Page 83 of Love Me Tomorrow

“You owe me a tattoo from the auction,” she says sweetly,toosweetly, if you ask me, “andyou need to work out some of that self-loathing.” She spreads her arms wide, and my gaze immediately falls to the swell of her breasts. “Think of me as your canvas. I’m at your disposal.”

“You’re crazy,” I fire back, stalking toward her. “I could ink barbed wire on you. Make it jagged and ugly. The stuff of your nightmares. What would you do then?”

She toes off her shoes and rolls over onto her side. “Wear T-shirts for the rest of my life. One-piece bathing suits. The whole shebang.”

“Savannah.”

She meets my gaze boldly, completely unfazed by my temper. “I’d like the wordsBe Fearlessly Unapologeticright . . .” Her finger lands on the bare skin beneath the band of her bra, tracing along the satin. “Here. Think you can do that for me, Harvey?”

My nostrils flare. “You’re playin’ with fire, sweetheart.”

“Like I told you before, Iamthe fire.” She stretches one arm out under her head, clearly getting comfortable. “Black script, please. If it makes you feel better, you can charge it to my tab.”

She is the most annoying, most obnoxious woman that I have ever met.

I stride over to the sink. “You don’t have a tab,” I grind out, aggressively washing my hands. “You won this.”

“Does it count as winning when you’ve already shelled out eleven thousand dollars?” Her tone is musing and, when I turn around, she flashes me a small, teasing smile. “You better make it good for that price. The best tattoo you’ve ever done.”

“You drive me insane.”

“Better insane than hurting and dead, don’t you think?”

I’m torn between tossing her out of the parlor on her ass and kissing her so hard, she’ll lose all concept of words for at least the next twenty-four hours.

Between the exhaustion from today and the frustration boiling over from that damn article, it’s a miracle that I get Savannah’s skin prepped. After stenciling out a quick mockup of the quote she wants tattooed on her rib cage, I roll the stool next to the cushioned table, grab the closest workstation—Gage’s, I think—and wheel it close.

My gaze collides with Savannah’s. “Not too late to go for the barbed wire.”

“You wish,” she retorts, licking her lips. “It’s been awhile since we’ve done this. Late-night tattoos. Your hands on my skin.”

A harsh breath leaves me at all the memories of us sitting just as we are now. Sliding scales and all, I’d never give those ones up—not ever. “You trembled the first time.”

“Virgin skin,” she murmurs, huskily. “I did better the second go round.”

I pull on a pair of latex gloves. Rub a little Vaseline on the back of my left hand, then squeeze out ink into three small caps. Dip the needle in the black, then press the tip to her skin, at the tail end of the already outlinedBfrom the mockup. “Why this?” I ask.

“Because this is what you told me before we kissed for real. To take what I want. To be fearless. To be unapologetic. And I think . . . I think on a day like today, when you’ve been stripped raw, you need the reminder, too.” Her chest lifts with a shallow, nervous breath. “You are the good guy, Owen. You are the hero. You are the one man who looks at me and sees everything, whether I want you to or not. And right now, I seeyou.”

My lids squeeze shut.

My heart pumps fast.

I don’t deserve a woman like Savannah Rose. I knew that when I met her and I know it still now, and yet I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let her go.I can’t.“What do you see?” I rasp, opening my eyes so I can look at her beautiful face.

She doesn’t glance away. “I see a man who’s spent too long fighting off the shadows to find the light. But he’s already there. A single step. A push in the right direction.” She offers a small, delicate shrug that looks awkward considering her position. “For what it’s worth—I don’t mind his shadows. They make him human, and I’ve spent too much of my life being told to search for perfection.”

Fuck.

I drop my head to stare at my feet. Pressure builds in my chest. As much as I’d like to blame it on exhaustion, I know the root cause is the woman staring at me, waiting patiently for my response. She’s tearing me inside out, forcing me to look myself in the mirror and accept all my faults, all my successes. It makes me want to spill it all. Bare every bit of my soul. Tell her what no one else has ever known, aside from my parents.

The always present spark of fear at the thought of goingthereclamps my mouth shut, though. There’s no going back if I open up fully, and with the media in a frenzy as it is now . . . I could lose it all if my secret got out. All of it, gone in a blink of an eye. It’s a risk I can’t take, not even for her.

“Black ink, right?” she asks, nerves coating each word.

I glance over at the workstation, tracking the placement of the bottles. “Yeah, black.”

Straightening my shoulders, I press my fingers against her back to hold her steady, then slowly, gently, begin to trace the words she chose for herself. Words that I’ve spent years doing my best to live by, no matter the cost.

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