words being inked into her skin, I loved the feeling of possession it gave me.
I had the same ones tattooed on me, but it was in Gaelic, and no one could read the language all that much now. Hers was in English, and there was no doubt it was a declaration about me.
The air I breathe belongs to you, it said, the words arced over her shoulder and down to her arm. It was surrounded with roses that were colored in bright red ink.
She’d had the etching for a few weeks now, and today was the color section. She didn’t cry out, not once, whereas I’d had to bite my fucking cheek throughout the agonizing two-hour session.
If anything, she looked so zen, it made me want to fuck her to see the sleepy sloe eyes brighten and widen, to shock her awake. But even as the tattoo artist cleared away the ink, even as he applied gauze and Saran Wrap and informed her to use the same cream I had to put on mine, she was dopey on endorphins as I guided her out of the store forty minutes later.
Relieved we’d gone to the gun range before the tattoo parlor, I drove us through the busy Saturday morning traffic.
Aoife was getting quite good with a gun, and I’d be relieved when she could carry. I hated the necessity, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Mostly, I was glad I wasn’t having to force her to do it. When Aidan had asked Lena to carry, she’d outright refused. Aoife being Aoife? She’d come to me when I’d been fucking fretting like some kind of old hen about approaching the topic.
I was, as was confirmed every single day of the goddamn week, fucking lucky.
And did I mention that the sight of my wife with a gun gave me the worst hard-on? The minute we got home, I was going to be on her faster than red sauce on spaghetti.
It took an hour longer than usual to get toward our side of town. We stopped off at the bakery to check up on things.
Jenny was there, managing the troops as they scrubbed the place from top to bottom. Aoife had spent the past few weeks running herself ragged with the opening next Saturday, and I’d thrown my weight around and made her take this weekend off.
I let her check in with the place though, because I knew how much of a control freak she was about her baby, and because I was the same, I didn’t want her stressing out over something that could be resolved with a quick glance at the place and a short chat with Jenny.
We grabbed some food from the store and I knew Aoife wanted nothing more than to test drive some cookies this afternoon. I was totally down for that since I got to be her judging panel. Declan, Aidan Jr. and Conor were coming over for that hardest of tasks too.
The penthouse was blessedly quiet after the chaos of the city, and I knew we both were relieved to get home.
That was the craziest thing about being married, I’d realized. I’d called this place home for years, and I’d done my best to make it comfortable and apt for my every need, but it never had been.
Now, Aoife was home, and I knew that sounded like a phrase from a Hallmark card, but it was true.
True enough that it made me shake my head at myself because if the guys knew where my brain went some days, they’d upgrade me from pussy-whipped to… well, whatever was worse than pussy-whipped.
I shrugged off my coat and grabbed hers. When she headed for the kitchen and I diverted to the bedroom, I let her, but I stopped off at the nightstand to grab a condom and to shove the bottle of lube I stored there in my pocket.
It was about time I worked on another fantasy I’d had, and I wanted to do it while my words were still drying on her skin, and the sun was still high in the sky.
When I made my way to the kitchen, I found her mumbling about brown sugar. Smirking at the sight, I headed on in and grabbed her hand. When I tugged her, she stared blankly at me, then I waved the condom and she narrowed her eyes at me.
“Don’t tease.”
I laughed. “I’m not teasing.”
She pouted. “You know I have my period.”
“I do. And that’s why we’ve