Page 264 of Obsession

“Tomorrow,” he said, and it took me a while to understand what he meant.

“Why? I need it, I haven’t taken anything since…” he pressed his index finger to my lips to stop me.

“You need to set yourself a schedule and then gradually stop completely. You’re not as addicted as you used to be and it won’t be as hard for you. I’ll give you some tomorrow, but for now you’ll have to make do with these,” he took a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket.

I pouted immediately, but there was no point in arguing with him. In an hour I would be at a party where I would surely find a joint without his help. Still sulking, I took the pack and the lighter from his hand.

Harris carried on doing what he was doing and returned to his desk, this time pulling out a pair of rubber gloves and a small tube of black ink.

“Harris, what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth tilted up. I already knew what he was doing, but I wanted to hear him say it.

“Harris, what are you doing?” I repeated, but before he could answer, he pulled a tool out of the drawer that I recognized.

My stomach started to turn when I saw the tattoo machine in his hand.

He came up to me, smiling as he held the machine.

“You’re giving me the tattoo.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

“Do you want it?” he asked back sensually, stroking my neck with his fingertips.

Did I want it? I had no clue. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but… he had told me that I was different, that he loved me… so I didn’t want to end up marked like the others.

On the other hand, this tattoo meant something to him.

I swallowed and nodded.

“Really?” he smiled, seemingly surprised.

“Yes,” I confirmed, surprised at the determination in my tone.

He chuckled as he stroked my cheek and shook his head.

“Get on the mattress, baby,” he said, still grinning, and even though it scared me and I knew that what I wanted wasn’t going to happen, hearing those words from his lips turned me on.

I threw myself down on the mattress and started rubbing my neck with my palm. It was going to hurt. I knew it would.

I expected him to come to me, but he went back to sitting in his chair with his feet crossed on the desk, half-turned to face me while holding the iPad. I wanted to ask him again what he was doing, but that would have been the third time I’d asked him that in the last five minutes.

I lit a cigarette, stressed. The smoke no longer offered the feeling I craved. Harris began to work on the tablet like an expert, not at all like the drunk who’d tattooed me and misplaced three of the feathers on my wings. But wasn’t Harris already familiar with this tattoo? He probably could have done it with his eyes closed.

He handed me the ashtray on the desk.

“How many girls have you tattooed so far?” I asked without thinking first.

He seemed very focused on what he was doing as his hand glided across the screen with ease, drawing something that already seemed far too big for just one letter, but I couldn’t see any of it.

“Fourteen,” he replied, and I gasped.

More than I had thought. So that was that, I would be the fifteenth.

“Have you tattooed all the girls you’ve slept with?”

Where were all these questions coming from? I didn’t want to know the answer. He bit his lip to keep from bursting out laughing.

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