“I’m counting on it.”
I bit back another squeal as he left. I’d wanted ink work for a long time, but wanted it to mean something to me, so I’d waited. By the time I had the exact concept in my head, I’d gathered enough information on the process to understand that it wasn’t just about the right design – it was about the right artist.
If I could trust anybody to bring my vision to life, it was Eddie. His shop was popular, and he was a sought-after artist for a reason. His work spoke for itself.
I was practically buzzing for the rest of the day.
He answered his door shirtless – a sight that was always welcome to me. I grazed my fingers across his bare chest as I entered, then turned to him as the door closed. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” I asked as he stepped closer to me.
That familiar smirk came to his face. “Blender accident while I was fixing a smoothie. You knocked while I was cleaning up.”
“Oooh, a smoothie… who got you into those?” I teased, and he shook his head as his hands went to my waist, pulling me in close.
“Don’t remind me.”
His words were followed up immediately with a kiss that I practically melted into, moaning when his hands slid lower, gripping my ass. If I could bottle and store the warmth I felt from this moment I would, keeping it for days that weren’t nearly as pleasant as this.
Days that featured not enough of… him.
It was an odd feeling, really. Or maybe it wasn’t really, but felt that way because I could say with confidence it was something I’d never experienced.
Long ago, I’d found contentment with being alone, and when I wanted company, I had friends, and a sister. But… when Eddie was around, I felt good, and when he wasn’t I wished he was – odd, considering that barely three months ago I’d been brushing off his best attempts to insult me, and hurt my feelings. My advice to any other woman would have been to ignore him, and maybe pepper spray his ass if he persisted.
But here I was, doing horribly at leading by example. Instead of being bothered by his digs, I’d needled right back, until…Well, here I was, in his arms, being kissed in a way I probably had no business being kissed.
“I feel like you’re trying to distract me,” I told him, when he finally let me up for air.
He shook his head. “Nah. Just building suspense.”
“Oh my God, will you stop teasing?”
“But it’s so easy.” He smiled, bringing a hand up to cup my face. “Besides… you’re cute as hell when you’re anxious – which is a rare thing, I’m learning about you.”
I shook my head. “So you purposely induce it just to see me look cute, like pretending to throw a ball for a puppy?”
He laughed at my interpretation, but nodded. “A really adorable puppy, but…. Yeah kinda.”
“No woman wants to be compared to a puppy, Eddie.”
“Puppies are dope.”
I raised an eyebrow. “But… you don’t have one.”
“Damn right, which makes your analogy even more perfect.”
“Oh shut up,” I laughed, shoving him away. “Where is my sketch? Gimme, Gimme.”
“Patience.”
“I’m out of that,” I told him, still laughing. “I want you to know that this is really stressing me.”
He laughed. “Aiight, fine.” For a couple of seconds, he just looked at me, but then he pointed past me, to the kitchen table. I followed his line of sight to where his sketchbook was open on the tabletop, and I got over there as fast as my legs would take me.
I gasped as soon as I picked it up, initially overwhelmed by the vibrancy of it. There were no harsh edges, no sharp borders, just smooth transitions and soft lines bathed in intense colors. The detail was amazing – flowers and birds and with velvety, watercolor-like edges.
And then my Adinkra, in exactly the order I’d given him – he’d never asked again after I gave him the initial details, he just remembered. They were there, done in negative space like I’d asked. Even for the outline of the symbols, there was no sharp drop off in detail – the edges were incorporated into the placement of wings and stems and petals.
It was gorgeous.
“How… this is… this is exactly what I’ve had in my head. How did you…”
“I’m just good like that,” he bragged, hugging me around the waist as he approached me from behind. “You like it though?”
I scoffed. “Like? Eddie, I love this. It’s so amazing that I’m actually tearing up a little. I can’t believe I’m going to have something this beautiful on my body.
“Believe it. We’re starting next week. I’ll copy a line version of this onto thermal transfer paper that we’ll stick to you. When we peel it off, I’ll have the guides there on your skin, and it’ll last a few days – enough to get you lined out.”
I nodded like I knew what anything he was saying meant. All I cared about was imagining how it was going to look once it was actually done, especially now that the visual was no longer just in my head, but also out in the real world, on paper.
I gasped a little when he turned me around, and the sketchbook slipped from my hands, hitting the floor. “Sorry,” I cringed, immediately bending to pick it up before any page got creased. I opened it back up, to a page that I thought was about where the sketch I was looking at had been, pulling away when Eddie tried to take it from my hands. “You don’t have to, I can find it,” I told him, turning my back as I flipped through what had to be page after page of tattoos he’d drawn, until I landed on… something else.
My eyes widened as I took the image in. “I… you drew this?” I asked, and Eddie sighed audibly as he took the book from my hands.
“It’s my sketchbook, so… yeah.” He closed the book first, then seemed to change his mind, opening it to the sketch of my tattoo. “This was for you. Nothing else in there was for you, or anybody else, to see.”
“But it’s me,” I argued, not accepting the book when he tried to hand it to me. “And I’m… naked.”
He sucked his teeth. “What? You’re not naked.”
“But I am.”
