Dirty Filthy Fix: A Fixed Trilogy Novella (Fixed #5.5)(20)
“Wow. I know nothing about that kind of work. What was it like?” Was it as awesome as I assumed?
“Amazing. Glamorous. It was a job that took me around the world. I saw a lot of things, met a lot of people. It was a really crazy, fascinating time in my life.”
“Then how the hell did Donovan Kincaid convince you to give that up and come work in an office behind a desk?” His life before Reach sounded so exciting, so thrilling. Exactly the kind of thing I would be into in another time and place. I couldn’t understand why he’d want to trade the world, a life of travel and prestige, for something so stifling—a nine-to-five at a desk trying to please clients and sell customers with his team’s ads.
“It’s definitely not as exciting,” Nate admitted. “But it’s a hell of a lot more legal.”
I gasped. “You dealt in stolen art?” I didn’t know if I was appalled or turned on. Both? It was so nervy. So outrageous. So adventurous.
“A lot of it was stolen, yeah.” He looked down at his wine, a bit ashamed, maybe. Or maybe he didn’t want me to see how unashamed he was. “It was a lot of fun. But high stress. When Donovan approached me, I was about to turn forty. I figured it was time to settle down, so to speak. Not that I’m completely settled,” he corrected. “I still travel a lot. Still grab waves whenever I have the chance to surf. Love my bike. Still deal a piece of art here and there. Legal art, these days. Of course.”
“Nathan Sinclair, you might be the sexiest man I’ve ever met. And I have met a lot of sexy men.”
He found my knee under the table, and he pushed his hand higher, up under my skirt to my bare thigh. “Does that mean I can come home with you? Because I really, really want to fuck the hell out of you right now.”
And it was stupid, and it was not what I’d intended for the evening at all, but I answered in exactly the same way I had the last time he’d asked. “Okay.”
Chapter Seven
“So the waves are because you like surfing. And the koi, because you were in Japan when you got the tattoo.” I took another bite of bacon, then fed a bite to Nate. We were eating breakfast in my bed the next morning. We’d effectively spent sixteen hours together now—a record date for me—and I wasn’t ready for it to end anytime soon. It was the weirdest sensation—wanting Nate in my space, not minding that he was here. But being conscious of it all the same.
It was still my space. My apartment. I was the one who’d made us a breakfast of bacon and pancakes, and fresh fruit I’d picked up from the market. I didn’t feel comfortable with him going through my cupboards or my drawers. I still had to take deep breaths when I thought about the fact that I’d let him stay all night in my bed.
“Yeah, I got the arm tattoo in Japan with Cade—he’s one of the guys that owns Reach,” Nate said, feeding me a bite of cantaloupe. “I was there helping him and Donovan set up the office when the company first started. Sold a couple of pieces while I was there too. Legal pieces, of course.”
“Of course,” I chuckled. I crossed my legs and finished off the bacon. Nate was sprawled out in front of me and I was sitting up, the plate of food balanced on his torso.
I traced the pinwheel symbol on his chest. “And what does this one mean?”
“That’s a stylized version of a spider’s web,” he said.
“Why did you get that?” I was eager to learn more about him, even though just a few days ago I’d sworn that off. I couldn’t help it. I needed to know him—he was a drug and I needed another fix.
He chuckled. “For one thing, if it was a normal spider web, people would assume I’d done time. But I like what it stands for. Spiders are amazing. It takes a lot of wisdom to be able to spin a web as strong and useful as they do, and the result is often a genuine work of art. Cultures from the Celtic to Hopi to West African have religious stories featuring spiders and webs as a metaphor for spinning your fate. So it stands for creativity and wisdom, in other words.”
I ran my index finger down each of the six spokes. “And you got it because you wanted to be wise and creative? Or because you are wise and creative?” It was so fascinating why people chose to be imprinted with symbols. I loved tattoos, but I didn’t have any on my own body, because I could never decide what I wanted to be marked with forever. What if I changed my mind? What if the thing I loved today wasn’t the thing I loved tomorrow? Or next week? Or next year?
“I hope I’m wise and creative,” he said, his eyebrows raised, fishing for compliments. “But I got it when I was much younger, when I was about twenty-two or so. And then I wanted to be wise. I didn’t feel like I was back then. I’d made a lot of bad decisions. My parents agreed. I’d blown off college, I was heading nowhere. I loved art but I wasn’t good enough to sell any of my own pieces. And I just wanted something to remind me that I was the master of my own fate. Maybe I could be like a spider, weaving wisely and creatively. I could find my place in the world, the way they do.”
“Those nasty little creatures.” I was teasing him. I actually thought what he had to say was pretty honest and amazing. “So it’s like a Post-it note. A memo to yourself, but on your body? I like that.”
“I like you.” He looked at me like he was memorizing me. Like maybe he was tattooing me on his brain.