Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Olivia debated how to go about it for half a second and then went to her knees in front of him. There were faint red tracks down his chest that had bled through his shirt, and his hair was matted on the one side. “Hold still.” She ran the washcloth down his arm, figuring that was safe enough to start with. She bit her lip. She was sure she could feel the heat of his skin through the warm cloth. I’m imagining things.
What she wasn’t imagining was how he tensed again the second she touched him. She froze. “Are you sure I’m not hurting you?”
He huffed out a laugh. “It’s got nothing to do with hurt, sweetheart, and a whole lot to do with pleasure.” Then he turned those dark eyes on her, and her breath caught in her throat. It didn’t matter that he was walking wounded or that she wasn’t even sure she liked this guy. He seemed to reach out and run his hands over her body without moving a single muscle. She tried to hold back a shiver and failed miserably. If he could do that with a look, what could he do if he actually touched her?
Oh, right. You already know exactly what he can do if he touches you.
Bad idea. Really, really bad idea.
It took far too much effort to break his gaze and go back to what she was doing. In an effort to distract herself, she said, “Tell me about your tattoos.”
For a second, she thought he might not do it, but he sighed. “What you see is what you get.”
Somehow, she doubted it. She focused on the ones wrapping his forearms. They were both pinups—an angel and a devil—but the angel was posed more like a porn star and the devil was downright demure. It made her smile despite everything. Things were rarely what they seemed to be, a truth that he apparently held as tightly as she did. Both women were framed by roses but, again, they weren’t what she would have expected. They were the traditional colors—red for devil and white for angel—but the white roses were framed by deadly looking thorns, and the red were filled to the brim with green vines that were so lifelike, she reached out to run her finger along one.
The feeling of skin against skin, even so innocent a touch, was almost too much. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d casually touched someone who wasn’t Hadley. It had to have been Sergei, and that was more than a year ago. A whole year.
That had to be the reason she was reacting so strongly to this O’Malley. The reason she’d thrown caution to the wind and actually had sex with him. The reason she was having a seriously difficult time taking her hands off him.
Focus.
Right. Focus.
She took her hand back and went to work on his side. The tattoo there was massive, stretching from his shoulder over his chest and down his side to disappear into the band of his slacks. She paused. “A dragon.” It was wrapped around a naked woman, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell if it was protecting the woman or about to take a chunk out of her.
“Have you ever heard the story of Saint George?”
She glanced at him. “I’m not Catholic.” The Romanov family was Eastern Orthodox, but she’d never been required to attend the Divine Liturgy and she hadn’t felt the lack at all. What kind of church took money from people who were known criminals? A confession shouldn’t be enough to absolve certain crimes. But as long as the funds kept flowing, no one said a single word. It was hypocrisy in the worst form as far as she was concerned.
“Saint George was a soldier for some Roman emperor or another, and was a pretty badass warrior. He decided that he didn’t like the way the emperor was killing off every Christian he could get his hands on, so he told him so to his face.”
She moved up his body to his chest, which held the head of the dragon—right next to a scar of what had to be a bullet wound. The scar didn’t distort the tattoo, but it butted right up against the back of the dragon’s head. “What happened?”
“Oh, he died. Torture and beheading.”
She blinked. Didn’t expect that. “Oh.”
“Most of the saints went out in gruesome ways. Sometimes I wonder if it actually got them any extra cosmic points or if it was all for nothing.” He gave himself a little shake. “But Saint George is my patron saint. Traditionally, the art depicting him shows him facing down a dragon to save a damsel in distress.”
Olivia leaned back. There was no warrior in sight. “So where is he?”
“Not on me.” He grinned unexpectedly. “See, the dragon typically represents the wickedness of the world, and I happen to be a big fan of wickedness—or at least I used to be. He’s made up of the seven deadly sins.”