So, carefully, so as not to wake him, I slid away and rolled off the bed. Rooting around on the floor which now included a tangle of my clothes, I found a camisole that I’d worn to bed a couple of nights before for approximately ten minutes before Tack took it off. Then I went to my bag in the corner, rooted through that and grabbed a new pair of undies before I picked my way through the clothes on the floor on my way to the bathroom.
I did my business, put on my undies and cami, washed my face, brushed my teeth and flossed. After I was done rinsing my toothbrush and was putting it in the holder with Tack’s, my eyes caught my reflection in the big mirror that spanned the long vanity and I went still.
My belly had never been concave but it had been (mostly) flat. Now it was slightly rounded. My h*ps were never slim but they were now more rounded. My br**sts were clearly fuller and straining the camisole.
I knew it by the way my clothes were fitting but I didn’t really pay any mind to it.
Now I saw it. I was gaining weight.
Three weeks of eating whatever I wanted, that was bound to happen. But I didn’t think of it, not once, until then.
I was deciding no more chips and dip and definitely no more beer when my mind moved over last night. Tack’s mouth on me, his tongue, his hands, the way he rolled me, shifted me, hauled me, tossed me around the bed. His focus solely on me. The looks on his face, the heat in his eyes, the noises he made.
Not to mention the Cool Whip. We went through the whole tub.
My eyes went over my body in the mirror and I thought of Gwen, who was definitely curvy and even Naomi, who was curvier.
Tack liked it like that.
I put my hands flat on my belly and slid them across to my hips, back to my belly, up my midriff to my br**sts.
As I did, I was thinking I liked it like that too.
And I definitely liked Cool Whip.
My eyes caught their reflection in the mirror and I grinned.
Then I wandered back out of the bathroom and stopped at the side of the bed.
Tack had turned to his side, one arm thrown out, his other hand stuffed under the pillow under his head.
My eyes drifted over him.
He had the tattoo of a dragon taking up the whole of his upper right arm, its scaled, taloned feet slithering down the inside of his upper forearm. The tattoo curved around his bicep, over his shoulder and even up his neck. I’d asked why he got it and he’d explained it was because of Naomi. She told him when he got angry, he breathed fire. She was not wrong. Luckily, that tat was cool as all hell so even if it held nuances of his time with Naomi, that didn’t shadow its coolness.
I could also mostly see the tattoo on his bicep on his inner left arm. Swirling and spiking curlicues around the word “Cole”. The curlicues were so intricate, you actually had to study it to find Rush’s name in their midst (I knew this because I’d done it). He told me he got that because his bicep rested close to his heart. The same style curlicues around the mostly hidden word “Tabitha” was on his heart so no explanation necessary about that one.
Jutting up the wrist on his outer left forearm was another design, not in curlicues. It included wings, smoke, fire and parts of a motorcycle around four words randomly inked into the design, “Wind”, “Fire”, “Ride” and “Free”. Those words, he told me, were essentially Chaos’s motto. When a recruit was taken fully into the fold, they got the Chaos emblem emblazoned on their back and they also each had their own tattoo of their own design somewhere on their body that contained those words.
And last, all around the curve of his left shoulder was a kickass design that included a hooded skull and a set of scales. I had asked but he hadn’t explained that one to me.
That tattoo, as with a number of other things, Tack wanted to share, “later.”
I didn’t press. I was enjoying the now. And I knew, when he was ready, Tack would give me later.
Studying my man in bed, his tats on display, the sheet resting at his hip, his hard, defined muscles and the power of him at rest, his hair a mess, some of it falling over his forehead, he looked such that any woman, no matter their bent, would take a walk on the wild side if this was what she got to wake up to.
And she’d stay.
On that thought, I put a knee to the bed and Tack’s sapphire eyes opened, his head turned on the pillow and those eyes locked sleepily on me.
“Come ‘ere,” he muttered, his voice deeper, rougher, even in a mutter rumbling over my skin.
I went there, moving on my knees into the bed as he pulled partially up, his hands coming out to me and grasping my hips. He rolled to his back and I swung a leg over to straddle him. His hands slid down then up so they were warm against the skin on the inside hem of my cami and his eyes moved over me.
My eyes moved over his tats and I was thinking that beyond anything on this earth, I wanted me to be inked somewhere permanent on his skin. And not like Naomi, an admittedly kickass dragon but one that laid testimony to the fact she pissed him off so bad he breathed fire.
One like Rush and Tabby’s that was beautiful, it’s meaning hidden to anyone but Tack or someone who he allowed close enough to study it long enough to find out.