“Hah! A week into this and you're already getting cold feet? Well, you don't need to worry. As soon as Patrick told his parents he was thinking of moving here, they freaked out and left the restaurant. He's in their hotel room with them now and I'm standing alone in the lobby. So, spill it. Where are you?”
I bit my lower lip hard enough that I winced.
My silence was worth a thousand words. Well, one word anyway.
Florian.
“Goddamn it, Abigail Ingram Sharp. Are you letting him tattoo you? Really?”
“He's talented, Addi.”
“I know he's talented, Abigail, but you want to fuck him. He's your brother. And an asshole. And a player.”
“Stepbrother,” I inserted, knowing she wasn't finished with me yet.
“Foulmouthed. Arrogant. Rude. He scared the shit out of Dorian. Pretty sure he doesn't like me either. Abigail, listen. It's not that I think there's anything morally wrong with your feelings or your attraction to Florian, but what do you think would happen if you did sleep together? Awkward family dinners? More hurt feelings? What would your dad do if he ever found out?”
I cringed and a cold chill crept into my blood, stealing some of that rabid heat that Florian always managed to instill in me.
“Florian … he's not exactly a relationship sort of a guy. I mean, even if you could figure out someway to work this whole fiasco into a livable sort of situation, he wouldn't go for it. He'd fuck you and leave you, just like he's done to dozens of other girls.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” I held up my hand, even though she wasn't there to see it. I took a deep breath and focused on the painting directly in front of me. There was a girl halfway through her transformation into a swan, only it wasn't a pleasant looking sort of a transformation. Her face was twisted into a grimace of pain and her arms were wrapped tightly around her midsection, fingers digging into her pale flesh. “I get it. Nothing's going to happen between us, Addi.” The snort she responded with told me she didn't believe me, not one bit. “I'm probably going to be here for a few hours. Come see me later; I'll text you the address.”
I hung up before she could respond and jumped when the door opened.
“You ready?” Flor asked me again, and I nodded, watching as he set a fresh printout on the drafting table to the right of the stainless steel counter. The smell of cigarette smoke hung around him, but managed to do absolutely nothing to obscure his usual scent. Florian was masculine without being vulgar, sharp and spicy and sweet all at the same time. Damn him. “You sure you wouldn't be more comfortable with a butterfly or a flower or some shit?” He glanced over at me and I noticed that his shirt was a little rumpled and on his neck, there was a perfect lip print in pastel pink. One of the groupies had gotten to him.
My stomach twisted up in knots and a rush of disappointment surged through me. My brain tried to promise me that there was no way he'd had enough time to go out there and sleep with someone yet my heart was utterly convinced he had. Either way, it shouldn't have mattered to me. He was my brother for fuck's sake.
I shook my head violently, brown curls sliding over my shoulders.
“No, of course not. You should know me better than that, Flor,” I said, even though I wasn't sure that he really did. For having known the guy for thirteen years, it always seemed he knew surprisingly little about me when I, pathetically, seemed to know everything about him. Well, everything he'd let me know, that is. I was working under the suspicion that there was a lot under the surface that Flor was hiding. “I don't want a fucking butterfly or a flower. I want that design right there. Let's do this.”
His eyebrows raised, but he didn't say a thing, straightening out his shirt and sitting down to flick on the switch for the light box. He put a piece of what looked like tracing paper over the table and proceeded to copy his art onto it. For a while he didn't speak and I started to wonder if I'd somehow done something to piss him off. Flor's tattooed hand moved across the page in a blur of color, his fingers strong and sure, guiding the pencil with an expertise that I could only envy. As far as I knew, I didn't have any passions or special talents. I mean, I was good at school, but what did that really mean if I couldn't decide on a major?
I bit back a sigh and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees to watch him when suddenly, he paused, the tip of his pencil resting lightly on the page. When Flor turned slowly in his seat to look at me, jeans creaking against the leather of the chair, a shiver went down my spine. As his thoughtful expression morphed into a wicked grin, the shiver became a full body shake that I had to fight to quell.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Abi? Take your pants off.”
