Epilogue
Reid
“Oh, my God! OH! MY! GOD!” Hazel’s excited voice had me rushing up the stairs to the apartment, wishing I’d been the one to make her scream like that, but I hadn’t hesitated to haul ass across the parking lot when she’d texted me she’d gotten a package this morning.
Using my key to let myself inside, I found her bouncing on the couch, a hardback book clasped tightly to her chest.
“Did it come?” I chuckled, knowing how much this moment meant to her. This was a big deal, and I was so fucking proud of her.
“Oh my God, I love it so much,” she cooed, cradling the book in her arms and rocking from side to side with elated tears escaping the corners of her eyes.
Crossing the room, I sat down on the coffee table in front of her, holding out a hand as I watched my girlfriend lose her damn mind over a book. “Well, let me see it.”
She tilted her head, her eyes flashing to mine as she clutched it a little tighter.
“Oh, come on, kitten. I helped, you could at least let me see it for a second before you run off with it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you loved a book cover more than me.”
“Never,” she cooed, reluctantly offering me the hardback, one of her illustrations wrapping around the entire book jacket.
In the last five months, her growing business had flourished, and when a publisher out of Boston had contacted her to commission a special edition cover for two of their authors, we’d celebrated by fucking on my bike hidden behind her parent’s cabin in the mountains before we got to work taking dozens of source photos for her to work off.
“This is fucking amazing, Haz. I’m so proud of you, baby.”
She swiped away happy tears, grinning at me in a way that made my heart pound. “I still can’t believe my work is in bookstores now and that I’ve actually talked to Chastity Rose and Stone Evans. Pinch me!”
Chuckling, I carefully set the book down on the table beside me, cupping her cheeks and rubbing away the wetness, my lips covering hers until she was sighing into my mouth and trying to crawl into my lap.
As much as I wanted to enjoy more celebratory sex, I had plans for her this morning, and I hoped she’d be just as excited as I was about them.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I murmured against her lips, halting her wandering hands before she could pull down the zipper on my pants.
Hazel was insatiable, and I fucking loved it, but right now I wanted to get her pants off for another reason.
“Better than me riding your cock on the living room floor?” she asked, tugging at my ear with her teeth.
“You can ride me later if you aren’t too sore,” I groaned into her cheek, wanting to kick my own ass for not letting her have her way with me, but I’d been booked solid all month and had finally cleared an afternoon in my schedule to surprise her.
“Sore?” she asked, trying to pull back to look at me.
But I ignored my slip, tugging on her hand and hoping I could distract her before she asked too many questions. “Come on, come to the shop with me.”
She huffed, but didn’t hesitate to follow. I’d given my staff a paid afternoon off, so the back hallway was quiet as I ushered her inside.
Hazel knew the way to my private workspace well, spending lots of time curled up in the corner drawing while I worked on sketches for clients. She’d been delighted to finally see me in action, not realizing that I had a very similar software to the one she used for her commissions.
But today she was going to be the client in the chair, not just an observer or my sketching companion.
“Take a seat,” I said, passing her and moving to the sink to wash my hands before I pulled on a set of black gloves, her eyes widening when I playfully snapped the band against my wrist.
“You planning to play naughty doctor and patient?” she asked, draping herself across the crinkly paper covering my reclining chair.
“Not exactly,” I chuckled. “But I need you to take off your pants.”
She glanced toward the open door, but listened, slowly inching her leggings down. I watched, my fingers twitching with the need to touch her, but I just waited with my hips leaned against the countertop behind me as her smooth, flawless skin came into view.
“Panties too.”
Her head tilted to the side as she shot me a cheeky look, wiggling her eyebrows as she did what I asked, tossing them toward me once she was uncovered from the waist down.
“Want me to take off my shirt now, too?” she cooed, playfully tugging on the hem and flashing me the bra that matched the panties clutched tightly in my fist.
“Later.” My voice was gruff, my body betraying me as my cock tried to negotiate a detour to my afternoon plans. “Lay back on the chair.”
“Want me to spread my legs?” she sassed, flashing me an enticing view of her bare pussy, but I had to be strong, because I wanted to see my ink on her skin more than I wanted to fuck her right now. As wrong as it felt to be turning her down, I had my reasons.
“Nope, I need you to lie on your back, hands on your stomach.”
