Chapter 21 Olivia
OLIVIA
Trace stands before me, shirtless, braving the light layer of rain as he displays his tattoos to me.
I always knew he wanted to cover his skin.
I used to imagine the day I’d go with him to get his first tattoo— we would get our first tattoo—but here he stands with ink scattered all over his body and though my eyes recognize the fucking beauty of it all, my heart beats in melancholy.
“What do you mean?” I ask, needing clarification.
“I didn’t have you anymore, but I needed you, Olivia.
I needed you, so I inked you into my fucking skin.
Not all of them, but some. So maybe now you'll do good to fucking know that I've only ever wanted you. But you had to go and ruin that for us, didn't you?” Trace looks down at me and I can feel the betrayal burning from his eyes. But it's mixed with a deeply rooted desire and as I stare at him, admiring his body, I can’t help but to feel inconsolable knowing that I’ve lost a part of him after all this time.
I want to address his comment, that I ruined that for us. That's what I want to get to the bottom of but my heart races at his words. His claim that some of his tattoos are because of me is causing mayhem to ensue in my head, still not even sure if I believe it.
“You’re lying,” I accuse him, looking over the tattoos I can make out, trying to make any correlation to me.
The only one that I can really understand is the flower he has tattooed over his chest. A lily. He used to call me flower back then; said it’s because whenever he looked into my eyes, I reminded him that beautiful things can survive in chaos. And lilies were my favorites.
His eyes stare at me and it’s almost as if he’s wearing his mask right now. I can’t read him. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. And I grow impatient when he doesn’t respond to me so I step out to him and attempt to put my hand on chest, wanting to touch the ink. But he stops me.
Trace throws his hand up and grabs my wrist, holding it in the space between us.
I look at him, meeting his demanding eyes with mine.
We both challenge each other, neither of us wanting to back down and I don’t let up, pushing against his hold on me.
My skin burns where he grabs me and I try everything I can to keep my eyes on his, but his body is so close to mine and I am eager to explore it. I want to touch and look and…
“Please,” I finally whisper, begging him to let me go.
And he does. We keep our eyes on each other for a brief moment, something intense manifesting between us. It causes an ache in my core and warmth to cover my body. He doesn’t budge, watching me and it’s too much. I have to look away.
“Show me,” I say as I lower my hand, staring at his body. But he doesn’t respond, only furthering the tension that floods me.
“Show me, Trace.” This time I carry a bit more demand in my voice, feeling somewhat frenzied in my need to find out which ones are for me.
He grabs my hand, my breath catching as he maneuvers me to touch the tattoo on his left arm.
A rope of barbed wire wraps around his arm.
It starts at his wrist and winds all the way up to his elbow.
It’s the only tattoo on this arm. “My rings,” I say, making the connection.
I let my fingers float from the start of the tattoo until I trace it all the way up, and then I look over the rest of his body.
Trace points to the printed words over his ribcage, probably only about two inches big. I slide my fingers over his skin until I meet it.
YOU MUST SAVE YOURSELF
Confusion pulls in my head. “How does this remind you of me?” I ask. This time he looks down at me when he speaks.
“You’ll have to find out for yourself,” he says and I roll my eyes at him, once again annoyed with his lack of an actual answer.
Trace points to another tattoo, a roman numeral tattooed underneath a viper.
I start with the viper, just wanting to admire it more than anything, tracing the linework of the snake from the top of his chest and up his shoulder before it disappears behind him.
I see the way my touch affects him, the way he closes his eyes and breathes sharply, but slowly.
I look at him as he grinds his teeth, his jaw ticking.
Again, it’s too fucking much, seeing him like this.
If he really reacts this way to me, then why fight it.
He snaps, grabbing my hand and moving it to the roman numerals. I flinch, but see that he’s losing control. A weakness, maybe. Like my touch sets him on edge.
But I don’t react much, deciding to continue my journey over the tattoo he directs me to.
X XXXI
“What number is this?” I ask, not really knowing exactly how to read them. I watch as beads of water slide over the tattoos; the display seems enigmatic and my eyes grow hungry with desire.
