Page 56 of Make Me Dream of You

“Going biblical, huh?” She chuckles.

It’s a snake twisting around an apple with rippling scales, its fangs piercing the flesh of the fruit. I’m proud of it for a quick piece.

“I like it,” she says, taking the marker from my fingers. “My turn.”

“I don’t think there’s anywhere for you to draw except for my face. Unless you want me to take off my clothes.”

Her eyes widen and her cheeks darken. I probably shouldn’t have said it. I gave myself a half-chub. But she cools her expression and tugs my hand to her, turning it over to my bare palm.

“Unless you’d rather I draw on your ass?” she says, extra sassy.

My turn to try not to blush. “Next time.”

She pulls my hand closer. I scoot along with it to accommodate her, sitting very close now by her side. She rests it on her knee and starts drawing.

“Don’t look,” she says, shooting me a glare.

I chuckle. “Fine.” I look around the room and out the windows, her fingers soft as she holds my hand in place.

I don’t know how long it took me before I came back around, my gaze falling on her and staying there, but they haven’t left. Nothing else is as interesting as watching her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks or the way the tiniest tip of her tongue is sticking out from between her lips.

“All right. I’m done. You can look now.” She lifts her face to the light, a golden glow about her. “What do you think?”

I look at my palm. She’s drawn a scorpion with detailed legs and pinchers, the tail starting to curl up my thumb.

“That’s a rad drawing. Did you choose it because I’m a Scorpio?”

She smiles, nodding as she tucks some hair behind her ear. I lean down and pull the pant leg of my sweats up to reveal the scorpion tattoo I have on the back of my calf.

“Did you design that one?” she asks.

“No. But now I’m wishing you had. I like your drawing better.” I drop my pant leg and sit back.

“Really?”

“Seriously. You’re so talented. What is it you want to do? With your art, I mean?”

She looks past me, then down at her hands. “I don’t know. I’m supposed to have figured that out by now, right?”

I shrug. “Not necessarily.”

She looks up. “All I know is I want to see my art hanging. I want other people to see it. To be moved by it. To want to buy it. To like it enough to come see it in a gallery. Maybe to have a permanent place in a gallery. I don’t know…” she trails off and I want to hug her. Touch her.

“Well, while you’re working on getting there, if you want to learn to tattoo, I’d be happy to take you on as an apprentice. You’d make more money than the front desk. It’s not a paint brush, but it is an art.”

“It is.” She nods, her eyes trailing slowly over the tattoo sleeves on my arms and it’s like I can almost feel the touch of her gaze, warm and curious, on my skin.

“Or,” I say, swallowing, “you could do piercing if you wanted. That’s what Taryn decided to do on the side, and now she’s by far the best piercer in the shop.”

“So, if I wanted my nipples pierced, you wouldn’t do it?”

I choke. On nothing. My spit, maybe air.

“Do…do you want your nipples pierced?” I manage to get out. I can still picture her breasts and those perky pink nipples of hers. Just that split second image has me hard as fuck.

Fuck.

“Um, no. I don’t think so.” She laughs and it’s a beautiful sound, light and airy and joyous and open. And when she stops, breathing heavily, it’s just us, sitting on this couch, so close her knee is brushing my thigh.

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