She pouted, pretending to walk her fingers lower to touch herself, but eventually listened, heaving a deep sigh with her hands folded across the tank top covering her stomach. I sat down on my stool and rolled in close. Swiping an alcohol pad over the dip on the side of her hip, I expected her to ask a million questions, but she just watched quietly while I shaved the downy hairs from her skin. Her eyes widened when I followed up by laying the stencil in place and carefully rubbing with firm strokes of my thumb to transfer the image onto her skin.
Curious eyes lit up as I peeled away the paper, revealing the abstract outline of the kitten I’d sketched on her tablet months ago while I plotted the first thing I wanted to ink on her skin.
“What about the calf wrap?” she asked, knowing I’d spent the last few months perfecting the illustration of the vined peonies for her next tattoo.
“I thought it might be a good idea to start small for the first one,” I murmured, getting my tools unwrapped and set out across my rolling cart. “This one won’t take very long, and if you decide you want to wait on the calf piece, you won’t have a partially finished tattoo on your leg in the meantime.”
She inhaled a shuddering breath as I loaded the ink onto the needle, hovering above her hip, while I gave her a moment to calm down.
“You ready?” I asked, wanting to lean in to kiss the tiny temporary mark on her skin, but also knowing I’d just have to delay things to sanitize again before I could get to work.
“Yup, go for it,” she squeaked, nodding.
“Deep breath, kitten. Then let it out slowly.”
She listened, taking a deep breath in before she released it through her nose, her eyes watching my hands as the needle brushed her skin for the first time.
There was something satisfying about knowing that she’d given me another one of her firsts, a grin tugging at my lips while I worked. Hazel had let out a surprised gasp at the first few strokes of the needle, but then she’d melted into the chair, watching me mark her with hooded eyes.
Which made resisting her that much harder, and by the time I smoothed the clear bandage over the quarter sized tattoo, I was glad I’d cleared the building for the afternoon .
“You want me here or my bed?” I asked, knowing exactly how turned on she’d gotten while I inked her. Timid Hazel would have been mortified to see the wet mark on the paper beneath her hips, but horny Hazel just grinned when I growled at the sight of it.
“Bed,” she gasped before I leaned in, kissing her lips while I blindly reached over to leave my gun on the cart and ripped the gloves covering my hands off so I could touch her. I should be responsible and clean up my equipment, but that could wait until later.
Right now, I needed to fuck her while I stared at the permanent mark I’d left on her skin. When she ripped my belt from the loops and her hand dove into my pants, gripping my hard cock, I knew she needed the same thing.
Carefully gathering her into my arms, I cradled her body against my chest and headed for the stairs, pausing every few steps to kiss her while she clawed at my hair.
My motions were intentionally gentle as I sat her on the bed, watching her pull her top over her head and discard her bra as I yanked off my clothes. While I shoved down my briefs, I calculated the positions we could use to keep from rubbing her ink, but I wanted to watch her face when she fell apart. Although she had come to appreciate the use of walls during sex.
Sitting down in the center of the bed, I carefully pulled her toward me, maneuvering her to straddle my legs with hers outstretched behind me. Pulling one leg up and over my shoulder, I grinned as she gasped and reached back to brace her palm against the mattress between my legs. "You're lucky I'm so flexible," she giggled.
Her inked hip was straight as it extended past me, but I stopped briefly to check that she was comfortable before I poised myself at her entrance and urged her to lift her hips. "And while I'd love to fold you up like a pretzel and fuck you into the mattress right now, I want to watch you use my cock to make yourself come knowing you've got a permanent reminder of me on your skin. "
"Such a romantic," she sighed, reaching down to rub the head of my cock to her clit. She teased herself with my piercing before she fit my cock to her entrance easing it inside her glistening pussy. It throbbed as it disappeared inside her, my deep groan joining her gasping moan as her hips rocked against me.
“That feel good, kitten?” I asked, thrusting my hips to match her movements, holding her calf and dragging my lips across her scar as she rode me with her head thrown back.
“Ohh, fuck yes,” she moaned, chasing the high she knew I could give her, leaning back until I could feel my dick hitting the spot inside that would tip her over the edge the quickest. "You know I love your cock."
Hazel had been shy about riding me when we first started having sex, but she’d quickly gotten over her nerves, often preferring to watch me fall apart beneath her now that she knew exactly how to control the angle to use my piercing to her advantage.
