Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
This might be the first time he has ever asked Marshall. Back in school Kane hated him purely because he saw him as a threat.
“Lotta bullshit.”
“Right?”
“Adult life fucking sucks man.” Marshall says this with such a comical tone.
“Spoken like a true stoner,” I put in and we share a smile.
“So how did y’all get from what you were, to you lettin’ her tattoo your left tit?”
Kane’s eyes do a narrow smiling thing that they do and his lips twitch at the ends. “Decided to stop being mad over shit we can’t change.”
“Decided it’s better if we work together.”
“You gonna go hunting again?” Marshall asks and I nod.
“Hunting?” Kane asks, wetting his lips as he looks between us both.
“That’s what we call it when she goes looking for, Flipper.”
“Flipper?”
I shrug sadly. “That’s what we used to call her. She was a mover. Never stopped wriggling.”
“Looked alien as fuck,” Marshall admits with a shudder and we share another smile but then I concentrate on my art and keep moving the inky needle across Kane’s chest. “She used to stick out her elbow or somethin’ and it’d look pointy like when a shark’s fin breeches the water surface.”
I remember those days and the discomfort, but I never complained. I would have stayed pregnant forever if it meant keeping her safe with me.
“I didn’t get any of that.”
“I thought you would with somebody else.”
He brushes my hair off my face and tucks it behind my ear making me smile again, softly this time. I don’t smile enough but he never expected me to. I’ve never been a particularly expressive person and Kane was always happy to just be with me regardless.
Once he told me I didn’t need to smile to be beautiful. That I should only smile when I meant it.
He wanted everything to be real between us and I fucked that up and yet here he is, backing my corner, helping me figure shit out.
“Why are you here anyway?” I ask Marshall, still looking at the ink. I don’t lose focus, not even for a second.
So far I have the outline done and a small fraction of the shading. It’s going to eventually be his Challenger. A car he still has. It’ll look like a photograph when I’m done.
“Just checking you’re still breathing.”
“He means you,” I utter to Kane who chuckles. Then without looking up I add, “Lock the door on your way out, Marsh.”
“Damn, it’s like that is it?” Marshall isn’t offended in the slightest, he’s just being a drama llama. “That hurts real deep.”
With a cutting look his way, I raise a brow and nod to the door.
Laughing he backs away with his hands raised. “I’m gone.”
“Get gone quicker.”
I put the machine down for a moment and flex my hand, that is until Kane grabs my hips and pulls me onto his lap. He forces me to straddle him without much coaxing and smirks up at me.
“This isn’t sanitary,” I admonish. “I’m going to have to clean you again, and change my gloves…”
I’m still not sure how we went from shower to tattoo.
He dried me, I dried him, we shared a laugh like when we were kids and for a moment I saw the boy I fell in love with. Though older, the Kane Jessop I remember still smiles at me like the mischievous man-boy I knew. He’s still in there, I don’t even have to dig deep to find him. It brings me hope that maybe I’m still here too. Maybe Kane Jessop is wishful thinking, or maybe he sees the girl I used to be brimming below the surface of her hurt.
He leaned down to kiss me, softer this time but I pulled away. I don’t even know why. I wanted to kiss him desperately. But every time he kisses me, I just remember what I lost.
That’s when we got talking instead as we dressed, and he said he wanted the challenger on his chest and could I fit him in. I was desperate to escape my apartment and now here we are.
He’s hard beneath me and the feel of it pressing against my parted thighs, covered only by the stiff denim of my tight jeans and the lace thong, is making me tingle through my entire body.
The plastic of my apron crackles as he rips it away and my hands go to his waist.
His muscles are so hard beneath my touch, which I can’t say is soft. Months of hard labor at that fucking cult, plus a lifetime of drawing since have made my fingers harder in places. On both hands, not just one. Though he doesn’t seem to mind.
“You haven’t aged a bit, Immy,” he compliments, gripping my waist and bucking his hips up to meet mine.
“You’ve only gotten better,” I appraise and trace the contours of his abs. He’s a God. His body has been chiseled by the angels. There’s no other way to describe this masterpiece. “I didn’t really kill him.”