Page 42 of Blame it on the Kiss
“Need a hint?” he goaded.
When pigs flew. She repeated the word to herself. Think, Honor. Given the suffix, the word referred to some kind of person. That left only a fewhundredchoices. Maybe thousands.
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. She opened her eyes to find him waggling his eyebrows.Well?his expression said.
“Snollygoster,” she mumbled.
Bryce laughed. “Oh, I can be trusted on this. You think I’d try and cheat my way to winning? No way. Give up?”
“I actually know this one,” Ryder said.
Honor swung her head to look at him. She’d been staring at Bryce and paying zero attention to her tattoo artist for so long her neck kinked. “Ow.” She rubbed her nape. Her gaze dropped from Ryder’s face to her wrist. He’d just finished the tattoo.
Faith
“All done,” Ryder said. He wiped the tattoo with some kind of soap, and then applied a thin coat of anti-bacterial ointment.
“I’m done,” she quietly gushed.
Bryce stood and cupped the back of her neck, pushing her fingers aside to massage the painful spot. “Congratulations. You did it.”
She stared up at him and emotion clogged the back of her throat. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“The only thing I did was take your mind off it.”
She reached up and took his hand, pressed her lips to his warm skin. “You win.”
“I think we’ll call this one a draw,” he said, nodding toward her new tattoo.
Ryder wrapped her wrist in a plastic wrap bandage and fixed it in place with medical tape. “You can remove this in four to six hours,” he said. “Now to ecdysiast.”
“Okay, lay it on me,” Honor said.
The two men exchanged a quick glance. “Stripper,” they said in unison. Ryder put up his fist for a tap before wheeling his stool away.
She’d never heard a more enthusiastic declaration. Bryce bent his head down until his mouth brushed her ear. “How about you be my ecdysiast later tonight?”
Her pulse went into overdrive. “You have a pole?” she whispered back, making sure to skim her lips along the smooth skin of his jaw.
“You know how to use one?” He bit her ear lobe. The sting vibrated through her, settling at the tips of her breasts.
“I’m very good at putting a rod between my legs.”
He groaned and pulled back just enough for her to see an intense flare of heat in his eyes. “Think I’ll skip my tattoo and take you home with me right now.” He stepped away from her chair to talk to Ryder.
“There’s no rush,” she called once his announcement sank in. The flirting she could handle. Being alone with him at his place after the orgasm he’d given her the other night was a whole other story.
She couldn’t make up her mind what do with him.
That wasn’t exactly true. It terrified her what she wanted to do—to be—with him. But he deserved better than a girl who had no implicit trust in relationships. Bryce was an all or nothing guy, and she only gave pieces of herself.
“Speak for yourself,” he called back.
“We’re already here. You should get inked while we’re here.” Brilliant response, Honor. Like he was clueless about his whereabouts.
He ignored her, spoke with and paid Ryder, and had a hand on her lower back to escort her out of the shop thirty seconds later. His hands were weapons. Weapons of mass persuasion. With every touch her body craved to comply with anything and everything he suggested.
The sun had long ago set and a sliver of moon hung in the dark sky. Bryce opened the car door for her before getting into his own seat.
