Lifers (24 page)

His expression darkened, and I could sense a further dive in his mood.

“So, you were a bit of a rule breaker even in juvie?” I asked, hoping to lighten the suddenly dark atmosphere.

He twitched a shoulder.

“Guess so. I did this one myself.”

He held out his left arm and I saw again the word ‘love’ tattooed on the back of his wrist. I remembered seeing it the first day I met him.

“Seems like an odd sort of word to have gotten while you were in prison,” I said, nudging his shoulder. “Unless you’re telling me you were in love with a 300 pound biker called Graham.”

He tried to smile. “No, no bikers. I did this one for my brother. I loved Mikey. I mean, he was my big brother, but you don’t love people just because they’re your family.”

I felt certain he was thinking of his parents at that moment.

“Mikey was the world to me—best guy you’d ever meet. Everyone loved Mikey.”

He sighed, and I watched the dark descend again.

“He was easy to love. Not like me. So the tattoo was to remind me that no matter how angry I was at myself, at everyone, that Mikey was always full of love. I don’t know—somethin’ like that. My head was kind of fucked at the time. Still is,” he whispered.

“The first time I saw that tat, I thought you probably had ‘hate’ tattooed on your other wrist or behind your knee or something. You know, like that scary preacher in
Night of the Hunter
.”

I could see him making the effort to lift his mood to match the one I was trying to create for us.

“Hey! I remember that film,” he nodded. “Yeah, that was freakin’ scary when I was a kid—Robert Mitchum gave me nightmares.” He threw me a teasing look. “Hey, you think your momma has tats in interestin’ places?”

I slapped his arm hard.

“You
cannot
be thinking about my mom in the nude when I had your dick inside me just a few nights ago!” I half shouted.

I saw his cheeks flush immediately.

“Hell, no!” he snorted. “I never … I mean I didn’t think … no!”

I couldn’t help laughing at the look of horror on his face.

“Teasing! Boy, you’re so easy.”

He growled at me and pinned my wrists together with one hand, sending our coffee mugs tumbling onto the sand.

“You’ll pay for that, woman!”

And then he started tickling me until tears were pouring from my eyes, and I was begging for him to stop. But he was relentless, and it was only a lucky kick to his nuts that got him off.

“Oh, God, you’ve finished me,” he groaned, holding his sack with both hands, his thighs pressed together defensively.

“You deserved that!” I coughed out, wiping the tears from my eyes.

He might have had some tears of his own at that point. Served him right.

Eventually, we calmed down enough to sit peacefully again.

He stared disconsolately at his empty coffee cup, but I was too comfortable to move. He’d have to wait for a refill.

“You were telling me about the tats?”

“I wasn’t good at much in school,” he admitted, at last. “But I was good at drawin’ and pictures. There was this kid in juvie whose older brother was a tattoo artist and he knew some stuff. So I did the sketches and he taught me how to do the ink. It was pretty risky…”

“Why?”

“Well, like I said, it’s illegal, but the other thing is, you cain’t exactly order the equipment in, so we had to make it. First of all, Styx just used a sewin’ needle and a magic marker pen. It wasn’t exactly sterile and there was a lot of Hep C goin’ around. Then he started usin’ old guitar strings, lead from pencils and sometimes ash from burned paper.”

“You’re kidding me! You put that stuff into your
skin
?”

“Well, yeah. There’s a lot of empty time when you’re inside. Gotta find somethin’ to do. When I got to prison, one of the guards could be bribed and he brought in colored ink. But I gave it up after a while.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to stay in for the rest of my life. I’d already had time added to my sentence, and 180 days for the first time I got caught tattooing another prisoner. Even then, I knew there was more to life—more I wanted from it.”

“Tell me what they all mean,” I said. “I mean, the barbed wire is kind of obvious. What’s this one?” I pointed to a teardrop, weeping from one of the wire points.

“An unfilled teardrop is the death of a friend.”

“Oh. And this one?”

“That’s a swallow.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

“What does it mean?”

He sighed. “Swallows don’t fly far from land into the ocean, so when sailors saw them, it meant that land was nearby. It’s a symbol of hope.”

“I like that,” I murmured. “And the dolphin?”

