She ignored his words and continued playing. "Wait, wait, wait." Her fingers tapped faster on the screen. Stuff exploded left and right. "Oh God. Oh God. Yes, yes, yes!" she cheered, jumping on the bed, lifting her fist and doing the weirdest victory dance he'd ever seen. And the sexiest. Go figure; an all-but-naked chick clad in wool socks and bedecked in piercings, making a demonstration of her utter lack of coordination, and he was standing at full attention. "Who's the boss now, huh? Who's the boss? In your face, tipity35!"
He grabbed the phone Paige had thrown in the middle of her victory dance. There were fireworks and colorful paper ribbons on the screen. She'd made it to level 10,000 and GothQueen was in third position.
"GothQueen?"
She flopped down beside him, giving him a glimpse of her gorgeous, pierced nipples peeking from underneath her mane of hair. "You calling me Goth girl is a downgrade, buddy."
"Sorry, your majesty."
"You're forgiven." She turned to him, a big satisfied smile on her beautiful face.
He brushed the hoops on her lower lip with his thumb. Snake bite, she'd called them. "Tell me, do all your piercings have fancy names?"
"Pretty much. This might be a foreign concept to you, seeing as your ink was done in jail, but in the outside world, if you expect to drill holes into people and charge a hefty price for them, you need fancy names. Marketing 101."
Fuck that she was hilarious. "I bet."
She signaled at the stud in the dip of her top lip. "This is a Medusa. Septum," she continued, pointing at her bull nose ring. Then she flashed him a smirk. "What you are thinking about, much more southern than my face, also have fancy names. The more south you want to drill, the fancier the name has to be. I guess it goes proportional with the motivation needed to let someone mess around with your private parts.
"I started with a VCH but I kept hearing how one needed a triangle for the VCH to be complete, so, OCD freak that I am, I had to have it done." She must have realized he wasn't understanding squat, for she pulled her panties a bit down, exposing herself to him. "The VCH puts pressure in front of the clit. The triangle rubs it from behind. Perfect combo."
"The hoops on the pussy lips?"
"Those don't do much for arousal, but they look fucking cute."
He couldn't agree more. Just thinking about them got him revved up.
"In certain circles," she continued, seemingly oblivious to his lewd thoughts, "paired labia piercings are locked with a single piece of jewelry as a chastity device, or laced together as in a corset piercing. Only to be opened by the master."
Holy shit. "You into stuff like that?"
"Having a master to hold the key to my pussy?" She laughed, pulling her panties up. "No, thank you."
He trailed the tip of his finger over her belly button piercings, through the valley between her breasts, and up to her neck. Taking advantage of her relaxed mood, he brushed her hair aside and caressed her exposed throat. "This is a deep scar. Extremely angry."
She shrugged. "Extremely angry ex-fiancé."
She didn't seem to want to talk about that, but he forged ahead. "Is your OCD a result of the attack?"
"I would love to blame it on the asshole, but nope, I had the quirks before. And I don't have OCD; I have CDO. I totally refuse to have a disease that isn't in alphabetical order."
He chuckled softly. "Man, you are funny."
"I have my moments. So tell me, would you have tried to pick me up at Rosita's if you hadn't been scouting for information?"
"No doubt whatsoever, Goth girl. I had a great time. As a matter of fact, you were the wrong choice for information. I should have gone with the cook. Order some food, compliment the chef, and chat him up."
Paige smiled. "Nils is a drama queen."
"Yes, he is. Getting info from him would have been much easier." But one look at Paige and he'd known he had to talk to her. Forget the shit storm going on in his life; he'd wanted to feel normal, even if only for a couple of hours. "You have a sixth sense."
"Me? A sixth sense?" Her laugh was dry. "The scar on my throat says otherwise."
"No, it doesn't. You just weren't listening to your gut when you were with that asshole, were you?"
"I knew from the very beginning something was wrong with him, but everyone said he was such a great guy, so I ignored it."
"Never ignore your gut. Ever," he said softly. He'd been there. He knew how hard it was to say yes to yourself when everyone else was saying no.
Standing your ground was much easier when you were on firm land and not quicksand.