“I like them,” he said simply.
That was it. My badass, ex spy, villain liked historical romances.
I almost said it. Right then. As he crossed the room holding two glasses of wine, smirking at me.
The words bubbled in my throat, desperate to escape. There was no way I could hold them in much longer.
I even opened my mouth, prepared to lay it all out, until he got close enough for me to focus on his torso. Or, more accurately, his chest. He was shirtless, a pair of shorts slung low on his hips, showing off his Adonis belt and impossibly perfect physique.
“Oh my god,” I breathed, staring at the black script, the slight redness around the lines. It was obviously recent. And he’d just come from the ocean. I did not have any tattoos, but I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to go surfing the same day you got one. And he had to have had it done today because I’d been with him last night. I’d seen every inch of his naked torso. Not one bit of ink anywhere. Plenty of scars. But no tattoo on his left pec reading ‘Wren’.
“Please fucking tell me this is some kind of joke.”
Karson’s expression was even. “Do I strike you as some kind of comedian, darlin’?” he asked dryly, extending the glass to me.
I wanted to move my attention from his pec to his face so I could scowl at him, but my gaze was glued there.
“No,” I snapped. “You do not strike me as some kind of comedian. But you seem reasonably sane, and a reasonably sane person does not permanently tattoo someone else’s name into their skin when they’ve known aforementioned person for a handful of months.” My voice went slightly shrill at the end of this, but I couldn’t help it.
Karson put the glasses down on the coffee table then moved to brush the hair from my face, and I let him do so because I was still in a state of shock. “You called it,” he said. “First night I fucked you, you told me that that night would make me want to tattoo your name into my skin.”
I gaped at him, still trying to find something on his face that would imply this was some elaborate joke.
Nothing.
“Yes, and I’m someone prone to over exaggeration, something you surely have already learned about me. One of the few things you’ve learned about me, because we’ve only known each other a few months,” I spluttered.
Karson’s expression had been relatively mild throughout this exchange, if not ever so slightly amused, but now his eyes were narrowed, and his expression had darkened.
“How long?” he clipped. “How long do you think it would take a man to know you? A month? Two? A year? A decade?”
He snatched his glass up from the coffee table, talking a long drink before zeroing his attention back to me.
“I’ll wager a guess and say that you’ve never been with a man long enough to let him know you,” he continued. “Let him feel your pussy clench around his cock with nothin’ in between. I’m the only one you gave that to.” He pointed to his own chest violently.
I’d never seen him as intense as he was right now. Which was saying something. Karson was intense by nature. But this energy was something different.
“You gave that to me on the first fuckin’ night,” he rasped. “Something that’s important to you, sacred, you gave to me when you knew as much as you could get your private investigators to find out about me. Which should’ve been shit to make you want to stay the fuck away from me. Instead, you came to my house, clad in your white dress, threatening me, seducing me, awakening me.”
He was breathing heavy now. Visibly, his chest rising and falling. Visibly pissed off at me, holding nothing back.
“You knew exactly what the fuck you were doing,” he proclaimed sharply. “That white dress was the red flag to a fucking bull. You let me in, Wren. On that first night. Because even though you’re stubborn as fuck, even you can’t deny whatever the fuck this is between us.”
He looked out the window, pinching the bridge of his nose. I didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t.
“I’m a grown man,” he said, less intense now. Much quieter. “I’m a man who knows what he wants when he sees it. And I know I want you. Know that I’ll only ever want you. Know that I want your name as a scar on my skin.”
I stared at him.
He was serious. Deadly fucking serious. Of course, he was. He’d inked my name onto his skin. And Karson was not a man who made rash decisions, not like I did. He thought about things. Knew every fucking detail of said thing before he made his choice. And he’d made the choice.
To have me. Above his heart. Forever.
My throat became itchy, breathing more difficult as the walls started closing in.
I stomped across to the breakfast bar, snatching up my purse, desperate to create distance, to escape this. Him.
When I turned, Karson was standing in the same position, gripping his glass of wine, staring at me.