A JINGLING sound wakes me in the middle of the night, followed by a thundering boom. I sit up in Rory’s bed, half-asleep.
My phone’s ringing. I squint at the screen. Hayden’s contact photo lights it up, and I answer.
“Hayden?” I rasp, confused. “What’s going on?” “Can you open the door?”
“Don’t wake her up,” Rory says in the background, and my head clears a little more.
“I’m at Rory’s.” The booming noise sounds again. Someone’s pounding on the door.
“I know.” Hayden chuckles. “I have a surprise for you.”
A moment later, I open Rory’s front door. His arm is around Hayden’s shoulder and he takes one look at me, wearing his t-shirt with bare legs, and his eyes light up.
“Hi, baby.” His words slur and his grin stretches wider.
Hayden gives me an entertained, expectant look as he ushers Rory into the apartment. “This belongs to you. He couldn’t figure out which key to use.”
“Hazel.” Rory grins down at me, unsteady on his feet.
I take one look at his red, bleary eyes, and burst out laughing. “Oh, wow. You have fun tonight, honey?”
The endearment slips out, but it feels right.
“Yep.” His grin broadens as he wraps his arm around my waist. “You get into any trouble?” I pat his stomach and he flinches.
Hayden snorts, and Rory slides a glance at me, still grinning. Mischief sparks in his eyes.
“Alright,” Hayden says, lifting a hand and backing toward the elevator. “I’m off.”
“Thanks for getting him home safe,” I call as I close the door, laughing because Rory’s snuffling my neck, kissing me. “Let’s get you to bed, and then I’ll grab you some water and electrolytes—”
He bends down and hauls me over his shoulder. “Rory,” I laugh, upside down. “Put me down.”
He slaps me on the ass before his teeth scrape my hip. “No.”
I deliver my own smack to his butt, still laughing and hanging upside down as he walks.
“You’re so pretty,” he murmurs, hand smoothing over the back of my thigh as he carries me down the hall. “I like you so much and you smell so good and I like it when you’re mean to me.”
I roll my eyes at him but my heart feels like it’s sparkling. “You’re drunk.”
“Uh-huh.” In the bedroom, he sets me on my feet before pressing a line of kisses down my neck. “And I also like you so much. More than anyone.” His hands come to my jaw, framing my face, and he gazes down at me with his full attention, looking adorably serious. “I like you and I love you.”
God dammit, he’s so lovely to look at. It’s not just that he’s handsome. It’s that he took care of me and decorated the apartment for Christmas and makes me laugh, and that I actually enjoy every moment with him.
He’s also really fucking handsome.
“I like you more than anyone, too,” I whisper. And I love him. “You should get into bed.”
He wrenches his shirt off and my eyes go wide. I’m suddenly very, very awake.
“Rory,” I warn, staring at the fresh tattoo covered in clear plastic wrap on his ribcage. “What the fuck is that?”
He sighs happily, smiling down at me. “It’s you.”
It’s a dragon. I blink at the black lines stretching over his ridged muscles and swallow. Alarm bells ring in my head but he takes my face in his hands, smiling down at me.
“Because you’re my tiny fire-breathing dragon,” he murmurs. “Mine.”
I clap my hands over my mouth, still staring at it in shock. The tattoo stretches up the length of his side. Emotions swirl inside me—disbelief and panic, and cutting through those like a hot knife, elation. Hopefulness.
Fuck.
I love that Rory likes me so much that he drunkenly got a tattoo for me, and that is so, so fucked up.
Mine. That’s what he said about me. That I’m his. My heart stumbles. “You need to get it removed. This is unhinged.”
His grin is back. “That’s how I feel about you, Hartley. Unhinged. I’m not getting it removed.”
Oh god. This is real. This is so fucking real. “Everyone’s going to see.”
His laugh is high and amused as he tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “So let them see.”
It’s not the worst tattoo I’ve ever seen, but it’s not the best, either. It looks like a drunken middle-of-the-night tattoo.
“Hazel.” My eyes lift to his, and worry rises in his gaze. “Do you hate
it?”
“No,” I breathe.
I’m falling for him and he got a dragon tattoo for me. I’m so in over my
head it’s not even funny, but a laugh bubbles out of me anyway. Rory arches an eyebrow, flipping between confusion and amusement at my reaction.
I shake my head at him. “You’re insane. Why did you do this?” “You know why.”
My heart races, and all the feelings growing inside me thrash for attention as he watches me with that velvet-soft gaze.
He’s drunk, and maybe tomorrow, he’ll regret all of this, but even I can’t ignore the evidence of the past few weeks. Holding these walls up all the time is exhausting.
I think back to Pippa’s engagement party, where I wondered what it was like to be everything to someone.
It’s not as scary as I thought it would be.
I want to tell him I love him. He’s given me everything, and I don’t want to hold it in anymore.
“I’m not scared,” he whispers, “and I’m not going anywhere.” “I don’t know what to do with you.”
A tattoo. A fucking tattoo.
His fingers come beneath my chin and he tips my face up. “Keep me.”
How could I not, knowing how kind and funny and sweet and special he is? I kept him at arm’s length for as long as I could, but he never gave up.
He’s my safe place to land, and when the time is right and he’s sober enough to remember, I’ll tell him.
