All the Pretty Lies (2 page)

I start to climb into it, but he stops me.
“Wait. Show me exactly where you want the oyster shell before you
sit down. I might have to put you on your stomach or your side,
depending.”

Feeling heat rise to my face yet again, I
turn my right hip toward Hemi and pat the place where I want the
shell. “Here.”

Hemi squats beside me, reaches forward and
raises the hem of my cami then drags his fingers up my side. “With
the butterflies up through here?”

I feel chills break out behind the warm path
of his touch and I bite my lip. When he looks up at me with those
amazing blue eyes of his, I nod.

“Okay, then let’s start with you on your
stomach,” he says, stepping on a pedal on the floor that raises the
foot and lowers the back of the chair, making it flat enough to lie
prone. “Hop up there and unbutton your shorts,” he says
casually.

“Pardon?”

Hemi’s laughing eyes meet mine. “Which part
didn’t you get?”

“You need me to take off my pants? In
here?”

“No, I just need you to unbutton and unzip
them a little. Just enough that I can comfortably get to the area
you want inked.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling like an ass. “Okay.”

I climb up onto the flat surface and reach
for my button and zipper. I loosen them and then turn to stretch
out on my stomach. I feel like burying my face in my crossed arms,
but I don’t. I stare straight ahead until I see Sarah enter my
vision and plop down in the chair across from me, promptly ignoring
me for the phone in her hands. I watch her for a few seconds, but
I’m far too interested in who’s at the other end of me to pay her
attention for long. Finally, I turn my head to look down at Hemi,
resting my cheek against my folded arms. He’s sitting on a chair
with wheels now, facing me at the level of my waist, with a
long-necked lamp aimed at my lower body.

I catch and hold my breath when he reaches
out and curls his fingers into the waistband of my shorts. Hemi
tugs the material down, wiggling it over my hips and lowering it
just enough that he can easily access the whole area. The only
thing between him and my skin now is my underwear.

I watch as he slips a finger under the lacy
elastic of my panties and pulls them down as well, leaving nothing
between us but the heat of his hand. Slowly, he rubs his palm over
my hip. Back and forth, he does this several times before he looks
back at the sketch and then starts to trace one fingertip over my
skin, as if he’s drawing it out in his head.

“You know,” he says, looking up at me, his
palm coming to a rest, his thumb making an absent arc on my hip. “I
think it would be better if we came up a little farther toward your
waist with the shell and then let the butterflies spill out,
curving to run up your side in a loose serpentine pattern, like
this,” he says, moving his fingers up over my ribs in a languid
snaking path. “I think it would look better than a straight
line.”

In my head, I can see exactly what he’s
saying. And I agree. It’s just that I’m having a hard time thinking
and responding with his hands on me like they are.

“Sounds good. Whatever you think. You’re the
expert.”

Hemi grins and winks at me. “Oh, I like the
sound of that.” He reaches back to the table that sits behind him,
grabs a little prep kit, a marker and my sketch. He lays the
drawing up on my butt. “This is your first time, isn’t it?” He’s
not watching me when he asks; therefore he can’t see the color that
burns in my cheeks. He has no idea how right he is. In many ways.
Being the daughter of a cop and the little sister to three more
makes dating a challenge to say the least. Add to that all that
happened when I was little, and you get a twenty-one year old
virgin. To tattoos as well as most everything else, too.

“Yes,” I reply in a small voice.

At this, Hemi finally looks back up at me.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.” And for some reason, I
believe him. “We may have to break this up into two or three
sessions, though. I don’t want to overwhelm you, and there’s quite
a few butterflies to do. Plus, ribs can be a little more tender and
tricky.”

“So you won’t do it all tonight?”

“I don’t think so. Let’s start with the shell
and one or two butterflies, and see how you’re doing. Then we can
go from there. We don’t want you in the chair too long. You can
make an appointment to come back another time to get the rest.”

See him again? Yes, please.

“Sounds good.”

Hemi pauses, with no grin on his lips and no
teasing in his eyes. This time they seem just…warm. “Are you always
this easy?”

