A Perfect Ten (Forbidden Men #5)(107)

Oren snorted. “Too small.” He pointed at the woman to the right. “Too fake.” He hitched his chin toward the one on the left. Then he pointed at the one still exposing herself in the middle. “And too f*cking saggy. I mean, really. If you want to see a set of full perfect, natural breasts, you should see my girlfriend’s.” He whistled, long and loud. “Now hers are grade-A prime tatas.”

Quinn chose that moment to clear his throat and elbow Oren in the arm. Oren glanced at him. “What?”

Quinn pointed to us, and Oren swung our way. When his gaze met mine, his grin grew. “There,” he called. “Come here, baby.”

When I reached him, he grabbed my wrist and swung me around until I was facing the stunned ladies still gaping at him. Swooping his arms around me from behind, he cupped my breasts in both his hands. “Check this shit out.” His fingers kneaded me through my clothes. “Now this is perfection. Best breasts ever.”

While the three ladies gasped in stunned shock before scurrying away, I glanced over my shoulder at him only to wince at the potency of his breath.

“How much have you drunk already?”

His grin was a little glassy. “No idea, but we’re going to have fun catching you up with me.”





I swear, an eighteen-wheeler is what woke me the next morning, as it rammed its headlights straight into my skull and then backed up before slamming into it again.

I groaned and then winced from hearing my own too-loud voice. “Holy...f*ck.”

It’d been a while since I’d woken up with this kind of hangover. I lay on the sheets a second before I could be sure I was in one piece. Light from the crack in the window curtain continued to irritate my headache, but there was no way I was moving anytime soon to go slide it all the way closed.

“Oh my God,” a voice croaked from my left. “Why is there so much sand in the bed?”

I managed to roll my head that way and was eternally relieved to see Caroline beside me because I remembered nothing—not a f*cking thing—from the night before, except vague visions of dancing with her on the beach at some party with a bunch of strangers.

“From the amount of sand in my ass crack,” I slurred, “I’m going to go out on a limb and say we probably had sex on the beach.”

She whimpered and clutched her head before begging, “Please...make it stop.”

I was in no condition to get off the bed, but my woman was miserable, so I rolled until I fell off the side and landed in a heap on the floor. Cursing my sore muscles and pounding head, I grabbed the nightstand and used it to help me crawl to my feet. Naked and tangled in the sheets, Caroline watched me from blurry, bloodshot eyes.

“I got you,” I mumbled and scooped her up, more stumbling sideways to the bathroom than walking a straight line.

She slumped her cheek against my shoulder and clung to me in a weak, limp kind of way. Grateful there was a bench to sit on in our shower, I sat her down and started the water, making sure I had the right temperature before turning it on her.

Sighing in gratitude when the spray hit her, she cracked open her eyes and sent me a tired smile, only to frown at my arm. “What...?”

I looked down at whatever had caught her attention, shocked to see a patch of gauze taped to me. When I lifted my hand to the area, a familiar sting told me exactly what had happened.

“Ah...f*ck.” Fisting my hand and setting it against my pounding head, I cursed a little more before admitting, “I think I got another goddamn drunk tattoo.” I sent Caroline a weary cringe. “It never turns out well when I get a drunk tattoo.” The last time I’d gotten a football championship tattoo with Gam, we’d lost the game the next day.

I scurried out of the shower and went to the mirror to ease the bandage off my bicep. The word inked into my skin appeared backwards in the reflection, but I could still tell exactly what it said. As my mouth fell open with shock, Caroline called, “What is it?”

I just kept staring, not sure what to say. “Uh...it’s, um...”

“You didn’t get anything girly, like a heart, or rose, or butterfly, did you?”

“No...” I blinked at the tattoo. “It’s...actually a word.”

“Well, what does it say?”

“Nothing,” I was quick to answer. Too quick.

“Nothing?” she repeated. “As in, it literally says the word nothing? N-O-T-H-I-N-G?”

“Yep. It says nothing.”

“Why would you get a tattoo that said nothing?”

“Probably because I was stupid drunk. I don’t know. Why do we ever do anything? Why is the world round and rotates in a circle? Why does the sun come up in the morning and the moon out at night?”

“Okay, now you sound weird.” Caroline pulled open the shower door and opened her mouth, only to stop cold when I turned to her and she saw my tattoo for herself. Her eyes widened. “That’s my name.”

“Yeah...” I said slowly. I had her name embedded into my skin...with permanent ink.

I constantly ragged on Pick for tattooing his woman’s name onto his skin. I told him it was bad ju-ju. He’d end up losing her somehow—she’d leave, she’d die, she’d get dragged away by flying monkeys—and then he’d just be stuck with a bittersweet reminder of what he no longer had. And yet, here I was, copying the son of a bitch. He’d never let me live this down.