by Lisa DeBells
I shuffled the papers around in front of me and studied them again for several minutes. He was a true artist, and having Mitchell tattoo a little piece of art on me . . . I wanted it on me as soon as possible.
Mitchell rested his chin on my neck and wrapped his arms around my waist. I put the picture of the roses at the top of the pile and waited for him to work it out.
“You like my roses.” I turned my face to his and nodded my head. His smile was like a prized possession to me, unguarded. It pierced my heart I would do anything to keep it there.
“I want three of them.”
“Where?”
“Where would you suggest?”
“It’s your body, Eden, that decision is yours alone.” He caressed my thigh lightly and brushed my hair away from my neck. “Most people have a fair idea where they want their ink before they come in to discuss it with me.”
“Okay, what’s your opinion then?” I turned to face him. My hands automatically circled around his neck, Mitchell was so easy to be around. He ducked his head and pecked me on my lips.
“On your sexy body, I wouldn’t put a drop of ink. You’re perfect.” His dazzling smile bewitched me. I slapped his chest because I felt like he was toying with me.
“Stop it and tell me.”
“I just did. I’m kind of serious.” He hesitated. “I don’t recommend it, and I’m not sure if I could inflict that kind of pain on you.”
Oh, shit. The thought had never entered my mind, I hadn’t factored the pain into it. “But pain is worth it, right? I mean millions of people can’t be wrong. Look at all of your tattoos.” I had to justify it in my own way. Besides, what I wanted this tattoo to represent far outweighed the temporary discomfort. Then a knee-jerk thought occurred to me. Hold up, he’s not sure about tattooing me! What the fuzz? “The night we met. You said no one was to ink me but you. Does that still stand?” I said accusatorially. I was hurt. I held my breath and watched the flicker of torment shadow Mitchell’s face, before he leaned his head to mine. He held my chin between his fingers and, with an agony in his honeyed voice, he nodded his head and grated out yes. Strangely it tugged on my libido.
“Are you sure? I would hate to force you.” I didn’t hide the sarcasm in my voice.
“Shit, you see now, Eden, I will only push you. I’m gonna fuck this up.” He pulled my back closer to his chest as if he were trying to hold on to me. His heartbeat pounded like the hoofs of running horses, at my back.
“I don’t want anyone but you to do it, Mitch . . . I trust you,” I said shyly. Being honest was difficult, but something about Mitchell’s honesty gave me faith in him. “And apparently you’re the best.” I tried to ease his mood with some humour. I wouldn’t be the one to cause anymore hurt in him.
“I just . . . the thought of causing you pain, of any kind . . .” He wrenched a breath in and I could tell this was difficult for him. I twisted in his lap, needing to see what his eyes held. He ran a hand through his hair and rested it at his back. Seeing Mitchell afflicted demolished the final crack in my broken heart, that somehow he had managed to piece-by-tender-piece repair.
He leant his head back on the wooden headboard, his tattooed arm cushioning his head. His bicep was taut, and I loved the art decorating him; it just added to the whole package of muscled, tattooed Zeus-like god. I watched the pulse on his clavicle move. Thick veins in his neck were taut with rounded trapezoids supporting such a breathtaking face. I trailed my hand up his chest and pulled his arm back around me. He pulled me onto his lap so that we were at the same height. Then he finally looked at me. There was no humour, no pain, no agitation, just him and me. And the butterflies that zoomed into my belly. I wanted him to look at me like this for one hundred years.
I didn’t want anything between us. Yes, there was a lot I hadn’t told him, about my parents being the major one. There was just as much going on inside him, and it made me wonder if the burden would be too much for either of us to handle. “Kiss me if you can’t talk. Just don’t shut me down. Because I will run . . . fast, even when it’s the last thing—”
I didn’t get the chance to finish, Mitchell’s hungry lips found mine, his arms twisted around me, pulling me and moulding me to his body. He plunged his tongue into me, demandingly. He took me like a man depraved, possessed me like he does, but more than ever before. I mewled from somewhere deep inside. Fear and anger and absolute obsession had me kissing him back matching his desperation. I wouldn’t let go, it was not possible, and I twisted in his lap so that I was straddling him, touching him everywhere that I wanted.