Before I have to try to formulate some pithy
or flirtatious (or stupid) reply, Sarah speaks up for the first
time since I laid down. “Hell no! She’s stubborn as a mule.”

“So it’s just me then.” He stares at me for
several seconds before his grin returns. “Just easy for me. I like
that.”

The next thing I feel, aside from the
damnable heat in my face, is the cool swipe of an alcohol pad as
Hemi preps my skin for what’s to come. I barely notice the
moisture. All my attention is riveted to the warm hand resting
against my hip, holding me still. Keeping me steady.

CHAPTER TWO- Hemi

I try to ignore the soft, warm skin that
feels like satin under my palm. I try to ignore the way this girl
watches me, like she can see me taking her shorts off the rest of
the way. I try to ignore the fact that, if she
did
let me
take them off, I’d do things to her that would make her blush every
time she thought about them for the rest of her life. And I try to
ignore how much it irritates me that I don’t have time to explore
someone like her.

Since the ripe old age of fourteen, when I
nailed my first piece of cougar ass, I’ve always preferred
experienced women. The wilder the better. I’ve never taken a girl’s
virginity, nor do I want to. I want a woman who knows what she
wants and how to get it. And one who knows where the door is before
I get out of the bathroom. They’re the kind I’ve always sought out,
and the only kind I have room for in my life. And, until today,
they’re the only kind I’ve ever really been interested in. So what
is it about this girl, with her innocent, brown eyes and her
perfectly-formed ass, that’s making my dick throb so damn hard?

You need to get laid, brother!
I think
to myself, tracing the outline of an oyster shell on pale, flawless
skin.
And you need to do it fast.

For an instant, it makes me miss the selfish
prick that I’ve always been. Before I became so driven.

CHAPTER THREE- Sloane

“What time did you get in last night?” my
older brother, Sigmond (Sig, as we call him) asks.

“Late.”

“No shit, smart ass. I went to Cuff’s with
the boys after shift last night. I got in at almost one thirty and
you still weren’t here.”

“So? I’m twenty-one years old. I don’t owe
you an explanation.”

I watch Sig’s dark brown eyes, so much like
mine, widen. “Damn! Touchy, aren’t we? I didn’t mean anything by
it. I was just askin’.”

I sigh. “I know. I’m just tired. Sorry.”

Sig is only two years older than me and I’ve
always been closer to him than either of my other brothers, Scout
and Steven. Sig is the fun-loving one, and he’s never “fathered” me
quite as much as everyone else. Scout is bad, but Steven is the
worst. Being the oldest, he and Dad took it upon themselves to see
that I’m as protected and sheltered as a princess, and that I was
raised like a lady, even without one in the house. For that reason,
they keep a close eye on me, terrify my would-be friends and
suitors, and punish me every time I use the F word. That’s why my
only friend is Sarah, I’m still a virgin and my favorite word is
“frick.” It was either get used to that or spend my entire
childhood grounded. What the men in my house never understood was
that, lady or not, it’s hard to listen to four potty-mouthed cops
day in and day out and not pick up a potty mouth myself. But I
learned. Eventually.

“Hand me the creamer,” Sig says, nudging me
with his elbow. I rise up on my toes and reach into the cabinet to
get down the creamer. Sig turns, his gun holster grazing my hip. I
hiss, sucking in air through my teeth. “What was that for?”

“What was what for?”

“You made a noise. Like I hurt you.”

“Did not.”

“Did, too.”

“It’s nothing. Your holster just poked
me.”

Sig frowns, looking down at his holster and
over at my hip. When his eyes rise to mine, he narrows them on me.
“So what? That shouldn’t have hurt. Are you sore? Why are you
sore?”

I see concern light his eyes and I know
there’s no way I’m getting out of this without confessing to what I
did. Otherwise, he’ll have the whole family freaked out before I
can eat my breakfast.

“I got a tattoo,” I admit. When Sig opens his
mouth to fuss, I rush to continue before he can get out the first
word. “And I don’t need to hear any bitching about it. And you’d
better not tell a soul, or so help me God, I’ll tell Bear every
embarrassing secret I can think of.”