“No you’re not,” he shot back, flipping to the page in question. “Look – it’s just your face. Like… neck up.”
I swallowed hard as I took the image in again, choking back the lump that had swelled in my throat. I shook my head. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t any nudity.”
It was right there on the page, for anybody to see, despite his claims otherwise. Everything was right there – the vividness of my skin, the color in my lips. The detail in the coils of my hair. The smirk, like I was right on the verge of smiling, but hadn’t quite made it yet - an expression that oozed the serenity I strived for every day. And my eyes – my eyes – full of mischief and wonder and lust and freedom, and… everything that I hoped made me… me.
Only… I didn’t usually see this version of me, in the mirror, not all at once. I saw fragments, and facets, and I picked up those pieces and made it a point to make the best of every single day, not wasting it by wallowing in misery. The Astrid on the paper was… the goddess I emulated, the carefree girl I wanted to be, but wasn’t, not quite yet.
Or… maybe I wasn’t as far off as I tended to think?
I tore my eyes up from the sketch to meet his gaze – full of trepidation as they searched me, even though apparently he’d already found it all. Or at least… that’s how it seemed.
“This… this is how you see me?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“Yeah… is something wrong with it?”
My head swayed back and forth. “No, not at all, it’s just… this is how you see me?”
His eyebrow lifted. “Yeah, why do you keep asking, is there something wrong with that?”
“No. No.”
There was nothing at all wrong with somebody seeing me as beautiful and whole, even though I didn’t always feel it at every moment of every day. In fact, it was a little unnerving, but in a good way, setting off rare butterfli
es in my belly.
I pulled the sketchbook from his hands and tossed it back on the table. When I turned back to him, he met me halfway, like he was reading my mind and already knew what I wanted – him.
Maybe I was just caught up in having seen myself as he did, but it felt different this time when he kissed me. It had always been good, always satisfying, and sexy, but in this moment… it was intense. There was no fight for supremacy between our tongues the way we sometimes did, battling each other for control. He effortlessly overtook me, and I let it happen, basking in the deliberately tender way he made love to my mouth. Slow, and reverent, exploring me like he was mapping me out, with his hands drifting lower and lower until they were gripping my ass.
He pulled back and looked at me, asking without asking for my permission to go further, as if he needed it. To answer, I hooked my arms around his neck and drew myself closer, kissing him again. Eventually, we headed out of the kitchen, still connected, stopping along the way to strip off a clothing item here and there.
We made it to his room, but not to the bed. He pushed me up against the wall, kissing and biting my neck before he drifted lower, kissing the mounds of my breasts as he reached behind my neck to undo the silky fabric ties of my dress. He grunted a little – a sound of appreciation – when he realized I was braless underneath.
He pulled me backward, sitting down on the end of the drafting desk in his room, with me standing between his legs. His hands were big enough to cover me completely, and they did, cupping my breasts and then teasing my nipples with this thumbs. He dipped his head, devoting his attention to my sensitive, rock hard peaks with soft little sucks that made me pant, and then harder ones that made my belly feel tight and pushed new moisture between my legs.
“How is it,” he asked against my neck, letting the dress drop around my feet before he pushed a hand between my legs. My panties were in the living room, with one of my shoes. “That your damn skin tastes good all the time?”
The giggle I let out turned into a gasp as his long, skilled fingers slid into me, immediately finding the spot that made me squirm. “It-it’s the… the smoothies,” I whimpered as his thumb went to my clit, winding in a slow, tight circle.
“That’s what you think, huh?” he laughed at my silly answer, and then my nipples were in his mouth again, one and then the other, going back and forth to give them equal attention. A moment later, he met my eyes, and said, “Tell me something else… why the hell did you seem so surprised by my drawing of you?”
He asked that question, but didn’t stop what he was doing between my legs, so it took me a few seconds to gather the composure to answer. “Because it’s… you. And it obviously took time and effort, and… a certain appreciation of the subject matter.”
Then, he did stop, nodding a bit as he looked me in the face. “I always put effort into my drawings. I want them – and therefore, my ink - to reflect reality.”
“And that one is beautiful.”
He chuckled. “Yes, because I see you as beautiful. Why is that so hard for you?”
“Because a few months ago you saw me as a pest, an annoyance. I’d accepted that. But the fact that you clearly don’t see me that way anymore, is… confusing. I hadn’t even considered that maybe you think about me when I’m not around, and here you are with this masterpiece. I don’t know what to think.”
“Because you’re overthinking it – which is confusing to me,” he laughed. “Listen… I felt inspired to draw it one day, so I did. That’s it.”
“I inspired you.”
“You’ve inspired a lot for me, if we’re keeping it one-hundred,” he said, and my hands slid from his shoulders to cup his face.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Edison?”
He hooked his arms around my waist, and laughed. “Chill. The world is constantly shifting, right? That’s something you said to me one day, that the world is constantly shifting, and we shift with it. So… no, I don’t see you the same as I did before, so yeah… I might act a little different. Still Eddie, but… I’ve shifted.”
“Yeah… cause you definitely called me “irksome” earlier today, but that may be the worst thing in a few days.”
