The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,511

were night and day in every way possible, not an ounce of anything in common, and yet, I wanted him in the worst way.

* * *

It didn’t matter that he was emotionally unavailable or that he was exactly the kind of man who would give my father a coronary should I dare to bring him home. It didn’t matter that his heart was wrapped in barbed wire or that he made me promise never to fall for him.

* * *

None of it mattered because he was the most perfectly imperfect, beautifully tortured soul I’d ever known, and I was besotted, addicted to all the thrilling and wondrous ways he made me feel when we were together.

They say a single moment can change the entire trajectory of your life. But looking back, I never could have imagined all the ways my world would change the moment it collided with his.

I learned too late that he kept his past a secret for a reason.

For Candida S. Just ‘cause. ;-)

I wanted him in the bluntest way.

I wanted his lips, his hands, his arms.

I wanted him the way the ocean wants the shore, constantly reaching and running back.

I wanted him the way rain wants to fall, the way the sun wants to shine, the way words want to be read.

I wanted him to infinity, to the millionth degree.

No amount of rain could douse the fire I had in me for him.

-j.c.

One

Brighton

* * *

"I can’t help but notice you don’t have any tattoos.” At least none that I can see beyond his white tank top and ripped jeans. I scan the smooth, tanned arms and the arch of his muscled shoulders as he concentrates on my bare flesh. “Why is that? If you don’t mind my asking?”

"I’m going to need you to stop shaking." The raven-haired man with bronze skin ignores my questions and quiets the buzz of his tattoo machine. He forces a hard breath through his nostrils like he doesn’t have time for this, resting his forearms on the tops of his thighs as he studies me. “You want this to be crooked?”

“It’s a little chilly in here.” And I might be the tiniest bit anxious. If I could stop myself from shaking, believe me, I’d have done it by now.

A cool draft of air from the AC kisses the bare skin of my exposed abdomen, and a rush of goose bumps spray across my flesh.

His full lips press together as he studies the custom drawing he sketched and stenciled on me a little while ago, and I can’t help but wonder if he always looks this serious. I figured the owner of a tattoo parlor would be more on the laidback side, but Madden Ransom hasn’t so much as smiled since I got here, and every time our eyes meet—little bursts at a time here and there—there’s a kind of heaviness in his stare that I’ve never seen on anyone else before.

“A lot of people come in here saying they don't have a thing about needles, and then as soon I get started—"

"—I don't have a thing about needles." I clear my throat, my fingertips tucked under the hem of my shirt, which is lifted just enough to cover the lowermost part of my bra. “I’m pre-med actually.”

I offer a nervous chuckle and, in this moment, I detest how much I sound like my mother, casually and nonchalantly working humble brags into conversations. Only despite the way it might seem, I’m not bragging, I'm simply trying to prove a point.

“Good for you.” He doesn’t look up, doesn’t seem to care in the slightest. His needle returns to my skin, the buzz filling my ear, and my body tenses. "The pain okay?" His voice is monotone, disingenuous. I suppose if a person does this job long enough, their sympathy eventually wears off. "You need a break?"

Madden stops.

“No … keep going.” Dragging in a hard breath, I let it linger in my chest as I brace myself against the hard bed beneath me.

He readjusts his black latex gloves before switching the machine on again. And that’s what it’s called—a machine. According to the research I did before coming here, tattooists hate when you call it a “gun.” I wanted to make sure I knew the vernacular before I wandered in here like a lost child off the street (or an overprotected, naive, Park Terrace princess who’s rarely allowed to venture outside her castle).

"So, why don't you have any tattoos?" Once more I ask the