Chapter 28
28
Cortney
“Spencer! How’s it going?” the familiar voice greets us as soon as we step inside.
“Dante. Good to see you, man.” The two perform some sort of male hugging ritual, slapping backs and shaking hands.
Growing up, we ran in the same circles as Dante, but I haven’t seen him since before Ollie was born. I assumed he moved away like most people who grew up in our small town.
“And Cortney Powell? The two of you are still fucking around together?”
I nearly choke on my next breath. “We actually haven’t seen each other since high school.”
“I just got back into town.” Spencer slides his hands into his pockets and shrugs.
Since we’re twenty minutes away in the next town, it’s not unusual that Dante wouldn’t have followed the saga of life in Fairview Valley over the past two decades.
“Ah. It’s good to see you. Getting a couple of tattoos today, I hear?” Dante makes a few clicks on his computer.
“Yep,” Spencer confirms. “Whatever she wants, and I sent you mine the other day.”
Dante taps his monitor. “Already saw it in the inbox. Who’s going first?”
“You go ahead.” I wave Spencer away as I wander over to the wall of designs. “I’m still deciding.”
“Take your time,” Dante says. “We can get started, and I have another artist ready whenever you are. Cole will take care of you.”
A glance over my shoulder is perfectly timed to catch Dante’s wink.
Spencer scowls.
“Give us a sec.”
He marches over to me without waiting for Dante’s reply.
“See anything you like?” His voice is rough in my ear, spurring to life fantasies of his well-practiced dirty talk.
“I don’t know. I’m thinking about this butterfly on my ass. What do you think?” The teasing grin rising to the surface nearly gives me away. I bite my lip.
Wrapping his arm around my torso, he curls his fingers around my neck and tilts my head. “If you have to remove your clothes, I’m going to rip this place apart, Kitten.” He kisses the spot I’m going to be covering up. “Nobody gets to see what’s mine.”
A shiver races down my spine.
“I love how possessive you are.”
“You like hearing you’re mine?”
I curl my arm around to cup the back of his head. “As long as you know you’re also mine.”
“Don’t say shit like that when I can’t fuck you,” he groans in my ear. “Later, when I have you naked, you can say it all you want.”
“Promise?”
“Promise that I’ll have you naked or promise that I’ll let you say it?” He nips the shell of my ear.
“Both.”
Finding my hand behind his head, he curls our pinky fingers together. “Promise.”
“Spencer, I have a client booked after you, so if you want this done, you better get moving!”
Spencer touches his mouth to mine. “I’ll be back, Kitten. Pick out something you like, or don’t. Whether you’re ready to do this today or not is your choice.”
I stroke his beard. “Better get back there before you lose your spot.”
Spencer taps my ass, then ambles away.
My options are limitless. I skip over anything fine line. Even though the dice are an outline, they’ll still require something with color to hide the original lines and the dark circles marking the numbers on each die. I walk up and down the display, listening to the low murmurs from the two talking over the buzz of the machine.
I find the perfect design.
The meaning jumps out at me, keeping this from being just an ordinary cover-up. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that I want Sebastian gone, and if I can do that in a meaningful way, I’m going to try.
“You must be Cortney.” A guy dressed in all black with a close-shaved Mohawk approaches me.
“You must be Cole.”
I shake his hand.
“Did you find something you like?”
“I did. I like this design. If we can make this middle piece darker, I think it’d work nicely with the cover-up.”
“I can make that work. Come on back. You can show me what we’re dealing with, and we can get started.”
Nerves flutter in my abdomen as we walk to the empty stall. I peek in on Spencer and find his eyes already fixated on the parted curtain as if he knew I was coming. He gives me a slow once-over, his stare potent enough to bring heat between my thighs.
I offer a jaunty wave, and he returns a devastating smirk.
Cole and I complete a brief consultation. He agrees the tattoo will work nicely, and after cleaning the area behind my ear, he applies the stencil. I study my reflection in the mirror and confirm the placement.
Cole positions me lying on my side and sets up his tray.
“Ready to get started?”
I curl my fingers into a fist and tuck them against my chest. “I’m ready.”
“Okay. Let me know if you need a break or anything.”
The gun buzzes to life, and he gets to work.
I close my eyes and breathe through the burning pain. It feels like someone is pressing a hot iron against my skin. The sensation isn’t too bad except when he stays in one spot for too long. It’s the only time I find myself wishing he would move along.
Cole doesn’t talk while he works, so I listen to the buzzing gun and the heavy metal rock playing from the speakers. I can confidently say I don’t recognize a single song. Between breaks in the music, I strain to hear Spencer and Dante, but their voices are lost to the tattoo guns.
