming to something slightly happier.
It still looks out of place. “But he’s fierce like them.
Quiet and cautious. He keeps to himself, doesn’t rely on anyone else, but he’d defend any one of us. As long as it’s not against my dad.”
Wyatt rubs his shoulder where the tattoo for his dad is, drawing my attention to the snarling animal with razor-sharp teeth.
“I guess that’s why Beau is the cougar, and my dad is the bear. The bear wins nine times out of ten, and the cougar backs down.”
Reading between the lines makes me want to know more about his family, the dynamic, what it was like for him. Growing up and now.
“And the hummingbird?” I ask, touching the tail of the bird. It’s shaded in, not colored, but I can imagine it if it were.
“My mom is constantly going, always moving. She hums her way through life, literally and figuratively. She’s love and fun and has always reminded me of someone who is joy personified,” he says.
Joy that she obviously passed to her son.
His face transforms again, a true Wyatt smile finally gracing his lips. The love shining in his eyes and the reverie in which he talks about her makes me certain he misses her like I would miss Gran if I wasn’t near her.
“They’re also her favorite. She gets them in her garden every year, and plants specific flowers just for them,” he adds, rubbing his hand over the bird.
Tracing my fingers up his arm, over all the tattoos again, I study each of them for another minute, taking in details I didn’t see before.
The intricacies of the feathers on the eagle, the wisps of fur on the wolf, the delicate whiskers on the cougar.
The detail that went into all of it makes my heart both warm and squeeze at once.
“You have another piece on your back,” I remember, bringing my eyes back to his.
His free arm loops back around my waist. “Yeah.”
“Can I see it?”
Dropping my legs from around him, my feet find the rocky bed of the river while Wyatt gives me his back.
It takes my breath away. If I thought his forearms were nice, it’s almost nothing compared to his back.
Considering I see multiple backs in a day, I consider myself educated on a nice one, and Wyatt gets full marks for how impressive his is.
The different groupings of muscles, the layers that pop out as he adjusts, his shoulder blades moving beneath the skin.
The V shape that his broad shoulders to his trim waist make.
And if that wasn’t enough of a work of art, the tattoo across his upper back would be.
The day I massaged him at the station, I didn’t appreciate this like I should have.
I was too nervous, too thrown off by him being there.
But now I slide my finger along the top beam of the ranch gate over his left scapula.
Three thick wooden bars make up the gate, and on either side are blocks of different sizes, creating pillars that stand halfway up the beams. Two wooden swinging gates close off the landscape beyond, which has a wide-open field behind it filled with rolling hills and mountains rising above.
“Is this home?”
“No.” His answer is immediate, and I glance up, but his head is facing away from me, so I can’t see his expression. “It’s the ranch, but that’s not home anymore.”
Sliding my fingers along his skin, I watch goosebumps pop up on his flesh.
I follow one of the hills to his other shoulder blade where a horse stands tall in a pasture.
She’s a beauty. Warm, intuitive eyes that remind me of Wyatt, seeming to see all my secrets.
Whoever his artist is has captured this horse perfectly, making it feel real and tangible even though it’s inked into his skin.