Page 34 of Watch Me

Chapter twenty-two

Fin

WithRickystandingbetweenmy spread legs, I barely noticed how he set things up or the first scratch of the tattoo going onto my skin. He put his clothes on, but it honestly didn’t help much. The tank top had wide holes revealing a peek of his ribs and armpit when he reached to dip the tip of his tattoo gun in the ink. Plus, I knew about the panties underneath.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I commented, my voice low but still easy for him to hear over the sound of the gun.

Ricky chuckled and I felt my dick twitch at the sound. “It gets worse when you start going over the lines again and with shading.”

“Are you going to be shading?” I asked, gripping his hip with my right hand. I’d have my left hand on him too, but he was tattooing the left side of my chest and I assumed he needed me to be still. Keeping my hands off of Ricky was starting to become a problem.

“No, I think I’ll stick to the outline today,” Ricky told me while focusing on the job at hand. “If you like it, I can go back in with shading and maybe some color.”

“Color?”

Our club logo had a wolf’s head looking straight ahead in white stitching over black. I wasn’t sure where color would be added.

“Mmhmm,” he replied without looking up. “Green. For the eyes.”

Hesitating, I remembered how his eyes flashed green when we had sex before napping. “Why green?”

This time, Ricky met my gaze with an almost shy grin I didn’t think I’d ever seen on him. “For your eyes. They’re green in human andwolf form.”

“They are,” I nodded and he dropped his focus back to my chest where a warm vibration radiated along with occasional sharp stings.

Did I dare ask what color his eyes were in wolf form? I had seen him shift hundreds of times over the years, and he would probably think I was stupid for asking. My wolf didn’t care about my possible embarrassment and insisted I speak.

“And your eyes…they go from brown to orange, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Of course. Just like my namesake,” Ricky added with disdain.

“Of course.”

So either I imagined the change, or it was something bigger. The main reason a wolf’s eyes change is when they’re mated. I saw it with Fowler and Ricky’s moms. When Fowler mated with Riley, he had never shifted before, but his eyes matched the Alpha’s. But they were all omegas.

Ricky was a beta wolf. I’d heard of alphas being with female betas, but never a man, so I had no clue if they could cause that change.

Why was I even thinking about this? Ricky couldn’t be my mate. How cruel would fate be to make me wait so long. He had been right in front of me his entire life. I would have known.

Mine.

Claim.

Mate.

Fuck.

Closing my eyes, I let my mind wander to the possibility my wolf was right. Fowler and Riley grew up together and didn’t know they were mates until a decade after reaching maturity. It wasn’t unheard of.

Rowen never wanted anyone until his barista waltzed into town and was put in my son’s path every day for months. But still, he was drawn to Cam from the moment they met.

Squirming in my seat that I’d somehow been harboring a crush on the younger man since he was a child, I felt dread hit my stomach like I swallowed lead.

“Hold still, unless you want this wolf to have a tail, too,” Ricky chastised and I took a big breath. My chest expanded and relaxed again before I felt his glove-covered hands on me again.

So I did what I always do. I considered all of the sides. One of them was comparing my feelings to the ones I had for my best friend most of my life. Was this crush on Ricky better or worse than the one I had on David?

My feelings for David King were unrequited, but at least he was my age. We were best friends. It only made sense I’d develop feelings on him when I realized I was attracted to men. He was straight, it was the early nineties, and I knew I never had a chance. There was no reason to spew my emotions on him.