Mitchell grunted roughly, he was fierce and savage in his need for me. I was fucking beside myself with the lust that was dark in his eyes. “Fuck, I need you.” He reached into his top drawer and pulled out a silver wrapper, quickly sheathing himself with it. His arms tightened around my waist and lifted me onto his cock. I cried out deliciously with the shock of him sliding inside me. He growled as he entered and I wanted him to take me rough and raw because this was how he wanted me, and he couldn’t hide these emotions from me like he could his words.
I fling my head back and close my eyes in disbelief at how amazing he felt, and it took me a moment to stretch around him. I was filled to capacity by Mitchell’s thick cock, his balls slapping my butt with each thrust. It was so good that I thought I might have been dreaming, until I heard his voice bringing me back to my reality. My real. My Mitchell.
“Tell me you belong to me.” And he lifted me inches off his hard cock only to impale me once again. I was so loaded on this, his words fucking undid me, and I was so desperate to give him what he wanted to hear and fearful of the commitment of them. This time I angled my hips and used my hands on his shoulders to lift up and propel myself back down onto him. His groan was like music to me and I continued my slow enjoyment of the most amazing package I had ever fucked.
“Are you mine, Eden?” His voice was like honey dripping down my body. And I wanted to be his.
He took my hips in his hands and cinched them to my figure, his hips pistoning in and out of me hard and fast. I was a live-wire, Mitchell’s eyes never left my face. “Mitch.”
“Give me the words,” he growled out, impassioned, and continued to pound into me. I was consumed with this desire, his demand to hear the words and his assault on my body that was building me to heights I’d never known. It was amazing to connect mentally and physically at the same time. And it became clear to me why I’d held back. I was afraid to admit it out loud; giving this to Mitchell would only hurt me later. But I didn’t care. I wanted to yell it from the highest mountain.
“Yours, yours, I’m yours, Mitch,” I rasped out my words and he devoured what was left of them with his warm mouth mirroring what he was doing with his cock. I was all hot and lusty nerves, building on our words and our connection. Making this more. Making it everything. He was everything. All I wanted. What I needed. All mine. Forever.
I was climbing. He was building me, stoking my fire from within. My core throbbed around his luscious length as I clenched onto him with each thrust. I couldn’t hold on much longer; I wanted to explode on him. I moaned in anticipation, ready for my man to take my orgasm, giving me the freedom of release.
Mitchell must have sensed my undoing and slowed his pace. It didn’t matter; every time he hit my bundle of nerves deep inside, it kept me on the precipice of ecstasy.
“Mitch, please.” I begged. “Faster.” I breathed out desperately.
“I got you, baby.” And he did. The slower he went, the more sensitive I became, tiny frissons of pleasure spiking through my body. Each time I sunk onto him the pleasure was divine. I wanted more.
“Harder, Mitch.”
His growl was the only response.
“Fuck me, mine,” he grated out and looked at me greedily. “Say it.”
“Please . . . yes, yours, everything, take me.” I was grasping at words, trying to make them fit what I felt.
“Yes.” He thrust faster,
spurred on by my admission. His veins popped out in his neck and arms as he took me like an animal on heat. I fucking loved it and threw my head back as my body came in ripples of pleasure around his pulsating length. Warmth filled me as his hips bucked into me while his low voice grated out a long sigh of satisfaction.
We came together. Connected. Belonging. Satiated. Owned.
I was slumped against Mitchell’s chest, cocooned in his arms while we both struggled to get our breathing back to some kind of normal. He drew little patterns at my back with the tips of his fingers, his other arm still strong around my waist, tethering our connection. I don’t remember how long we stayed like that. I had fallen into a semi-conscious state. All I knew was that if this is me being his, everything else that I thought I wanted in my future had faded away. My bright, my spark, my kindred, was holding me in his arms, making me more his than I had ever imagined two people could be.
