“Where?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes away from it.
“Do you trust me?” King asked.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. Because it was true.
“Good. Then, lay down.” King took the paper from me, and with one hand on my shoulder, he pressed me down onto the table, placing his knee on the outside of my thigh. His face hovered just inches above mine. “Now, be a good girl,” he whispered on my neck, “and roll the fuck over.” A crooked smile on his lips.
“Yes, sir,” I said, no longer able to contain my own smile, my belly doing flips as I thought back to where those beautiful lips had been not long before.
“Good girl. Now, you’re learning,” King praised me, sealing his compliment with a smack on my ass as I did what I was told and rolled over.
He shuffled around, preparing his tools. The tattoo needle started to hum, and shortly after he applied the template, I felt the first sharp sting on my skin, followed by a scratching sensation.
It didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would. In an odd way, I welcomed the pain. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the sensation of the needle across my skin.
The sensation of taking over my life and making it my own.
The needle stung and scraped its way across my back and shoulders. At the same time, I said a silent goodbye to the girl I’d been protecting for months.
I wasn’t going to miss her.
As King branded my skin, I embraced the girl whose life was just beginning. I embraced life.
My life.
King filled me so completely. Not just my body. My heart. My soul. My life. I didn’t give a shit if I ever got my memory back.
Because with King, I knew exactly who I was.
I was his.
Chapter Twenty-Three
King
Tattooing Doe was the single most erotic moment of my life. Marking her perfect, pale skin with a tattoo I’d designed for her made me so fucking hard I had to adjust myself every thirty seconds in order to concentrate on my work.
When I was done, I handed her the hand mirror, and she walked over to the full-sized mirror that hung on the back of the door, like she’d seen dozens of my other clients do before. When she held up the hand mirror, she gasped.
“What?” I asked in a panic, hoping she didn’t already see what I’d hidden in the tattoo. I was an asshole for putting it there. I was an asshole for tattooing her in the first place.
I was just an asshole.
But I couldn’t help myself. My name needed to be on her. It wasn’t enough just to call her mine. I needed to mark her as well. So hidden in the vine work under the quote I found that I thought was perfect for her, was my name.
KING was woven into the design. In order to see it you had to tilt your head or otherwise you wouldn’t notice it. But it was there.
I would tell her eventually, of course, but I wanted it to be my secret for a while. She’d stopped being my possession a while ago, a lot longer before I cared to admit it, but I still felt the need to mark her as mine.
I still liked the idea of owning her.
Only now, she owned me, too.
She didn’t notice the name. Tears filled her eyes. She stood there staring at the hand mirror in just her panties. Little cheeky ones where her ass hung out of the bottoms. Her tits were only inches from my face. Her tears of happiness made my dick twitch. Although her sad tears evoked the same response.
My dick wasn’t partial to which kind of tears he liked.
I took the mirror from her hand and lifted her up onto the counter. “You like it?” I asked, pushing her panties down her legs.
“I love it,” she panted, wrapping her legs around me, drawing me close. Her wetness soaking my boxers. I pushed them down with one hand. I’d been hard for three hours, the entire time I’d been working on her, and couldn’t wait any longer. I pushed inside her tight, wet heat.
We both moaned at the contact.
“You love it?” I asked, needing to hear her say it again.
“Yes, I love it!” she said as I thrust up into her, hard. “I love it. So much. I love you.”
I froze when I heard the words, and when I did, her eyes flung open.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Oh my god, I have that word vomit thing. I’m sorry. Shit, I just meant that—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I demanded, thrusting hard to get her attention. She closed her eyes, and her head fell back. “That’s fucking better. Now, keep that pretty mouth of yours shut while I fuck you.”
“Okay,” she whispered, breathless.
“Shut up,” I said again, and she closed her mouth. “Shut up so I can fuck you…and show you how much I love you.”
She nodded and although her eyes stayed shut, a tear rolled down her cheek. I sucked it off her chin before it could fall to the floor.
Then, I fucked her.
Hard.
I showed her how much I loved her until I couldn’t tell where I started and she began. Until all that was in that room was me and her and the thing between us that kept pulling us together like magnets. Until we were lost in sensations and orgasms.
And in each other.
I fucked her until we were one person, and in a way we were, because I’d lost myself along the way, and I found myself again in the most unlikely place.
I’d found myself again in the haunted eyes of a girl who was just as lost as I was.
Or maybe, we didn’t find each other at all.
Maybe, we just decided to be lost together.
Chapter Twenty-Four
King
Doe and I were lying in bed on a Saturday afternoon, watching Demolition Man. Her idea. Not mine. Out of all the DVDs in my collection, that was the one she’s watched the most in the past few days. She also liked Disney movies, but every time she watched them, I thought about Max and a pain formed in my chest thinking that she might never be around to watch them with us.
Or Max might be around, and Doe might be gone.
I was going to do everything I could to get them both under one roof with me. Although as the days went by, the reality of putting together the money for the payoff seemed less and less likely.
Disney princess movies may have just been a bunch of fairy tales, but the idea of the three of us together—four if you count Preppy—was my idea of happily ever after.
“All restaurants are now Taco Bell,” Doe said in sync with Sandra Bullock’s character. She knew every line. It was downright adorable. Besides, we were naked, and I had one hand on her tit and the other was cupping her pussy, so I had no complaints. “Why is the house half-painted?” She turned to me abruptly, propping her head on my chest.
“Cause when Preppy and I first moved in, it was already an old house, but we kind of trashed it with all the parties and didn’t think much of fixing it up. Then, I asked Preppy to fix it up a bit because I expected to bring Tricia and Max here.
“But why did he stop?”
“Because I went to prison, and the house being painted didn’t seem to matter to either of us anymore. There wasn’t a chance in hell they’d let me have her at that point. Besides, Preppy may be able to cook, and he’s a killer mechanic, but he’s a shit handyman. So, the place kind of went to hell while I was gone.”
“Well,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. Her perky tits bounced as she yawned and hooked her leg over my thigh. “You better get to painting again because we’re going to get the money, and she’s going to come home.”
“Yeah, baby. We’re going to get her back.” I was unsure if I was speaking to her or trying to convince myself. The truth was that each and every day that passed by, Max was slipping further and further away.
Preppy opened the door, and Doe sat up quickly, pulling the sheet over her bare chest.