Taking Him (Lies We Tell)(24)

And when the artist gestured at him to come over to the long table at one end of the room, he kept hold of her hand so she came with him, only letting it go when he took off his jacket. Ellie’s heart beat a little faster as he pulled off his shirt too, revealing the lean, powerful lines of his body. She ached to touch him, stroke him, run her hands over his tanned skin. And not for the sex, though that was part of it. She wanted to touch him to get closer to him, to take away that weary look in his eyes. Help him in any way she could.

The ache got even worse as he turned around, the angel wings on his back making her mouth go dry like they always did. She had so many fantasies about touching those wings. Tracing the feathers with her fingers. Brushing them with her mouth. They had come to mean so much in her mind, stand for so many feelings she couldn’t have named half of them. Desire. Longing. Familiarity. Comfort. Protection.

The tattoo artist said nothing as Hunter lay down on the table, pillowing his head on his folded arms. Lying there in his dress pants, his bare, brown back covered in black feathers, he was like some dark, sensual angel fallen to earth. Ellie went over to him, standing beside his shoulder as the tattoo artist finished preparing his gun. Hunter didn’t turn his head but she remembered how he’d held her hand. How he hadn’t let go until he’d had to.

So she put her fingers on his shoulder, let them rest there, the warmth of his skin seeping into her hand and up her arm, filling her.

And she kept them there as the tattoo artist put his gun to Hunter’s back and began to work.



Pain had always been the best way to keep things at a distance. To mask all the feelings until he couldn’t feel them anymore. And getting new ink was the best kind of pain. Adding feathers to the wings on his back, adding and adding in the hope that one day, if he got enough of them, he’d finally feel clean. Less dirty. Less guilty.

But as Tony went to work on his back, for the first time in his life he couldn’t concentrate on the pain of the tattoo gun. Because Ellie had her hand on his shoulder, and the warmth of her touch seemed to cancel out everything else. Her fingers resting on his skin felt like a ray of sunlight, spreading out through him, and he found himself zeroing in on that instead. On her, instead of the shame. Instead of the guilt and the film of dirt that sometimes seemed to coat his skin. Ellie was a far better focus than all the feelings associated with Liz.

He turned his head, looking up at her. Her attention was on Tony and the tattooing process, fine red brows drawn together slightly as she watched.

He shouldn’t have left without her. Should at least have told her where he was going. But after his run-in with Liz he’d had to go, get out of there. Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought her here—God knew he’d rather she caught a taxi home than watch him get a few more feathers, because despite what she’d told him before, he knew there would be questions afterwards. Questions he didn’t want to answer. But now he was glad she’d stayed. Glad to have her beside him with her hand on his shoulder. Glad in a way he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to examine yet.

On one of the other tattoo chairs next to where he lay, a guy getting a sleeve done had put down the magazine he’d been looking at and was now looking toward Hunter. And not at the work he was having done. The guy was quite clearly checking Ellie out.

Hunter frowned as a peculiar feeling rose inside him, a feeling that was partly the familiar protectiveness he always felt toward her and partly something new. Possessiveness. As if Ellie were his and no one else’s. Which was weird because he’d never been possessive over anyone in his entire life.

I can give you what you need. Not that little girl you’ve been grooming…

Pain flashed along his nerve endings as Tony moved the gun, a cleansing fire. Burning away the memory of Liz’s snide comment. No, he wouldn’t think of that. Because he wasn’t some sex pervert grooming a kid. He wasn’t. Shit, he’d never thought of Ellie like that until that night she’d unzipped her bloody jumpsuit.

Unlike someone else maybe?

Hunter shut that thought down. Instead he responded to the urge that had him wanting to show the other guy Ellie was out of bounds. Moving his arm, he reached down, curling his fingers around the back of her knee then sliding it upwards, his palm on her thigh.

She gave a little start as he touched her, eyes going wide as she looked down at him. He didn’t say anything, holding her gaze, as conscious of her hand on him as he was of his hand on her. And something passed between them, something that perhaps was understanding or recognition. A shift in the balance.

