Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (44 page)

“Alright,” Florian said, and maybe I was imagining it but his voice felt like it was deeper, darker, huskier. I turned around and found him intently focused on the drafting table and his artwork. Okay, okay, so I really was imagining it. “Come over here and just stand like you normally would, don't do anything special.”

I turned around and moved over to him, my feet cold on the bare wood floor as I paused next to my stepbrother and watched his expression as he looked up at me – or rather at my … crotch. He turned in his chair and reached out, taking hold of the strings on my right hip. I felt dizzy, this close to him, dressed in so little. It would take a split second for him to lift me up and set me on the table, undo his pants, and slide into me.

Holy crap.

Flor's fingers tugged roughly on the strings and the knot came undone, the top corner of the bikini falling forward as I gasped and dropped my hand to keep the rest of it from sliding away. I knew I was breathing hard. Hell, I could hear my own breaths echoing in the tiny room, could feel the sweat forming on my lower back, between my thighs. The hand that held my bikini bottoms in place was shaking, just a little but enough that I knew Flor could tell.

If he did, at least he had the decency to pretend not to. I looked up at the ceiling as he leaned back and grabbed some blue tape, taping the bikini in place so that a good majority of my hip was exposed. Feeling his fingers press the tape into place nearly undid me completely. I had to bite my lower lip and keep my gaze focused on the mural above his head. If I'd looked down at him in that moment, I might've grabbed his hair with my left hand and pulled his head back, kissed him and hoped to God that he kissed me back.

But I wasn't that brave, unfortunately.

“Okay, now don't get your panties in a bunch over this,” he said and then chuckled, the sound worming its way into my skull and taking hold there. “Not that it doesn't look like they're already in one.” I would've smacked him playfully, but that would've required touching him and I wasn't capable of doing that right now. “But I have to shave you. There are fine hairs all over the body, even one as smooth as yours.”
As smooth as yours.
Was that something a stepbrother should say to his stepsister? Since Flor was the only stepbrother I knew, I had no clue.

He sat back and I finally took a chance, glancing down at him as he snapped black latex gloves over his tattooed hands and pulled out a disposable razor from a nearby drawer. The scrape of the blade against my skin seemed loud and I prayed inside my head that Flor would turn on music when he got to work. I didn't think I could sit there in silence with him and not scream.

When he was done shaving me, Florian grabbed a small plastic tub and opened the lid, switching out his gloves for a new pair. For all his faults, Flor was a professional and he knew what he was doing. I waited with a thumping heart while he dug out some of the clear cream and then reached up to my hip, sliding his fingers along my skin as I crackled and burned inside. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, not because I was sad, but because the sensations were almost too much to bear. Florian's hands were too much, the heat of his breath against my skin was too much, the smell of his hair, the hardness of his muscles, the color of his eyes … ugh. My stepbrother was a never ending set of stimuli for me.

When he finished, giving no indication that touching me was affecting him quite so much as it was me, he pressed the tracing paper to my hip and pushed it flush, running his hand over and over and over it.

Torture. Sheer torture. What was I thinking? I couldn't go through with this. We'd just started and already, I was swollen and desperate downstairs, panting like I'd just run a marathon and shaking like a leaf.

“Relax, Abi,” Florian told me, peeling the paper back and tossing it into the silver trashcan near his chair. “Hell, you're even making me nervous.” Flor pushed his chair back and stood up, tilting his head to the side and focusing on my hip. “Looks just about perfect to me. Why don't you take a peek and tell me what you think of the placement. Don't be afraid to adjust it. This is permanent, so make sure you're happy with it.” He took off his gloves again and stepped back, giving me room to move to the mirror on the back of the door.

I stared at myself, pupils dilated, lips parted and moist, the mocha color of my skin shining bronze under the lights from above. I didn't look half bad, I guessed. And the stag? It might seem weird to put a deer on your hip, but it was perfect. It was Flor. It was me. In a way, it was us.

