Free Pure Lust (Lust for Life) by Jayne Kingston Page B

make
them all go away.” Lin kicked off her sandals and folded her legs on the seat.
“Now tell me about his bod. Is it as amazing naked as I think it is?”
    Claire crossed her legs at the ankle and forced herself to
not look at her crotch, which suddenly felt as if it was glowing as red hot as
an electric stove burner on high.
    “I think he has a tattoo on his back. A big one.”
    “You only think?”
    “I was kind of in front of him the whole time he
was…shirtless.”
    “And you didn’t think to ask to see it?”
    She grinned. “I kind of didn’t care about the tattoo at the
time.”
    Lin curled her lip. “Yeah, but what if it’s something awful,
like he was an Insane Clown Posse fan at some point in his misguided youth or
something? Would you really want to be seen with him at the beach?”
    “I doubt we’re going to make it to a beach in the next week
and a half.”
    “You never know, the man did set the dating bar pretty high
when he took you to Chicago. I think anything less than the Caribbean next time
would be a letdown.”
    “Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen so I don’t have to
follow him around covering his misguided choices with a towel to save face.”
    “I’m sure whatever it is, it’s hot as hell. Now answer my
question.”
    Claire sipped her wine to wet her suddenly dry mouth,
remembering.
    “Amazing is an understatement,” she answered after a minute.
    “I knew it.” Lin sighed dreamily and looked off into the
distance. “When are you going to call him again?”
    “Is the moment you leave too desperate?”
    Lin looked back at her. “Not when you’re on such a short time
limit. And not when he made you look all loose and relaxed and glow-y.”
    She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept so soundly.”
    “Well.” Lin raised her eyebrows and her glass. “Then you
should definitely call him immediately, if not sooner.”
    * * * * *
    “Does that thing ever stop going off?” Jamie asked, pulling
on a pair of disposable gloves and rolling his work stool close to Diego, who
was straddling a chair with his back to his brother. “It’s lit up ten times in
the last fifteen minutes.”
    Diego pushed the ignore call button and tossed it onto his
folded t-shirt, sitting on a chair across the small room in Lust for Life, the
tattoo and body piercing shop Jamie owned with their friends Oscar and Leo.
    “What can I say? I’m a popular guy.” He winced when there
was cold spray on his back. “Fuck, that’s cold. A heads-up would have been
great, little brother.”
    Jamie chuckled as he wiped off the soapy water he was using
to prep Diego’s skin so he could add onto the family tree tattoo that took up
most of the space on his back. Six months ago Diego had sat in his chair to add
Oscar’s name to Eva’s branch of the tree after Oscar and Eva got married. Now
he was adding little Olive’s name as well.
    It didn’t matter how many times Diego sat in Jamie’s chair,
he got him with that damn cold water every time. Some would argue Jamie owed
him several times over for the pranks Diego had pulled on the second oldest of
his siblings over the years. Maybe they would even be right, but Diego
considered it his duty as the oldest to torture his brothers and sisters on a
semi-regular basis.
    “Jesus, do you put that in the freezer before you work on
me, or what?” he asked, flinching when Jamie sprayed him again.
    “You might be back here to add more names sooner than you
think.” Jamie said, ignoring the question. “Leni and I started the adoption
process.”
    “I thought the two of you were going to wait a couple of
years for kids.”
    Jamie’s wife Leni wasn’t able to have children. They’d been
weighing their options about what path they wanted to take to start their
family since they got back from their honeymoon. They’d been considering using
a surrogate so their children would at least be Jamie’s biologically, but Diego
had had a feeling they would choose