The woman moved her finger to the right toward Sara’s hip bone and then into the dip on the inside.
“There,” Mac said. He looked up at Sara again. “Close your eyes.” She did, with that faint, sexy smile still on her lips.
The needle moved toward her skin and the buzzing noise of the tool started. He wasn’t positive he could watch. Sara’s breath hissed out as the tip of the tool touched her. Which ensured he couldn’t watch.
Instead he concentrated on fighting the urge to yank her away from the needle. She was a big girl now, who claimed to want a damned tattoo. If this hurt a little, maybe that would be a good thing. It went against every instinct he had where Sara was concerned, but maybe it would teach her a little something about always thinking she was right. He studied the light fixture and hummed “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”.
Thankfully, the tattoo was tiny and took only a few minutes. Mac’s jaw still ached from clenching his teeth when it was over.
“All done.” The woman pushed back from the table
Sara’s eyes flew open. “Already?”
The woman didn’t answer as she stripped off the gloves she’d worn and started putting things away.
Sara pushed herself up and peered down at her hip. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.” He smirked at her. It was the perfect tattoo for her.
“That’s it? Where’s the dragon?”
“No dragon.”
“Not even a dragon king?”
“That,” he said, pointing at her hip, “is a princess crown.” She frowned at him.
The tattoo artist ambled back through the curtain—there were a lot of those in this shop—saying,
“You can pay up front,” over her shoulder as she disappeared.
“Well, if you’re going to be stingy on the tattoo,” Sara said as soon as the curtain swung back into place, “I have another idea.” She leaned toward the shelf to her left and picked up a tiny bottle of paint—
body paint to be specific. “I know just where this can go.” She didn’t move her eyes from his as she 38
Just My Type
unscrewed the lid and tipped her index finger into glittery, hot pink paint. She touched the pad of her finger to her belly button and drew a squiggly line up the middle of her stomach.
Mac faked a yawn as he watched.
Smiling, Sara reached behind her neck and, before Mac realized what she was doing, pulled on the ties holding her bikini in place. The black satin dropped from her breasts and Mac couldn’t breathe.
Without a word, she dipped her finger into the paint jar again and circled her right nipple in bright pink.
He was a goner. Just as she’d known he would be.
He couldn’t make that matter right then. The threat of negative consequences never had mattered much to him and he apparently sucked at learning from his mistakes.
He took the paint jar from her. “You’re doing it wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Lay down.”
“Mac, what are you…” Sara started as she lay back on the table.
“Shh,” he commanded. “If you talk, then I’ll think about this too hard and probably realize what a bad idea it is.”
She pressed her lips together.
Mac would have smiled, but the lust coursing through his system had tightened everything, including his mouth. He knew he must look grim as he dipped his index finger into the cool, glittering pink paint. The truth was, he hadn’t been this happy in a long, long time.
He touched the pad of his finger against the spot between her breasts and loved the sound of her sharply indrawn breath. He couldn’t look at her though. Yes, her bare breasts and nipples were making him crazy, but somehow he knew looking into her face would be worse. He’d want to look into her face and touch her like this over and over and that could absolutely not happen.
Mac drew his finger up and down, watching the line of pink lengthen. Then he traced the curve of her breast above the nipple, curled around and finished off the heart shape. He dipped his finger again, then rubbed it back and forth through the heart he’d drawn, filling it in. Except for the very center. Sara’s nipple begged to be touched, but he’d be a goner for sure.
Of course, he’d now seen her naked. Mostly naked anyway. Far more naked than her brother would want him to see her. He’d touched her bare breast. What was the additional harm in touching the nipple too? It was just part of the breast. If he’d touched some of it, why not touch all of it?
When he brushed the tip of his finger over the tight bud, Sara’s breath hissed out between her teeth and she arched her back. Without thinking, he glanced at her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted.
She looked gorgeous.