Mitchell licked at little spots on my neck and behind my ear. He liked to groom me like my lazy mate. I liked it too, because it felt like this was how he showed he cared for me. I was a sucker for his affection. And I ran my fingers to the back of his hair and scratched at his head. He purred like the sexy beast that he was, and I was in some kind of post-sexual haze of bliss. I needed to touch him, handle him in some way. I didn’t want this day to end; but when it did I wanted to be here, with my man who wanted me to be his. Does this mean he belongs to me? Could he be anyones? Would he want to be mine?
And there it was, me second-guessing myself again. Girl, that man isn’t anyones, never been, never will be! My snotty self-conscious reared her head at this tender time. Well, I didn’t want her opinion, I mentally stomped on her foot.
“You awake, baby?” Mitchell’s low lazy timbre echoed from his chest to mine.
“Hmmmm, barely.” I didn’t want to move until next week.
“There’s something I want you to do.” He ran his hands up my sides and his thumbs over my nipples that were squashed between us.
“Seriously, tiger, give me five, okay?” This man was insatiable. His chuckle danced over me. I was starting to think my mind was in the gutter.
“Not what I was thinking, but I’m easy.” His eyes were bright with mirth and I slapped him lightly on his chest. He grabbed at my hand and rested it on his cheek.
“You’re not funny. So tell me, what is this idea you have.”
“You’re going to give me a haircut.” He ran both hands through his hair. It was shoulder-length and hung artfully around his face. My confusion must have shown; this was his crowning glory. Why would he want to cut it off?
“Seriously, Ummmm no,” I said matter-of-factly. That was just crazy talk.
“It’ll be fine, I trust you.” He blinked seriously at me.
“I have never cut hair before, Mitch.” This would not end well.
“You’re in the beauty industry, I’m sure you have had many haircuts. That’s experience enough. I want you to do this for me.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yes . . . amongst other things.”
“Crazy,” I added, shaking my head. There was no way I would take scissors to his beautiful locks and risk giving him a shitty arse haircut.
“Crazy for you.” I raised an eyebrow.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Please. My mother always said manners would get you far.”
“You could just walk down the street to a hairdresser.”
“I want you to do this for me.”
I breathed in, thinking on it for a bit. I guess if I stuffed it up he could go to my salon and one of the girls could repair the damage. I pursed my lips in thought. I needed my head examined. How was I seriously contemplating doing it at all? This guy had a definite hold on me.
“You know you’re going to.” He could see my resolve slipping. He was too cute to say no to.
“I will cut your hair, but there are no guarantees it will turn out.” He pecked his lips to mine and started to move me off him. “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”
“Put this on.” He handed me one of his T-shirts. It was one from his tattoo shop with the logo on the breast. “I like you in my stuff.”
He pulled on a pair of running shorts and led me to his bathroom.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mitchell
I spiked the treadmill up to a hearty jog, my feet pounding fluidly over the rubber mat. I surveyed the floor of my gym and smiled with a strong sense of achievement. It was nine in the morning, and packed with gym enthusiasts, from yummy mommies patting their little cherubs off into créche to the manufactured body-building types that pumped some serious iron. Wherever I looked I saw success in abundance, and it fucking invigorated me, spurred me on to want to do greater and be greater, just to feel this kick-ass buzz of accomplishment.
Knocking the pace up to running and setting the incline to five, I ran the towel over my face to catch the sweat. I met with several gazes that passed over me, eating me up. I returned a reserved friendly smile and placed my Dr Dre beats over my head. The hard rock blasting out of the speakers influenced my feet, stride for stride.
It had been a full-on week; meetings with Chase and our associates, just touching base on how we were doing in our first weeks of trade at Allure. I was on such a high; no one could claw me down right now. Even the negative thoughts that threatened to rip at the edges of my mind every now and then had no weight.
You’re nothing, you’re weak. Pftt, fuck that shit.
