“So I actually got your present a while ago, before we started having problems. That was lucky, I guess, because now they’re healed and you can actually touch them.” She pulled her long hair up in one hand and turned to face me as my curiosity piqued because she had her other arm across her naked chest. She climbed back up on the bed so that she was straddling my waist, which was fun to watch and had my erection sticking up like a lead pipe between the two of us. She dropped her arm and my eyes snapped as wide as they could. I was pretty sure I was drooling because, while Shaw was the most beautiful woman in the world to me, Shaw sporting nipple rings, naked and on top of me, was enough to make my brain short-circuit and all the remaining blood in my body shoot right between my legs.
“Oh, man, that is so fucking hot.”
She laughed a little, which turned to a whimper when I circled the cool metal with a finger. “That’s my birthstone.” The jewel in the center of the ring was a shiny, pretty bluish-green aquamarine, delicate and pretty just like her.
She hissed out a breath when I tugged on the ring softly and I saw her eyes droop a little in pure unadulterated desire. I knew better than anyone how much intimate piercings could enhance a sexual experience and I would make it my personal mission in life to show Shaw everything I had ever learned. She bent down for a kiss.
“Happy birthday, Rule. I’m giving you me for now and forever, and if you want to give me back, I’m not going.”
I flipped us over and kissed her like it was the end of the world, kissed her like we would never get to kiss again, kissed her like, well, like I loved her and was never going to let her go. The slide of tongues and press of my lip ring imprinted on her how much I had missed her. The bite of teeth left marks that let the world know we were claimed and the press of nails into tender skin had both of us breathing hard.
By the time I got my hands between her legs and my mouth on that pretty jewelry decorating even prettier nipples, we were both a wild tangle of grasping need and less-than-tender groping. I felt her nails break skin on the curve above my ass as I worked her into a frenzy with my hands and mouth, but I wasn’t nearly done. We had been apart too long, and the weeks before when I was trying so hard to be something I wasn’t, I had tainted something that was amazing between us and now I wanted to erase all of that. My girl had other ideas.
“Rule.” She had one hand pulling on my hair and the other reaching between us in search of my cock, which was throbbing insistently between our stomachs. “While I appreciate the foreplay and the fact that nice Rule is clearly gone, if you don’t fuck me in the next two seconds I’m going to scream. It’s been too long.”
Her eyes were bright and shiny and even though I would have liked to get her off at least once before unleashing all my pent-up sexual frustration on her, it didn’t look like she was going to give me a choice in the matter. I grunted because her fingers curled around my dick and slid across the skin stretched tight by the barbells and my rampant erection. She wasn’t playing fair so I lifted myself up in a vertical push-up so that I was poised at her burning-hot entrance and let her guide me home. We both went still at the initial contact; the absolute perfection of the two of us together like this was just a lot to take in and we had to give it a minute to sink in. She hitched her hips up and I slid all the way in until both of us let out a different swear word.
It wasn’t slow and sweet, more like frantic and wild, but it was wonderful and so damn hot I thought we were going to burn each other up. The metal in her tight nipples made me growl every time they brushed against my chest, and I could feel it every time the top ball on the head of my cock hit her clit because her body bowed up and her breathing got choppy and wild. It was the kind of sex I could only have with her, and when I felt her come apart around me I realized I might not really know what love was on my end, but I recognized it clearly shining out of her when she looked at me like that. I couldn’t help but feel she had to see the same thing when I looked at her. I picked up the pace, felt her run her hands up and down my back and grab on to my ass, and then shattered into a brilliant mess that I didn’t ever want to put back together.
She turned her head and kissed me on the temple. “Love you.”
I pressed my face into the curve where her neck met her shoulder and sucked the skin between my teeth. “I’m going to love you, Shaw.”
Her eyes crinkled at the sides. “You already do.”
I didn’t have to say anything because I figured she was probably right. Me and this girl had spent too much time trying to be too many different things to too many people for too many wrong reasons. Now it was up to us to be ourselves for each other and love each other for all the right reasons. As she curled up next to me and threw her leg across my waist I knew that somehow this is how it was always supposed to be and maybe, just maybe, this was a gift I could share with Remy because I was happy, Shaw was happy, and ultimately, that’s all he would have wanted for either of us.
EPILOGUE
About eight months later
“If you don’t lie still and quit wiggling around I’m going to stop.”
“But it hurts.”
“You always say that. We do this enough that you know exactly what you’re getting into. I’m almost done so stop complaining.”
“You could be gentler.”
“You don’t like it when I’m gentle. Seriously, Casper, you are the worst client ever, which is a shame because all this white skin takes ink like a dream.” I glared at Rowdy as he peered over the short wall again and leveled him with a death glare. “If you don’t stop trying to get a look at my girlfriend’s ass you’re going to need to find a new career because I’m going to break all your fingers.”
Shaw giggled and turned her head where it was resting on her crossed arms propped up on the table she was lying on before me. The current piece I was working on for her covered her entire right side from the base of her armpit to the bottom curve where her sweet ass met her thigh and everything in between. It was huge and graphic and arched all along her delicate rib cage. I still had about three hours of color and shading to add to it, but since the canvas practically lived at my apartment I wasn’t worried about finding time to finish it up. But while I was working on it now she was practically naked, covered only by my hoodie and a very tiny pair of shorts. I knew the guys in the shop were digging the view—they always did when I worked on her—but it was hard to concentrate and keep the lurkers at bay at the same time.
Rowdy flipped me off but grinned in good humor. My friends loved Shaw, loved that she made me tone my crazy down and become an easier guy to live with and be around. It was almost a year in and while I still wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with, I was making real strides in at least being a more tolerable human being. “That could be the very best piece I’ve ever seen you do. Are you going to put it in your portfolio when it’s done?”
The piece was a very intricate, very colorful Day of the Dead–inspired grim reaper. The face on the woman was beautiful and tragic and she held on to an exact replica of the heart I had initially drawn on Shaw’s palm all those months ago. Shaw had insisted on two things in the design—she wanted the sacred heart represented and she wanted it to resemble the grim reaper on my side. I never would have thought Shaw was going to get as interested in body modification as I was, but after only a month of us being an official couple she had asked me to draw her a bunch of tiny snowflakes in different colors of blue, gray, and white. When I asked her why, she said my eyes reminded her of winter and she wanted something to keep with her that reminded her of me, so she now had a snowstorm that started behind her left ear and trailed across the back of her neck to the base of her right shoulder. It was one of my favorite places on her body to trace over with my tongue, and I loved not only that