Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(34)

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Are you close to her?”

He dropped her eyes, taking another sip of his wine. “Yeah. We don’t have any other family around here.”

“Is she married? Any kids?”

“No. And no.” Colton looked up at her, his expression unreadable. His next question made it clear that he wanted the conversation to move on from Melody. “What else do you want?”

“I want to see one of your tattoos,” she said softly.

In the soft light cast by the twinkle lights overhead, he took his lower lip between his teeth and grinned at her, his eyes just about twinkling too.

“What if I told you they’re all in inappropriate places?”

She lowered her chin and leaned closer.

“I’d ask how many you have.”

“Three.”

She let her eyes dip to his lap, then slowly trail up the crisp white front of his dress shirt, pausing at his throat, again at his lips, and lingering on his eyes.

“I’d say you’re big, but I’m not sure there’s enough real estate on the inappropriate places for three tattoos.”

His grin widened. “You haven’t seen my inappropriate places, baby.”

She chuckled softly, shaking her head. “That’s true.”

A new current of awareness snapped and sizzled between them. Tension. Attraction. Want. Need.

Suddenly he stood up and stepped over the bench he’d been sitting on. He backed up until he was standing at the edge of the patio with his hands on his hips, facing her, in full view.

“You really want to see one?” he asked.

“I do.”

His hands slid from his hips to his belt buckle, which drew her eyes to his crotch. Behind the denim of his jeans, she thought she saw the outline of a fairly significant bulge, but it was hard to tell in the twilight shadows. Still . . . her mouth watered. He cleared his throat, and she jerked her eyes up to meet his.

“See anything you like?” he asked, his voice hot and low.

“Maybe,” she said, feeling her cheeks flush with heat. Lord, but he knew how to fluster her with a few words. “But if showing me a tattoo means taking off your belt, I’m not sure I’m ready to see it quite yet.”

Did she want him to make a move on her? Yes. The memory of his hot lips trailing across the sensitive skin of her throat and shoulders was recent enough to make her sigh. But was she ready to have sex? Her body would say yes . . . but her head knew that it would be smarter to wait a little longer. After all, if things went south between them, she was living with him. It would make things monumentally incredibly awkward while she looked for a new place.

Best tread carefully, Verity.

Holding her eyes, he nodded slowly before turning around and presenting her with a perfect view of his gorgeous ass.

You could bounce a quarter off that piece of heaven, she thought, cupping her chin in wonderment.

He peeked at her from behind his shoulder. “You ready?”

“For what?” she asked, smiling at him.

She half expected him to drop his pants, but instead he reached behind and grabbed two handfuls of his shirt, tugging the tail from his jeans. Pulling the shirt over his head, he left the arms on and held the bunched-up shirt in front of his face. His back was a sculpted work of art on its own, and her eyes hungrily traced the indent of his spine and the ripples of symmetrical muscle from the waistband of his jeans to his neck.

And there, on his upper back, from one shoulder to the other and centered between the blades was another tribal tattoo, as bold and black as the one on his foot . . . and strangely familiar to her.

When Verity was a little girl, her mother had shown her the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty, but unlike other little girls, who probably loved the scenes with the fairies and the princess, Verity had loved a scene at the end, starring Prince Phillip, in which he escapes from the Forbidden Mountain, riding his white steed to Aurora’s side. But Maleficent uses her staff to hurl lightning bolts at the castle, each bolt raising a thick, pitch-black vine of thorns. To get to Aurora, Phillip must hack his way through the thorns with his sword. And he does. And then he slays a dragon.

Staring at Colton’s tattoo, she suddenly knew where she’d seen it before: it looked exactly like Maleficent’s thorn vines, the sharp points deadly but beautiful across his tan, muscular back.

“Why did you choose it?” she asked.

He shrugged, turned around and let his shirt fall, but not before she got a quick glimpse at his equally muscular chest and abdomen. Now who was trying to kill whom? she wondered, resisting the urge to sigh.

“I know it’s a tribal design,” she said. “But to me, it looks like a vine of thorns.”

He sat back down at the table and reached for one pink rose. Lifting it to his nose, he breathed deeply before tearing off two thorns and handing it to her.

“Do you have a rose tattoo somewhere?” she asked, taking the flower from him.

“No,” he said, staring at her across the table. “I only have the thorns.”

His words were infused with double meaning, but she didn’t push him to explain. Lifting her glass to her lips, she finished the last of her wine.

“Thank you for dinner.”

“You’re welcome.” He picked up the box that had sat beside the flowers on the table all evening. He opened it and took out the necklace. “This is for you.”