The words went straight through me, piercing my heart like an arrow. Between my legs, an insistent throbbing began that I didn't know how to control. Wow.
“All the way off?” I asked, knowing that was a stupid question. Florian laughed at me, hunching back over the table, pencil sliding across the page like it was nothing, like he could do this in his sleep.
“Unless you want to do it with your pants tangled around your ankles.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Which I'm not opposed to.”
I huffed, knowing he was just teasing me and sat up, pulling off the gray leather boots I'd put on in an attempt to look somewhat stylish. Walking into this shop was like walking into a lion's den, one filled with gorgeous, perfectly put-together lionesses, dressed up like wafer thin models. I knew I'd never match up to them, no matter how hard I tried, but I couldn't seem to keep myself from trying. A pair of boots and some nice jeans weren't fooling anyone though; I had breasts and hips and a stubborn layer of extra padding that nobody wanted to see. I knew I wasn't fat (I wasn't that delusional yet), but I also knew I wasn't winning any beauty contests.
I stood up, my bare feet hitting the floor with a slap and then started to unbutton my jeans. I could practically feel Flor's eyes on my back, yet when I turned around, he wasn't looking at me. I swallowed and faced towards the wall, hooking my fingers in the denim and closing my eyes. This shouldn't be so hard and yet … I felt like I was drowning again, smothered in the ashes of an unrequited love. I breathed out and up, sending stray strands of hair fluttering around my face, and then I dropped my jeans. Or I tried to anyway. I'd squeezed myself into my tightest pair of dark wash skinny jeans, so I had to really struggle to push them down my hips and over my calves.
The bikini bottoms I'd slipped into at home felt suddenly inadequate.
“Alright,” Florian said, and maybe I was imagining it but his voice felt like it was deeper, darker, huskier. I turned around and found him intently focused on the drafting table and his artwork. Okay, okay, so I really was imagining it. “Come over here and just stand like you normally would, don't do anything special.”
I turned around and moved over to him, my feet cold on the bare wood floor as I paused next to my stepbrother and watched his expression as he looked up at me – or rather at my … crotch. He turned in his chair and reached out, taking hold of the strings on my right hip. I felt dizzy, this close to him, dressed in so little. It would take a split second for him to lift me up and set me on the table, undo his pants, and slide into me.
Holy crap.
Flor's fingers tugged roughly on the strings and the knot came undone, the top corner of the bikini falling forward as I gasped and dropped my hand to keep the rest of it from sliding away. I knew I was breathing hard. Hell, I could hear my own breaths echoing in the tiny room, could feel the sweat forming on my lower back, between my thighs. The hand that held my bikini bottoms in place was shaking, just a little but enough that I knew Flor could tell.
If he did, at least he had the decency to pretend not to. I looked up at the ceiling as he leaned back and grabbed some blue tape, taping the bikini in place so that a good majority of my hip was exposed. Feeling his fingers press the tape into place nearly undid me completely. I had to bite my lower lip and keep my gaze focused on the mural above his head. If I'd looked down at hi
m in that moment, I might've grabbed his hair with my left hand and pulled his head back, kissed him and hoped to God that he kissed me back.
But I wasn't that brave, unfortunately.
“Okay, now don't get your panties in a bunch over this,” he said and then chuckled, the sound worming its way into my skull and taking hold there. “Not that it doesn't look like they're already in one.” I would've smacked him playfully, but that would've required touching him and I wasn't capable of doing that right now. “But I have to shave you. There are fine hairs all over the body, even one as smooth as yours.” As smooth as yours. Was that something a stepbrother should say to his stepsister? Since Flor was the only stepbrother I knew, I had no clue.
