Tattoo (Take It Off #7)(42)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“And now there’s you.”

“I’m the best,” I said, cocky. Now that I knew there was no one I needed to kill, I felt a lot better.

“You definitely are.” She agreed.

I kissed her deeply and lay back down, taking her with me.

I felt her stiffen a little and I realized I likely tugged her arm. I sat up and stared down, lifting the bandaged area and checking it to make sure nothing was wet, bleeding, or coming loose.

“It stayed almost completely dry,” she said.

“How long’s it been since you’ve had your pain meds?”

“Since this morning.”

I frowned. After all the movement and activity at the lake and then here in bed, she needed to rest it. She needed her meds and that sling back in place. If she kept moving around this much, it was going to get even sorer and take longer to heal. I pulled away. “Come on. We need to get you taken care of.”

She made a sound of protest. “I don’t wanna get up.”

I grinned lazily. “There’s more where that came from.” I leaned down and kissed her. “But what the hell kind of man would I be if I neglected my girl’s wounds?”

“Your girl?” she said, looking up at me from amongst the twisted blankets and sheets.

I’d never claimed anyone as solely mine before. I never really cared. But claiming her was as natural as breathing. I didn’t even have to think about it.

She was like finally finding home.

I hooked my hand around her ankle and slowly towed her across the bed toward me. “Yeah, mine.”

“Does that mean you’re mine?”

“Do you want me?” The question kind of ripped from my throat, like it was sticky. It was hard to put myself out there like that, to practically lay out my vulnerabilities at her feet.

“I want you very much,” she whispered, reaching out her hand.

I took it and towed her up onto her feet, bringing her naked, luscious body against mine. I flattened my palm against the back of her head and hugged her against me. I wasn’t sure how this happened. How I went from a solitary man to a guy who needed someone else.

And I did need her.

In the beginning, I might have felt the weight of responsibility by having her around, but nothing about her now seemed heavy. If anything, she made me feel lighter.

It was a little unsettling for this to happen so fast.

She laughed and pulled back. “Your stomach is growling like an angry bear.”

I grabbed her ass. “I worked up an appetite.”

Taylor rolled her eyes and pulled away. “Let’s get dressed and go down to the kitchen.”

My chest swelled with some sort of strong emotion as I watched her hips sway into the bathroom. Yes, things between Taylor and me definitely moved fast.

I thought about applying the brakes, about slowing things down.

From inside the bathroom, she dropped something and called herself an idiot. I smiled.

To hell with brakes.

The blow-dryer kicked on, and I unzipped my duffle to find some clothes. On top of the pile was my cell phone. I forgot to turn up the volume when we came inside. I picked it up and lit up the screen. A missed call flashed in front of me so I pulled up the info and hit redial.

“Newman,” the man answered after only one ring.

“It’s West. Sorry I missed your call before.”

“Not a problem. I just wanted to let you know that we brought in Snake about an hour ago.”

“Fucking right,” I said happily. “He being booked now?”

“Yeah, then we’ll put him in lockup.”

“Hey, man, I appreciate the call. Thanks for bringing him in. Good work.”

After we disconnected the call, I tossed the phone and reached for a pair of clean boxer briefs. I thought about the fact I should be on Emerald Isle right now, fishing. I should be sitting in the sand with nothing to think about other than what to eat for dinner.

How quickly things could change.

After the bust at the gas station went down, I still planned to get the hell out of town for my two-week vacation. I didn’t plan on thinking about the job or where I was going to live. But all that changed when I stepped into Taylor’s hospital room and realized I couldn’t just walk away from her.

And now here I was, thinking about getting a place of my own, about sticking around and figuring out what my life looked like without a second identity.

That is if I lived long enough for any of that.

Now that word was out about my undercover identity, members of the crew, people from my past, were going to come looking for me, and they weren’t gonna want to have dinner and a movie. They would come with the hopes of putting me in a grave.

The blow-dryer in the bathroom clicked off and Taylor’s soft humming drifted out into the bedroom.

Her father asked me to be here to protect her. It’s why I came.

But now my presence could be nothing but dangerous.

I thought about that as I yanked on a pair of jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt from Old Navy. The wound in my side was sore and I glanced down, remembering that the bandage covering the stitches hadn’t stayed dry in the tub. I grabbed one corner of the bandage and ripped it off in one sweeping motion. The skin burned, but I ignored it.

After I made sure the stitches themselves looked okay, I discarded the bandage and let my shirt fall over it. Band-Aids were a pain in the ass and I was tired of wearing one.

Taylor stepped into the room and lightly padded over toward the bed. She was dressed in a pair of darkly colored jeans that molded to her every curve. Her T-shirt was dark purple, loose, and had a large teal-colored peace sign on the front. Her long, red locks were dry and tangle free. The straight strands hung way down to the middle of her back and seemed to capture and reflect light with every move she made. It was tucked casually behind her ears, almost like the way she looked was an afterthought.

As I stared, she lifted up the scattered blankets near the end of the bed and reached for her sling.

“Here,” I said, taking it from her hands and fastening it around her. Very gently, I helped her guide her arm into the contraption and then made sure it was adjusted to fit her body.

When I was done, she looked up and smiled.

My fingers found hers, intertwining and leading her from the room.

Yeah, my presence was dangerous to her. But I spent the last several years of my professional life walking away from people who would be better off without me. It was isolating and in some ways made me feel like the person I had been was slowly evaporating until there would be nothing left. Then one day I would look in a mirror and see nothing but a stranger.