orgasm, taking over me, marking me. It’s just with ink instead of cum, I guess. “Aaron was right. Is right. I’m sorry about the Kevlar, too.”
There’s a long pause as everyone in that garage waits with bated breath to hear what I have to say.
“It takes big balls to admit when you’re wrong,” I say, nodding, but still looking at Aaron. Lost. Trapped. Mesmerized. “You’re all forgiven.” A feeling of relief seems to ripple through them. Hael moves off to continue working on the car, Callum lifts the rusted bumper up to move it, and Oscar finds a seat on a plastic chair. “But if you do it again, there won’t be a second chance.”
“Understood,” Vic says, but he doesn’t press. This moment isn’t about him. It’s about me.
Aaron finishes my tattoo and cleans me up, covering the newly inscribed wounds on my knuckles with a plastic wrap made specifically for this purpose. I then grab his hand, dragging him around the side of the garage and to the back of the building. It’s shaded, the long grass waving in the wind as I encourage him to lean back against the corrugated metal wall.
“What?” he asks, looking down at me, my hand shaking and bloodied by my side. The wrap will keep it from leaking—which, grossly enough, tattoos are wont to do. “I didn’t fuck it up, did I? I’ll punish myself forever if I marred your perfect skin.”
My lips twitch slightly, but I don’t know how to say what I want to say without sounding … lovestruck. You finally did it. You stood up for me, against Victor. It was no big thing, but it didn’t need to be. Love isn’t about sweeping grand gestures, it’s about doing little things each day to keep each other happy, little personal sacrifices instead of showy acts.
“I just wanted to say …” I start, stepping forward and putting my hands on his lower belly. Aaron doesn’t argue with me about not finishing my sentence, not when I drop down to my knees and free his cock from his pants.
The fingers of my right hand curl around the base as I slip my blue-painted lips over the tip, sucking him deep and taking my time with it.
When he walk back around the building and into the garage, I’m still dabbing at the corners of my mouth with the sleeve of my jacket. There’s not much I can do about the smears of blue though.
“Go home to your sister,” Vic says when he sees me, scowling like he has any right to judge. I don’t hesitate, walking right up to him and leaning up on my tiptoes to give him a messy blue kiss, right on the cheek. He looks dumbstruck over it. The guy knows how to mate like a lion, but he can’t handle a cheek kiss?
We have serious issues to work on here.
“On it,” I agree, happy to climb into Aaron’s Bronco with him.
Maybe I suck him off on the way back, maybe I don’t.
Either way, there’s plenty of room in the SUV for it.
When Kali finally started showing up to class at the beginning of the week, her face was bruised beyond recognition, and her eyes burned with a seething hatred that made my skin itch. At some point, there’s going to be a confrontation between us, and it isn’t going to end well.
At least now she has something real to hate me for. I did just bash in her face in. But before that, what did I ever do to her? We haven’t got any sort of relationship where I might be able to ask her why. Why did you do those things to me? Why did you steal my essay? Why did you call Havoc?
It never escaped my attention that Kali had eyes for Aaron. I always knew that, but it never bothered me because I knew he was truly and wholly mine. Still is, I think. I mean, he spent years not fucking any other girls because of me. I don’t care much about words—people lie, after all—but actions, now that’s another story.
And Aaron, well, he’s told me all he needs to with his celibacy.
By Friday, I’m certain that I’m right about both things: Aaron is still mine … and Kali still wants him.
I’m standing outside the doors to the cafeteria, waiting for the boys, my knuckles throbbing from the fresh ink. I’ve taken good care of my new tattoo, washing it with Dial soap and rubbing