Her soft hand glided along my forearm and my gaze followed the touch that was adding fuel to the havoc she was stirring up in my pants.
“I understand your relationship guidelines better than you think and wouldn’t ask you to change them. However, if an opportunity presents itself again, please don’t play the hero. If I believe I need saving, I’m grown enough to know when I’ve had enough to back off.”
“Understood,” I said, grinning. Damn, I liked her.
She hadn’t demanded I change my ways. Would she be content with one night here and there? I wasn’t sure I would be, not with her. My instincts had warned me that with her one night would be a tease, but I had chosen to ignore them. My finger resumed its teasing along her soft shoulder of its own accord and images of her tattoo flashed to life in my head.
“I had a dream about your tattoo, but it was weird because it came to me like a memory,” I informed.
“Would you let it go please?” she demanded and based on the stiffness around her eyes and the tightness in her shoulders, her words were clearly a warning.
I didn’t sense that she was afraid, but she was definitely stressed. What was up with her tattoo? Why was it such a touchy subject? My gaze darted to the area on her right shoulder blade.
“Please forget you ever saw it. I’ve gotten to the point where I act like it’s not there.”
She took the time to cover it with makeup every day, so there is no way to act like it wasn’t there. Of course, I had enough sense not to say that out loud. Instead, I asked, “Why don’t you have it inked over?”
Her face was pinched in concern now, the expression making me want to do the opposite of what she was asking. My gaze fell on the area again. Her dress was cut so that it was exposed but camouflaged with flesh-tone makeup, so well that you’d never know anything was there unless you’d seen it before.
“Let it go,” she reiterated, catching me looking.
“Okay,” I replied, lifting my hands in surrender and setting my gaze loose on the rest of her. I was sitting in the middle of my cousin’s wedding, but I didn’t see anything but Patrena until the crowd’s reaction to the pastor instructing Arjen to kiss his bride. It was the first full statement I believed I had heard during the ceremony and guilt forced me to view the last moments of it. And they turned out to be telling moments.
Holy shit!I mouthed to myself. Based on the kiss Arjen had just laid on Mecca, I would venture to say his ass was in trouble. He wasn’t going to maim or injure, he was definitely going to kill, murder, and destroy on her behalf.
What kind of drama were my cousins going to drag me into behind their wives? What kind of hidden chaos did Patrena have in store if I didn’t find a way to keep myself away from her?