Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) (3 page)

I licked my lips. “I haven’t
talked to him in forever.”

“
So maybe this
is the opportunity to start making amends.”

“
I don’t have
a problem with my uncle,” I said rather defensively.

Dex tilted his head. “No, not
with him…but…well, we’ll have to drive through Portland to get
there.”

Ugh. He was right. There was no
way I could go to Oregon and not see my family. Even if we took the
coast, if Ada ever found out that I’d been in the state without
seeing her, she’d kill me.

Rebecca pulled out her cell
phone and eyed it before slipping it back in her purse. “I suppose
that means I only have a few days to prepare. I better get
started.”

“
Hey now,”Dex
said, leaning forward. “You’re not going anywhere. Now that you
know about the show, I want to know what you two were up to
today.”

She gave him a smirk and
started for the door. “I think maybe Perry needs to tell you. In
private.”

Before I could say anything,
she wiggled her fingers at me in a goodbye and left the apartment,
closing the door behind her. My nerves suddenly started misfiring.
I couldn’t believe I was actually nervous around Dex. My tattoo
started tingling underneath my sleeve.

“
Well?” he
said expectantly.

I slowly turned my head to look
at him. He was holding the bottle of beer at his mouth, taking a
beat to grin at me before having a sip. He wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand and dipped his chin, his eyes boring into me,
framed by those cocky brows. He certainly had a way of making me
talk. Or a way of making me jump him.

“
I, uh…I did
something today,” I started, picking at the lint on my
leggings.

He leaned in closer, bumping
his shoulder against mine playfully. “Oh yeah? Is this the part
where you tell me that you and Rebecca are running away
together?”

“
Does
your mind always go there?” I asked, even though I knew the answer
was
yes
. Once a pervert, always a pervert.

“
Not always,”
he said slowly. A grave look came across him. “But seriously. What
is it? What did you do?”

I took in a deep breath and
avoided his eyes. I stared at Fat Rabbit who had flopped down on
the rug. “I did it for you.”

I could feel him straighten up.
“You didn’t murder someone, did you?”

“
Some blood
was spilled…but no.” I tried to find the words. This was actually
kind of hard. You’d think I was proposing to him or something.
There was so much that I felt inside for Dex, but for some reason
it wasn’t always easy to express the way I was feeling. Sometimes I
totally felt like a dude.

“
Okay, here,”
I said quickly, pulling back the sleeve and placing my wrist on his
leg.

He eyed the black plastic
with surprise. “You got a tattoo?
You
got a tattoo?”

“
Uh huh,” I
said, and very carefully began to peel away the edges of the tape.
“Ta-da.”

The skin around the anchor was
a darker red and the ink wasn’t as vibrant as earlier but it was
still there. Obviously. And suddenly it hit me how permanent this
was. I mean, I knew before that it was—it was a tattoo—but holy
shit, what the fuck had I just done?

“
What is
this?” Dex asked quietly, his fingers stroking alongside the ink as
he stared intently at the anchor. My heart thudded loudly in my
chest, my skin sensitive to his touch. Yup. I’d just gotten a
tattoo for Dex and I was just realizing it would be embedded into
my skin for the rest of my life. What if we broke up? What if this
was too much too soon? What if he hated it?

I tried to pull my arm away but
he swiftly wrapped his long fingers around my wrist, careful not to
touch the tattoo, and held it closer to his eyes. “Perry?” His
voice was even lower than before, barely above a whisper.

I tried to clear my throat.
“It’s…it’s a tattoo. Of an anchor. It’s for you. Because…Dex,
you’re my anchor.”

His grip tightened and he
looked up at me, his brows furrowed. I went on, licking my lips,
trying to keep my voice steady. “You…make me feel sane in this
crazy world. You give me hope. You give me life. When I’m with
you…I can’t even believe I’m with you. It’s like that every
morning. Like I’m dreaming, but I’m not.”

