Marked by Garrett Leigh Page B

gotten ink, but I didn’t remember it feeling anything like this.
    At first, it was fine. The buzz of the gun was all I could hear, and with the soothing pressure of Ash’s steadying hand, I relaxed back into the couch and closed my eyes. For a while, it was bliss. I felt weightless, so chill I could have fallen asleep. My focus was on the singular point of pain, warm and addictive, and I felt it erase every worry in my mind and completely envelop me.
    Then I made the mistake of looking up.
    Damn .
    Ash was an intense character, often so broody the world around him passed him by, but the distant, tortured looks I sometimes saw on his face had nothing on the fire in his gaze as he worked. He wasn’t looking at me, or at least not at my face. Instead, he was completely focused on his work, staring down with a tiny frown line between his eyes. His jaw was set and he’d caught his bottom lip between his teeth. Combined with his hands on my skin and the burn of the needle… shit, I was fucking sweating, and that was the least of my problems.
    I felt my breathing pick up as my dick began to throb in time with the gun. I dug my fingers into the couch, biting my lip to ground myself. What the fuck was going on? It was like every drive of the needle sent a charge through me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Ash could be sensitive about sexual things. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to me sporting wood when he was trying to work. But it didn’t do me any good. Nothing did until the buzzing of the needle suddenly stopped.
    My eyes shot open to find Ash’s face just inches from mine. “Are you okay?”
    Startled, I nodded slowly. “Um, yeah.”
    “Is it stinging too much?”
    “Hmm? What? No, I can hardly feel it.”
    Ash sat back and smirked slightly. “So why are you jabbering like me?”
    “Um.” I thought quickly. “I think you should take your shirt off too.”
    It probably wouldn’t help. In fact, there was every chance it would make things worse, but having him bare-chested too at least evened up the playing field.
    Ash narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Are you drunk?”
    Yeah, drunk on you…. “Yeah, of course I am. I’ve been banging shots all day in the ambulance bay.”
    My sarcasm earned me another glare, but he put his gun down and pulled his shirt off all the same. “Happy?”
    Obviously—Ash shirtless was one of my favorite things—but as I’d feared, it didn’t help my predicament. He brought the needle back to my skin, and before long I was right back where I started.
    My eyes fell closed as I tried to rein myself in, but it was no good. Ash finished the outline and moved on to the shading, and as the grind of the needle increased, so did the electrifying effect it was having on my body.
    I opened my eyes in the hope of finding a distraction, but the moment my vision cleared, all I could see was Ash. His gaze flickered to me, maybe feeling the weight of my stare, and he licked his lips. He glanced down my body and his soft exhale stuttered. “Thank fuck for that.”
    I swallowed thickly. “What?”
    “I thought I was turning into a pervert.”
    It took a moment for his words and their meaning to filter through the lust-induced haze in my brain. Then I saw the obvious bulge in his jeans and grinned like an idiot.
    Ash paused in his work to change his needle. When he brought the gun back to my skin, he shifted in his seat and bit down hard on his lip. The sight of him made me want to stretch up and replace his teeth with my own.
    A shudder passed through me. Ash pulled the needle away from my body just in time. “I’m nearly done,” he said. “Think you can contain yourself a little while longer?”
    With his neck mere inches from my mouth and the heat of him scorching my skin, the urge to hurl his gun aside so he could fuck my brains out was strong. But my desire to keep him happy was even stronger, and I knew he wouldn’t be until he’d finished what he’d set out to do.
    “I