Tattooed Troublemaker - Elise Faber Page 0,60

was too much. Too fast. Too—

I pushed through the door and ran out onto the sidewalk, sprinting down the pavement before my hiccupping breaths had me stopping, bending at the waist, and gasping in air.

Too fast. Too easy.

It couldn’t be easy.

Someone couldn’t love me this easily.

I wasn’t—

The sentence crystallized in my mind, freezing in place before it had fully formed, because no. I wasn’t that person anymore. I deserved to have a person love me and I . . .

The reason it was so scary in the first place was because I loved Garret back.

He was the first man I’d ever wanted a Plan C with . . . and—

Fuck.

I’d just told him no then ran away.

Fuck.

I straightened, spun back toward the tattoo shop. I had to tell him. I had—

He was there.

Five feet behind me, hope and fear mixed in his eyes. “Charlie?” he asked. “Is it too much?”

I bit my lip. “Yes.” His face fell even as I mentally shored up my spine, prepping myself to take this leap. Forward. Keep moving forward. “The pipe was too much. The puddle too much.” I grinned, took a step toward him. “I love that you did it, love that I get to be here with you in this moment.” Another step, my eyes meeting his. “So yes, it’s too much and yet not enough,” I said softly. “It’s too scary and yet too exciting. It’s me falling for someone for the first time in my life and yet being terrified that I messed it up, petrified that I missed a chance at something, someone I’ve been hoping for—”

Garret tugged me into his arms and kissed me.

It wasn’t exactly gentle. It was heat and fear and love and longing and terror and hope and . . .

It was perfect.

“I love you, baby,” he murmured, pulling back and cupping my cheek. “I always thought that I knew what love was, that I knew how it felt.” He kissed my forehead. “Then I met you.”

My lips parted on a shaky exhale.

“You undid me. You made me whole again. You gave me the courage to realize that we could be different together.”

“Garret,” I breathed.

“I didn’t understand at first,” he said. “I—”

I put a finger over his lips. “Plan C,” I told him.

His brows drew down, his pretty green eyes went confused.

I grinned, reached down, and laced our hands together. “I’ll explain later,” I told him. “For now, let’s go back to the shop.” I nudged him with my shoulder. “Have any more pipes that need fixing?”

He snorted, but the smile he gave me sent heat spiraling through my body.

“I think I can find one.”

And by the time we locked up, took care of the wet towels, set the alarm, and made it up to the apartment, Garret had managed to find me a pipe to fix.

Of course, he insisted on fixing mine first.

As one does.

Epilogue

Garret, Six Months Later

She was finally letting me get my needle back into her skin.

Heh.

“Ready?” I asked, flicking the switch and starting the gun. It vibrated in my hand, but after all these years, the buzzing was easy to ignore. Less easy to ignore was the woman in front of me.

The love of my life, my reason for being a completely-reformed asshole.

I grinned.

She leaned forward in the chair, jostling her arm from the position I’d carefully laid out, the half-completed tattoo and the piece I’d been dying to finish for the last months fully exposed. But I didn’t mind.

Because her lips landed on mine.

“You’re thinking about innuendos, aren’t you?” she asked, pulling back, pretty blue eyes locked on mine, and I felt my heart seize in my chest.

If I’d ever thought I’d loved another woman . . . I’d been wrong.

Quite simply, I hadn’t thought it possible to feel this much for another human being. Charlie owned me, body, spirit, and heart.

I nuzzled her neck. “I’m always thinking innuendos when you’re near.”

She smiled, laid her arm back out. Perfectly positioned, I might add. “I’m ready.”

I set the gun down, tugged her into my lap, trays contents rattled. I’d need to re-glove, but Charlie was near, and she was smiling her cat-drank-the-cream-smile and—

I kissed her.

And that quickly, my mind wasn’t on my gloves or my piece or . . . the fact that we were in a public place—

“Ouch!”

I broke away from Charlie’s lips—a crime on any day—and glared up at Tig—who’d smacked the back of my head. “I didn’t keep you on full-time for you to be playing kissy-face.”

Charlie snorted.

Tig’s