Ryder answered softly.
I ran my forefinger over the cold, sharp metal of the high hat. I stepped forward a little to separate myself from Ryder and then tapped my fingers on the underside of the instrument so that the dull tinkling sound of the cymbals made that brassy sound I kind of loved.
I felt Ryder completely still behind me, as if he were coming to some kind of incredible revelation. He suddenly reached forward and grabbed my forearm, spinning me around to face him. Crippling fear and anxious hope sprung up inside me simultaneously and I lifted my gaze slowly to his, hoping… well, I didn’t know what I was hoping for.
His eyes weren’t on my face though. They were staring down at my upturned wrist. With the hand that held me in place, his thumb moved back and forth across the inside of my wrist, rubbing gently at the skin. His expression was so fiercely intimate, so intensely determined that even though I knew what he was doing, what he was trying to see I couldn’t stop him.
I needed to stop him, and now. But I couldn’t make myself move away from him, I couldn’t make myself hide the dangerous truth that would ruin everything for me if Nix found out. And out of all the dangerous reasons to snatch my hand out of his grasp, I was also partly stunned. After being so very careful to conceal the hidden word, I couldn’t even fathom how Ryder saw through the thick concealer or how I missed even the smallest piece to cover.
Just under the base of my thumb, the black ink had been left exposed. How Ryder knew there would be more, I had no idea. The revealed marking could just have easily been a pen scratch or dirt smudge. Maybe it was the delicate scrawl or the greenish tint that gave the tattoo away, but either way it reinforced the idea that if you wanted to keep a tattoo hidden, the wrist was a really stupid place to put it.
The pressure of his thumb increased as he worked to rub away the cover up. Slowly the thick cream distorted so more of the full piece revealed itself. Ryder paused for a moment, transferring my hand to his other while he wiped his thumb against the collar of his black t-shirt. The cover up left a pale smudge where his collarbone was hidden under the fabric of his shirt and a shot of lust pushed through me. His eyes met mine as he transferred my hand back and continued to rub at the tattoo, exposing pieces of it with every swipe of his thumb.
His eyes were liquid silver, depthless and raw with perception. He was seeing a part of me no one had seen before, save for the poor tattoo artist I manipulated into marking a minor. Ryder discovered a piece of me that was intended only for me, a piece I never planned on sharing with anyone.
Finally, Ryder released me from his stare and his gaze traveled slowly, so slowly, from mine to my wrist. “Blackheart,” he mumbled the word like a curse. Or a caress.
The word hung in the charged air between us. The small, fancy script looped around itself and created a pretty effect to the terribly ugly word.
“Blackheart,” I concurred quietly.
“What are you, a pirate?” he tried to joke, but even he couldn’t crack a smile. His voice strained over his words, his expression tight with some knowledgeable instinct that should have terrified me.
“Something like that,” I answered without meaning.
“What else do you have?” he took a step closer to me. My breathing hitched in my lungs until it stopped completely and I instinctively took a step back until my back was balanced on the corner of the door frame.
“Why do you think I have anything else?” I gasped.
“You didn’t want anyone to see this,” He reached down without looking and took my wrist back in his strong grasp. His entire hand circled around the bone there and his fingers easily overlapped each other. I felt fragile and small with his hand so possessively on me, covering the hideous word now that it was exposed. “And it means something, even if you’re not going to tell me what it is. Instinct tells me this is not your only secret, Ivy.”
His words were like pin pricks in my carefully armored skin and I felt myself pull my wrist from his grasp, even reluctantly. I could have