He sat back and I finally took a chance, glancing down at him as he snapped black latex gloves over his tattooed hands and pulled out a disposable razor from a nearby drawer. The scrape of the blade against my skin seemed loud and I prayed inside my head that Flor would turn on music when he got to work. I didn't think I could sit there in silence with him and not scream.
When he was done shaving me, Florian grabbed a small plastic tub and opened the lid, switching out his gloves for a new pair. For all his faults, Flor was a professional and he knew what he was doing. I waited with a thumping heart while he dug out some of the clear cream and then reached up to my hip, sliding his fingers along my skin as I crackled and burned inside. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, not because I was sad, but because the sensations were almost too much to bear. Florian's hands were too much, the heat of his breath against my skin was too much, the smell of his hair, the hardness of his muscles, the color of his eyes … ugh. My stepbrother was a never ending set of stimuli for me.
When he finished, giving no indication that touching me was affecting him quite so much as it was me, he pressed the tracing paper to my hip and pushed it flush, running his hand over and over and over it.
Torture. Sheer torture. What was I thinking? I couldn't go through with this. We'd just started and already, I was swollen and desperate downstairs, panting like I'd just run a marathon and shaking like a leaf.
“Relax, Abi,” Florian told me, peeling the paper back and tossing it into the silver trashcan near his chair. “Hell, you're even making me nervous.” Flor pushed his chair back and stood up, tilting his head to the side and focusing on my hip. “Looks just about perfect to me. Why don't you take a peek and tell me what you think of the placement. Don't be afraid to adjust it. This is permanent, so make sure you're happy with it.” He took off his gloves again and stepped back, giving me room to move to the mirror on the back of the door.
I stared at myself, pupils dilated, lips parted and moist, the mocha color of my skin shining bronze under the lights from above. I didn't look half bad, I guessed. And the stag? It might seem weird to put a deer on your hip, but it was perfect. It was Flor. It was me. In a way, it was us.
This is symbolic, Abigail, I told myself, turning side to side as I examined the lines of my future tattoo and avoided meeting Flor's gaze in the reflection. You and him, together, forever, but in a way that's safe, in a way that nobody has to get hurt.
I took a deep breath and jumped in feet first.
“Let's do this.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The first prick made my eyes water, but I kept my focus on Flor's hand as he moved the needle across my skin with an expert's touch, starting with the darkness of the sky behind the stag. For a few minutes there, I wondered how I was going to make it through several hours of this but slowly, the pain started to fade away, turning into a numb buzzing sensation, like someone was drawing on my skin with a vibrating ballpoint pen.
I watched him work, let himself get drawn into that artistic zone that I'd never understood but had always wanted so desperately to attain. I was too logical, too analytical, to get there and really create. I blamed it on my dad; sharp logic and undeniable reason were at the basis of his DNA.
“How are you feeling, Abs?” Flor asked me after a while, silence reigning down around us like king. I wanted to make conversation, carry on the friendship routine we'd been practicing for the last few months, but the closeness of the room, the nearness of his skin, the fact that he was literally marking me, none of that made it easy.
Last time, Abigail, I told myself, vowing to make a clean break after this. If I couldn't be around Florian without losing my mind, then maybe I shouldn't be around him at all. It was hard to even think about that with him sitting so close to me.
“Fine,” I said, which was only half true. The physical discomfort I could deal with no problem; it was the emotional discomfort that was getting to me. “You?” He looked up at me and raised his eyebrow, the one with all the piercings in it. Three silver balls sat above the dark curve of his brow and only one below. I had no idea how he got them in there like that; was it just one piercing or three? I'd never had the courage to ask.
“You're asking me when you're the one getting your first ink?” He snorted and I felt my lips turn down at the corners.
“I was only asking because when you came back from smoking, it seemed like you were having a really good time.” The words came out sharper than I intended them to and I cringed. Flor sat back and put a hand on my belly, like he was trying to hold me in place. If he hadn't been wearing gloves, I might've melted from the touch.
“Hold still,” he barked and then, narrowing his eyes at me asked, “and what the fuck do you mean by that?”