“Duality: a creature that lives in the water, but needs air to survive. I don’t know—I just liked it.”

“I think I can guess this one, but what does the spider’s web mean?”

He smiled sadly. “Being caught in prison.”

I started to say more, but then I felt a tug on my line and the bobber dipped down into the water.

“Ooh! I think I got one! What do I do?”

“Reel it in slowly, don’t jerk it.”

I panicked and pushed the pole into his hands. “You do it! I don’t want to lose it.”

I watched, enrapt, as he played the fish—reeling it in, letting it out, and reeling it in again, his arm muscles and shoulders showcasing his amazing physique. Who’d have thought fishing was so hot.

A minute later, he’d landed an ugly old fish the length of my arm, whose eyes gazed at me pitifully, while its mouth gaped.

I was mesmerized and appalled at the same time, watching it thrash out its last few minutes of life.

Jordan saw the look of horror on my face.

“Go wait by the truck, Torrey,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

I was happy to leave him to it. I knew it was hypocritical, but I preferred my food a little less
lively
.

I mooched back to our blanket and threw myself down. I seemed to be spoiling everything today. At least the fire was still smoldering. I threw on some more of the dried wood that Jordan had found and built it up again. Even though it was a warm day, the flames were comforting.

He came back a few minutes later, with the poor fish impaled on a stick. I was relieved he’d already done the nasty bits and in deference to my squeamishness, he’d removed the head, too. Thank God! I couldn’t have stood having it looking at me as it slowly cooked. I’d be waiting for it to blink.

“You okay?” he asked, concerned.

“I’m fine. Sorry to be such a wimp. I’ve always been more of a city girl. Dad never did stuff like sleeping in tents or hiking with me. And I hated the idea of summer camp so much I made him promise never to send me. But as long as I have someone to gut my fish, it’s all good.”

He gave me a look like he wasn’t sure he believed me, but didn’t argue the point. I watched, feeling like Jane in the jungle as he arranged the fish over the fire, making a crossbeam with two longer sticks. When he finished, he stretched out on the blanket next to me and closed his eyes.

I took a moment to appreciate the view. His long legs were clad in jeans today, not the baggy shorts I’d gotten used to. His gray t-shirt stretched over his muscular chest, which at that moment was pulled up slightly, showing a strip of taut stomach with a sprinkling of light brown hairs pointing below his waistband.

His arms were thrown above his head, and I could see the beauty and simplicity of the tattoos twisting around his biceps. Long lashes fanned out over his cheeks, and his lips were slightly open, making me want to lick between them. The small frown between his eyebrows was less pronounced than usual. I leaned down to rub my finger gently over the faint lines, hoping to erase them.

He jumped slightly, and his eyes blinked open.

“Sorry I startled you. Again.”

He smiled and ran a warm hand down my side. “I like it when you touch me.”

“Yeah,” I breathed, “works for me, too.”

I was just about to lean further in to kiss those lips when he sat up suddenly.

“Shit! The fish!”

He was right: the poor creature was looking a little black around the edges. He turned it quickly, so the other side could cook, then gave me a flirty smile.

“You are very distractin’, Miss Delaney.”

“Are you blaming me? You were the one lying on the blanket looking all delicious and sinful!”

He laughed out loud. “Delicious and
sinful
?”

“And you know it,” I huffed out. “I practically had to stop Bev mounting you in the coffee shop when she met you.”

His gaze turned hungry, his dark eyes boring into me.

“There’s only one woman I’m interested in, and she’s sittin’ right next to me.”

I gave a delighted laugh even while sweat broke out all over my body, my skin heated by the fire in his eyes.

“That’s good to hear. Well, how about you feed me, and we’ll see about some sin for dessert?”

He closed his eyes and groaned. “The things you say, woman!”

He shook his head as if to clear it then stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

He jogged over to the truck and returned carrying a couple of plates, knives and forks, and a carton of something that he wedged under a rock by the water’s edge, presumably to keep it chilled. I wasn’t sure how well that would work, as the water was being warmed by the late summer sun.

I watched him carefully cut the fish in half, then kick sand on the fire to put it out. He used one of the long sticks to dig out our potatoes, juggled them in his hands while he pulled off the tin foil, and set the food out on plates.