I had to look down, his eyes
were getting too intense for the words I was saying. “I just…I
wanted you to know that. I know I can seem…distant sometimes. I
know I’m always in my head and sometimes I’m just a little too
quiet. But you’re the most important thing to me. You keep me
grounded, you hold me in place, you make me feel real. I love you,
Dex. I hope this lets you know that.”

He didn’t say anything. My
heart rate sped up, the apartment thrummed with the silence. Shit.
Shit, shit, shit. I just fucked it all up, didn’t I?

I exhaled shakily and turned my
head to look at him, to see the damage.

His eyes seemed frozen in a
state of shock yet awash with some unreadable emotion, his Adam’s
apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. His grip on my wrist never
changed. I was afraid the silence would bury me. I was afraid I’d
made a mistake.

Then something remarkable
happened.

The fear vanished.

He burst into a smile with the
energy of a million fires, gleaming white teeth against dimples.
His eyes seemed borderline watery and he shook his head back and
forth so his hair flopped on his forehead.

“
I love the
fuck out of you,” he said, almost in awe. “Come here.”

He grabbed the back of my head,
bringing my face toward him and held me firmly in place while he
kissed me hard. There was heat and tongue and hunger all in one. It
made me feel impossibly giddy, impossibly light.

He stroked one hand down my
cheek and pulled away, whispering, “Did you seriously do that for
me?”

I nodded. “Of course I
did.”

Dex grabbed my face in both his
hands and kissed me again. ”You have no idea how that makes me
feel. No idea.”

“
Good, right?”
I whispered.

“
Good? Oh,
baby, better than good. You just made me feel like a fucking king.”
His lips trailed to my ear. “I owe you for this. Big
time.”

I gave him a sassy grin,
suddenly exuberant at how much he liked the tattoo. I had no idea
it would mean so much. My eyes darted over to the bedroom and back.
“Well, I can think of a few ways you can repay me.”

His eyes blazed. “You don’t
have to tell me twice,” he growled.

He got up, and in one easy
motion, scooped me up in his arms. I cried out in surprise and put
my arms around his neck as he carried me over to the bedroom and
kicked the door shut before throwing me on the bed.

“
Your clothes
need to come off, now,” he commanded, immediately dropping to his
knees and pulling me forward so my legs went over the edge of the
bed. He parted my thighs and went between them, running his hands
up my legs until they were under my skirt. “In fact, I don’t know
why you bother wearing clothes at all,” he murmured as he slowly
began to peel my leggings off.

“
Boots first,”
I pointed down at my feet without raising my head.

“
You and your
fucking Docs. Baby, they look great on you but twelve holes are a
bitch to undo.”

“
Then leave
the boots on.”

He paused with my leggings
around my knees and I could feel him giving me a steely stare.
“Who’s the boss in the bedroom here?”

“
Tony
Danza?”

He lightly smacked the side of
my thigh. “It’s going to be harder and it’s going to be on that
fuckable ass of yours if you talk back again.”

I grinned to myself and bit my
lip. His large hands went up and pulled down my boy shorts,
pressing my legs slightly together to get them off. Then he ducked
underneath my legs so he was trapped between me with nowhere to go
but my lady bits. Not a bad predicament for me.

“
This is going
to be tighter than usual,” he said, his breath hot on my inner
thighs. I could feel the rough scruff of his face brushing against
my skin as he made his way to my slit. “I’m going to eat your pussy
clean,” he murmured right before I felt his lips on mine, his warm,
wet tongue dipping in between.

My breath hitched from the
sensation before I relaxed, smiling again at his dirty talk. He
made me blush so hard sometimes but it still turned me on anyway.
And fuck, he was insatiable when he was between my legs. He acted
like it felt as good for him as it did for me, and then it was
double the turn on.

I know, I was fucking
lucky.