“I mean,” I said, hating that I'd even brought this up, trying to look away and failing. His eyes were just too damn perfect, too astute, too sharp. “If you're going to hook up with one of your groupies between breaks, at least hide the evidence.” I stared at his brightly colored hickey for emphasis and watched as he reached a black gloved hand up and wiped it away. Flor stared at the smudge of pastel pink on his fingers and then shrugged, sitting back and laying his machine on a silver tray next to his chair. He peeled off the gloves and stood up.
“I started dating that girl you met last week,” he mumbled, like it was no big deal. My heart turned to ice, just like it always did when Florian got a girlfriend. Actual girlfriends, not just fuck buddies were few and far between. He was only twenty-one, but the idea of him settling down and having kids with someone made me feel ill. I was not ready to be an aunt to the children of my biggest crush.
“The drag queen?” I asked and he snorted again, grabbing one of the blue medical wipes he used to clear away the ink and blood while he was tattooing. I watched as he stared at his reflection and methodically wiped his throat clean. “The one with the big hair and the orange and pink flower?”
“That's the one,” he said, like he didn't give a shit about how I felt. Maybe he had no clue? This is definitely it. Time to make a clean break. He's got a girlfriend and you've got Dorian. One date in and you can already tell he's a nice guy. Plus, Addi vouches for him. That has to count for something, right?
“She was cute, I guess,” I mumbled under my breath, leaning back and wondering what sort of nastiness my stepbrother might've gotten to in the past week with this girl. All these little touches he was giving me, inadvertently turning me from ice to liquid magma and back again, and I was sure she'd probably had dozens. In fact, I was certain of it. Florian didn't hold back, didn't save those beautiful eyes and that gorgeous body for any one person, at least not for extended periods of time.
I still hate you, I thought miserably while I waited for him to come back to the chair and start again. Yet again, he grabbed a new pair of gloves and started up the needle with a faint buzzing sound that I actually found relaxing. Better than talking to you, you asshole.
“What about you? Anymore dates with Mr. Nice Guy?” Flor leaned in and focused all of his attention on the needle burrowing into my skin, wiping my hip every couple of seconds or so to clear the ink away. “Planning on losing your virginity to him?”
I swallowed hard.
“I'm not a virgin, Flor.” The words came out in
a whisper, like I was ashamed of that fact. I wasn't, but it didn't make it any easier to tell him about it. He seriously stopped tattooing, pulling the needle back and lifting his face up to mine. It was frustratingly unreadable and I found myself regretting the admission almost as soon as I'd uttered it. “What?” I asked, trying to play the offensive. “It's not like you are either.” And that I knew for a fact. I'd seen Florian having sex with girls. More than once, actually, and the memories were burned into my brain.
“Huh.”
That's it, all he said. He put the needle back to my skin and I yelped. I swear, it felt like he was pressing harder that time.
“Chin up, little sister,” he said, lifting his black gloved hand and tapping me under the chin. Even though his cocky, self-assured smile and the glint in those sharp as pine needles green eyes of his should've pissed me off, they didn't. I felt my body make another coup in an attempt to subvert my brain. He's such a slut, I could probably have him if I wanted, at least for one night. I blushed and looked away. “Just a few more hours to go,” he whispered, like he was already chomping at the bit to be finished with the whole fiasco.
More time passed though I'm not sure how much; Florian didn't turn on any music nor did he speak to me. I started to wonder if I'd made a terrible mistake in coming here.
“How long ago?” he asked suddenly, breaking the silence. It took me a while to piece together what he meant and then I found myself blushing again.
Six months ago, just after my eighteenth birthday.
“None of your business,” I blurted, not wanting to tell him I'd only been with one guy and only a handful of times. Oh, and that I'd slept with his best friend and business partner. “Why do you care anyway?”
“Because I want to find the guy that deflowered by baby sister and beat the ever living shit out of him.”
Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 30