“Why are you still here?” He hadn’t even realised he’d meant to speak.

“Because you need someone to be.” She leaned against the table, thumb moving gently on his shoulder in an idle caress.

He should deny it. Should say he didn’t need anyone, anyone at all. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. So instead he closed his eyes and gripped her thigh a little harder as the needles dug in.

Her warmth stayed with him, tattooed into his skin as surely as the ink from Tony’s gun, so that an hour later, when it was over, he could still feel her touch even when she took her hand away to let him put his shirt back on. Like a burn or a brand, it stayed there. And as they walked out of the tattoo parlor, he knew he wanted that touch everywhere. All over his body. Because if anyone could sear out the feelings that Liz put inside him, it was her.

“Me holding you is probably going to hurt,” she said as they approached the bike.

“Don’t worry, sweetness. I can handle it.”

She fiddled with her helmet, nibbling on her lip, the streetlights making the silver of her under-dress glitter through the black lace that covered it. Yeah, she had questions, all right, and was probably working her way up to asking them. But not here. This crappy street in this crappy part of town wasn’t where he wanted to have her Q and A.

“Get on the bike, Ellie,” he said, picking up his own helmet. “I want to get home.”

“Hunter—”

“Hey, hot stuff!”

Both of them looked round as one of the working girls who’d been hanging around the street corner wandered over to them. Hunter recognised her. Over the years, he’d bought himself time with a hooker, mainly because they never asked questions and there was no risk of any kind of intimacy. His kink was nothing compared to the requests they got and as long as they were paid, they were happy. It was easier, sometimes.

“You need anything tonight?” The hooker grinned at him. “Discount for a special customer.”

They liked him because he didn’t fuck them. Easy money.

Ellie had gone very still, looking the hooker up and down, obviously noting her familiarity with him. Shit. As if the evening could get any worse.

“Not tonight,” he said curtly.

The woman glanced at Ellie and laughed. “Not even a three-way? Aww, well, no harm in asking.” She turned on her stiletto heel and walked off again.

“You know her?” Ellie held her helmet between her hands, watching him.

“Yeah.” He wouldn’t deny it. No point really, not now. “Are you going to get on?”

“I didn’t think you’d need to—”

“Pay for sex?” Fuck, he didn’t want to talk about this with her. “You don’t know what I need, sweetness. So get on the bike and save the discussion for later.”

For a long moment she stared at him and he thought she was going to argue. But then she stuck the helmet abruptly on her head and got on the bike without a word.

He didn’t know what he was going to say to her when they got home. First Liz, then the tattoo, then the hooker. But perhaps he didn’t need to say anything. Perhaps when they got home, he’d find something to distract her. Because after all, he’d given her a choice back at the wedding. Answers or sex, and she’d chosen sex. And as her thighs closed around his hips and her arms came around his waist, he was glad of her choice. Because he was starting to think that despite the complications that came with sex, it was the simpler option of the two.





Chapter Ten

When they got back to Hunter’s place, Ellie strode into the kitchen then stopped, realising she didn’t know why she was in there. Turning, she went down the hallway toward the lounge and then stopped again. Because she didn’t really know what she was doing there either.

In fact she didn’t know what she was doing, period.

She could still feel the pressure of Hunter’s hand on her leg as he’d touched her in the tattoo parlor. Still see his dark eyes looking into hers, making her think the connection between them wasn’t just in her head after all. Still see the look on his face as the prostitute had approached them afterwards.

You don’t know what I need, sweetness…

Once she’d thought she’d known. But she didn’t anymore. Not after Elizabeth Chase. Not after the tattoo or the hooker. Or his rules or his silence.

Her chest started to get tight. Jesus, she was in over her head here and perhaps it was too late to get out.

Behind her she heard Hunter dump his keys on the console table beside the front door. Then nothing.

Ellie turned sharply to find him standing with his hands in his pockets, watching her with that intensity she was coming to recognise.