September Secret - Dissonance - Drew Elyse

Logan

            I had been dying to leave work since lunch. When Eli walked into my office with an envelope that had my angel’s delicate script on the front, I was ready to check out for the day right then and there. There was a letter inside that simply read:

Logan,

I booked us a special date tonight.

Eli will program the address into your phone after work.

No cheating!

Love,

Charlotte

            No cheating. She knew me entirely too well. For most, that would just make the allure of sneaking a peak at the final destination that much stronger. But when Charlotte actually asked something of me, I did it. No questions asked.

            I’d sat at my desk all day, trying to keep focused. Instead, I was imagining what Charlotte could have in store for me. When those thoughts dissolved into fantasies of what I could do with her afterward, work had become a lost cause. I had finished everything that needed to get done that day, it was the best I could do.

            I barged into Eli’s office twenty minutes sooner than I should have, ready to demand he enter the damn address. He laughed at my entrance.

            “Leaving early?”

            “Well, it’s kind of fucking impossible to work while fighting off a hard-on.”

            The pen in his hand came barreling towards my head. “That’s my sister, you jackass!”

            “Sorry, man,” I told him seriously. I crossed a line, but it was true. The girl still drove me just as insane as the day we met.

            “Yeah, whatever asshole. You want your directions?” he answer drolly.

            I handed him my phone immediately, so far past ready to get out of here and figure out what Charlotte had in store for me.

*           *           *

            The last thing I expected was to end up at the front door of my tattoo parlor. I had been coming to Deluxe Ink since I was eighteen and getting the old gnarled tree on my back. Danny had the exclusive rights to my skin. No one else was getting anywhere near me. I was on his books in about a week to come in and get my newest piece.

            I had no idea what I was doing here, but I assumed Charlotte was getting another tattoo and wanted to share it with me. Whatever she could be getting on her gorgeous body as a surprise was sure to be the death of me.

            Inside, I found my girl stretched out on her back, the lush curve of her hip exposed, and Danny working away at the raw skin. As much as I wanted to barge over, push him out of my way, and get a good look at what my angel was adding to her collection of artwork. The three tattoos she already had drove my insane, not she was adding one in the sexiest spot yet.

            Danny noticed my approach, pulling away the tattoo gun as I pulled an empty stool up next to Charlotte. She hadn’t realized I was there yet. Her eyes were closed, and I could hear an Augustana song coming from the headphones she had on. I reached over to take her hand in mine. She startled, her eyes snapping open and her whole body going on alert. I hated to frighten her, even for a second, but the smile she graced me with when she realized who had touched her was enough the expunge the guilt.

            “Hi,” she greeted in that sweet voice of hers.

            “Hey, angel. So this is our date?”

            “Not what you expected?”

            Not at all, but with Charlotte, you had to expect the unexpected. “I certainly would not have guessed this.”

            Danny returns to work, and Charlotte hardly reacts to the needle working away at her delicate skin. She took a single deep breath and returned her attention to me. “I knew you had an appointment with Danny next week, so I called to see if he could take us both a little sooner.”

            I was listening, but my focus was on trying to steal a glance at the design past Danny’s arms. He smirked, making more of an effort to hide his work by adjusting the free hand he had resting on Charlotte’s stomach. I glared at him, but held my tongue. The last I wanted to do was piss the guy off before her started inking my back. I didn’t need to end up with something ridiculous permanently on my skin.

            Charlotte got my attention again, and I tried to focus on her for the next twenty or so minutes until Danny announced that he was finished. I was on my feet immediately like a small child about to open Christmas presents.

            When I moved around to the other side of the table and got a good look at the tattoo, I was dumbstruck. Never would I have expected to see what I did. There in muted colors was a pocket watch framed by small flowers. Scrolls above and below the watch read “We have forever.” Those words on such an intimate part of her body made me want to haul her the hell out the shop and get her alone. I wanted her back in our bed where I could stare at the tattoo until I could really believe she’d gotten it.

            She didn’t move despite the fact that I was staring at her like an idiot. She just watched me with a shy sort of hesitation in her eyes ad a tiny smile on her lips. “Do you like it?”

            Blinking out of my stupor, I cupped her lovely face in my hands and placed a less-than-gentle kiss to her lips. When she opened for me, I took full advantage. I poured my heart into the kiss, just as she had poured hers into that tattoo.

            “I love it, angel,” I told her seriously after I pulled away.

            I helped her off the table so she could go inspect it in the full length mirror. A shop assistant applied some ointment to the raw skin and bandaged it up. Meanwhile, Danny made quick work of preparing the transfer of the design I had already been in to draw up with him. I looked forward to seeing Charlotte’s face when she realized what I was getting.

            It took Danny a few minutes for Danny to get everything prepped for me, and I spent that entire time refusing Charlotte’s repeated requests to know what I was having done. She was persistent as always, but I refused to miss out on her surprise when she saw the complete design.

            Once he was ready to start my piece, I removed my shirt and lifted my left arm so that my ribs were open for him. He carefully lined up the stencil, and I watched Charlotte trying to get a glimpse from my other side. I checked out the placement in the mirror, giving Danny the go ahead.

            Positioning myself on the table Charlotte had just been on, it was impossible to keep the design hidden from her any longer. Her eyes went wide when she realized that we had been on the same page with our ideas. Danny had drawn an amazing antique clock face, like one from an old grandfather clock. The clock face faded away in one corner, and in its place was a simple script that read, “There is Still Time.”

            Those words had meant so much to Charlotte for so long. Now, they were a promise that I was making to her. The hurt she had known was the past, and we had plenty of time for me to spend making her happy.

            Her big, brown eyes were swimming with tears and she shook her head slightly in disbelief. I grabbed her hand, pulling her towards me until she lowered her head to mine.

            “I love you,” she said, my favorite fucking words on this earth.

            “Forever, angel.”

Here are the buy links for Dissonance:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/VKZl7o
Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/1tm0Rs3
iTunes: http://bit.ly/1tm0X2T
Kobo: http://bit.ly/Yw9hn4