“Lunch is served, ma’am.”

“Smells wonderful! You’ve got some sharp cooking skills there, cowboy!”

“Don’t forget I’m sinful, too,” he said, running his lips across my cheek.

A shiver ran through me, and it definitely wasn’t from cold.

He handed me one of the paper plates and the smell of the hot food wafted up, utterly enticing. Despite my misgivings, the fish was amazing and completely distracted me from thinking about it thrashing around in the water just half an hour earlier. The baked potato was good, too, although I missed being able to slather it in butter.

“This is really great, Jordan,” I mumbled greedily, through a mouthful of food.

He smiled happily. “Good!”

We ate in silence as I carefully avoided swallowing any fish bones. It would be too bad if that old trout had the last laugh, and I choked to death on one of the bones. I was pretty sure Jordan would give me mouth-to-mouth, but I had other ways of testing that theory.

Finally, I pushed my plate away and rubbed my full stomach. “Fabulous.”

“It’s not finished yet, sweetheart.”

“There’s more?”

He winked at me and headed to his truck again, reappearing seconds later with a packet of chocolate chip cookies. Perfect. Then he retrieved the carton from the lake.

I laughed out loud. “Jordan Kane, you are too smooth for your own good! You brought me milk and cookies?”

He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “I didn’t know what you liked, but I figured girls like chocolate, right?”

“I’m sure there are some women in the world who don’t like chocolate, but I’ve never met any of them. Thank God. I think this makes you officially perfect,” I said, pulling open the packet and popping a piece of sweet, sugary goodness in my mouth.

I moaned around the chocolatey crumbs as my eyes rolled back in my head.

Jordan sat down next to me, looking uncomfortable.

“What?” I said, eyeing him with amusement.

“It’s nothin’.”

“Spit it out, whatever it is.”

Then I noticed that he had a rather prominent erection beneath his jeans.

“Oh my God! Watching me eating cookies is turning you on? You’re such a pervert!”

“I cain’t help it,” he complained. “You’re there a-moanin’ and a-groanin’ and lickin’ your lips. It just does things to a man!”

I threw a cookie at him. “Eat this. It’ll take your mind off of that monster in your pants.”

“I doubt it,” he said darkly, but ate the cookie anyway.

I opened the carton of milk and chugged some of it, wiping my mouth with my arm. I stared at him and licked my lips slowly.

He growled and pulled the carton out of my hands, slopping at least a quarter of it onto the sand.

He pressed me into the blanket and planted hot, open mouthed kisses across my chest and throat.

“Damn, woman! I cain’t get enough of you.”

I wanted to tell him that I felt the same, but instead, I tugged his t-shirt up his back and dragged my nails down his skin. He hissed and writhed above me, pressing his hard cock into my belly.

He grabbed his t-shirt from the back of his neck and yanked it over his head, giving me acres of smooth flesh to drool over.

My shorts went one way and his jeans another. Neither of us had underwear so it only took seconds before we were naked under the sky.

He was more patient this time, learning how my body responded to his touch, and the look of triumph on his face when I came on his fingers would have made me laugh if I wasn’t panting and breathless.

“Condom!” I gasped, aching to feel him inside me. “In my shorts!”

“Shit!” he cursed. “Where the hell did you toss them?”

I was treated to the sight of his tight ass as he ran across the sand to retrieve my shorts from a nearby bush. On the way back, I could see his erect dick bobbing up and down expectantly.

“Goddamn! Remind me not to do a streak with a boner again—freakin’ hurts!”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“Hey, you’re killin’ the mood!” he said, laughing with me.

“I’ll take your mind off it,” I grinned, snaking my hand up his thigh.

His breath caught in his throat as he kneeled down beside me. I sat up and straddled him, then ran my tongue up his neck and bit his full lips.

“Goddamn,” he breathed out.

I slid back a short distance so we had room to maneuver, then I took the condom from his nerveless fingers and rolled it on.

His whole body shuddered and he drew in a deep breath that made his nostrils flare.

“You have no idea how it feels to have your hands on me, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Every touch of yours is pure gold.”