“As long as it’s somewhere my dad can’t see. He has this one rule when it comes to his kids getting tattoos. He’s the only one who can put ink on us. I got my first tattoo at fifteen, and he and Mom didn’t have a problem with it because it was Dad doing it.” She looked up at me, her eyes full of so much trust, it took me a second before I could draw in a deep breath. “But I need you to mark my skin, Lyric.”
I wanted to grab her and mark every inch of her with my lips, possess each part of her, show her that she was mine. But once I touched her the way I needed to, it would be game over. I wouldn’t let her go until she begged me to release her, and even then, I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to watch her walk away.
“Take off your shirt,” I commanded.
Her fork paused halfway to her mouth, her eyes darkening with a hunger that had nothing to do with food. “Lyric—”
“You said you don’t want your dad to see it, Mila,” I reminded her, smirking at where her mind had instantly gone.
“Right,” she muttered. Dropping the fork onto the plate in front of her, she reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it up over her head unashamedly.
Fuck. The air rushed out of my lungs as if I’d been punched in the stomach, and I just stood there looking down at her, entranced by her beauty. Her creamy skin only enhanced by the ink I saw on her shoulder and ribs. The way her tits pressed up against her wine-colored Victoria’s Secret bra. Her flat stomach and the freckle right above her navel.
There was no hiding how hard I was right then. She looked at where my cock was trying to push through my jeans, desperate to get to her, and gulped. “Sweet Jesus,” she breathed before quickly averting her gaze.
“Give me a little bit to sketch something up,” I said, grabbing my pad and a pencil. “Make yourself comfortable. Finish eating, watch TV, whatever makes you happy, babe.”
“Can’t do what would make me happy while you’re busy,” she grumbled, half under her breath.
Bending, I pressed her back against the couch and brushed my lips over hers. “Be patient for me, my Mila,” I breathed against her lips. “I promise it will be worth it.”
Chapter 6
Mila
With a hand towel over each breast, I lay on my back on the couch while Lyric sat on the chair he’d rolled over from the desk. The whirring sound of the tattoo gun, the feel of the needle marking the skin in the valley between my tits, none of that really registered.
How could any of that be of any consequence when I got to watch his eyes swirl with a kaleidoscope of browns as he put his mark on me?
I didn’t know what he’d come up with, but after seeing his wicked skills, I trusted him not to fuck up my skin. No doubt, it would be a masterpiece even if it was just a verse or a heart.
“Who is your best friend?” I found myself asking, wanting to hear his voice.
“My brother,” he answered without hesitation. “I used to have another best friend, Piper, but we drifted apart over the years. She’s younger than me by several years, so we were never in the same schools at the same time, but she lived down the beach from my sister, so I was at her house a lot.”
“You two don’t talk anymore?” Why I was jealous of some girl I’d never met before, I didn’t have a clue, but I hated the idea of him having a best friend who was a girl.
Who wasn’t me…
Damn it. This was only going to last one night. I had to stop feeling all possessive of this guy before my heart got confused.
It already was.
“We text every now and then, but she’s crazy busy touring.”
I felt my brow pinch. “Touring?”
“She followed in her parents’ footsteps. Liam Bryant. Gabriella Moreitti.” He added more ink, his strokes even and precise, not a single hesitation in any of his movements. And it was sexy as hell.
Then I realized exactly who he was talking about and nearly smacked myself in the face for being so stupid. “Piper Bryant was one of your best friends? Wait, isn’t she touring with Jagger Armstrong and Cannon Cage? I remember reading that somewhere only the other day.”
His lips twisted in distaste for a moment before his face cleared. “Yeah,” he said with a grunt. “She’s touring with Jagger and that little shit.”
“I see there is tension between you and Baby Cage.” Everyone in the media called Cannon Cage “Baby Cage.” For one, he looked a lot like his dad, Axton Cage, the lead singer for OtherWorld. For another, his voice was so good, it rivaled his father’s. I wasn’t sure if the nickname was to piss off the young rocker or to compliment him, but by the way Lyric smirked at me, I instinctively knew it annoyed the hell out of the younger Cage.
“Cannon is all right—until he’s within a hundred yards of Piper. Then he turns into a dick. Growing up, I had to beat the snot out of him plenty of times for being mean to her.” His focus returned to the ink on my chest.
“Aww! How cute. He woves her,” I teased and he snorted.
“You don’t treat someone you love the way he treats her,” he muttered, a muscle in his jaw flexing. After a moment, he blew out a harsh exhale and started working again. “What about you? Who’s your best friend?”
“I think it’s a tie between Monroe and River,” I admitted. “Monroe and I are close, and we tell each other almost everything. But River… I honestly think she and I are more alike personality-wise than Monroe and me.”
“I get that,” he said. “Luca and I are pretty different on the inside. Our sister Lucy always said she could tell us apart simply by looking in our eyes.”
“Do his eyes change rapidly like yours?”
“Yeah, it’s something we inherited from our dad. But there is always mischief in Luca’s eyes, according to Lucy—and everyone else in our family.”
“I need to see you two beside each other before I can comment on it.”
Lyric placed the tattoo gun aside and grabbed his phone. Moments later, I had a picture of him and his brother right in front of my eyes. Having spent my entire life sharing a face with Monroe, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when there were suddenly two yummy beasts on the phone screen.
They were both wearing long sleeves, so I couldn’t see Lyric’s ink or if Luca had any of his own. They had the same haircut, the same smug-ass grin, but he was right, there was something definitely different about the eyes of the guy on the left. And when I looked closer, really examined the way they were both grinning, I knew exactly which one was Lyric.
“Your smile is a hundred times better than your brother’s,” I told him, handing back the phone. “And yeah, I see something in his eyes. Like, at any moment, he might toss a bomb in your face or something.”
He tossed back his head, laughing hard. “That’s exactly what he’s like. You nailed it and haven’t even met him yet.”
My heart squeezed at the “yet,” but I knew it wasn’t ever going to happen. All we got was one night. I wasn’t going to meet his brother or anyone else in his family. That shouldn’t have made me sad, but it did.
“What?” he asked, his voice deepening as he looked down at me. “What’s wrong?”