This is symbolic, Abigail,
I told myself, turning side to side as I examined the lines of my future tattoo and avoided meeting Flor's gaze in the reflection.
You and him, together, forever, but in a way that's safe, in a way that nobody has to get hurt.

I took a deep breath and jumped in feet first.

“Let's do this.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The first prick made my eyes water, but I kept my focus on Flor's hand as he moved the needle across my skin with an expert's touch, starting with the darkness of the sky behind the stag. For a few minutes there, I wondered how I was going to make it through several hours of this but slowly, the pain started to fade away, turning into a numb buzzing sensation, like someone was drawing on my skin with a vibrating ballpoint pen.

I watched him work, let himself get drawn into that artistic zone that I'd never understood but had always wanted so desperately to attain. I was too logical, too analytical, to get there and really
create.
I blamed it on my dad; sharp logic and undeniable reason were at the basis of his DNA.

“How are you feeling, Abs?” Flor asked me after a while, silence reigning down around us like king. I wanted to make conversation, carry on the friendship routine we'd been practicing for the last few months, but the closeness of the room, the nearness of his skin, the fact that he was
literally
marking me, none of that made it easy.

Last time, Abigail,
I told myself, vowing to make a clean break after this. If I couldn't be around Florian without losing my mind, then maybe I shouldn't be around him at all. It was hard to even think about that with him sitting so close to me.

“Fine,” I said, which was only half true. The physical discomfort I could deal with no problem; it was the emotional discomfort that was getting to me. “You?” He looked up at me and raised his eyebrow, the one with all the piercings in it. Three silver balls sat above the dark curve of his brow and only one below. I had no idea how he got them in there like that; was it just one piercing or three? I'd never had the courage to ask.

“You're asking me when you're the one getting your first ink?” He snorted and I felt my lips turn down at the corners.

“I was only asking because when you came back from smoking, it seemed like you were having a
really
good time.” The words came out sharper than I intended them to and I cringed. Flor sat back and put a hand on my belly, like he was trying to hold me in place. If he hadn't been wearing gloves, I might've melted from the touch.

“Hold still,” he barked and then, narrowing his eyes at me asked, “and what the fuck do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” I said, hating that I'd even brought this up, trying to look away and failing. His eyes were just too damn perfect, too astute, too sharp. “If you're going to hook up with one of your groupies between breaks, at least hide the evidence.” I stared at his brightly colored hickey for emphasis and watched as he reached a black gloved hand up and wiped it away. Flor stared at the smudge of pastel pink on his fingers and then shrugged, sitting back and laying his machine on a silver tray next to his chair. He peeled off the gloves and stood up.

“I started dating that girl you met last week,” he mumbled, like it was no big deal. My heart turned to ice, just like it always did when Florian got a girlfriend. Actual girlfriends, not just fuck buddies were few and far between. He was only twenty-one, but the idea of him settling down and having kids with someone made me feel ill. I was not ready to be an aunt to the children of my biggest crush.

“The drag queen?” I asked and he snorted again, grabbing one of the blue medical wipes he used to clear away the ink and blood while he was tattooing. I watched as he stared at his reflection and methodically wiped his throat clean. “The one with the big hair and the orange and pink flower?”

“That's the one,” he said, like he didn't give a shit about how I felt. Maybe he had no clue?
This is definitely it. Time to make a clean break. He's got a girlfriend and you've got Dorian. One date in and you can already tell he's a nice guy. Plus, Addi vouches for him. That has to count for something, right?

“She was cute, I guess,” I mumbled under my breath, leaning back and wondering what sort of nastiness my stepbrother might've gotten to in the past week with this girl. All these little touches he was giving me, inadvertently turning me from ice to liquid magma and back again, and I was sure she'd probably had dozens. In fact, I was certain of it. Florian didn't hold back, didn't save those beautiful eyes and that gorgeous body for any one person, at least not for extended periods of time.

I still hate you,
I thought miserably while I waited for him to come back to the chair and start again. Yet again, he grabbed a new pair of gloves and started up the needle with a faint buzzing sound that I actually found relaxing.
Better than talking to you, you asshole.

