Page 106 of Villains Never Die

“I’m still shocked you’re messing up your flawless skin for me.”

I stared at him. It was true, I’d never considered marking my body this way, but if I wanted him inseparable from me, permanent ink seemed like a good way to do it.

“You don’t have any tattoos,” I pointed out. When we first met, I thought he would. It fit his tough-guy persona, but I’d seen all of him now, and there wasn’t a line of ink on his body.

“I never found anything I wanted forever until now.”

My heart thumped harder than normal for one beat that made my world turn upside down.Forever.Because it didn’t feel like he was talking about the tattoo, not when he looked at me like the room had disappeared and I was the only thing left in it.

Black ink spread across my forearm for hours. I never realized tattoos took so long, but I would be patient if that’s what it took to mark myself with him.

His took hours too, and by the time we were both finished in the chair, it was almost lunchtime. He stood, and we held out our arms next to one another, admiring the almost-symmetry of the designs.

In bold black, I wore a dark bird and the letter ‘R.’ His arm bore a king chess piece and an ‘A.’

“You’ll never get rid of me now,” Rook whispered, not a threat but a promise. He thanked his friend and paid him extra for getting us in so early in the day.

When we stepped out onto the street that was filling with the lunch rush, we both wore coats that covered the tattoos, but the thought of a secret beneath our clothes—a promise etched on skin—lightened my steps.

“I love you,” I said because I couldn’t before with a stranger in the room.

He stopped dead in the street and kissed me, as if for one shining second he didn’t care if anyone saw. We stopped, and everyone else moved around us like we had captured a moment apart from the world.

It wasn’t an answer—not really—and it wasn’t love, but it was devotion, and maybe that could be enough.

But why? Why couldn't he just say it? I swore sometimes it was there, in his eyes, in the way he worried about me. I was more than a plaything, less than a partner. Romance infused the sex, so allies with benefits was bullshit. Allies didn’t mark each other with their initials forever. The joyful buzz I’d had the night before and our hours in the tattoo shop went blurry and dreamlike.

“Your face is doing that serious thing again,” he said, and I hadn’t realized I’d completely gotten distracted when the kiss ended.

“I—”

“Lunch,” he said. “You’re going to get lunch with me, then you’re going to go to work and make that somber face at people and things less interesting than me. When I see you tonight, you’d better be wearing a smile because I don’t have time to stop work and get on my knees tonight.”

How could I resist when he smirked at me like that, like he knew every button to push to bend me to his will?

“There are fights tonight,” I said.

“So loiter in my office until they’re over and come home with me again. You look best in my bed, and I doubt anyone will try to kill you if you’re with me.”

“I can’t die,” I said, feeling like I’d said the words a hundred times this week. “You’re fretting like an old woman.”

“Humor me.”

“Fine.”

He clasped my arm and pulled me to a stop again, pushing back my sleeve and lifting the fresh ink to kiss it. “Tonight.”

Tonight, and as many nights as he would give me.

Chapter Forty

“I’m going to bet on that one,” I told Rook, glancing out over the cage at two men about to square up.

“You can’t bet on that one. He’s not mine,” he laughed. “My guys always win. Well, almost always.”

How he’d convinced me to sit in this box with him and watch men batter each other was a mystery, as was the flutter of excitement starting in my stomach. It wasn’t that I wanted to watch the violence; it was that it brought out his playful side, and the idea of me watching it brought him so much happiness.

I wondered what Gray would say if he could see me now. Or the meddling spirits, who still hadn’t returned. That concerned me in some distant corner of my mind. I was certain I hadn’t lost the power to hear them, which meant I’d scared them off. A relief—no one wants to hear voices. But I didn’t think losing their company forever was a good sign either. Balancing my connection to death felt more important than ever since Death knew how seriously I wanted to kill her. Better to have allies among the living and the dead.