She knew I was hopelessly addicted to watching her come. Especially when I was inside her. Although she enjoyed making me jealous by forcing me to watch her with a toy until I couldn’t take it anymore and flung it across the room before I replaced it with my cock and showed her who really owned her pussy.
“I love you,” I groaned into her skin as I felt the telltale flutters of her orgasm building, her fingernails digging into my shoulder as she ground down against me.
My eyes drifted to the tiny, inked kitten, my hand holding her waist steady to keep her from disturbing it too much with her frantic movements.
“Love you, too,” she moaned, her head tipped back, and a look of ecstasy painted across her delicate features as I pulled her onto my hips. “Oh, fuck, I’m close.”
Groaning, I thrust harder, yanking her hips to mine, watching as a flush raced across her bouncing breasts and up her neck before I felt her finally come with a loud moan. I followed her moments later, pulsing inside her as she gasped out my name .
Her eyes found mine with a satisfied smile before she rolled her shoulder, collapsing back to the mattress between my legs with a giggle.
“So, you like your new kitten, kitten ?” I chuckled, rubbing my thumb along the edge of the clear film, careful not to disturb it.
“You’re not allowed to tattoo women anymore,” she giggled, rolling her head to the side, her hair a chaotic mess against the rumpled sheets. “Because it was unreal how horny that made me.”
“Not interested in fucking anyone but you after a session,” I laughed, reluctantly lifting her hips and slipping out from beneath them. She curled into my chest after I stretched out onto the mattress next to her, fingers tracing the dark ink over my pec.
I’d had Gray tat a tiny matching kitten in white ink over my heart that almost blended into my skin tone almost a month ago, giving me shit the entire time. Luckily, it’d coincided with Hazel making a trip to Boston to meet with the publisher in person to finalize the cover design. It’d healed enough by the time she returned, and she hadn’t noticed yet.
Capturing her fingers, I moved them to the center of my chest, holding her finger as I used it to trace the shape, watching with a soft smile as she noticed the faint mark, her eyes meeting mine as her chin quivered.
“For me?” she asked, eyes filled with emotion.
“Nope,” I teased. “It’s for that other feral cat lady who lives across the alley.”
“Fuck you,” she giggled, pushing against my chest, but when my lips flattened against her forehead, she let me pull her closer to breathe her in. “She doesn’t live there anymore.”
“Hmm,” I hummed, smiling against her skin. “Glad she finally came to her senses and took over my apartment.”
“Me too.” Her voice was quiet as her fingertip returned to tracing the mark on my chest.
Hazel still worked in the space above the bar, and sometimes we crashed there after her sporadic shifts if we were too tired to come back home. But over the last month, most of her clothing had migrated to my closet, and her chaos had spread out over most of the flat spaces in the apartment. I didn’t care, though, because it meant I got to come home to her every night.
“We should get dressed before the kids get here,” she whispered, leaning in to kiss the skin over my heart.
“Yeah, since we’re supposed to be modeling responsible behavior. Probably not a good idea to corrupt their young minds by letting them catch you ravishing your live-in girlfriend above the shop.”
Hazel had jumped in with both feet to help me plan and advertise the summer workshops I’d mentioned as Seven. She’d even gotten a few of the art supply companies who now sponsored her on social media to donate the materials we needed.
We’d advertised the program at the two local high schools, the art teachers nominating students to take part. There was even a set of workshops being planned for over winter break next year because we’d ended up with a waiting list of students wanting to attend.
They’d almost been more excited than I was when they found out that one of their mentors was going to have their work featured on an internationally distributed book cover.
“You need to go get the book to show them.” Pushing up, I crossed to where I’d discarded my clothes, quickly yanking them back on before I disappeared into my closet and grabbed a long summer dress for Hazel to put on. While I didn’t like the idea of her not wearing panties around a group of horny teen boys for a few hours, it was flowy and long, so they wouldn’t know.
Hazel groaned, finally sitting up so I could put her bra back on, dropping a kiss on her shoulder as I fastened the clasp in the back. She lifted her arms and watched with amused eyes as I pulled the dress over her head, carefully smoothing it into place once I’d pulled her to stand in front of me.
“You’re a catch, Mr. Harding,” she murmured, laying her cheek against my chest. “Such a good boy. ”
“I’m just glad you let me catch you .” Wrapping my arms around her, I held her tightly, thankful that despite my unconventionally risky antics jeopardizing things between us, she’d given me a chance to earn her heart.
“You’re kind of hard to resist.”
THE END