Page 15 of The Carver

“Makes two of us.” He got comfortable and placed his forearm under his neck.

I moved into him, using his shoulder as a pillow, my arm snaking over his hard stomach. Even when he was relaxed, his entire torso was solid like it was always flexed. He was warm, as if flames burned underneath his skin. I tucked my leg between his knees and snuggled into him under the sheets, peace settling into my bones when I felt him beside me.

He circled his arm around the small of my back as he hugged me to him, his lips resting against my hairline.

I was dead tired but wide awake, not wanting to let this moment slip away, enjoying the safety of his arms and the comfort of his affection. When I went to sleep, my dreams would contradict reality, and I would suffer in the misery of the lie—that he hadn’t taken me back.

But I had work in the morning and needed to get some sleep so I wouldn’t have raccoon eyes all day. I needed to go by my apartment and change because I couldn’t go to the office in jeans. But all I wanted to do was stay awake and savor the man beside me.

He seemed to be wide awake too, judging by the way he breathed.

I pulled away and propped myself on my elbow, trailing my hand up his stomach and over his hard chest. I looked down at his tattoos, studying the dark imagery he wore across his skin, a scythe from the undertaker, a phrase in Latin, the Roman numeral for five, all kinds of stuff that made sense to him and no one else.

He watched me stare at him, moving his hand up to brush my hair out of my face. “You’d look hot with ink.”

“I don’t think I could pull it off like you can,” I said with a slight smile.

“Something small behind your ear. A little something on your hip, like a flower or my name…” He moved his fingers down my back, trailing right over my spine until he slid them up again, grazing the skin.

I looked into his face and expected to see a playful smirk, but he was dead serious.

“Would you get a woman’s name tattooed on your arm?”

“Absolutely.”

My fingers stilled on his chest because I hadn’t expected him to say that. “Do you have a woman’s name on your body already?”

Now, he smirked. “Jealous. I like it.”

“Not jealous, just wondering.”

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

“How would you feel if I had a man’s name tattooed somewhere?”

The playfulness remained in his eyes. “Why would I care about a dead man’s name on your body?”

“Dead?” It took me a second to follow what he meant, and once it dawned on me, I gave a sigh. “Yes, that’s your solution to everything.”

“It’s a great solution.” His fingers continued to stroke me. Sometimes he would slip his fingers into my hair, touching me with a gentleness that seemed impossible for someone like him to execute. “Fixes everything.”

“Maybe I’ll get a tattoo someday…but probably not.”

“I’ve left some room on my arm for my wife. If I ever get married, I know that’s something I would want.”

A lot of things happened in that nanosecond. I was touched by the sweet thing he’d just said, surprised that he’d even pictured a future where he was settled down with a single woman—and I was also jealous. Jealous of whoever it was if it wasn’t me. I never wanted to remarry so my rage was senseless, but it dropped like an atomic bomb. “That’s romantic.”

“I can be pretty romantic when I’m not killing people.” The playfulness was still there while he caressed me, looking at me with those blue eyes like he never wanted to look away. His eyes drank me in like I was the Mona Lisa.

“You seem like the kind of man that wouldn’t be interested in that.”

“There you go again, making assumptions.”

“Do criminals care about a house with a white picket fence and kids running around?”

He smirked like I’d made a joke. “No.”

“That’s all I meant.”

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