39
Erin Nicholas
He brushed the stiff point again, watching her face the whole time. She moaned and then whispered his name. That was his undoing.
He swiped his thumb through the still-wet pain on the curve of her breast, then took the nipple between thumb and first finger, plucking and rolling. She gasped.
“
Yes
.”
Her legs moved restlessly on the table and Mac glanced down her body. Damn, she looked good.
Arching and straining, moving under his hands, wanting more.
Looking back at her face, he finally did what he’d been stupidly convincing himself he could avoid forever. He kissed her, with every ounce of lust she’d stirred up within him. She cupped the back of his head in both hands and held him close, kissing him back with abandon and coming off the table as he lifted her then twisted, sitting on the edge of the table and pulling her into his lap. Their lips pressed, their tongues stroked, their breathing grew more labored as he continued to pleasure her breasts until she was practically whimpering.
“Mac, Mac, please,” she panted against his mouth.
“I can’t, Sara.” God, what was he doing? He didn’t stop. He did acknowledge the stupidity of what he’d started.
“Let’s go…” She gasped as he kissed her neck. “My room…”
“No,” he said against the sweet skin behind her ear. “Can’t.”
“Have to,” she managed.
“No.”
“But—”
Reluctantly and with more will power than he would have ever given himself credit for, he lifted his head. He looked down at her, hair tousled, lips swollen, eyes glazed, breasts and nipples covered in smudges that had once been pink hearts. His shirt was ruined too, giant splotches of still-wet paint all over the front.
“I shouldn’t have started something I can’t finish.”
She grabbed the front of his shirt, paint and all. “You
can
finish it.”
“But I won’t.”
She stared at him for a moment in obvious disbelief. Then, “Aaarrgh!” She slid off his lap, retied the sarong and reached behind her for the ties of her bikini top as she stomped to the front of the shop.
He was a little slower moving, considering the massive erection he was carrying with him.
“You’re an idiot, Mac,” Sara informed him when he joined her at the front.
“I know.” He extracted a hundred-dollar bill and handed it to Sara’s tattoo artist. It was easily twice what he owed. Then he took hold of Sara’s elbow and headed for the door.
“A serious idiot,” she repeated once out on the sidewalk.
40
Just My Type
“I know. I should have never started…”
“I want to sleep with you!” she exclaimed, completely disregarding the other people along the sidewalk. “I will do
anything
you want to do. I’ve been
studying
for this! I know all the sexual terms, I…” Mac stopped and she plowed into him before she realized she needed to stop too.
“All what sexual terms?”
“I went on this website where they talk to men about sex. Like the best position to give oral sex in and the best way to achieve an orgasm and…”
“What terms?” Mac ground out. Oral sex, orgasms… Exactly the conversation he wanted to be having with Sara.
“Oh. Like…” She smiled at him. “Corkscrew.”
That was absolutely, positively his limit.
He wasn’t going to last a day, not to mention the four her letter had said she was staying.
He needed her to shut up. And stop standing so close to him. And smelling so good. And everything else. “You need to drink.”
“Not that kind of corkscrew, Mac. It’s when a man uses his fingers—”
“Shut up, Sara.”
She blinked up at him. “
What
?”
“I said shut up. Do not open your mouth again until you’re putting liquor in it.” He raised his arm to hail a cab.
“But I—”
“Seriously.” It had to have been the tone in his voice. Not commanding, for a change, but pleading.
She shut up.
The orange umbrella drinks were eight dollars apiece, but he’d gladly take out a second mortgage if it meant saving him from Sara’s mouth. In every way.
41
Chapter Four
So this was what a hangover felt like.
Sara groaned and turned over. Why did anyone do this more than once?
Well, she’d wanted to experience being really, really drunk. She wouldn’t have done it if Mac hadn’t been there to be sure she was safe and got home without incident.
He should have warned her about the jackhammer in her head. She tried to sit up. The
heavy
jackhammer in her head.
