Beyond Control(3)

Ace wheeled his stool closer and studied her bare abdomen for a moment before flicking his dark gaze up to meet hers. "Lex, honey. You're the light of my life, so I ask this with love. Are you f*cking high?"

O'Kane for life. Dallas's words, and they hadn't stopped reverberating in her head for three goddamn days. "Just showing my dedication to the cause."

"Uh-huh." Ace folded his tattooed arms across his chest. "And what cause is that, sister? Giving our fearless leader some sort of cardiac event?"

"Why would it do that? It's not a mark." Though it'd serve him right if she went ahead and had Ace wrap the ink around her throat for all to see. "Call it a tribute."

"A tribute." Ace huffed and smoothed his thumb over her belly button. "You're asking me to ink Dallas O'Kane's name into your flesh without his knowledge. May not be a mark, but it's still some kind of ballsy."

She'd rather chew off her tongue than discuss her reasons--her highly f*cking personal reasons--with anyone, even Ace. "You don't want to? Okay." She sat up on the table. "I can think of three guys right off the top of my head who'd probably do it for free, anyway."

He stared at her, his handsome face slightly less appealing with his mouth hanging open. "You're f*cking serious, aren't you?"

She opened her mouth to say yes, but what came out instead skirted uncomfortably close to confession. "He's been threatening me with it long enough. I can't go a damn day around here without him reminding me that he owns me, so I think it's time I reminded him."

Ace's brow furrowed in a frown. "Threatening you?"

Not quite the right word. "Warning me, maybe. Just give me the ink, Ace."

As careless and vapid as he could be at times, there was nothing shallow in his eyes now, just affection and concern and a steely sort of resolve. "I don't lay marks on women who don't want them, Alexa, not even for Dallas. Tell me this is all your own idea. Swear to me."

He couldn't help the concern, as misplaced as it was. She sighed and laid her hand on his cheek. "You're sweet, but you know I wouldn't let him strong-arm me into this. I'd strangle him with his own belt first."

"Maybe you would, at that, doll." He caught her hand and laid a smacking kiss on her knuckles. "But you owe me for threatening to let someone else defile one of my canvases with inferior work."

"Great, now I'm an inanimate object." Lex pushed her pants low again and lay back, pillowing her head on her arm. "You know I'd never actually let anyone else near me with a needle."

"I should hope not." Ace studied her for another moment before spinning his stool to rummage around on the table behind him. "Fine, girl. Did you have any ideas about the particulars, or are you going to let me do my thing?"

"I want his name. The rest is up to you."

"Which name?"

Lex stilled. Oh, it was tempting to take things all the way, to write his given name on her skin. But there was a difference, subtle but certain, between belonging to Dallas and belonging to Declan. One was simple, a role she should have already taken on officially. The other...

The other was forever.

"Dallas," she whispered.

"Dallas, it is." Ace rolled back to her side with a fistful of pens and markers. "So. Dare I ask what the lug did to piss you off this time? Seems like he's been too busy to get in trouble."

"He always finds the time." She tugged at a short, dark lock of hair that curled over Ace's ear. "What about you? You've been hiding out lately."

"Busy, love. That's all." He uncapped a pen and frowned. "Nope, the angle's wrong. Hop into the chair so I can make myself comfy between your thighs."

Ace's flirting was far more forced than his usual casual overtures. Lex arched an eyebrow at him as she slid off the table and shimmied out of her pants. "You're trying to change the subject."

"There's a subject more interesting than your thighs?"

"Hard to believe, but yes."

Ace swung around to tilt the chair back, then situated himself on the rolling stool between her knees. "You missed a show in here yesterday, sister. I laid the last of Noelle and Jasper's marks."

Lex curled her fingers around the leather armrests. "How did you pry them apart long enough to finish the tattoos?"

"It was damn near an act of God, I'll tell you that." His pen tickled her skin with the first slow stroke. "Not that I mind the show. But why am I telling you? You know how hot they are together."

"If you like the idea, you should try it again for real." Lex licked her lower lip. "Noelle's getting so bold. She doesn't even whisper anymore when she asks Jas to hold me down and f*ck me."

"Fuck me, Lex." Ace glared at her from under the rakish fall of his hair. "You trying to get my hands shaking? I'm making art, here."

"You deserve a little teasing now and then."

"I suppose I do." He edged the lace of her panties down and continued his sketching. "Oh well, we'll all get a show in a couple nights. How's the party planning coming along?"

"Fine." Everything exactly the way Jasper and Noelle wanted it, a fitting celebration to the beginning of their life together. "You bringing a date?"

"And deny everyone their chance at me? That would be selfish."

"Uh-huh. You're not nearly as convincing as you think you are, you know. At least, not to me."

Ace tried to scowl at her, but the expression didn't fit his face. By the time he capped the marker and reached for one with a finer tip, the corners of his mouth were curving up again. "Didn't there used to be a saying about glass houses? I always wondered about that, to be honest. Was life really so easy before the storms that people lived in glass houses?"

"It's a metaphor, honey. About hypocrisy." She winked at him. "Not that I would know anything about that."

"Mmm." He bent over her abdomen, his brow furrowed with concentration as the narrow tip of the pen glided over her skin. "Don't throw stones, Lex. I'm busy building your glass house."

That was one thing she'd always liked about Ace--he didn't judge, but you sure the hell couldn't put one over on him. "You really think it's a mistake?"

He shrugged. "Depends on what you're trying to accomplish, doesn't it?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe...I want to show Dallas that he should be careful what he wishes for."

Ace pursed his lips and said nothing.

Fine. "Maybe I want to show myself, too. Fair enough?"

"I think it'll be educational all around." He flashed her a wicked grin. "And, sister? Between your body and my art? It's going to be f*cking fantastic."

Educational, he'd called it, and she suspected he was right. Dallas would lose his shit, of course--good or bad, that much was a certainty, not a possibility. Either way, things would change.

They had to change.

Lex leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "Here's hoping."



"Oh, Lex."

At least Noelle was laughing. Lex cocked her hip and studied her healing skin in the full-length mirror. "Don't sound so scandalized. It's just a tattoo."

Noelle rested her chin on Lex's shoulder, her gaze fixed on the mirror. Dallas's name stretched between Lex's hipbones in elegant, intricate calligraphy, the swirls and flourishes melting into thorny vines. Tiny rosebuds nestled amongst the sharp points, some caught on the edge of bloom but most still tightly furled.

"It's beautiful," Noelle said, her voice thick with amusement. "And clearly Ace's work. The thorns are so real, you'd think you could prick yourself on one."

"So it meets with your approval?"

"I didn't say that."

Lex turned and eyed the fresh ink winding across Noelle's throat and collarbones. "It's not something settled," she murmured. "Not like yours. But it's a push, one he can take however he wants."

"Mmm." Noelle's fingers drifted up to brush her new tattoo, almost as if she couldn't help the gesture. "Did you guys have another fight? I heard you went out the night of the blackout."

"I had something to unload." Lex eased by her and dropped to the bed. The little orange kitten curled on a pillow mewled his protest at being jarred, and she soothed him by stroking one fingertip in a tiny zigzag between his ears.

"To sell, you mean." Noelle tilted her head. "Something from your closet?"

"No, something new." She told Noelle about the deal, and about the solar converter she'd nicked from a loudmouthed drug dealer from Sector Three. "I figure Walt needs it more than that *. But I had to sneak around because I don't want Dallas to know, especially that I was in Three alone."