“So why….”
“Why what, Lauren?” His tone hardens. “Whyyou? Is that what you were going to say?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Because you’re beautiful. You’re talented. You’re funny. You’re sexy as hell. You’re everything a man could want. That’s why. And I know it makes me evil to say this. Wrong. A god-awful excuse for a friend.”
“It makes me a terrible excuse for a daughter too. Especially because I don’t even know what we are. I thought you were just….” A man shuffles by my seat, reminding me I’m in public. I lower my voice. “Just, you know….”
“Sex,” he says, and I can hear the smirk in his voice.
“Exactly.”
“I want you for more than that.”
“For what?” I whisper.
I wait for him to say it, to paint this bright future into existence.
“To keep seeing you,” he says after a long pause. “To spend more time together.”
But that’s not enough, is it? It doesn’t justify risking everything Dad’s built his life on.
But I don’t think I’ve got it in me to say no, not with the heat taking hold of me. So it was theoretically feasible before I heard his voice saying he wanted to see me.
And I want to find out about Vanessa, about him and me.
“Will you do it?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply, not sure how I feel about the wholepublicthing.
It will be good to be able to speak without the endless temptation of our bodies, but there’s also the fact my body screams out for his.
Hearing his voice takes me back to the times he touched me.
“Good,” he says. “Because I don’t know how much longer I could’ve gone without seeing you. I was trying damn hard.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
“We know it’s wrong.”
“But if we’re just seeing each other….”
He knows what I mean – if we’re not going to collapse into lust-filled heaps and consume each other with the magnetic force that pulls us together.
“Exactly,” he says, but I can hear it in his tone.
He knows we’re just making excuses to keep doing what we want.
“I’ll see you soon,” I reply.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Silas
I wait in the tattoo room, pacing up and down. We’re going to keep the door open when Lauren arrives, meaning I won’t be able to give into the primal urge constantly gripping me.
Giorgia Bianchi, the owner, stops as she passes by the tattoo studio. She’s a tall, lean woman with a shaved head, every inch of her arms, hands, and neck covered in intricate tattoos, Viking runes, and constellations.