Page 13 of Virgin Skin

Piston’s eyes flash with heat and he quickly looks away from me, his hands braced against the back of the couch like he isn’t sure whether he’s going to sit down or run to lock himself in his bedroom before he does something very bad and dirty to me. Another moan tightens in my throat.If only.

“He gets a good, nutritious variety of small feeder fish, nightcrawlers, and rehydrated shrimp,” he assures me.

I wince and offer an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I have a bad habit of spending five minutes on Google and turning into an insufferable know-it-all. If it makes you feel any better, by tomorrow morning I’m going to have absolutely no idea what axolotls eat again.”

He chuckles.

“No, it’s fine. I just didn’t want you to think I’ve been winging it with my little buddy all this time. I promise, I’m a good daddy.”

I sputter into my next sip of coffee, snorting the hot drink right through my nose.

“Oh shit,” he murmurs, hurrying to the kitchen and returning a second later with a hand towel. “Here.”

I take it and mop the coffee off my face.

“Please don’t talk kinky to me while I’m right in the middle of a sip,” I say.

His eyebrows draw together, and I can practically see the instant replay action going on in his head as he runs back through what he just said, looking for his mistake. After a second, he laughs, grimaces, and shakes his head.

“I think jokes about daddy kink might be a little too on the nose for comfort.”

“Fair enough.” I reach out and pat the empty spot on the couch. “Aren’t you going to sit down for a few minutes, at least?”

He rubs his jaw, then nods and takes a seat.

I turn on the couch so I’m facing him, my feet on the cushion between us, studying him silently while I drink my coffee. Seeing him across the bar last night, he was in instant-boner territory, but usually the longer I look at someone the more I start to nitpick their appearance. I’m having a hard time finding a single flaw on Piston, although to be fair, I haven’t seen all of him. Maybe I should ask for a more thorough viewing… you know, for science.

He straightens his legs out in front of himself as he relaxes onto the couch. He lets his head loll back and stretches his arms up high, groaning as he works out some obviously tight spots that must have developed over the course of a long workday.

“What do your knuckles say?” I ask, scooting forward a few inches so I can get a better look at some of his ink. It’s all black, lightly shaded without any color, and none of it is cohesive, just random tattoos covering his arms from his neck all the way down to his knuckles.

He flexes his hands into fists and holds them up so I can read the words ‘Drop Dead’ inked across his knuckles, then, with a lopsided grin he uncurls his fists, and I see the word ‘Gorgeous’ tattooed along the lower set of knuckles.

I laugh and reach out without thinking to drag my fingertip over the shape of each letter.

“Do you have a favorite tattoo?”

He shrugs. “It’s kind of hard to pick. I like something different about each of them, I think.” Piston looks down at his own arms then back at me. “There’s such a weird pressure for tattoos tomeansomething all the time, and I think it’s cool if they do, but it gets in my head sometimes, so I’ve never gotten around to picking any tattoos for myself. I’ve just kind of offered myself up as a free workspace for the other guys whenever they need it, if they want to try out a new technique or they just have an idea for a cool design and no one to ink it on.”

“Hmm.” I drag my fingertips up from his knuckles to the different images sketched permanently over his forearm. “So the answer to my question earlier, if you’re always so self-sacrificing, would be a yes?”

He chuckles but doesn’t go as far as to confirm my suspicion. I tilt my mug to my lips and gulp down the rest of my coffee, unbothered by the way it scalds my tongue and throat on the way down. No big deal. I cauterized all the nerve endings inmy mouth ages ago. Who the hell has the patience to wait for anything to actually cool before eating or drinking it?

“What about you?” Piston asks.

“What about me?” I set my empty mug down on the coffee table and scoot another inch closer to him.

“You made that consult appointment as an excuse to meet Hero, I get that. But have you ever thought about getting any ink done?” He drags his gaze over my unmarred skin with hunger in his eyes.

“Are you horny formeor just horny to tattoo me?”

He meets my gaze, and my stomach dances and my lips tingle with the memory of that hot as fuck makeout session we had last night.

“I might want a tattoo,” I confess. “There are lots of things I haven’t done yet that I’m dying to do.” Fuck, what am I doing? Fluttering my eyelashes and smiling at him suggestively, obviously. But beyond that, why the hell am I tiptoeing around telling him the truth? The embarrassing, humiliating truth that’s only going to ensure that he’ll never lay a hand on me again.

Piston quirks up one eyebrow. “Such as?”

I follow the lines that make up the image of a Russian nesting doll on his forearm with my finger, feeling the way the hairs on his arm stand up and his skin warms under my touch.

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