I let out a little moan as his
tongue flicked my clit and my hands gripped the sheets, holding
them tighter and tighter as I felt myself swell and open wider for
him. He responded with a moan of his own, the vibrations nearly
sending me over the edge, as he slowly inserted two long fingers
inside me. He made a come hither motion, knowing exactly the right
moves to make, and I couldn’t keep it together much longer.

“
I want you
inside me,” I groaned.

He paused, his lips brushing
against me as he spoke, sending shockwaves of honey through my
veins. ”What did I tell you about talking back?”

“
Oh, I’ll talk
back to you,” I said deliriously, rolling my head from side to
side.

“
No, you taste
too fucking sweet,” he said gruffly. “You’re coming
now.”

His head went back down, his
tongue sweeping over my clit, his fingers coaxing me until seconds
later I was crying out his name, my body rocked by spasms. I barely
had time to piece my reality back together when I heard him kicking
off his boots and unzipping his jeans.

He grabbed me by the waist and
rolled me over, giving my ass a hard smack with his hand. I could
feel his balls pressing against my thigh, something else that
turned me on.

“
That’s for
talking back,” he said. Suddenly he was flipping me over again
until I was facing up. I took in the sight of his cock, his
hardened muscles, as he leaned his taut body over me, feverish
intensity in his eyes. “And this, this is for the tattoo.” With one
hand he grabbed my face while the other guided himself inside of
me. He kissed me so passionately I felt like I couldn’t breathe and
it didn’t even matter.

He pulled away, his eyelashes
grazing against my cheeks and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you for
letting me in.” There was so much sincerity in his voice, this
funny man of mine, that I couldn’t help but put my hands on both
sides of his face, feeling the strength in his fine jaw, and looked
him deep in the eyes until I hoped he could see my soul.

“
I’m not
letting go of you,” I said softly, feeling like my heart was
beating just for him. “Not ever. This is permanent.”

The words felt so heavy leaving
my lips, but they were nothing but the truth.

Dex proceeded to make
love to me right there—I mean really
make love
. That looking deep into
your eyes, slowly devouring every inch of your body, coming so hard
that it feels like your souls are fusing together as one, seeing
stars, kind of love. Cheesy maybe, but god I loved him, and this,
us, felt so incredibly real. So incredibly right.

When we were finished, I kept
the bandage off the tattoo and a smile on my face for the rest of
the day.

CHAPTER THREE

I woke up in a cold place.
That’s all I could feel, this terrible chill that enveloped my body
from inside and out, an icy hand that gripped my organs and froze
my heart.

Where was I? I tried to open my
eyes but my lids seemed fused together. I was lying down, on my
back somewhere, seemingly all in one piece.

Another dream? I hadn’t had a
nightmare or anything like this for what seemed like months.

Perry
, a familiar voice came
floating into my head.
Open
your eyes, darling.

I did as the voice asked and
saw nothing above me but grey, heavy clouds. I slowly sat up and
when I realized what I was looking at, I was struck with a mix of
fear and relief.

Everything around me was
grey—monotone—fields that stretched on forever with grass that did
not move and air that felt thick like soup. Smelless. Soundless.
Tasteless.

In front of me was my
grandmother, Pippa. She wasn’t close, just a few yards away, but
even then I could tell there was a marked change in her. Despite
the fact that she was dead, the times I had seen her in the past
she’d looked a lot more vibrant. Now she was skinnier, and dressed
in a shapeless dress and long coat that hung off her bones. Her
hair was thinning more, the curls dull. There was no makeup on her
face at all, making her look both more human and more
vulnerable.

“
Pippa,”I
said, never feeling comfortable enough to call her Grandma. “Where
am I? Am I in the Thin Veil?”

We are
somewhere I think is safe
, she said
without speaking.

Am I
dreaming
? I asked, remembering I could
just think it and she would hear it. I was wearing every day
clothes, not Dex’s t-shirt I fell asleep in every night.
This
had
to be a dream.

She held my gaze steady, her
eyes still full of life even though the rest of her seemed to be
wasting away.

I’m sorry I
haven’t been around
, she said.