Authors: Jay Crownover
her nightstand and the Kills were filling the room with moody rock and roll.
“It’s a dragon.”
I forgot I didn’t have a shirt on when I had walked into the bathroom. I turned around so my back was
to her and she could see the entire thing. I heard her quick intake of breath and the covers rustle as she
moved across the bed.
“It is. Phil did it for me. We started the day I turned eighteen and finished it the day I turned twenty-one.
It took over six hundred hours in the chair.”
A lot of people had dragon tattoos. No one had a dragon tattoo like mine. It was done in a traditional
Japanese style. The colors were all screaming hues of bold reds, greens, yellows, and golds all over my
skin. The tail started on the top of my foot, it wound all the way around my calf, covered my thigh, took up
one entire butt cheek, the body twisted and turned across my spine until it reached my shoulder, where the
fierce head was always watching me, the wings flared out, completely covered my sides, ran all along my
ribs, and ended right next to my dick, the talons were gripping each shoulder in fierce, clutching hands, and
the fire it was breathing rolled over my collarbone on each side and danced up the back of my neck until it
forked off and marked each side of my head over my ears.
It was massive, had enough detail that it looked like it was going to fly away with me in its sharp claws
at any second, and I knew enough about my chosen career field, the skill level involved in the piece, that
the reason it was so spectacular was because Phil cared about me. I was more than his protégé, more than
his kid, I was his walking, talking legacy of an art form he had simply loved and honed over the years. My
dragon was his
Mona Lisa.
“It’s so beautiful.” Her hands lightly stroked over my spine, and up along the ridges of my shoulders.
“It’s so much more than just a tattoo.”
Something lodged in my throat at the fact she understood that without being in the industry or me
having to explain it to her.
“I was pretty messed up when I was younger. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I did a bunch of
dumb shit. Got arrested spray-painting a bridge, got into a brawl at one of Jet’s shows and sent some kid to
the ICU, tattooed a bunch of dumb, pointless crap all over my body. Phil saw I was spiraling, tried to get
me to stop it. He called me out and told me straight up I was acting like a toddler looking for attention from
his mommy, which is exactly what I was doing.”
I sighed as her hands trailed over the wings and skated lower across my ass. She was petting the
dragon, but it felt like she was trying to soothe me as well.
“He told me he would teach me how to do what he did. Tattooing always seemed like a cool thing to
me, and when he offered to show me and Rule what art was really about and how to put all our feelings of
being cast out to creative use, it was what stopped my free fall.”
I shook my head at the memory and gave a wan grin. I had to grit my teeth because her soft hands had
found their way to the front of me and there was only one place they could stop.
“One bargain I had to make with him in order to apprentice was no more shitty tattoo work. Phil
wouldn’t tolerate it if I was going to represent him and his shop. He told me I had to agree to let him and
only him tattoo me until the apprenticeship was up. I agreed and he started the back part of the dragon that
day. Of course as we went along he let Rule get his licks in on my skin as he got better, but pretty much
only Phil got to pound on me with a needle for years. This was the result. He said I needed something
strong, something that reminded me that people always had my back and would protect me from those that
wanted to hurt me. He knew I had a rough time with my mom, so he was trying to make me feel less
alone.”
My voice trailed off as her hands moved up my chest, across my collarbone, and to my head.
Her voice was quiet when she asked, “Why up here?”
“I was never going to be a cubicle kind of guy or a kindergarten teacher. I wanted something that really
solidified the idea that I was doing my own thing and that my mom’s approval or lack thereof wasn’t
something I needed to work on getting anymore. When you tattoo your head, or your face, even your neck
and hands, it makes a statement. It clearly defines that this is a choice not a fashion accessory. I was pretty
used to getting looked down on, getting torn up at home, so having strangers and the general public gape at
my ink never bothered me. Plus it’s a great conversation starter. I get asked everywhere I go about it, so I
just hand them a business card and tell them to swing by the shop. I can’t count how many new clients it’s
gotten me. If I grow my hair out you can’t even tell it’s there, which is why the fire the dragon is breathing
goes over my shoulders as well.”
“It’s amazing. Really beautiful.”
I turned around and put my arms around her. She was on her knees on the bed, so we were almost on
the same level. I kissed her stunned mouth. She tasted like sex and mystery.
“So are you.”
She didn’t say anything and I saw her flush. She never said anything when I told her how attractive she
was. Most chicks ate it up with a spoon, tried to play coy, but Saint just ignored it like I never spoke. I
wasn’t sure what to do with that. I wasn’t trying to flatter her, to lure her to bed. I was just telling her the
truth.
I brushed my thumb over the owl tattoo she had on her collarbone. She had another one on her hip
where her underwear normally covered it, a small cross, and on her back right between her shoulder blades
was a traditional Catholic saint depicted in all its detailed grandeur.
“These are all well done, and I can guess they have a lot of personal meaning behind them. I can always
tell.”
She lifted an eyebrow and put her arms around my neck as I leaned over and took her back to the bed
with me stretched out on top of her.
“How can you tell?”
“They’re in places no one can see but you. They aren’t flash designs off the wall, and even though they
are all pretty tiny they have a lot of detail.” A tiny smile flirted with her mouth. “The owl is for wisdom, I
bet; the saint, your name?”
