Chapter Eight
Reid
I’d never actually seen someone scurry before, but as Hazel’s expressive eyes widened and she turned abruptly toward her bedroom and escaped into the bathroom, I was pretty sure that was exactly what she’d done. I knew that being here like this was kind of a dick move on my part, but when I woke up this morning with no response to my text, I was even more determined to see where her head was at.
Hazel was the type of person who wore her heart on her sleeve and couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. If I spent enough time with her, eventually she’d crack and give me a hint on whether I should continue to message her as bachelor number seven. If she wasn’t into him, I wouldn’t force myself on her.
Her non-response wasn’t exactly encouraging, but I also knew she over-thought everything. I was sure that at least once in the past twelve hours she’d spent a significant amount of time staring at the open text thread—much like I had waiting for her answer.
But that was fine, I’d give her time to process how she wanted to move forward, and in the meantime, I’d come up with any excuse to see her in person. Starting with this project to help her get pictures to use as posing references. While I could tell she was intimidated at the thought of reenacting some arguably hot positions, her eyes had lit up several times in a way that I’d never seen before.
Not so little anymore Hazel Rivera was aroused, and that was exactly how I wanted her to be when I was around. Because I was hard as fuck this morning when I woke up and thought about her straddling my shoulders like she’d need to for this picture. So much so that I’d already taken care of things twice—once in my bed, and once in the shower. But the thought of her being wet and naked on the other side of the wall had things perking up again.
Which was why I’d worn a pair of compression shorts underneath my athletic shorts, because I didn’t want to scare her. She’d had a hard enough time on Halloween keeping her eyes on my face and not my piercings. It probably didn’t help that they were at her eye level while I spent the entire night shirtless, but I’d seen her staring more than once when she’d noticed me watching her.
As a result, my nipples had ached the entire night from being the object of her attention. At the time, I’d tried to rationalize it as a reaction to the blizzard that’d taken us all by surprise. The same blizzard that had stranded her brother with her best friend for an entire weekend and seemed to be the spark that had led to her deciding to stop fleeing every time I was in the same room.
Even now, I’d seen lingering glances when I wore tight T-shirts because she knew what lay underneath. It wasn’t a secret that I was pierced because she’d seen me in a swimsuit dozens of times over the ten years since I’d had them, but the way she looked at me seemed to have changed over the last decade.
If only she knew that those weren’t my only piercings.
But I wouldn’t be that guy. The one who talked about his dick piercing to entice women. It was just a bonus for those who had the chance to find out. And having Hazel find out about that particular piece of body jewelry was the source of all my fantasies lately. The thought of watching her on her knees before me, her pink tongue darting out to play with the ring, tugging on it with her teeth, feeling it against the roof of her mouth while she sucked on my cock…
“Are you okay?” she asked, and I blinked hard, trying to refocus and not let all the blood in my entire body rush straight to my aforementioned cock .
Hazel had been adorable when she answered the door all disheveled, but now I was forced to clench my fists as I took in what she was wearing—or not wearing—after her shower.
Her hair was down and damp, her face freshly washed showing off the freckles that covered her cheeks, but it was the tight sports bra and tiny athletic shorts that had me wanting to bite my fist.
Fucking hell. She was hot as fuck, and she genuinely didn’t know it.
“Yeah, uh…” I cleared my throat, shifting, so it wasn’t obvious that thinking about her with her lips around my dick while she was in the shower had gotten me worked up.
“How exactly do you want to do this?” she asked, avoiding eye contact as she crossed the room and sat down across from me on the coffee table. My eyes wanted to zero in on the way her shorts rode up even higher on her thighs, but I forced myself to make eye contact and keep it. Because if I kept succumbing to my baser urges, I’d have her splayed out on that table with my face between her thighs. Tongue lapping at her clit, her cries music to my fucking ears…
Shaking my head, I realized she was waiting for my response. “I think maybe someplace like a bed would be the best place to do this. The perspective would be better, and we can adjust the tripod to get the angle you need.”
Her teeth tugged on her lower lip as she contemplated that, her eyes darting toward her room and then at the door across the hallway where her studio was set up. Hudson and I had dismantled Charley’s old bed before we’d assembled Hazel’s desk, but I knew it might invade her personal space to suggest we do this on her bed.
“I’ve got a futon at the shop we can use if you don’t want to do it here.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, not sure I want to be thinking about your conquests the whole time.”
She had a point, and there were quite a few places over there that had been defiled over the last few years, but this was in one of the few places I hadn’t brought women to hook up .
“I was thinking about the one in the break room. There’s enough floor space to lay it flat and the lighting in there is even, so you wouldn’t have to worry about any weird shadows. No one will be in until late afternoon, so we wouldn’t run the risk of being interrupted.”
“You mean you don’t want your employees to catch you in the break room with your best friend’s little sister straddling your face?”
I honestly didn’t give a fuck. And most of my employees wouldn’t either. But I didn’t want anyone else seeing her like that, no matter however innocent our arrangement was.
Call me possessive.
Call me obsessed.
All I really wanted to be called was hers.
“You think that would embarrass me?” I asked, brow lifted.
She met my stare, that rosy blush from earlier spreading across her cheeks again, but my girl had fire. “I think it’d take a lot to shake you, Reid, and I hope I’m around to see it when it happens.”
You already are my fierce little kitten. You don’t even know.
