Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) (4 page)

My kiss turned savage. I was so hard, raging with need from the torment of her touch. Grabbing her thigh in another bruising grip with one hand, I braced my other hand on the chair underneath her and pushed my hips against hers. I felt the tip of my dick slip along the satin barrier of her thong, soaked with her own desire.

“Back pocket,” I growled. “Wallet… condom…”

I could barely form even the slightest coherent thought. It was all I could do to utter a few words in between kisses, a desperate groan of my need. If I didn’t fuck her now, I was pretty sure my balls would simply explode.

I could have cried when I felt the tug of her hand slipping my billfold from my jeans. Without relinquishing my lips, without pulling away from my voracious kiss, she held it open, and I slipped a condom from the inside. I pulled my lips away long enough to rip the foil with my teeth, and then her small hand took hold of the latex. In what seemed both slow and frenzied all at once, she rolled the condom down my length, deftly guiding it over my apa as she sheathed me. Then she was pulling her tiny underwear out of the way and positioning me at her entrance.

Part of me wanted to slowly sink into her, to relish in her heat and feel her take me inside, but I was too drunk and too fired up. I thrust into her in one hard push, and she almost screamed with the sudden force of it. She trembled and sobbed as I planted myself deep and held my stance.

Everything about being inside her, everything she had promised with her caresses and her moans, was alive and real and visceral. I lifted my head a little to look down at her beneath me. The vibrant strands of her hair enhanced the dark violet of her eyes. The bruised blush of her lips. She was so perfect, her breath coming in sharp gasps.

I began to withdraw, slowly now, feeling a tremor course through her body.

Another stroke inside, and her fingers clutched low on my back.

“Drew…” she whispered.

Again, pulling out almost entirely, coaxing a few shallow thrusts to hit her just right. To find her precious spot, to pull her up into the clouds with me.

“Drew,” she breathed. “Oh, God… Drew.”

She said my name so…
deliriously
. With such intense feeling. It was so fucking hot, and every ounce of need inside me intensified to a scorching level.

I felt her fingertips graze my jaw, a gentle caress, and opened my eyes. She was looking at me, and I watched the play of sensation across her features as I withdrew in a smooth glide, then pushed back inside her.

Her fingernails dug into my shoulder. Her head came forward as she pressed her face against my neck. With every stroke, I could feel the drag of my apa along her inner walls. I could feel the reverberations course through her body.

“Oh my God, Drew,” she mumbled into my skin.

I fucking loved how she said my name. Every time. Like she was so incredibly wrapped up in me, so in this moment that nothing else could fit in her mind. It shot a sense of power through my chest that swelled and pushed me harder. Faster. Until she began to tremble beneath me, choking back stilted breaths. Squeezing my dick tightly in her wet, hot pussy.

Suddenly her back arched and she let out a deep moan that I felt in my cock. Her body tightened up and began to shake. Her cries became frantic. Her grip fervent. I slowed my strokes to watch her, to feel the orgasm run through her body. The tremors began to fade, and I moved again, pulling a hoarse cry from her lips as she grasped me tighter.

Leaning down, I kissed her deep while she continued to come, coaxing her to relax only to drive into her again and experience the wonderful tightening around me. After a few minutes, an eternity of ecstasy, I began to increase the tempo of my thrusts, pulling her back up with me. Higher and deeper. Again, I touched her lips with mine, kissing her with what felt like my last breath.

“Drew,” she whispered against my lips.

My name, breathed into me with such desperation, finally triggered my own release. It caused me to fall with her into oblivion.

And as I faded from the world around me, having just fucked my employee in my tattoo chair, it occurred to me that Maggie had never once said my name like Raven had.

I woke up on the couch in my office, a little disoriented at first. Trying to remember how I got there as I shook the tequila-induced sleep fog from my head. I had a fucker of a headache, and for a moment I couldn’t even think.

Then the image of Raven beneath me suddenly shot through my consciousness. The sound of my name on her lips as she came jolted me into abrupt awareness.

Holy fuck,
what did I do?

I took quick stock of my surroundings and condition. I had my jeans on. While they weren’t buttoned, my junk was tucked inside my boxers. Fuck if I knew where my shirt was, though.

Wait
… the chair. In one of the stations. That’s where she’d thrown it.

Feeling way older than my twenty-seven years, I rose and stumbled from my office. Sure enough, there was my black ACDC wife-beater lying on the floor against the wall. I remembered Raven pulling it over my head and tossing it right before she pressed herself against me. My dick pulsed at the recollection.

She had felt so extraordinary.

Fuck
. I had to stop thinking that way. I had to figure something out, to fix what happened. She was an amazing employee, and I didn’t want to fuck that up. I’d been telling my friends not to fuck her for so long, and then I went and did it.

Awesome.

I’d been drunk, but not drunk enough to forget the way she writhed beneath me and took me inside.