The club was a massive talking point on social media and in the gossip columns. It seemed the local celebrities loved the underground private feel. They could enter incognito, hit the VIP area and party without having to guard themselves against flashing cameras. Personally, I didn’t get off on the stature of a number-one top-selling singer or the most-talked-about star in the latest blockbuster movie. They were all just people struggling for something: fame, notoriety, fortune . . . it was all just bullshit wrapped up in a shiny ribbon and I couldn’t give less of a fuck right now.
With the opening of Allure came plentiful amounts of pussy being thrown my way. Long legs, big tits and a welcome smile at the ready, all they wanted was a piece of me. A month ago I would have partaken, albeit selectively, in every invitation. Well, they couldn’t have what I wasn’t willing to give, and that was because for the last three weeks I’d been giving it to Eden White.
I was Eden’s now. The place I rested my fucked-up, weary head. My mecca. After years of fucking any woman I chose, I could never go back to that. Eden had dropped anchor and flooded me with her light. I had never felt closer to anyone and I hardly knew her. I was now treading water when before I hadn’t even known I was sinking.
Curse this constant dark cloud following me, day and night, its shadow tempting me back to the darkness, to a life without Eden in it. I wouldn’t drag her down with me. I was only existing, all the years I’d lived with parents that didn’t know how to love. A father that was so fucked up by the constant fear of loneliness that he had to belt my mother one night only to profess to love her like the sun the next. And damn my mother’s weakness for some part of him. She dealt and always forgave him for behaviour she shouldn’t have put up with.
That was my introduction relationships: a fucked-up devotion that no child should be a witness to. It was in my blood, infused in my veins, for I was my father’s son. Indelibly created out of some sick and twisted relationship, my mother always told me that I was planned and very much wanted. This is something I had trouble believing; over my formative years my father had told me I was a waste and had ruined anything that was good about my mother.
My father was an alcoholic and he’d made that the burden for my family to bear, coming home several nights a week totally fucked to the eyeballs on liquor. These were the nights I would dread because they always ended badly, mostly for my mother. Sometimes he broke the furniture, and on occasion, me. If Dad weren’t home for dinner it meant he was co
ming home plastered, so Mom would make me go straight to bed after dinner, to avoid me being the focal point of his anger and violence. She always tried to protect me. My only regret is that I couldn’t protect her; my father was way too strong and after trying once, he beat me so badly that I couldn’t go to school for a week for the bruises that battered my body.
Fuck me, that was a lifetime ago . . . but the scars were hinged deep and sure within me. I just hoped that I could control the anger that fermented and disturbed me at times. Was I risking it all being with Eden? Should I gamble with all that was good in her because of the selfish part of me, and let’s be real here, I am a selfish son-of-a-bitch, or should I just cut that rope now and get back to being the rogue that fucked and didn’t jeopardize hearts or innocence?
Nothing was simple anymore. Feelings. Fuck, they had been rushing at me ever since that blonde-haired blue-eyed big tited beauty stumbled into my tattoo shop. Would I be any better off if I’d never known her? The questions were endless and kept me awake at night when I wasn’t buried deep inside her lush body. I felt a twinge just thinking of her; fuck she could affect me anytime and anyplace. Like it or loathe it, I’d erupted feelings like fucking volcanic lava, all over the place.
Mmmmm Eden, how I craved her, and not just her body either. She was a lethal combination. I could never have dreamed her into existence. She was sweet and funny in a heart-wrenching kind of way. My chest ached just thinking about her lazy-morning smiles, and even though our lust was so fucking fiery and uninhibited, I loved that she was still timid without being insecure when we woke up together. Eden was the wake-up call I never knew existed. I was starting to rely on seeing her face when I woke up, those endless blue eyes that ripped into my soul.
If I was completely stupid, and I was, I’d want to tattoo her on me somewhere, without it being obvious. Something to represent the way she’d changed a part in me, for the better. My Eden. Mine forever, tattooed on my soul.
