East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) by Rachel Dunning Page B

That's Tattoo 101."
    Conall eased his shirt down, the top now
hanging loosely over the band of his slacks. He placed that hand
back on the counter behind me, came closer. "Is that so?" he said,
moving in toward my lips, but only so far, just enough to make me
break out in that nervous sweat so common of being with him.
    "Y — yes, it is..." I
said, trying to
focus. Really, really trying. But my focus was going
quickly.
    Conall swayed, left, then right, as if eying
prey. His glare lit a flame across my skin.
    "And why is that?" he
asked. "Why should I not put the name of the only person I've ever
loved" — oh, fuck, he just said it. He
just told me he loves me! — "on my body?
Because I'll never stop loving her, ever. And I want to never
forget that. Because, if I ever leave her — if I ever leave you , Leora — then I
deserve to be reminded of you, every day, every time I look at
myself in the mirror... Forever."
    "And you do that often? Look in the
mirror?"
    "All the time..."
    I swallowed. "It's warm in here, isn't
it?"
    Conall said nothing. He eased his lips to
just below my left ear, gave me a dry kiss on the lobe, pulled it a
bit. His cologne wafted into me so that I swayed, momentarily
light-headed.
    He moved his head down,
still not touching me, but close, so close to me. I felt the breath
from his nose go down from below my ear to just above the collar of
my red leather coat.
    "I think you need to take this off," he
whispered, such a manly voice, such a gentle, reassuring
rumble...
    My legs, which had been together very
prissily, opened, just a bit, automatically. And I felt a small
throb, minor, but it was there. Oh it was there alright...
    My eyes closed.
    Before I knew it, the song had changed... A
remote? For an iPod? I don't know... I hadn't been looking.
    It was our song
again. Our song...
    I shook my head in disbelief. "How many
times have you heard this song since you've been here?" I asked
him, my eyes still closed. His fingers curled around the collar of
my coat, tickling my shoulders and sending a galvanizing shiver
down both sides of my back. I put my arms to my side as he slid the
coat off of me, letting it drop to the floor.
    "I've heard this song every day since I
left. It's the first thing I hear when I wake up, the only thing I
listen to when I take lunch, the last thing I hear before I go to
sleep..."
    I felt his wavy hair, sweet apple scent,
graze across my nose as he moved his head to the other side of my
neck. Dry lips scraped against my neck, up, this time, to my ear.
And then his hands touched me, around my waist, then under my
blouse. And my head dropped.
    I hit his shoulder with my
forehead. My arms curled instinctively around his back as his hands
moved up around my sides, to my own back. This felt different, so
different. This felt...human, emotional. This
felt... way too
strong for it to be only physical.
    This felt...like Conall. Conall Williams. My
Conall. My only one.
    "You feel good," he said.
    Self-conscious, I said, "I've picked up
weight."
    "Don't lose it. You look magnificent."
    Conall, always the
diplomat, always the salesmen. That's why
they pay him the big bucks , I remembered
thinking about him after he'd beaten the shit out of that
drug-dealing lowlife.
    Except, this sounded nothing like diplomacy.
It sounded completely like he meant it.
    The word echoed around in
my mind: Magnificent .
    I smiled, slightly
embarrassed. His index finger eased itself under the clasp of my
bra, pulling it back, tightening the cups against my breasts. Then
he brought the strap in again, still clasped, slow. Always slow.
Conall always took his time, and it always made me desperate for
him, desperate for cooling water in a parching desert; every move,
every touch, every confident scrape and caress, planned,
calculated, made me yearn blisteringly for this man. My Conall.
    His left hand gave a gentle scratch with its
nails across the small of my back.
    I became suddenly wet. I shifted, easing