Ten minutes later, after she’d thrown on some sweats for protection from the crisp late January air and bundled up in her bright pink floral coat, I was unlocking the back door of the shop and holding it open for her.
She’d been to my shop a few times, but since I spent a lot of my time when I wasn’t working in the bar, it’d just been brief encounters at the reception desk in the front of the building. As she stepped further inside, her eyes darting around the wide-open area, I just followed while she studied my space. The building had once been a glassmaker’s shop, with tall ceilings and an entire wall of windows overlooking the snowcapped mountains in the distance.
It was part of what had drawn me to the property. That and the price, since it’d sat abandoned for years after the original owners left Sage Springs.
Purchasing the building had been an enormous risk, but since I’d done a lot of the renovations with help from friends and my uncle, I’d been able to keep the costs low. My mentor in Boulder had also come on as a silent partner, providing equipment that I’d finally paid off recently.
Since the closest tattoo shop was over 30 miles away on the far side of Butterfly Ridge, it’d filled a gap in the local economy, and I had a sizeable roster of clients.
Speaking of things to fill…
When I refocused my eyes, Hazel was bent over at the waist, studying the stencil book on the coffee table in the lounge next to the reception desk. A lot of the designs we used regularly—as I found college students didn’t always have discerning tastes in their body art—were in that book. I hadn’t drawn all of them, but most of them were designs I’d been perfecting for years.
I had a similar book in my office with all my custom work, along with client photos, and I suddenly had the urge to drag Hazel in to show her that one as well. To sit her down on the couch in there and start a custom sketch for her. As my eyes traced her bulky outfit, I imagined the curves underneath.
Although Charley’s threats of someone else tattooing Hazel’s pristine skin bothered me, I still wasn’t sure what she wanted… Did she want something delicate and flowy? A quote that spoke to her in a tiny script wrapping around her side? A sternum tattoo to drive me insane with temptation as my hands spent a lot of time right next to the breasts I ached to cup in my hands?
I didn’t have time to contemplate it further when Hazel stood abruptly and locked those expressive brown eyes on mine.
“Should we get started? The faster we get this done, the quicker I can leave.” Her tone may have sounded confident, but I could tell by the way she was clutching her coat, knuckles turning white as she held the unzipped sides, she was nervous.
That made two of us. This girl had me all twisted up inside. And not just because of the illustration help. She still hadn’t responded to the text. I’d thought maybe she would when she escaped into her bedroom earlier, but I was still on read. And I didn’t like it one bit.
“Typically, I like to take my time with these things, especially when I’m really invested in a project.” Her eyes flashed with surprise, and she stepped back, bumping into the table behind her, but thankfully she didn’t fall. I wanted to keep her on her toes with the subtle flirting, not knock her off them.
Without waiting for an answer, I turned toward the hallway leading to the back, glancing over my shoulder briefly to make sure she was following me.
“Well, must not have been invested in that girl,” she muttered, and I bit my lip to hold in the chuckle that wanted to escape. She was right in a sense, I wasn’t invested in anything other than fucking the girl she’d caught me with, but clearly Hazel had no idea how enjoyable it was to have frantic sex against a wall.
Something I should not have been picturing with her. I had a long way to go to make sure she was comfortable around me. And I was still withholding information from her. But I hoped that in a few weeks she’d see me as more than just who I fucked.
Because the only person I wanted like that for the foreseeable future was her.
“This is it?” she asked as I unlocked the door to the break room and let her inside.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered on, and I stepped aside, setting my camera bag on the small table before I shed my jacket. Hazel was still standing in the doorway, yet again dissecting one of my spaces. It wasn’t much, just a place for my staff to come and rest between clients. It had a fridge and coffee bar along one wall, a large wardrobe cabinet for coats on the other, a small round table in the middle of the room, and up against the window that faced the woods was a black leather futon.
“Is that where you want to…?” she trailed off, nodding at the futon.
She was so fucking adorable, so full of fire, but so uncertain of herself. I hoped the next few weeks would change that.
“Get comfortable, I’ll nab the heater from my workspace and bring it in here, so you aren’t cold.” If she would ever release the death grip she had on her coat, I didn’t want her getting chilled when she’d stripped back down to the outfit she’d come out of the bathroom wearing earlier.
“And by comfortable, you mean?” she asked as I stepped forward, her eyes widening as she backed herself against the doorframe.
“I mean, you need to get rid of this,” I responded, uncurling her fingers from her coat. Then I traced the back of my fingers down her sweatshirt, enjoying the way she shifted her weight from my touch, even if it was through several layers of fabric. They lingered at her waist as she stared up at me and I fought the sudden urge to pull her into my arms and kiss the fuck out of her. Instead, I tugged on the drawstring peeking above her waistband. “Then you need to take these off.”
“And what will you be taking off?” she asked, her voice low. But she immediately covered her mouth with her fingers like she hadn’t intended to say it like that.
“Whatever you want me to, Haz. You’re in charge here. If you want me to take something off, all you have to do is ask.”
At her quick inhale of breath, I stepped around her and escaped into the hallway, needing to cool myself off for a few minutes so when I started shedding clothes, she wouldn’t see the massive hard on she’d caused.
This project, and my dick, were going to be so fucking hard. But I hadn’t been lying to her. She was in charge, and I would do whatever she asked me to do. The only thing I wished could change about this situation was that I wanted to be doing the things in her commissions to her, not just pretending.