She squinted at the clock. Eleven o’clock. She assumed in the morning because sunlight was streaming obnoxiously through her window, but she had no idea what time she’d come back to her condo, how she’d gotten there or…
She quickly glanced down to see what she wore—the same thing from last night—then regretted the rapid movement of her head.
“Ooohhh,” she moaned, pulling a pillow across her face and praying for more unconsciousness. In her unconsciousness she didn’t have a headache and Mac did all kinds of delicious things to her. Things she hadn’t even known about until getting brave enough to type
sex positions
into Google. From there it had been a veritable sexual convention for her. She’d had no idea what she’d been missing all these years…or what Mac had been up to.
A horrible pounding on the door to her condo made her groan anew.
“Time to go, princess.”
Normally she loved his voice, and she should have loved that he’d come to her condo rather than getting on the first plane out of here this morning. Last night had been crazy. Great, but crazy. She was thrilled Mac had shown up and not even two hours later she’d been laying on a table in a tattoo parlor, mostly naked, him stroking her breasts with pink paint. Another glance down confirmed there had, indeed, been paint and it had been—and still was—pink.
Mac had touched her breasts.
Things were definitely on track.
She pushed herself up and only thought for a second about throwing up. The urge passed and with it she remembered having thrown up the night before on the way back to the condo. With Mac right beside her.
Yeah, that was sexy.
Just My Type
“Get your sweet ass out of bed, princess. We’ve got stuff to do.” Hormones apparently worked even when she had a headache. Her body warmed and softened at Mac’s words.
“We don’t have to get out of bed for the stuff,” she said, swinging her door open.
His shoulder was propped against her doorjamb and he looked well rested and not even slightly hungover. In fact, he looked wonderful.
He grinned down at her. “You look like crap.”
“I look like I drank way too many orange paradises.”
“You did drink too many.”
“Your fault.”
“You wanted to get really, really drunk.”
“I’m crossing that off my to-do list.”
“I was going to make you suffer through the hangover. You earned it. But here, this will help.” He handed her a bottle of Gatorade. “Take some ibuprofen too. Then we’re going for a run.” She blinked up at him.
“Did you hear me?”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “Thought you said a run.”
“I did.”
“I don’t run.”
“What do you mean?”
She blinked five more times. “I mean, I don’t run.”
His eyes traveled to her toes and back up. She tingled and clutched the Gatorade against her stomach that was suddenly flipping—in a good way.
“How do you stay in shape?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Good luck, mostly.”
He smiled at that. “You don’t work out at all?”
“Yoga sometimes.”
He wrinkled his nose. “That doesn’t count.”
“You ever try it?”
“Do you break a sweat?”
She wrinkled her nose this time. “Not if I can help it.”
“And wouldn’t want to break a nail,” he said dryly.
Sara glanced at her French manicure. Which did look very nice if she did say so herself. “Exactly,” she replied without apology.
“Any other physical activity?” he asked with an eye roll.
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Erin Nicholas
She opened her mouth and he pinned her with a hard stare.
“It is way too early in the morning for me to deal with you talking about sex, so don’t even go there.” She considered that. He was affected by her talking about sex. She could live with that one simple victory for now.
“I like to bike.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it. “Sometimes. On occasion. Rarely,” she added quickly.
It was too late.
“We’ll bike up and down the path that runs along the beach,” he said.
“I don’t feel good, Mac.” She knew she sounded whiny. “You go and I’ll meet you later.”
“Exercise will make you feel better. You’ll sweat out all the junk and get your blood pumping.”
“That sounds like one of those stupid things people who like to exercise say.”
“You don’t like to exercise?”
She raised an eyebrow. “What’s to like? You sweat, you breathe hard, you get tired and sore.” Mac shook his head and stepped through the door. She was immediately overcome by the idea Mac was in her bedroom. Mac had never been inside her bedroom. She’d never even been to his apartment.
He’d been to her place several times, even slept on her couch twice, though it had been a while since then.