Page 16 of Honey Undone (The Hornets Nest #5)

“Do you love it?” I asked her as I turned and Harry covered it with a little saniderm to protect it. She leaned against the wall watching him work when her eyes met mine, a little mischievous glint in them as she nodded.

“Good,” I said, dropping my tone and stepping away from Harry.

“Your turn,” I said, stepping closer to her and dropping my eye line to match hers, “or are you chickening out?” I asked in a quiet tone.

Harry excused himself, asking Adeline if she needed anything before leaving the room and us alone again.

Adeline looked up at me and shook her head, finally answering my question, “ never . Pick a place.” She straightened out with a smile and put her arms out at her side ready for me.

I ghosted my fingers along the underside of her arm, never touching her but I could feel the warmth of her skin. It was intoxicating enough that I almost forgot what I was doing as I circled around her and brushed a knuckle down the side of her throat .

“Are you going to pick, or just touch?” She asked me and when she turned her head our noses nearly touched. I admired the shape of her bottom lip as it curled into a serious expression.

“Well if I have a choice,” I huffed and a smirk formed on my lips.

Adeline shook her head but her smile dropped as my fingers splayed out over her stomach.

The shirt she’d chosen to wear showed off all the toned muscles of her arms and the lacy bra beneath left nothing to imagination but the urge to get rid of everything between us was loud.

Too loud. I needed to breathe, to take a step back before I did something stupid.

“Your thigh, visible at the gym but you can hide it if you want,” I said, our faces still close together and her expression unchanged.

“Okay,” she conceded. “Nothing vulgar.”

“Awe, I was thinking Daddy’s Girl or Brat ,” I teased.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned in a low voice but the corner of her lip lifted into a smile.

When Harry returned I talked to him about what I wanted and where we should put it. Harry drew up the stencil quickly, printing out two different sizes before he handed me the smaller of the two.

“Make sure it's straight,” he said, eyeing me with a smile before handing me the stencil and backed away to get his table clean and set up for the next tattoo.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before, Harry and I had been doing this for a while and sometimes he just couldn’t be bothered after a long night.

It was a trust thing and now he was handing that trust off to me.

I was quietly glad. I would have lost my mind watching him touch her like that, especially when I hadn’t even had the chance to do so.

I trusted Harry with a lot… creative design, permanently scaring my body with ink but I did not trust him around a pretty girl. Worse, around my pretty girl.

Adeline was still standing, nervously waiting with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes scanning the art on the wall. I placed the stencil on the table next to her face down, and watched her expression shift as I knelt before her.

“What are you doing?” She asked me, looking over at Harry who was spraying down his station .

“Trust me?” I responded, tilting my chin up to meet her concerned gaze as I tentatively reached out to touch her hip.

The little nervous nod was all I needed to slip my hand under her shirt and brush my hand against the skin above her shorts, guiding her forward until she was standing straight.

“Don’t move,” I whispered, my eyes trailing back down her body, stopping briefly to admire how her stomach fluttered with breath at my touch.

She stayed perfect still, her eyes watching my every move as I brushed my knuckle over her thigh and cleaned the spot on her inner thigh with the cold pad of alcohol. The adorable gasp that fell from her caused my grip to momentarily tighten on her hip and steady myself.

We could do better than that, I thought. Needing more.

“This will be cold,” I whispered, applying a little of the primer with the pad of my finger across her inner thigh.

I felt her stiffen at the contact, and her fingers reached out to balance herself with my shoulder.

Her skin was so warm it was like standing in the sun on the first day after the longest winter.

I carefully pressed the thin paper to her skin, smoothing it out with my fingers slowly.

I was taking my time because I wasn’t sure how close I’d be for a while and if this was the only contact I received, I was going to make the best of it.

My eyes flickered over her skin, taking in every scar and freckle, frowning at the amount of bruises she had.

New and old they were all a part of her sport but they looked sore and uncomfortable.

I swallowed down the urge to brush my fingers over a particularly nasty newer one on her calf and looked back up at her.

Those hazel eyes were still watching my every move like a hawk.

Her long lashes and pretty dark eyeliner highlighted every green and golden fleck within them.

