Page 135 of Caution to the Wind

“It’s us,” he murmured before looking over to me for confirmation.

I bit my lip.

“Everyone wants Knight and Rocky to end up together,” Cressida added helpfully, handing the baby off to King so she could fish through her leather messenger bag and hand over a copy of The Off-White Knight: Nightmare Circus. “There’s even fanfic about them.”

King grinned at Axe-Man, enjoying this entirely too much. “Cress told me their couple name is “Rocight”, likerocket. Cute right, Axe-Man?”

“You’re basically famous, brother.” Nova laughed, slapping a hand on Axe-Man’s back.

“No, no. People don’t know, I mean, I’ve never said Knight is inspired by someone in real life,” I assured him quickly. “And I write under MZ Lung, so it’s not obvious or anything.”

Axe-Man swept his gaze over my exposed arms and neck. I was helping out at a tattoo shop, and he’d officially already seen the extent of his designs on my skin last night, so I’d ditched my jacket and worn one of my signature black cropped tanks. A living bulletin for Axe-Man’s work.

He was probably wondering what I’d steal from him next.

Three years of his life.

His art inked on my skin.

Now, his face popularized in my seriously well-known graphic novel series.

Cressida seemed to sense the energy crackling between us and hustled to push her husband over to Nova’s station, talking loudly about the ink he was getting in honour of their son. Nova followed and the rest of the shop, curiously silent, resumed its hum of chatter.

“Little thief,” Axe-Man accused finally, but he didn’t sound angry exactly.

More like resigned, only I didn’t know to what.

I shrugged one shoulder, itching to take my sketchbook back from him. “I became kind of obsessed withwuxia––martial artists heroes––after watchingIn The Mood For Lovewith Daiyu so many times. Jiang noticed my drawings one day. He helped me pitch a literary agent friend of his, and the rest was history. I never thought I’d be a writer or an artist, but it’s kind of a dream.”

“I can see it,” he murmured, rubbing a thumb over the Knight’s four-fingered hand curled into a fist to punch his adversary. “It suits you. Always had a vivid imagination.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Old Dragon is a character as well. And the first book starts with the Off-White Knight going on a crusade to save his daughter, Gloria.”

His lips twitched in his beard. “Not very original.”

“Sometimes life is stranger than fiction,” I retorted. “You’re not mad?”

He sighed so hard it ruffled the pages. “Fuck, don’t think I gotta lotta anger left in me. It’s fuckin’ exhaustin’ tryin’ to stay mad at you.”

“Even when I steal from you?”

When he locked eyes with me, he was wearing that special smile he used to have just for me. A curling of his ruddy mouth, a softening around his eyes. Like something about me warmed him from the inside out.

I hadn’t seen that expression in such a long time, it momentarily took my breath away.

“Especially then.”

My brows shot into my hairline. “Seriously?”

“Fuck yeah.” His voice went gruff as he stepped closer, placing the sketchbook on the counter and one hand on the side of my neck over the little axe tattooed there. It matched the bigger one he had inked on the back of his right shoulder. “How can I stay mad when it’s obvious you kept Cleo and me with you in every way you could over the last eight years?”

I couldn’t breathe properly with his hand on me, his thumb tracing his design, his eyes another caress along my exposed chest mapping the stylized Band-Aid over an anatomical heart on the upper swell of my left breast and the lunar cycle along the ridge of one collarbone.

“You got every one of my designs from your sketchbook on this pretty skin?” he asked, husky and low.

I shook my head, trying to find my voice, trying to understand what was going on. “A-all but one.”

“Which?”