As Cole moves from spot to spot, I picture a jar filling in my mind, the percentage completed steadily growing. Each movement is a piece of Sebastian being erased from my skin forever.
And replaced by something much more permanent.
“How are you doing, Kitten?”
Spencer’s soft, deep voice has me opening my eyes. “Good.” I sound like I just woke up. Maybe I did. Somewhere, I fell into a lull despite the screaming rock band.
“She’s almost done,” Cole announces from beside me. After a few more passes with the needles, he wipes the spot clean. “Finished.”
“How does it look?” I ask Spencer, reaching for his hand.
His eyes zero in on my neck.
“Is it ugly?” I tease, knowing it’s not. The design is small and cute.
He seems to shake himself out of wherever he went and helps me sit up. “It looks great, Kitten. Want to tell me about it?”
Cole says, “I’ll give you two a minute.” The curtain swishes shut behind him.
Spencer brushes gentle fingertips beneath my new tattoo. “You went with river rocks.”
“They’re stones.”
His startled exhale puffs warm air against my neck.
“They’re strong. Unbreakable. Did you know people will use stacked rocks as trail markers to find their way home?”
Spencer’s swallow is audible. “I did.”
“I had him darken the middle one for you.” Because he’s the middle Stone.
“Cortney,” he rasps my name. “Kitten, when I said you should cover up his mark, I didn’t mean for you to feel pressured to replace it with mine.”
“I wanted it to be something with meaning. You mean something to me. I’m tired of always doing the right thing. Never too risky. Never too exciting. I’ve stayed in line my entire life. I want to be impulsive. It’s just a tattoo. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll get another cover up.” But something tells me we’re staring at forever.
He kisses the soft skin beneath the tattoo, his voice a raspy growl in my ear. “Thank you.”
“Show me yours.” I search his body for the protective covering. “Is it on your ass?”
Spencer’s chuckle is deep and rich. “No, I didn’t let some guy tattoo my ass.”
He holds his left hand between us, palm facing upward.
“I don’t see—”
He turns his hand over, revealing the dark outline of a kitten inked between the second and third knuckles of his ring and middle fingers. The design faces him, so that when his fingers hang down it doesn’t look like much more than a couple of dark swirls.
“ Oh! Spencer. What in the world…?”
“Just making sure you and everyone else knows this spot is yours.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I might be.” He wiggles his middle finger. “I was going to just get the one, but it usually takes two fingers to make you come, so I decided to mark them both.”
My pussy clenches as if begging for a demonstration. A laugh bursts free as tears prick my eyes. The mix of emotions is dizzying. “You are crazy,” I breathe against his lips, kissing him deeply.
“And you are mine, Kitten. For as long as you’ll have me.”
Someone beyond the curtain clears their throat. “This lovefest is really sweet, but my next client just walked in, and I need to prep the room.”
Spencer kisses me once more before dragging me into the lobby.
“Thanks, Dante,” he waves, towing me straight to the door.
“Anytime, Spencer. Cortney, nice seeing you.” His smirk says he knows entirely too much.
“Wait, we have to pay.” I try digging in my heels, but Spencer is an unstoppable force.
“Already took care of it.”
The bell above the door rings as Spencer shoves it open. He doesn’t slow until we step outside.
“I have to pay my half.” I shield my eyes from the harsh sun with my free hand.
“Too late. I covered it with the deposit.”
“Okay, one thing you need to know about me in this relationship is I have my own money. I’ve done really well for myself.”
“So have I,” Spencer says, pressing me until my back kisses the brick exterior. His broad shoulders block out the sun. “I lived alone for twenty years doing nothing but working and saving, spending only enough to eat and keep a roof over my head. I have savings, a lot of them. I’m not a millionaire, but I am rich enough that I can buy my girlfriend a few things. It feels good to buy her things. Especially when the thing I’m buying is a tattoo to cover the one her fucking fiancé tricked her into getting.”
“He didn’t exactly trick me. I was just dumb,” I mumble.
He captures my chin in the web of his thumb, exposing the tattoo to his gaze. “You get this tattoo for me?”
“You know that I did.” I curl my fingers into the tee shirt at his hips.
He tilts my face back. “Then I’m paying for it because that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
Spencer silences my reply with his tongue.
Not that I have one anyway. The second his lips touch mine, any coherent thought evaporates like a drop of dew beneath the midday sun.
Our foreheads touch, and we’re both breathing hard as the kiss gradually stops.
I didn’t have any reservations with my new tattoo because I already knew.
I think I knew way back at the beach when spending my vacation with Spencer felt like stepping back in time.
Spencer was always meant to be mine.
And there’s not a doubt lingering that I was always meant to be his.