Wild for Him by Jill Sorenson Read Free Book Online Page B

can’t believe she chose him over me. I told her I still loved her. I even said I could forgive her for sleeping with him.”
    “She slept with him?”
    “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I think so. He wouldn’t tell me.”
    “That didn’t bother you?”
    “Fuck yeah it bothered me,” he said, snarling. “I just thought it was my fault, in a way. For leaving her.”
    “Did you tell her you might come back?”
    “Yeah. It didn’t matter.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, reading the pain on his face.
    “I should have reached out, like you said.”
    “I said it takes two,” she reminded him. “Helena’s not really in touch with her emotions, either.”
    “I liked that about her.”
    Gwen laughed, despite the seriousness of the conversation. “You liked it because she didn’t require you to open up.”
    He mulled this over, his brow furrowed.
    Gwen had contemplated the issue of compatibility before. She and Helena had a yin and yang thing going. Their different personalities balanced each other. Helena had the tendency to be closed off and anti-social. Gwen drew her out of shell.
    Mitch sort of hermited alongside her.
    Gwen wasn’t sure how to tell him that. She didn’t want to imply that his relationship with Helena been doomed from the start. “You guys were fine when everything was going well,” she said, choosing her words with caution. “But the true test of a relationship is how you weather the storms. If you don’t talk about your feelings or share new experiences, the bond between you can’t stay strong.”
    It was a direct hit, judging by his expression. And he didn’t like hearing it. “Sage advice,” he said, drowning his sorrows with more tequila. “I should get that tattooed somewhere so I never forget it.” He touched the straits of muscle along his ribcage. “Maybe here, in cursive. Isn’t that the place for life mottos?”
    She snatched the bottle from the table and downed the rest. He was being a sarcastic ass. It was kind of sexy. His body was sexy, too. She’d love to work on him. The rib cage was one of the more painful locations for the needle, but he was a big boy. He could handle it. She’d tattoo him anywhere he liked.
    “Do you have a rib tattoo?”
    She sucked in a surprised breath. “You don’t remember?”
    “Show it to me.”
    “You’ve seen it before.”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t look hard enough.”
    A red warning light flashed before her eyes, like a beating heart. The room seemed to pulse with heat. She rose to her feet and tossed the empty bottle in the trash, trying not to stumble. “If you want to see my work, you can make an appointment at the shop.” Hopefully it hadn’t burned to the ground.
    “Tell me about the ones on your arms.”
    When she sat down on the bed again, he moved from the chair and took a seat beside her. Something very inappropriate was happening between them. She should put a stop to it. She shouldn’t be alone with him. It was always a risk for a woman to entertain a man in a hotel room. He might try to get lucky.
    She might let him.
    “Are these Samoan tattoos?”
    “Just this one,” she said, indicating the dotted band on her left arm. “Traditional tatau is done with all-natural tools and ink. You can see the difference in color.”
    He nodded. “You do that in your shop?”
    “Oh, no. I mimic the style, not the method. Tatau is super painful. It’s more about the spiritual process than the end result.”
    “What about the others?”
    She had an eclectic mix of body art. Some words and images, some designs and geometric shapes. There was a bold, Japanese-style koi fish on her right arm and a red hibiscus flower on her left.
    “This is pretty,” he said, brushing his fingertips over the deep red petals.
    She shivered at his touch. “Thanks.”
    “You did the design?”
    “Yes.”
    “It looks sexual.”
    She’d always liked the strong femininity of the image. He was looking at her arm like he wanted to fuck