“What about you? Anymore dates with Mr. Nice Guy?” Flor leaned in and focused all of his attention on the needle burrowing into my skin, wiping my hip every couple of seconds or so to clear the ink away. “Planning on losing your virginity to him?”

I swallowed hard.

“I'm not a virgin, Flor.” The words came out in a whisper, like I was ashamed of that fact. I wasn't, but it didn't make it any easier to tell him about it. He seriously stopped tattooing, pulling the needle back and lifting his face up to mine. It was frustratingly unreadable and I found myself regretting the admission almost as soon as I'd uttered it. “What?” I asked, trying to play the offensive. “It's not like you are either.” And
that
I knew for a fact. I'd
seen
Florian having sex with girls. More than once, actually, and the memories were burned into my brain.

“Huh.”

That's it, all he said. He put the needle back to my skin and I yelped. I swear, it felt like he was pressing harder that time.

“Chin up, little sister,” he said, lifting his black gloved hand and tapping me under the chin. Even though his cocky, self-assured smile and the glint in those sharp as pine needles green eyes of his should've pissed me off, they didn't. I felt my body make another coup in an attempt to subvert my brain.
He's such a slut, I could probably have him if I wanted, at least for one night.
I blushed and looked away. “Just a few more hours to go,” he whispered, like he was already chomping at the bit to be finished with the whole fiasco.

More time passed though I'm not sure how much; Florian didn't turn on any music nor did he speak to me. I started to wonder if I'd made a terrible mistake in coming here.

“How long ago?” he asked suddenly, breaking the silence. It took me a while to piece together what he meant and then I found myself blushing again.

Six months ago, just after my eighteenth birthday.

“None of your business,” I blurted, not wanting to tell him I'd only been with one guy and only a handful of times. Oh, and that I'd slept with his best friend and business partner. “Why do you care anyway?”

“Because I want to find the guy that deflowered by baby sister and beat the ever living shit out of him.”

I groaned.

“Would you stop it with the big brother act? You are
not
my brother, Florian.”

“Our parents are in love and they've been together for over a decade. What the hell does that mean?” he snapped back at me, sounding almost like he was trying to convince himself more than he was me. I stared at his dark hair, tousled and beautiful and oh so sexy. He'd always used to dye the very tips, sport red or blue or purple hair; it drove my dad nuts. As soon as he'd graduated high school though, he'd let it go back to its natural black and it'd stayed that way.

“It means that I don't have to tell you anything about my sex life, just like I don't want to know anything about yours.”

“Whatever,” he snorted back at me. I tried to sneak my phone out of my pocket, so I could text Addi to come rescue me when he started talking again. “I'm going out of town next week. Can you take care of my cat?”

Not exactly the heart pumping, coma inducing string of lust riddled words I wanted so desperately for him to spout at me.

“Where are you going?” I asked and he snorted, yet again.

“I thought your business wasn't my business and vice versa? Can you take care of the cat or not?” I glared at the top of his head, hating how luxurious and thick his hair was, how good it smelled.

“Six months,” I admitted and then took a deep breath that almost perfectly synched up with one of his. “Where are you going?”

“I've got a tattoo invitational up in Portland,” he said and just as I was about to release the breath I was holding, he added, “I'm taking Rhonda.”

“Rhonda? The drag queen's name is Rhonda?”

“Oh, I can assure you, this is no dude in a dress.”

I squinched up my face and closed my eyes. Okay, yes, this was a mistake. A big one. Huge. Of gargantuan proportions.
I hate you,
I thought again.

“Fine, I'll take care of your stupid cat.”

Florian wrinkled up his brow but said nothing.

We suffered the rest of the evening in silence and small talk until he finally sat back, rubbed his arm across his sweaty forehead and announced, “I'm done.”

He helped me up and out of the chair and although I pretended not to care that his fingers on my arm burned like fire, I was trembling by the time I stood up. Or maybe that was because of the tattoo. I'd like to believe that instead.