Kate reached out and squeezed her hand. “Not terrible at all. I’m sorry I didn’t ask more questions about what you want.” She tapped her finger against her lip. “Maybe Charlie will surprise you. If you have heat, he may want to go a bit crazy and sleep with you.”
Gen couldn’t help it. She laughed. Kate had expressed the thought as if it was a complete novelty. Who was she kidding? She’d never had a one-night stand and never been interested in one. She liked connection, dialogue, and emotion. But Wolfe didn’t have to know.
The thought morphed into a plan. She’d go on her respectable date with Charles, but she’d keep her mouth shut about the ending. Wolfe might assume she slept with him, and maybe that would put a barrier between the weirdness that was sprouting up all the time. If she experienced a spark with Charles, she would let her gut instinct lead the way. A voice growled behind her back.
“You can always get him in the mood by showing him this beauty,” the tattoo artist said. “Sure you don’t want baby’s breath sprouting from the rose instead? Ladies seem to go for that one.”
No. She may have picked a rose, but this was her own little secret. A bit of darkness within the beauty. Pain within the pleasure. She may not want to live in that world, but it existed, and she would never try and shut it out again. It was now a tiny part of who she was.
“No,” she said aloud. “I want the thorns with the drops of blood.”
“You got it.”
Kate winced and looked away, but with each prick of the needle, Gen edged closer to satisfaction. Maybe it was time she accepted that she didn’t always have to walk in the light. Do the right thing. Make good choices. Maybe there was more to her than she ever thought possible, and getting this tattoo was her first step.
Gen smiled and gave herself up to the experience.
“HOW WAS YOUR DATE?”
It killed her to be casual, but Gen decided she’d die before showing her real emotions. Jealousy. Rage. Confusion. Jealousy.
He hadn’t come home last night. Of course, Wolfe warned her, but still she’d stayed up until dawn, listening for the door to open. He waltzed in at 8 a.m. doing the whole walk-of-shame thing. Except he wasn’t in the same clothes. Freshly showered, dressed in faded Levi’s and a black tank that showed off sculpted arms and his ink, he looked like sin on a stick. Relaxed, too. Like he’d wrung out all his previous tension having wild monkey sex with the slut. Umm, date. Whatever.
She needed to stop talking to herself.
“Good. You got extra bacon?”
She fumed but forced a sunny smile. “Sure. Did you have fun?”
“Yep. Are you making eggs, too?”
Her eye twitched. “Worked up an appetite, huh?”
He pulled back at that remark and studied her. She turned away and fiddled with the skillet, cursing her inability to be cool. The silence behind her spoke volumes. Wolfe finally cleared his throat. “How was your night?” he asked.
Her back tingled in rebellion. If he thought she’d been lying around with the remote, he was sorely mistaken. “Really good.” The bacon sizzled in the pan and spurt out fragments of grease. She maneuvered the spatula around the eggs. “It was actually kick-ass.”
She sensed his frown but refused to turn around. “Oh. That’s good. Your date is tonight though, right?”
“Yep.”
“You went to Mugs with the girls, then?”
She scooped up the eggs and bacon and slid them over. Picked up her coffee and sipped. “Nope. I got a tattoo and a Brazilian wax.”
His expression was well worth the shock factor. Those blue eyes widened and his lower lip hung down a bit. His gaze scoured her from top to bottom, settling on the apex between her thighs before quickly being dragged back up. Sweat popped up on his brow.
Gen grinned and dug into her eggs.
“What the hell are you talking about? What tattoo? Where? Why?”
She shrugged. “Felt like it. I think the Brazilian hurt more.”
An intense light gleamed in his eyes. Her body reacted by saluting to attention. Her nipples stiffened. She grew wet between her legs. She hated it. Having him cross over from the camp of friend to man she desperately wanted to sleep with was brutal. Should she try to get back some of the ribbing and teasing associated with their friendship? After all, if Wolfe was sleeping around, she couldn’t be included in the troop of women he desperately wanted to sleep with. So if it was just her panting after him, she better get back on equal footing.
“Why do you need it?” he asked roughly.
“The Brazilian?”
His fingers clenched the fork in a death grip. “No. The tattoo.”
“Told you. It was impulse. Kate came with me. She was pretty freaked out by the needles and my nakedness.”
The fork clattered to the floor. Wolfe breathed heavily. “Who saw you naked?” he asked in a high voice. “Where did you get it?”
She arched a brow. “Calm down, dude. You got a piercing in your dick. Had to hurt like a bitch. Why’d you do that?”
Ah, he flushed again in that kind of adorable, masculine way. Ducking his head to pick up the fork, he tossed it across the counter. She got him a replacement, waiting for his answer. “Because I was pretty screwed up at the time. I pushed limits, didn’t mind pain, and wanted to torture myself for a bunch of messed-up things.”
She leaned forward. Her voice was whisper soft. “Like what?”
“Never mind. I really don’t want to talk about the piercing, Gen. Where’s the tat?”