“It’s the day I got you,” he starts as he watches me trace the black numbers over and over. “And that day I lost you.”
“Halloween?” I ask, thinking back to four years ago. My heart swelling and then bursting at the memory.
He doesn’t respond, but I can only assume that’s what he’s talking about. But what confuses me is why he would want to remember a day he lost me. The last time I ever saw him.
I don’t want to relive the emotion of that moment right now though, knowing it’s too fucking painful to recall. That night was perfect with him, everything that happened after—from what I can remember—was not. And he’s the one who left me.
I decide to roam over the rest of his body, from the bullet holes in his arms, the mask underneath them, and the…
My eyes catch on a pair of lips painted on the side of his neck. Small enough for me to have missed them the first time. But now they’re on full display and I feel like I could stand here all day and stare at them. At him.
“What about this?” I ask, feeling slightly territorial wondering whose lips he might have gotten branded on his skin.
I place a single finger over the black tracing and as expected, I feel his pulse. I wonder if he’ll answer me, or feed me yet another cryptic response to hold me over. But he lowers his voice to something more sincere and less cruel, though still holding a modicum of aggression in his words.
“You wrote me a note your senior year shortly after we started talking,” he starts. “You told me that you wanted me to kiss you the next time I saw you.”
I close my eyes, remembering the note and the feelings I felt while writing it.
I was trying to be bold, to take a risk.
I was head over heels already, Trace was all I could think about.
So I told him what I wanted from him. I didn’t get to see him too often when he was in college and I was still in high school.
Only when he had games or when we could sneak off if he came down for the weekends.
So I wrote the note, kissed the bottom of it with my red lipstick stained lips, and mailed it to his dorm.
The next time he saw me, he kissed me. It was euphoric and surreal and perfect. It was my first kiss.
I look up at his neck once more, realizing now that the lips my fingers trace over are actually mine, from the kiss I marked on the note.
Desire consumes me. Pride floods me. The idea that that one little note meant so much to him, that he held onto it for so long and got it stamped onto his skin . . . it’s confuses me and overwhelms me.
“Why here?” I ask, feeling butterflies dance around in my core.
“I really fucking liked it when you kissed me there,” he admits and my whole body ignites.
I don’t let my eyes leave his, consumed with watching his reaction as I touch him. And it’s visceral. The way he closes his eyes and clenches his teeth together. The way he forms balls with his fists.
I take the moment to lean up on my toes, pushing myself closer to him by wrapping my hand around his neck for purchase.
I make one final move to lean and in an instant, I’m being shoved back up against the tree.
Trace’s hands are on me, practically ripping my sweater to shreds from my body in a desperate act to claim me.
I can’t even breath or blink before I know what’s going on.
He picks me up and flips us around so that my legs are wrapped around his torso, and then he leans back against the tree.
My sweater is in shambles, revealing parts of my bra and leaving torn pieces hanging off my arms.
He holds me like this, groping my ass so tight.
“Now do it,” he whispers over my lips and I don’t waste a second.
I lean down and kiss his neck, right over the pair of tattooed lips.
He immediately starts to groan, nearly whimpering as he forces me to grind into him, his dick painfully teasing my pussy through our clothes.
He’s pushing himself back into the tree so roughly, I can practically hear the tree scratching his skin.
But I dig my finger nails into the tops of his shoulder as I continue to suck on his neck right over the tattoo, doing exactly what he’d done to me earlier.
“Fuck,” he groans into my neck. His fingers dig into my ass as he pulls me into him tighter. I moan against his skin, nearly going limp when I feel the tip of his cock push into my clit. How, through so many layers of clothing, is he able to do that?
Next thing I know, he spins us back around and drops me, putting me back up against the tree. His breathing matches mine. Rough. Fast. Desperate. Both locked under some kind of fucking spell. Entwined in ecstasy. Consumed by lust.
I need more.
He consumes me, kissing me with rough and fevered abandon.
I wrap my arms around his waist, wanting to fucking touch him.
I slide them across his skin toward his back, melting in the way it feels to hold him like this again.
But in a second that feeling collapses and I damn near choke in his mouth when I feel the unmistakable mold of a gun.