Under Locke(58)

He started tugging his shirt up and over his head, and I had to physically tell myself not to say anything stupid because I’d gone brain dead. All I could think of while watching Dex sitting there with his bright, beautiful tattoos and his equally beautiful but tired face, was that the world was unfair.



“This was my first one,” he said, pointing to the infamous Captain America shield on his left pectoral while I ogled his six-pack instead. Or was it an eight-pack?



“And this is Uriel,” he explained, pointing at a huge red octopus that wrapped over from his back to the right side of his chest. The same one I’d seen framed in his office. Shirtless, I could tell that the red I'd seen on his neck was a tentacle so detailed it almost looked alive.



Uriel was forgotten the moment I saw his flat, dark nipples. I didn’t think anyone could blame me for caring less about his tattoos when I could use my eyes to visually molest the definition of his bare chest and the two friggin’ rings he had through his nipples.



“You don’t like ‘em?” he asked.



I couldn't remember how to speak.



“Uh…” I blinked, searching for those things called words and sentences that people had been using for millennia to communicate. “Wah… why Uriel?” I somehow managed to ask.



But really, I was still looking at his upper body and not at Uriel, his red octopus, specifically.



And as hot as Dex was, when he smiled broadly it was enough for me to tear my eyes away from the dream he was half-naked. Because Dex’s smile was the nicest I’d ever seen. It was wide and genuine and playful and so rare. And it made my insides flare.



“It's my favorite animal,” he answered casually.



“An octopus?” I’d figured he’d go for something different. Way different. Maybe a tiger? A dragon?



Dex nodded, not disturbed at all about my confusion. “They're smarter than people think,” he explained. “They know how to problem solve. They’re curious little fuckers—“



“And they squirt ink,” I told him with an understanding laugh, though I had no doubt he knew that already.



Another glorious smile lit his face. "Exactly.”



“Huh.” Feeling just a little like a jackass, I smiled back. “That’s pretty perfect.”



He shrugged, just a hint of color on his tan cheeks. “It’s all right.”



“It’s really cool.”



Dex grinned even wider. “Ritz—“



“Why do you call me that?” I finally asked him after more than a month of silently letting him get away with it.



Another slow smile welcomed me. “That day you got hired? Sonny called to rip me a new one, I couldn’t hear him well when he called you Ris. I thought he called you Ritz. By the time I figured it out,” he shrugged, “I’d already gotten it stuck in my head.”



Another brilliant response. “Oh.”



When neither one of us said anything, and suddenly uncomfortable, I walked over to the pullout bed I'd left a mess and fell onto it. Yanking the covers up and over my body with a yawn. I could hear Dex settling onto his bed, the springs on the mattress creaking under his weight, the sheets shuffling every which way.



“Dex?”



“Yeah?” he answered.



I yawned again, rolling to my side. "If you feel another Northern wind coming on tonight, aim it the other way, will you?"



The laugh that blasted out of him put a smile on my face as I fell asleep.



Chapter Fourteen



By the end of the second day at the expo, I would have bartered my first born for some sort of cloaking spell that made me invisible to douche bags.



My brief conversations with the drunkards that stumbled to the booth with one hand wrapped around a beer bottle and another shoved down the front of their pants usually all went along the lines of:



"So if I get this expensive ass tattoo, do I get you for free?"



"No."



"How about a kiss?"



"No."



"Just a little one."



"No."



"A hand—"



The time Dex was around when a guy started going down that route had ended with Dex grumbling out, "Fuck off."



Oh Jesus.



He didn’t even spare a glance behind him to see the man who was bothering me, but apparently, the drunk idiot didn’t even need to see his face to get the message.



“Dex!” I hissed at him for being so rude when the guy only partially deserved it.



“Babe,” he responded, completely unapologetic and not giving half a shit. Then again, when did he? If I thought he’d pay attention, I’d try to give him a lesson in being polite.