She shook her head, and the way we pressed against each other I could feel her body start to soften and
melt into the pressure of my much bigger frame. I liked the way my dark skin contrasted so vividly against
her much paler skin tone.
“Saint Agnes, patron saint of nurses. My sister is Faith, so that’s the cross, and the owl …” She ran her
finger over the tip of my nose. “You got it. They don’t have anything on the stuff you’ve got, but I’ve
always been happy with them.”
I worked a hand between the two of us and started to untie the knot at her waist. The lights were still
on, so I wasn’t sure how far she was going to let me go before getting shy on me again. Hell, I was counting
my blessings she hadn’t kicked me out the front door after the first ten minutes were up.
“Body art isn’t a contest. The only person that has to like it is the person stuck with it for the rest of
their life. As long as you love it when you see it, that’s all that matters.”
I rubbed my thumb over the cross when her robe slid open.
“I had a girl artist do it. She was nice and made me feel really comfortable. You are the only other
person who has ever seen it.”
I was kissing her on the side of the neck, drawing a lazy pattern on her hip with the tips of my fingers,
but her words made me still. She told me I was the only guy to ever get her off, but I didn’t really think
about that translating into the fact that she hadn’t been with very many men. It made the world tilt back on
that parallel axis again. I loved the idea of being the only guy who got to see her special markings, the only
guy who got to make her feel special and good in a way only great sex could.
“Thank you. That matters, Saint, I hope you know that.”
I ran my tongue along her collarbone and down the center of her chest. I was surprised she hadn’t
asked me to stop or at least hit the lights. But she was rolling with it and I had another condom somewhere
in my wallet, so why not see how far she would let me go? She was so soft and lush, not at all stick-figure
skinny but a handful of curves and warm flesh. She did indeed have a very light dusting of freckles that
crossed the top of both breasts and I wasn’t surprised at all when I pulled her turgid nipple into my mouth
that she tasted like velvet and candy on my tongue. I rolled one and then the other pink tip across my
tongue, leaving them both shiny and pointy while her eyes had gotten darker and heavy-lidded.
“Whaddaya say, Saint? Wanna give me another ten minutes?”
She gazed up at me like she was trying to figure something out. There was confusion, but more than
that, on her face and her eyes had darkened to a cool shade of slate.
“Who are you, Nash Donovan?”
I gave her the most honest answer I could to that question. “Sometimes I don’t know, but most of the
time what you see is what you get, Saint. I know you think I was once someone else, but I’m telling you I
was never that guy. I’m not saying I was great or even likable back then, but I wasn’t whatever it is you
think I was.”
She didn’t say anything for a long minute and we just watched each other. I thought she was going to
ask me to get dressed and leave, but to my surprise she wrapped her legs up around me and whispered in
my ear.
“Ten minutes was your idea, Nash, I’m willing to give you all night.”
Well, with permission like that, I was going to see exactly what I could cook up before she either passed
out from exhaustion or asked me to go.
I had never looked forward to a challenge more and I refused to wonder if one night or any number of
minutes would be enough with this girl. She was something different. It radiated out of her, and I wasn’t
sure I was anything special or a guy lucky enough to be the one to grab on to it.
I didn’t have time to get weirded out that Nash spent the night, or to sit back and evaluate all the things I
let him do to me, or all things I had been bold enough to do to him. I don’t know where any of those
typical fears and uncertainties that normally strangled me when it came to sex had gone, but when my
phone went off before six in the morning on New Year’s Day, I was still very much naked and very much
wrapped deliciously around a very large and naked man. There was no time to freak out, because the
hospital was the number calling, and when it came to work, that was my first priority, and not all the
tattooed and toned skin that stretched across Nash’s back, even as tempting and alluring as it might be.
Sunny was upset. Two different staff members had called off, and not only did she have to go in and
cover one of the shifts but she needed me to go in as well. I was scheduled to work that night, so it meant
being at the hospital all day, which sounded awful considering Nash had kept me up well into the early
hours of the morning, but it offered me an easy way out of dealing with the day-after awkwardness, so I
readily agreed.
When I got off the phone he lumbered sleepily to his feet, got dressed without giving me any kind of
guilt trip or hassle, gave me a quick kiss on the mouth, and told me to give him a call when I got a chance.
He left without any kind of interrogation, any kind of uncomfortable dance around the topic of are-we-or-
are-we-not-doing-this-again. He left the ball firmly in my court and made it clear that it was entirely up to
me if I wanted to keep it in play or not. He put me in charge, which wasn’t something I was used to outside
of my career, and I had to admit the power of it, the choice being mine, made the entire situation with him
easier to get my head around. It also made the fact that I was well on my way to admitting I had to forgive
him for past sins the only option if I was going to move forward with whatever it was we were now doing
with each other.
When I got to work it was chaos. Injured partyers from the night before abounded. There was a horrific
home-construction accident involving a chain saw and a missing hand; a cop rushed in that had been
involved in a domestic dispute with a couple and got a knife in the gut for his effort; a toddler had gotten
into the bathroom cleaner under the sink; and two women in labor: one was breech, the other was having
premature contractions. I didn’t have time to think about anything else or worry about the curious looks
Sunny was giving me whenever we were in the same room or passed each other in the hall. I was dragging
majorly by the time my actual shift in the late afternoon started and was in the break room guzzling coffee
like it was lifeblood when my tiny little boss finally cornered me.