Free The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos) by Scarlett Cole Page A

this?” she asked, looking over to him as he made his way toward the bedroom with her cases.
    He put them down by the door and wandered over, coming to a stop behind her. He placed his hands upon her hips. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he looked at the drawing. “Yeah, this is one of mine. These are my babies. I want to design and make one-of-a-kind custom bikes. The repairs and stuff that I do here are only one part of what the garage does.”
    Lia ran her fingers along the pencil sketch, the artist in her admiring the stylistic lines and balance in the drawing. “This is really amazing. I had no idea.”
    “Yeah, well, I used to do this full time at a garage back in Chicago, only there it was my job to build them. Now I’m just building my reputation as a solo designer
and
builder.”
    He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his lips to the side of her neck, a move that sent shivers along her arms, standing the little hairs on end. “Is there something to be read into the fact that you sounded melancholy when you said that?”
    “Possibly, Red. But that really isn’t something I want to talk about tonight.”
    Lia sighed. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said, turning to face him and wrapping her arms around his neck.
    Kenny leaned in and studied her lips closely. “How attached are you to that lipstick?”
    “If you’re asking me how much I like my Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick in
pirate
red, then I’d have to answer
very.
But if you are asking if you can remove it from my lips with yours without buying me dinner first, the answer is unequivocally yes.”
    * * *
    That was the only invitation Reid needed. He pressed his lips to Lia’s and kissed her in the way he had dreamed about last night. Hard. Needy. And who the fuck cared if it was a tiny bit desperate? The only thing he fully understood in that moment was that he wanted her and she wanted him to have her. It was the only thing that mattered as his hands reached for the small buttons that ran up her side.
    Lia tightened her arms around his neck and ran her fingertips up into his hair, scratching his scalp gently with one hand and tugging on his hair with the other. Her mouth opened against his, and he used it to his advantage, running his tongue against hers. Maybe it was just his imagination, or her obsession with all things red, but he could swear she tasted of strawberries and sunshine and everything that was good. For the rest of the night, though, he was going to show her just how bad she could be.
    The tiny little buttons were painful to open—his large fingers struggled to get them through the small holes—but he didn’t want to break their kiss to be able to see what he was doing.
    Lia laughed a little, and he put his hands on either side of her face to lean away from her.
    “Something funny, Red?” he asked, surprised by the huskiness of his own voice.
    She looked up at him flirtatiously from under long dark lashes. “Not unless you count the fact the buttons are just for decoration, and there’s a zipper running down my back.” Making a feeble effort to hide her grin, she leaned back into him and kissed him again.
    “Fuck,” he cursed, reaching around her to lower the zipper slowly.
Should have spent more time checking out the back of her dress than her ass.
    “Better?” she asked.
    “Much,” he said, setting his hands on her shoulders. He stepped back a little and enjoyed the front-row view of his fingertips as they drifted lazily along the smooth skin of her neck, shoulders, and arms until the dress dropped to her waist.
    She was wearing a sexy-as-fuck strapless black corset, the kind he’d seen on vintage models like Bettie Page. If she was wearing high-waisted panties, too, he was gonna lose his ever-loving shit, because he loved that
tease me
look, rather than tiny thongs and bras that gave it all away.
    Lia reached up and pulled the orchids from her hair, one at a time. The sun was starting to set, casting