When their bodies calmed, Nick shifted, but Becca grasped at his hip. “Don’t leave yet.”
“Don’t want to crush you,” he said, kissing her temple.
“I like the feeling of you on top of me.”
Nick chuffed out a small laugh. “Keep talking like that, and I’m gonna get hard again.”
Becca smiled. “I wouldn’t complain.”
His head resting against hers, Nick sighed. Contentment. Such a foreign feeling. And yet he found it in Becca’s arms. And had, from the very beginning, even when he’d been too stubborn and too proud to see everything that she was.
And that was the moment Nick knew what he was doing during Becca’s first day back to work. He wanted her in his life. He wanted that life to start now. Hell, to start yesterday. And he wanted it to be forever.
And that meant he needed a ring. The rightness of the idea settled bone-deep inside him. As much as anyone, he knew how life could change in a single unexpected instant. No way did he want to wait even a second more for their future to start.
“Nick?” she said, pulling him from the plans taking shape in his head.
“Yeah?”
“Will you do something for me tonight?”
He finally shifted off her, his body settling alongside hers so he could look at her while they talked. “You can always assume the answer to that will be yes, Sunshine,” he said, brushing her hair back off her face.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d like you to give me a tattoo tonight,” she said, bright blue eyes looking up at him with so much warmth.
The request sent his heart beating a little faster. Nick was half owner of Hard Ink Tattoo, though he’d only been working as a tattoo artist on a part-time basis since he’d been discharged from the Army. “You know I’ve been dying to put my ink on you,” he said with a smile.
She grinned. “Well, now’s your chance.” She pointed toward the drawer on the nightstand. “I printed something out to give you an idea.”
Nick couldn’t move fast enough. After all the times they’d talked about what she’d want if she ever got a tattoo, and after all the times he’d drawn on her body with skin markers just to put his mark on her—even if only temporarily—he couldn’t wait to see what she’d finally decided she wanted on her skin. Forever. He sat on the edge of the bed and unfolded the sheet while Becca knelt behind him, her front pressed tight to his back, her arms wrapped around his stomach.
It was three intertwined cursive words.
Only. Always. Forever.
“Fuck, Sunshine,” Nick said, remembering the night he’d shown her the tattoo he’d gotten on his forearm for her and she’d written the word YOURS over her heart with a marker. That had set off a raw, urgent lovemaking that had included them writing words of claiming and love and intention all over each other.
Only. Always. Forever.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think it’s perfect,” Nick said, staring at the page. Damn if his throat didn’t get a little tight at the thought that she wanted to put their words on her body. “Do you know where you want it?”
She kissed the side of his neck and her breath caressed his ear. “On my right shoulder.”
Nodding, Nick could already picture it—and it made him even more certain about what he needed to do today. “It’ll look beautiful there, Becca.” He shifted to the side so he could wrap her in his arms. “You make me fall in love with you a little more every day. You know that?”
“I think that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Her kiss was slow and sweet and lingering. “I don’t want to, but I should get moving.”
“I know,” Nick said, standing and giving her a hand off the bed. He watched her walk into the bathroom, his mind back on his plan for the day. Because he was giving her more than a tattoo tonight. And he couldn’t fucking wait.
CHAPTER 2
A few blocks away from the hospital, the nerves Becca had been shoving down all morning finally pushed through. Ridiculous to be nervous about returning to a place where she’d worked for years. But she was. Because the last time she’d been there, a man named Tyrell Woodson had grabbed her from behind, jabbed a knife into her ribs, and tried to abduct her from the staff lounge. Only her struggling—getting cut in the process—and Nick arriving, well, in the nick of time, had saved her from God only knew what horrible fate.
Even worse? The man had gotten away and tried to grab her again, though the team had caught him that time and made sure he wouldn’t be a problem anymore. So Becca shouldn’t be nervous. She shouldn’t be worrying. And she certainly didn’t want to let on to Nick that she was.
They caught the red light a block away from the hospital’s downtown Baltimore campus, and Nick turned to her from the driver’s seat. “I’ll pick you up at seven, and then we can grab some dinner and head down to Hard Ink.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said with a smile, looking forward so much to finally getting a tattoo—from Nick. He brought their joined hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. God, she loved this man. He’d insisted on driving her. Truth be told, she hadn’t minded the extra time with him. It was going to be weird to go back to work in the emergency department after all these months off. All the people at Hard Ink had come to feel like her family now in addition to her brother, Charlie, who was in a relationship with Nick’s younger brother, Jeremy. She was going to miss seeing them all the time.
Moments later, Nick pulled the car over to the curb in front of the hospital. “Have a great day, Sunshine,” he said, leaning over the center console. His kisses made her want to stay. “Be safe.”
“I will,” she said, ignoring the butterflies in her belly. It really was ridiculous. “Miss you already.” And then she was pushing out of the car and crossing the wide sidewalk plaza in front of the hospital’s tall glass entrance. She’d purposely arrived close to the beginning of her shift so that she wouldn’t have much time before she’d be busy, which she knew would be the perfect cure for her nerves.