Messy Ink (Get Ink'd Book 2) -Ali Lyda

Dane

Reagan's office seemed like a good place to hide. I couldn't believe it—it was a fucking party, and I was hiding instead of celebrating with my best friends and coworkers. All because of Jason, and my own stupid fucking choices.

The man was good-looking enough. A smooth talker and confident. But when I'd been messing around with Chris, I hadn't been interested. No matter how many hints Jason had put down, I'd refused to pick them up. Until I'd left Chris, that is. After that, I'd felt adrift, like I was still attached to him even after I'd walked away—something that had never happened before. And I desperately wanted to get rid of that feeling.

So when we'd had a wrap party after the first episode finished filming, I'd drank. A lot. Pity parties were perfect for trying to drown out sorrow. But then Jason had come on to me, again, and I'd...

Fuck me, I'd said yes.

I banged my head softly against the wall of the office. I was a fucking idiot. I couldn't believe how much I missed Christian, and hooking up with Jason had made that all the more clear to me. What had Christian even done wrong? Nothing, that's what. He'd just asked me about work, and I'd freaked out, totally unwarranted.

He'd been right—it wasn't crazy for him to ask for a bit more from me. But I had told him so many fucking times: I didn't do pillow talk. I couldn't do pillow talk. It always led to feelings, and feelings led to hurt, and I had no room in my world for any more hurting.

It had gone on too long with Chris, longer than I should have let it. But I couldn't help it, not when the doctor was so fucking sexy. With his black hair and pale blue eyes and narrow, fit body, Christian was beautiful. And it wasn't simply his looks, either. There'd been these times...

"Tell me about your tattoos," Chris said, surprising me. I rolled onto my back, stretching my arms overhead. We'd woken up naked in his bed for the fourth time that week. Sunlight filtered through the blinds and caught his eyes, turning them into sapphires. I so rarely spent multiple nights with the same person, but I'd found myself over at Chris's several nights during the week...for several weeks now.

Our chemistry was too strong to deny, it seemed, and as I looked at him in the morning light, I felt that now-familiar tug in my guts. It scared the shit out of me, but he didn't need to know that—not when I'd very clearly made it known I wasn't going to be more than a hookup.

"Which one?" I asked, stretching and kicking off the sheets.

I was covered in tattoos from head to toes. Literally. There was a spade on my cheek and a bumblebee on my big toe. In between I was covered with a wide variety of ink in various styles, collected from when I was fifteen until just a few weeks ago.

"The face tattoo," Chris said. His tone was completely genuine, no hints of judgment.

It continued to astonish me that a world-class surgeon didn't have any reservations about sleeping with a tatted-up guy with a questionable past. Then again, he didn't know about my past, let alone the questionable parts. Sharing histories was the first step into deeper, emotionally murky waters—and that was a huge no-go.

Absentmindedly, I touched the spade. "Eh, I just like playing cards," I lied.

It was true, I did like cards—but that's not why I'd gotten the tattoo. I'd gotten it after my first successful robbery when I was seventeen, and there was so much that it represented, things I wasn't proud of. But I definitely wasn't about to tell Chris all that.

A tug in my chest accompanied the lie. Would Chris judge me if I'd told the truth? If he knew about all the awful things I'd done? I couldn't stand the shame that getting so close to these topics brought with it—even if Chris didn't realize he was stepping next to a landmine.