That gets his attention. Bear is Sig’s
partner. Sig knows he’d never hear the end of it if I told Bear
anything worth hearing. Giving a cop any information he can use to
rib, blackmail or otherwise embarrass the shit out of another cop
with is like handing him a loaded gun and a target. Sig knows this.
And so do I.

His lips thin and I know I’ve won. “You know,
Sloane, you really
should
be more careful.”

“I
am
careful, Sig. I’m always
careful. I’ve always
been
careful. This wasn’t
not
careful. It was just something I wanted to do. I want to enjoy the
next few years as much as I can—”

“Stop right there,” he says, holding up his
hand. “Don’t even finish that sentence. I don’t want to hear it.” I
snap my mouth shut. I should’ve known better than to say something
like that, dredging up painful thoughts and memories. Even though
it’s true. “Let me see it.”

“It’s still got plastic on it.”

“So? You think I can’t see through plastic
wrap?”

Reluctantly, I ease my pajama bottoms over
the film taped to my hip. Sig looks at it, a disapproving
expression clouding his face.

“An oyster shell and two butterflies? What
the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“That’s not all there is to it. That’s the
base of it. There will be more butterflies.”

“Where?”

“Going up my side.”

“Sloane,” he begins warningly.

“Sig,” I respond eyeing him right back. “It’s
my body, my life, my choice.”

“But you’re—”

“But nothing. Y’all have
got to
let me
live.”

He rolls his eyes. “You still haven’t
answered my question. What’s it mean?”

“I feel like I’ve lived inside a tight shell
my whole life. And now, finally, after all these years, I’m gonna
get to crack it open and spread my wings a little.”

“But you know why they—”

“I know why, Sig. And I love y’all for it.
But it’s time for me to live a little. To make my own choices and
do my own thing. Mom was Mom. But
I’m
me. Y’all can’t keep
me locked away, safe from the world, in a shell for the rest of my
days. Besides, there are some things you can’t protect me from, no
matter how hard you try.”

Sig doesn’t say anything for a long time.
“When are you getting the rest?”

“I go back tonight.”

“Well,” he says, stirring a heaping spoon
full of creamer into his coffee. “Just don’t let Dad catch you
coming in. Or Steven.”

“Yeah,” I say with a heavy sigh. “I’d
forgotten what a pisser it is having him around.”

“He probably won’t be here for long. I feel
sure coming back here is cramping his style. I mean, it’s not like
he really
chose
it. Things just didn’t work out with him and
Duncan. Mark my words, he’ll be moved back out before
Christmas.”

“You think?”

“Hell yeah! He’s already looking for places
cheap enough for him to make rent on his own.”

“Why don’t you go live with him? That would
help him out a lot.”

Sig’s eyes get wide and his mouth drops open.
“Bite your damn tongue, devil woman! I’d rather eat a plate full of
cat shit than live with Steven for the rest of my life.”

“It wouldn’t be for the rest of your life.
One of you is bound to get married eventually.”

“Living with Steven, without anyone else as a
buffer? Trust me, it might as well
be
the rest of my life.
It sure would
feel
like it.”

I can’t help but giggle. Poor Steven. He’s a
great guy, but he takes life very seriously and tends to be the
resident wet blanket in most cases. He takes after Dad. So does
Scout. Well, a little bit. He’s more of a split between both
parents, I guess, whereas Sig and I are both fun-loving. More like
Mom. But in fairness, Steven was older when Mom got sick, so he was
affected more profoundly. Not that we all weren’t devastated, but
he and Dad seemed to get the worst of it. Her sickness and
consequent death seemed to drain the life right out of them, at
least the part that makes people enjoy living.

“He’s had a tough life, Sig. Cut him some
slack.”

“You have, too.”

“We all have.”

“Yet no one uses it as an excuse to be an
asshole except Steven.”

“It’s just the way he deals, Sig.”

“Well, whatever the reason, I’ll be damned if
I’d subject myself to that shit on a daily basis for an extended
period of time. Growing up with him was bad enough.”

“Yeah, but he made a great target for pranks,
didn’t he?”

Sig looks down at me from his imposing
six-six height and grins. “Hell yeah, he did! You remember that
time we put laxatives in his birthday brownies?”