She was smiling, it was small and nervous but the slight curl of her lip was intoxicating as my finger brushed the innermost corner of her thigh.

“Almost done,” I whispered, watching her swallow down whatever she was going to say.

I begrudgingly took my eyes off her and started to peel back the paper to reveal the blue ink staining her freckled, olive skin perfectly straight and curved to her thigh like it belonged there.

I shifted my grip on her hip, and wrapped my left hand around the back of her thigh to keep her from moving before leaning forward and blew on the skin gently to help it dry.

The feeling of cool air on her warm thigh dragged the prettiest of throaty whines from her lips that was so gentle and quiet, I almost missed it.

Her fingers left my shoulder and found the back of my head, raking into my hair and my entire body shivered at her sudden, bold touch.

I was embarrassed to admit how much I liked the feeling of her nails against my scalp as she fought to regain control of herself.

The air was thick around us and for a second I forgot that we were in public as I stood releasing her thigh from under my fingertips and taking a moment to press my lips to her hip as I moved my hand away.

Her fingers tightened around my hair at the feeling and a throaty chuckle left me at the surprising tug of pain.

Her skin was velvet under my lips and my breath hitched in my chest as her hand carefully retreated from my hair and I pulled away, pushing to my full height and coming face to face with her.

I put my hand back on her hip to keep her balanced but mostly because I wasn’t ready to put space between us just yet. Her cheeks were flushed with color and her chest was rising and falling slowly under the sheer black shirt.

“Does it look okay?” She asked me, her eyes fluttering open as she tried to disguise her sexual frustration faster than I could spot.

“It’s perfect,” I said with a smirk, the tattoo, you . Everything was perfect.

“Lay down for me.” Harry cleared his throat and pointed to the bed.

It took her another moment to collect herself, but Adeline listened, pulling away from my touch and pretending like the entire interaction hadn’t happened as she slid back on it and laid down with her thigh exposed to the bright light above the bed.

She looked nervous but she’d never admit to it.

Harry asked her twice if she was ready before she finally answered him and the sound of the machine buzzing made her flinch.

I pulled my chair up next to the bed, reaching out to grab the bag of cola gummies and tearing them open with my teeth.

I rested my elbow on the bed next to her shoulder and dug into the bag, tossing one between my lips as Harry started on the first line .

Adeline had her eyes closed but at the first whiff of candy her head lulled toward me and she popped one eye open while her face scrunched up into a bundle of cute, pain filled lines.

“Do you want one?” I asked her, taking another out of the bag. I was just trying to focus on her because Harry’s face was between her legs and I was going to lose my mind if I thought about it for too long.

“Saying yes would be admitting defeat,” she said, her words coming out in tiny stutters.

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” I whispered to her and leaned closer with the cola bottle in between my finger and thumb.

She eyed me for a second longer before parting her lips and letting me slide it between her teeth.

Adeline popped it into her mouth and I retracted my hand, but not without brushing my thumb against her pouty bottom lip.

It took everything in me not to react to how soft her skin was as I pulled back, seemingly unaffected and grabbed another piece of candy.

Harry took longer to finish with Adeline, he worked slowly and after about an hour of her soft, stifled whimpers he finally finished and let her sit up to admire her first piece of ink.

“So?” I asked her. I refused to move from my spot, my body was stiff from leaning on the table to feed her candy but it was worth it when her shoulders eventually relaxed and she started to figure out how to manage the intrusion of pain.

“ Belle ame? What does it mean?” She asked me.

The script we had picked wasn’t mine, but I wasn’t about to maim her body with my thirteen-year-old chicken scratch.

The one chosen was soft and loopy. I stood to look at it, my fingers creeping over her thigh just below it.

I felt her tense under my touch, her eyes never leaving mine, waiting for an answer I wasn’t prepared to give her.

“Better hope it’s not French for something gross,” I said with a smile, my fingers flexing on her thigh once before releasing her to let Harry clean and cover it.

“You wouldn’t,” she said back.

“I might,” I said, wetting my bottom lip to keep control of how badly I wanted to kiss the attitude out of her body.

“It’s pretty,” she purred, looking down at it as Harry finished. “Thank you.”