Page 141 of Business Casual
“Hey, Nova girl,” he whispers with a nudge of his nose against mine. His knuckles press under my chin, and he drops another quick kiss to my mouth. “Missed you.”
“Hey, Mr. Mayor.” I smile at the sound he makes under his breath. He loves when I call him that, even if he blushes furiously about it every damn time. I thumb at the lapel of his suit jacket. “Thank you for making time for your constituents.”
A half smile hitches the corner of his mouth, blue eyes soft as they take in my face, tipped to his. “You’re my favorite constituent,” he mumbles.
“Don’t let Ms. Beatrice hear you say that.”
“Christ, you’re right. I just got back on the hazelnut latte list.”
“Don’t you two live together?” Jeremy calls from somewhere in the depths of the shop. I snicker and press my face into the front of Charlie’s shirt.
“One day, young Jeremy, this will all make sense to you,” Charlie sighs wistfully, one hand cupping the back of my neck and the other inching up my sweater. I wrap both of my arms around him and squeeze.
I denied myself this comfort for so long. I did have my heart bubble-wrapped, but not because I was afraid of getting hurt. Precious things should be protected, and I did a damn good job of flourishing beneath my own light. I thought being half of a whole meantI’d have parts of myself tugged away by another person. That I’d be distracted, compromised, diminished. But everything I’ve given Charlie I’ve handed over willingly. I want him to have all of it—my friendship, my trust. The good moments when I laugh so hard my stomach aches and the hard moments when the voice in the back of my head is louder than I’d like. He lifts me up when I need it and holds me steady when I need that too. I haven’t lost a single thing with Charlie.
“What are you doing here?”
“Been missing you,” he answers with a quick kiss to my hair. “Thought I’d make an appointment to see you.”
“You don’t have an appointment,” I point out, not moving my face from the hollow of his throat. I brush a kiss against the dip between his collarbones and his arms squeeze me tighter. “This is a walk-in.”
“Semantics,” he says, relaxing his arms so I can lean back. He curls a strand of my hair around his finger, tugs once, and then tucks it behind my ear. “Do you have time for a session before I take you home?”
I raise both eyebrows. “For a tattoo?”
“That is what you do here, yes?” He releases me from his hug and slips his suit jacket from his shoulders. He folds it carefully and drapes it over the table, then works at his cufflinks. “It’s about time I got that scorpion on my ass, don’t you think?”
Jeremy drops something behind us, and I turn to see a stack of sketches fluttering to the ground, folders still in his hands and the gold tray they were balanced on top of turned on its side.
“On that note,” Jeremey says, bending to collect the pieces of paper with a pained expression twisting his face. “I’m out of here.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Charlie calls. “I’m fine with you seeing my ass.”
“I’m not fine with it,” Jeremy replies quickly. His lips flatten in a line, and he tosses everything back on the desk. “I have no desire for a repeat of August second.”
August second. Charlie came in for the tattoo on his hip. Webarely made it through my pen on his skin before we were reaching for each other, his mouth on my neck and both of my hands on the curve of his bare ass.
“What happened—oh, yeah.” A grin blossoms across Charlie’s face. My cheeks flush pink. We weren’t exactly quiet, and we definitely left a dent in the wall of room three. But to be fair, I didn’t know Jeremy was still lurking around. Charlie tips his chin. “Good call, man. See you later.”
“Bye, I’ll see you guys—”
Charlie shuts the door in Jeremy’s face, flicks the lock, and takes my hand, guiding me over to the tattoo station I have set up against the wall. He urges me down on the stool and then starts to work on the buttons of his shirt, fingers dancing nimbly down the neat line.
“Oh, wow. Okay. You’re serious.”
Charlie frowns at me. “Am I not always serious?”
I shake my head. “No, you most certainly are not.”
“Well,” he tugs his shirt off his arms and tosses it on top of his jacket. I’m distracted by the stretch of his biceps, the smooth lines of his torso. “You should know by now I’m usually serious about a few things.”
Car snacks. Classic movies. Themed festivals and how I color code my budget sheets. My lingerie shopping trips.
Charlie drags his palm over his chest, and my eyes trip down his torso, lingering on the tattoo I can barely see the top of, peeking out from the waist of his pants. A burst of blue and purple at his hip, dotted with stars. The supernova tattoo starts on his thigh and climbs up over his hip bone, reaching toward his stomach. It took three sessions and a stern warning to Charlie to stay perfectly still, though he was liberal with that instruction. You can see the wobble in some of the lines at his hip. Every time I glanced up and found him watching me, or when his fingers traced gently over the back of my neck as I bent over him.
He says the imperfections are his favorite part. That it makes it his and his alone.
I’m inclined to agree.
