Chapter 22
MORE CRACKS
RUBY
“Ilove your tattoos.” I trace the colors and whorls on his chest and six-pack.
“I know. You fondle them every chance you get. I’m beginning to think you fuck me just so you can slobber all over them.”
I slap his chest, half-laughing and half-shrieking because he deserves bodily harm for that sentence, but he catches my wrist and drags me straight back into his chest with the kind of ease that should be illegal.
His arm closes around my waist with a warm, solid finality, blocking my escape before I even commit to it.
Those silver eyes glint at me in that way that always pins me exactly where he wants me. “You’re so fucking beautiful when you laugh.”
“I thought I was beautiful when I was pissed.”
His head tilts, just slightly, enough to tell me he’s either teasing me or genuinely confused that I still haven’t figured out how he sees me. “You’re beautiful all the time, baby.”
The way he says it, steady, certain, infuriatingly sincere, makes something low in my belly twist. And once again, I want to slap Zane Draven just a fraction less than I want to wrap every limb around him and cling while he ruins my life in increasingly pleasurable ways.
But I’m sore.
Beautifully, outrageously tender from how often we’ve been going at it across Europe — and Zane is always, always willing to oblige with a hard dick and an eager mouth the moment I so much as breathe in his direction.
We fucked and climaxed while staring out at the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower at midnight.
I hummed on his veined cock while the lights shimmered on the Seine.
He took me balls-deep in the ass against the glass wall of our suite in Amsterdam while rain streaked down behind us.
And in Venice — God help me — I came so hard on his tongue I’m pretty sure gondoliers two canals over heard it.
To put it mildly, my introduction to Europe has been nothing short of spectacular.
The music video schedule hasn’t slowed the sex down. If anything, it’s intensified everything.
I wrote the script for the shot in a fire-lit warehouse sequence in Paris and a neon-drenched rooftop kiss scene in Amsterdam.
And a dramatic, slow-motion riverbank moment in Venice that almost got scrapped because Zane couldn’t stop burying his face in my neck every time the director yelled action.
We’re ahead of schedule.
Freddie said so himself, even though he also muttered that Zane’s inability to keep his hands off me was both “inspirational” and “fucking inconvenient.”
Now we’re in London for a full week.
Three Riot Saints gigs at The O2.
Seven days of rehearsals, filming, and Zane refusing to let me step two feet away from him in public.
He’s rented a posh place in Chelsea with three floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, a kitchen big enough to host a cooking show, and a rooftop terrace that looks out over the river.
The band is staying next door, because apparently we’re only allowed to be separated by one shared wall at any given time.
He received zero objection from me.
Now I don’t have to worry about wearing only his T-shirt and nothing else because apparently he sent a band-wide text while we were in Oregon—no more unscheduled meetings or walk-ins in his house.
I felt bad for the band. For like a minute.
Because the privacy? The freedom to walk around without fear of bumping into the assistant to the assistant to the deputy tour manager helping himself to a coconut water in Zane’s fridge at midnight?
Heavenly.
Tonight, we’re on the sofa in the Chelsea townhouse.
The city hums below us.
Zane is stretched out shirtless, ink everywhere, muscles relaxed for once.
I trace another tattoo on his ribs, soft and slow. It’s a set of coordinates. Precise numbers etched into skin. “What’s this one?” I ask.
He takes my hand, lowers it gently over his heart, and lifts my chin so he can look at me fully.
“Trailer park I grew up in,” he says quietly.
“One room. No power some weeks and holes in the ceiling. Mom and I pulled ourselves out of it. I marked it so I never forget where I came from. Or ever return there.”
My heart rolls over.
Of course he marked it.
Of course he carries it like a vow. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Zane Draven, it’s that he marks memorable moments in his life with searing specificity.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” I admit.
His whole body goes rigid. “No.”
“What?” I sit straight up. “Zane, it’s my body.”
He stiffens more, and I can practically feel the argument forming in him, pressing to escape. “Tattoos hurt, baby. I can’t bear the thought of you hurting.”
I melt. There’s no other word for it.
My chest goes warm and tight, and I lean down to kiss him because I cannot handle the way he says things like that without touching him.
“If women can go through childbirth,” I murmur against his lips, “I can take a few pricks on my skin.”
His eyes flash with a manic heat.
A dangerous, obsessed brightness that makes my breath stumble. “Oh no,” I say immediately. “You’re doing the breeding kink face.”
“I don’t have a breeding kink face.”
“Yes, you do.”
He pretends to laugh it off, but he pulls me into his lap and kisses me long enough that the world outside the windows fades.
We end up naked again, surprise surprise.
But we don’t fuck because I’m sore. But he coaxes me to ride his face until I drip into his mouth. And after he’s groaned deep and lapped up every drop, his hands map every inch of me, his body fitted against mine with a hunger that feels both grounding and overwhelming.
A warm, satisfied sigh precedes him sliding into me, not to fuck but to ‘settle himself’, and he continues touching me, like he can’t stop touching my pulse point with his mouth.
But inevitably, my hunger for him builds and builds until he moves inside me with a deep, rolling pace that stretches time. He comes with a long moan.
Then his voice breaks against my throat. “Where would you get it?”
My body is goo and my brain is scrambled. “What?”
“The tattoo,” he rasps. “Where would you get it?”
I grin, breathless. “Tramp stamp?”
His grip bruises my hips. “Hell no.”
He kisses down my chest, my stomach, my hipbones, then takes my wrist gently between his fingers. “Right here?” he murmurs, kissing the spot just below my pulse.
My head tilts back, eyes closing. “Maybe.” I pause for a second, bite my lip, then I ask, because it feels right. “Write me something for it?” I whisper.
He lifts his head, eyes dark and blazing. “It’ll be my absolute pleasure, baby. And I know a guy here in London.” He looks into my eyes as he licks my wrist again. “He’s a neat freak with a laundry list of requirements though.”
My eyebrows spike. “Requirements?” I snark.
“Yup, it’s a pain in the ass but he’s the best. I fly him to LA all the time to get mine done.”
“And what would these requirements be?”
He shrugs. “He’ll need a blood test.”
Not what I was expecting. At all. “Huh?”
“He mixes ink with blood, sometimes. But even if it’s not your thing, he prefers to work on people with no blood issues.”
“Wow, okay. Does he want an MRI too? The name of my childhood pet?” I snigger.
He doesn’t smile back. “We can nix the whole idea if you don’t want to do it.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s fine. Your tattooist can have a vial of my blood for his sacred rituals.”
His gaze drops to my wrist, and a wicked smile curves his lips. “Perfect. We’ll get it done before we go home.”
We do.
A delicate, beautiful circle of cursive begins on my wrist — one line from a lyric he wrote for me in Paris — and the same line finishes on his wrist.
Connected.
Marked.
Forever.