In fact, I slide my gaze up her body, the top half of Vale completely covered with a plain, navy blue T-shirt, and meet her eyes head on. Those verdant orbs spark with lust, anger, fear, and challenge.
“We’re talking after this,” I warn her, just in case she thinks I’ll get sidetracked from my ultimate goal.
She gives a grunt of denial and now all I see is challenge left on her face.
I give her a return evil grin and crawl onto the bed between those gorgeous legs. Flopping down, face hovering right over her pussy, I use my arms to drape her legs over my shoulders, that offensive tattoo laying inches from my right ear. I push that thought away, spread her apart, and run my tongue up her center.
“Hawke,” Vale cries out loudly as her hands fly to my head. Her fingers sink into my hair, grasp hard, and then hold me in place.
She’s all in. So am I.
I lower my mouth to her again and I go to town. I eat her out as if my life depended on it, intent on giving her a climax so dizzying she won’t think twice about me flipping her over and fucking her from behind.
Fuck, she tastes good. She squirms underneath me, punching her hips up, demanding more. She makes mewling sounds, pulls so hard on my hair I’m pretty sure it’s close to ripping out, and calls my name softly…imploring me to finish her off.
When I stab my tongue in deep, her legs fall off my shoulders and her knees spread wide in complete and utter surrender. That vividly monstrous tattoo flashes again in my periphery and I can’t fucking help myself.
I raise my face up from her, go to an elbow, and wipe my mouth off. Vale’s hands release me and her head immediately pops up to look down at me with pleading question. She was close to coming; I could tell because her body is still the same. I know exactly what flick of the tongue would set her off too, but that’s forgotten momentarily.
My eyes drop down and to the right. For the first time since last weekend in my bathroom, I take a look at the blanket of roses that obliterated me from Vale’s body. Deep red petals of blood with thick layers of vines and leaves; sharp thorns sticking out, all of which is woven through a pale white lattice that runs up her inner thigh.
I literally can’t stomach it, so I look back up at her. My voice is raw and tinged with anger. “I hate that fucking tattoo.”
Vale’s eyes go soft with understanding and her lips curve up in an empathetic smile. She reaches a hand out and strokes my jaw. Then she stuns me by the confidence in her voice when she says, “Look at it again.”
I blink at her, trying to understand the message she might be trying to impart.
Does she want me to man up? Own the pain?
“Look at it, Hawke,” she murmurs. “Look at it closely.”
Her eyes aren’t challenging me anymore, but are full of encouragement. I doubt the genuine nature of her gaze, but still my head turns to look back at the tattoo.
Blood-red petals, dark green vines and leaves. White lattice.
I look closer.
The roses are ordinary but done with good detail. They are of varying sizes and shapes, some fully bloomed, while others are just tight buds. The leaves are all original in design, some even bending and overlapping others. The lattice is pale white rungs—five in all—which are interesting, because you don’t see white ink used often. But they are set off nicely with the layer of roses and leaves thickly woven in between them providing contrast.
In fact, if memory serves, the rungs are spaced apart almost directly over the place where my name resides under this fresh layer of ink. I bend in closer, place my fingertip on her skin, and trace the space between the first and second rungs.
And that’s when I see it.
The letter H.
I peer closer, narrowing my eyes. I stare hard at the greenery, let my vision go lax, and focus.
And almost like it’s emerging from a forest of craftily inked camouflage, my name starts to appear.
H-A-W-K-E.
All five letters, one in the space between each rung, still there but completely surrounded by leaves and roses so it’s almost unreadable.
She didn’t cover my name.
My gaze slams back to hers.
Chapter 18
Vale
Unmitigated relief shines in Hawke’s eyes and they glow bluer than I think I’ve ever seen them. I expect a tender sentiment, maybe a statement of surprise, but he shocks the hell out of me when he growls, “Fuck me,” and surges up my body. He lifts my left leg, clasping his hand firmly behind my knee. He glances at the tattoo again, mutters “Fuck me” again, and then turns that intensity straight to me.
“Get my jeans undone,” he says in a guttural voice rippling with urgency.
I don’t think to question. My hands pop the button with ease, slide the zipper with practiced efficiency. I push the denim easily off his hips with no constraining underwear beneath. My name flashes almost as if it’s drawn in neon ink, cursively written over his right hip bone. I wonder what it says about this man—who I hurt so badly that he wouldn’t give me the courtesy of talking to me again—that he kept that tattoo visible. Why not eradicate it? Why not cover it? Why leave it there for other women to see?
I banish those thoughts because there’s no room in my head for them at this moment. I take his erection in hand, feeling its steely warmth pulsing with need.
Need to be inside of me. I know this is what Hawke wants, and God help me, I want it too. I want it more than anything, consequences be damned, and knowing full well that the moment of truth lays just on the other side of an orgasm.
I rub the tip of him up against me. He groans when he feels my wetness.
I position him just so and—
Slam.
All the way in, to the root. My back arches off the bed and I cry out with a mix of pleasure and pain.
“Fuck me,” he whispers for a third time as he lowers his forehead to rest against mine. “You didn’t cover my name.”
“I couldn’t,” I whisper back to him, my hands coming tentatively to his shoulders.
He needed to hear that. Not only did he need to see it, but he needed to hear the truth of my limits. That I couldn’t get rid of something that held such meaning. While I’m sure this provided much confusion to his mind, because let’s face it—I cut him loose but kept his name on my skin—he didn’t let that stop him from fucking me swiftly and with purpose.
Hawke pounds my body, eerily reminiscent of the way in which he fucked me when I first got that tattoo. Raw power, domination, and unadulterated emotion flowing from hips to cock to deep within me. For the second time, we have sex without protection. Like we’ve done oh so many times in the past, our orgasms slam into us with a brutal honesty attesting to the affinity we have for each other, completely shattering every last bit of resistance within us.
If I expected Hawke to let his blood cool and his ardor to soften, I would have been mistaken. He places elbows to mattress and grinds his pelvis against me. He looks at me soberly. “Tell me the truth. I want to know why you did it.”
My face tilts to the side, my eyes drop down to the mattress as I try to collect my thoughts. But Hawke is having none of that. As swift as a snake striking, his hand grabs my jaw and swings my face so I’m forced to look at him.
“Eyes on me, Vale,” he commands. “And tell me all of it.”
I know it’s time for us to put all the cards on the table, but I’m still irritated with the lack of respect he’s giving me. I intend to tell him and I don’t need to be forced.