Page 30 of Devilish Ink

The sheets were pooled around her calves. Her t-shirt had ridden up over her hips and I could see the glisten of her come on her legs. I wanted to lick the small stain on the sheets so badly I felt myself already getting hard again.

I breathed in the smell of her sex, all that I dared, and it was intoxicating. I left her apartment feeling drunk. Wasted. Ruined.

Ry wanted me.

She could deny it all she wanted, she could refuse to date me, use her boyfriend as an excuse, but she and I both knew the truth.

I’d stayed away because I wanted to be respectful to Rian.

But this changedeverything.

She had invokedmyname when she came.

Me.

That was permission enough to pursue her.

Brother be damned. He wasn’t looking after her well enough that his own girl was calling out another man’s name.

She wasmine.

RY

Iused to watch couples in the park, fingers light, unobtrusive on a soft shoulder, tapping in time to a hummed love song. The brushing of a tendril of hair from a rosy cheek. Lips barely touching.

The longing hurt, but it was a bittersweet feeling.

So when I slipped into Dublin Ink earlier and caught Conor and Aurnia on the faded floral couch together, her knees draped over his lap, it hurt.

It hurt because I wanted it.

You saidnoto Lee, eejit, I reminded myself.

So it was a bad fucking sign that every night I waited till the last possible moment to close, hopeful eyes glancing one last time up and down the deserted street.

My head whipped up, hope bubbling in my chest, every time that damned bell above the door rang.

Every time it wasnotwho I was hoping to see, and I forced a smile onto my face as another stranger walked up and asked for yet another rose or another lion or another skull.

I oscillated from annoyance (how dare he give up so easily), toregret (I should have said yes), to anger (whatever, he wasn’t that special anyway).

It was becoming clearer and clearer, Lee was not going to return to the shop.

“You can head home early if you want,” Mason said, spoon in his mouth as he climbed the stairs with a bowl of Lucky Charms and a bottle of wine tucked under his arm. Rachel wasn’t working that night. “It’s raining cats and dogs. If someone hasn’t come yet, they’re not coming.”

“We can close up, Ry,” Aurnia called from where she swept.

Conor let out a grunt of agreement from his spot in the corner where he was hunched over a desk and watching Aurnia the way he always did when she was in the room.

“I don’t mind,” I said, hunched over my drawing pad, trying to play it cool.

“Ry…” Mason leaned his head back at the top of the stairs so he could see me.

I lifted an eyebrow at him.

He grinned. “It’s about to get noisy.”

I frowned. “But you have Lucky Charms.”

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