He shook his head, grinning up at me. “So what, you need me to be an asshole to prove it’s me? Cause we can talk about how that dress really does look better on the floor. Don’t put that back on.”
“Oh my God,” I managed, between giggles. “Are you trying to say you don’t like my dress?!”
“Trying? Nah, that shit is ugly, flat out,” he chuckled, pulling me flush up against his chest. “You deserve better than that.”
“Wow,” I laughed, squirming as his lips landed on the bare skin between my breasts. “Yeah, you’re definitely the right Eddie.”
I shuddered as his teeth grazed my skin, and he looked up, wearing a smirk. “Now that that’s established… can we get back to what we were doing?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “Yes, please. Right now.”
He chuckled as he stood up, easily shifting me backward to give himself room. “Let me grab—”
“No,” I interrupted, with a hand on his arm. “Not necessary. Unless… would that be a problem for you?”
His eyebrows went up, probably surprised that I’d suggested it at all, before he shook his head. “Nah… I mean… we’ve both been tested.”
“Right. And I haven’t… I haven’t slept with anyone else, since you and I started… getting better acquainted.”
“Neither have I.”
Why the hell did that make me feel so giddy?
“So,” I said, swallowing the baffling little burst of happiness in my chest before it could make it to my face. “That covers that. And I’m not ovulating right now, so…”
There was silence between us for a moment, and then Eddie started laughing. “Yo, this about the least sexy conversation we’ve ever had before getting into it.”
At that, I laughed too. “Yeah… even the sharing of the test results was less awkward, but I mean… important convo to have, right?”
“Right,” he agreed. “So… you’re sure?”
“I am.”
I wasn’t.
But my uncertainty had nothing to with what we’d just discussed, and everything to do with the confusion roiling in my chest. As he pushed me back into the wall, kissing me with renewed passion and energy now that our moment of awkwardness had passed, my body was present, but my mind was preoccupied.
“What the hell is happening to me?” was the question doing backflips in my mind, while my fingertips found the waistband of his boxers and tugged them down, pulling him free. The feeling I had from being around him, missing him when I wasn’t, really caring how someone really, deeply felt about me… it was all first-time brand new to me.
And it was fucking scary.
But then my legs were around his waist, and he was sinking inside of me, and holy shit I hadn’t realized that being skin-to-skin with him would be so amazing.
Suddenly, my head was clear, and my mind was free.
The only thing that mattered was the intensity of sensation as he pushed into me in long, deep strokes that made me feel full enough to burst.
“Fuck,” he growled into my neck as I purposely clenched around him, forcing him to lean into the wall – and deeper into me – to regain balance from his almost-buckled knees. I did it again, and he let out a rough chuckle. “What are you trying to do to me?”
“Make you lose your mind,” I answered honestly, gasping as he drove into me with a particularly hard stroke. He stayed there, buried in me as he brought his mouth to mine for a kiss, then nibbled at the corner of my lip, and then my ear as he unwrapped my legs from his waist, lowering them to the ground.
“Not if I do it first.” Before I could really react, he’d dropped in front of me, and hooked one of my thighs over his shoulder. I closed my eyes as soon as his mouth touched me, because it was all I could do when he was licking and sucking and kissi
ng and biting and turning my already loud moans and whimpers of pleasure into complete gibberish as I came.
He kept ahold of my leg as he stood again, and by the time he was back on his feet, my ankle was propped against his shoulder. His eyes were hooded with lust as he pushed into me, giving me no time to recover from the orgasm I’d just had.
He buried his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck as he slipped his tongue into my mouth, exploring me as he stroked. I was pushed into the wall, feet not even touching the ground, powerless to do anything except close my eyes and squeeze tight as he went after me with strokes so deep, it was hard to breathe. Over and over, stretching me wide every time, feeling so good that I had the clear evidence of arousal dripping down our legs. I could barely keep myself upright, let alone do any tricks as he stroked into me, cupping and squeezing my breasts.
Just as my legs started shaking, his hand moved down to my clit, rubbing in wide, flat circles that intensified the pressure already coiling around me. My mouth fell open as he pushed me further, further, further up that peak, and then… freefall. A hot wave of bliss crashed over me, taking my breath away before it rolled against me again, and again, and again, in little waves of pleasure. My whole body tensed, and then went somehow even tighter before it released, and my limbs relaxed into jello.
Eddie pushed into me one more time, clenching me hard as he released with a low roar. He let my leg down, then lowered me back to the floor, immediately hooking an arm around my waist to catch me when my legs decided they weren’t up to the job. He laughed as he practically carried me to the bed, then dropped down beside me.
Neither of us said anything, but the silence was comfortable. I wasn’t sure that, in the moment, anything else would have been appropriate. There was nothing to expound on, nothing to explain, we were just… on the same wavelength.
And it felt good.
&
The itching was almost unbearable.
With some mindful meditation and a steady stream of conversation with friends as they dropped in, I’d endured nine and a half hours of pinpricks from the tattooing machine with little problem. No, it hadn’t been pleasant, but it was tolerable.
Something Like Love (Serendipitous Love Book 6) Page 14
