Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,13

like a cascade into the curve of her neck—a neck I really wanted to fucking bite. “My style and his don’t gel if you were interested in more ink.”

“That’s not a concern. I don’t want more negative tattoos. I just want these touching up and, in the future, I’m ready for something different.”

Her chin tipped up, and I watched her visibly steel herself as she moved over to me. I’d never seen a woman so confident be so suddenly ill-at-ease.

If I was anyone else, i.e not a brother to Nyx, I’d think she was scared of me, or that I was behaving in a predatory manner. But I was a brother, and I wasn’t being predatory. If anything, I was working hard not to think about sex, because just being around her, with those goddamn blinds closed, thoughts of her on her knees cleaning, well, I was gonna get a boner.

She was reacting like I was a tiger that had been baited though, and it made me glad that I knew of her past because I’d probably think she was just plain weird for her response to a guy, a potential client, taking off a shirt.

Instead, I sensed that she liked me, and didn’t know how to handle that.

I couldn’t be the first guy she’d been attracted to, though, could I?

I mean, it was great for my ego to think otherwise, but ego meant bupkis. I preferred the whole truth, and I just couldn’t see a woman like her—

What?

A woman like her not having men chasing at her heels?

Sure. But that didn’t mean she liked the men who were chasing her, did it?

Because that was food for thought, I watched as she approached, then stopped a good four, impractical, feet away from me. It meant she had to tip forward to touch me, which she technically didn’t have to, but I wasn’t about to say no to having her hands on me. Did I look like a dumbass?

I watched as her fingers swiped over my rib cage, like she couldn’t help herself, and though my chest was pretty nice, I wasn’t sure it was worthy of her turning to ice.

Gooseflesh swirled into being over my skin at the gentle brush of her fingers, and I murmured, “Everything okay, Indy?”

She blinked at me. “Why did you put that blanket over me?”

Because I hadn’t anticipated that question, I blinked back.

“That night at Stone’s bunkhouse. You put a blanket over me. Why did you do that?”

“You looked cold.”

She gulped. “You came back. You checked on me. Why?”

“Because you looked exhausted, and I saw your car was still there. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Her bottom lip was sucked between her teeth again. “I must have been if I didn’t hear you walk in. I’m a light sleeper.”

I shrugged. “I was careful not to disturb you.”

“Why? Why didn’t you send me home?”

Confused, I asked, “Would you have preferred that?”

She didn’t answer, instead, rested her palm on the ink and murmured, “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I told her, aware my voice was husky.

“You’re beautiful.”

I hadn’t expected that compliment. “Are men ever beautiful?”

“Sure they are.” She peered up at me. “Why am I only just seeing you?”

Before I could answer that, she was there, right in front of me, reaching up on tiptoe, her mouth connecting with mine, and even though I was pretty fucking sure she wasn’t ready for whatever this was, I was also pretty fucking sure that I wasn’t either.

Still, a coward was the last thing I could be described as being, so I dove headfirst into the chaos this woman promised, hoping along the way that, even if it was for a short while or a long while, I brightened up her future some.

Three

Indy

I’d seen beautiful men before. I’d even drawn them, had inked plenty.

But it was like a veil was dragged from my eyes as I saw Cruz standing there, so confident, so self-aware, yet so un-cocky with it.

He knew what he was, but he didn’t shove it in my face, and with guys this hot, I knew that was a rarity.

There was knowing someone was cute, and then feeling it.

Actually feeling it.

It was only at that moment that I realized I’d spent three decades never feeling it.

Was that possible?

Sexual attraction was an enemy of mine. I saw someone hot, wanted to fuck them to fix my body into behaving normally, and of course, that never worked. But seeing Cruz effortlessly take off his shirt had the breath jerking from