Drew…

Her voice hung in the air, a spectral echo from the night before. The scent of her perfume lingered on my skin and in the room around me. The smell of sex, hot and fast and frantic.

I had practically blacked out when I came. Like an explosion had numbed my senses, pulling my consciousness from my body for a moment. I had a faint memory of her shifting out from underneath me, slipping away to grab her corset and pulling it over her nakedness. Through the foggy haze, I vaguely heard her telling me I couldn’t sleep in that narrow tattoo chair. She steadied me as I stood and helped guide me to the leather couch in my office.

She rearranged my clothing a little, tucked me back into my jeans, and reached for an old fleece blanket at the end of the couch.

The last thing I remembered as I passed out in a haze of sated intoxication was the light touch of her lips on my forehead.

But now what?

All the realities of the night before had been jumbled up. Twisted and torn, leaving me uncertain. Wary.

Looking at the clock, I saw it was about six-thirty in the morning.

A glance in the mirror showed I looked even worse than I felt, and I felt like death warmed over.  I kinda smelled like it, too. Like stale booze and sex. I needed a shower. Badly.

I grabbed my jacket and drove home, only a mile or so from Ink. Just close enough to make it quick, just far enough to keep me from walking. Pulling into the driveway, I noted Justin’s pickup was missing, meaning he’d already headed to Butte to teach at Tech. He was my only remaining roommate in this big old house. It had been the band’s house once. The home of the Bangin’ Mofos. The hive of indulgence in our small town of Ophir. Every Friday and Saturday night had meant a wild party following our set at the Copperline.

It all started to change with our friend, Brannon. Not technically a Mofo, but one in spirit. A brother in arms. Also the biggest manwhore I’d ever met, except for maybe Justin. Brannon had fallen hard for the local beauty queen, a girl who didn’t know he existed. A girl he thought would never give him a second thought. So he tried to fuck her out of his system with every bar slut he could lay his hands on, only to have her show up one night to proposition him. The reality of Sophie exceeded his expectations, and, the next thing we knew, they were inseparable.

Shortly thereafter, Denny had moved out when he came home from Ireland all married and shit. Felicity had moved in with us for a bit, but then got knocked up making them think they might need a less lively place to raise their son.

Then Cody hooked up with Ilsa, who already had a kid. Cody was the big teddy bear of the group with all his ideas of what marriage and love were supposed to be. He found it with his little barmaid, too. He dove in head first and almost died, but he found it in the end.

The golden days of massive Bangin’ Mofo after parties were beginning to fade into the horizon. Justin… well, none of us saw him settling down anytime soon. He had pissed off his folks when he decided to forgo a career as a petroleum engineer, something they’d pushed him to do, and instead decided to stay in the area as an adjunct professor. He taught a few classes, enough to pay the bills but not so many that it interfered with his life in Ophir. Or, more accurately, his action with the barstool bunnies at the Copperline.

Just the thought of the Copperline
‘meat market’
sent a shudder through me. Not that I wanted to turn into a girl about it, but the crushing blow Maggie had dealt still hung heavy in my chest.  How was I supposed to get up there and play without her support? Without her focus and drive. I didn’t know how to do this without her anymore.

Love sucks.

As I walked into the quiet house, I glanced down at my plastic covered arm and wondered how long it would be before I would regret that ink. My brain was still too convoluted to even begin to process what I’d done. The big block letters - LOVE - burned in my brain. The script beneath it…

…that didn’t look
quite right
.

A feeling of something, not exactly dread but definitely apprehension, settled in my gut. I studied the script. The letters, slightly shaky in appearance, didn’t say
“sucks.”

Instead, Raven had written
“heals.”

Love heals.

What the fuck?

Like I wasn’t already out of sorts. Like I wasn’t already mad at the world and off-kilter. That testament to my own failure had been hijacked.
What kind of girly shit was that, anyway?
Love heals…
fuck that.

I showered quickly and pulled a long-sleeve Henley on, knowing I should let the tat breath free, but not really wanting to think about it. I didn’t want anyone else to see it either. To question it.

How could I explain it without explaining everything? Without examining her feelings.
Shit
… did she have feelings for me? The guilt began to seep in. I was a wreck. No way should I have done that with her. She’d never once led me to believe she was anything more than a friend. Everything suddenly seemed so out of whack.

Driving back to Ink, I waffled between self-reproach and bewilderment. As I pulled into the lot, a quick scan revealed Raven wasn’t at work yet, but I was usually the first one in anyway. Raven and Neil usually came in around nine most days, sometimes as late as ten. It all really depended on what appointments they had scheduled.

After unlocking and flicking on the lights, I made a pot of shitty coffee and slugged some down, bracing myself for her appearance. My gut lurched when I heard the bells at the front, but the heavy steps indicated it was Neil, not Raven. His slow and steady stride echoed through the hall until he reached the doorway of the back room.