I was going to make sure she knew that gift made her mine.
Mine forever.
Chapter Five
Willow
The throbbing pulsed through my thigh, hitting the bone. Getting up, my leg was swollen around the tattoo, and it felt like I had been kicked repeatedly by a damn horse.
No one warned me about this.
But the picture was incredible, and I couldn't believe it was mine, set in my skin forever.
The roots had life, the flowers were all flowing and popping off the branches, as if I was staring at a real cherry blossom tree.
My favorite detail in the whole image was the trunk. There were small indents that wrapped the bark, tiny streaks and divots just like the scars of a real tree.
Scars from living, scars from supporting life, scars from growing into the beauty it had become.
Every color seemed to stretch out and grab my eyes. The vibrant hues, all the pinks, the whites, the highlights that rolled across each petal...
It was amazing enough to hang in a gallery, to have people stand around it and chatter about the realism and how the artist captured the natural beauty with every stroke.
Rubbing the A&D ointment gently over my bruised muscle, I couldn't stop thinking about Kash.
His face was flashing in my brain, his muscles were ricocheting like thunder screaming against the skyline. And I couldn't stop the storm, couldn't shake the tremors he sent through my lungs deep into my core.
What the hell did I do?
Kash had taken my one track mind, my focus and desire, and turned it into dreams of him. Dreams of his hands and how I wanted him to finish what he started.
I let him touch me.
Why?
Why him?
Why now?
He had only used his hand, we didn't have sex. That was one thought that brought me some comfort. I'd never let someone I just met caress me that way. Ever.
But there was something about him that made it easy for me to give in, to want it, to crave it. He made me feel sexy, he made me feel...
Stop. It doesn't matter!
There was no time in my world to get caught up in some guy, to let him taint what I was working so hard to achieve.
I needed this gallery to work, I needed to stay focused on making my art pay for itself. I couldn't let myself get sidetracked by a fucking bad boy; riddled in ink that sent shivers over my flesh, and ripples that shocked my system from him being thick in all the right places.
You have a huge day Friday. Get your shit together!
Limping to my couch, I lowered slowly and rested my leg up on the arm. The pain pulsed so fiercely, it felt like I had a second heart built under the surface. The skin was rising, deflating, and breathing with lungs of its own.
Getting home after five-thirty in the morning didn't help either. My eyes hurt, my head was crushing the brain inside my skull, and all I wanted was to sleep till I could wake up and feel like myself again.
But that wasn't happening. Every inch of me seemed to be bursting with some form of pain and discomfort, highlighted by tingles and a raging case of electric static flowing through my veins.
I was annoyed and miserable, hot and bothered. And I couldn't stop staring at the image glistening beneath my waist.
Revisiting the night in my head, picturing Kash's hands, the way he worked his fingers around my thigh...
God I had wanted him to go higher, wanted him to brush my skirt out of the way, and drape a finger across my needy button. And when he did, I froze.
My inner wish had been granted, it manifested right in front of my eyes, and I opened to let him in.
But I wanted it, stopping him didn't even cross my mind.
The way he looked at me, the way his eyes drifted around my body. It turned my insides into a watery pool of liquid desire.
His muscles had muscles, his body looked like it was crafted from marble, painted with designs I could watch dance all day long as he flexed every inch of hardened sinew.
And for the first time ever, it was me getting the attention. Kash had bypassed Beth and ate me up, he shoved a model to the side just to get closer to me.
Right? Or am I just imagining that?
Was I just the vulnerable one?
No he did, he definitely went for me.
The thought sent a rush through my nerves, electricity fired off inside my skull in the form of colors.
Bright ringing colors exploded behind the scenes, fireworks in the darkness, a new light in a place that had been barren and forgotten.
Confidence, excitement, pleasure; all the feelings that coated me in ways I had lost long ago came to life, brewing deep in my core. Shaking my head, I drove my fingers to my temples.
You're never going to see him again. It was just a small attraction. If you can even call it that.
Stop drooling over the first guy to show you any interest in years.
And it had been years.
I hated thinking about that, hated having to admit that my honey pot had long grown dry. I wasn't outgoing, I didn't go looking for relationships, or even a one night stand to fulfill any need my body had demanded.
Because I had a goal, a desire that fed the hunger of my soul.
Besides, I learned ages ago that guys are self-centered. Men are walking hard-ons with one goal in mind; pussy.
My life in upstate New York was plagued by a couple assholes and users. Men who took advantage of my weaknesses, men who used me for what they wanted then tossed me into the gutter when they were through.
Yeah, Lo, all two of them. Sad, that's so sad.
I was twenty-three, and regretfully had to say I was a born again virgin. It had been over three years since I had gotten down and dirty.
My late night excitement now consisted of batteries and a voiceless expression. It was shameful to think I had grown accustomed and accepting of my lover being more closely related to a hand mixer than an actual human being.
Beth had no idea about my dry spell. She thought four months was a long time... Shit, she probably would have died of dehydration ages ago if she was in my shoes.
Before I moved here, I let her think that I had been through a few relationships that ended under normal circumstances.
That was a bold-faced lie. One I tried to forget and ignore.
It was embarrassing for me to have to tell her that my weekends were spent alone, while she would ramble on and on about her many guy friends, and all the long, wild nights.
There hadn't been any guys in my life for ages, and the ones that did sneak a little taste of my world here and there, all left before it even led to a friggin kiss.
Pathetic, I'm so damn pathetic.
I'm an artist, an introvert. My internal thoughts are best laid out on paper, my emotions are best said through brush, and my feelings are best expressed through colors.
Fuck this! Stop pitying yourself, Willow!
You chose to close off, you decided to keep yourself boxed in.
That was my doing, all my own unraveling of relationships.
I pushed people away, attempted to keep myself from anyone so I didn't have to get hurt anymore. My brain read into things way too much, and Beth had been the only one to challenge me. She had cracked my shell, while leaving it still whole for protection.
If I didn't have her, I wouldn't have experienced half the shit I did. Kash included.
And tomorrow she'd be a world away.
And I'd be all alone again.
Like I had been for years, alone with my past.
Alone with my memories.
Eyeing my easel in the corner, I pushed myself off the couch. The one and only thing that helped me to release the demons clawing their way through my soul... Painting.