Margot Prinz is thirty-eight, divorced, and ten weeks away from making partner at the most discreet entertainment-tax firm in Los Angeles. She has color-coded calendars, a chocolate Lab named Pertti, and exactly one rule for her life: never again be the punchline.
Then she goes to Vegas for her best friend's bachelorette weekend, drinks two glasses of champagne, and marries one of her clients in a chapel off the Strip at one in the morning. The client is Beck Ramsay. The internet knows him as Hudson Wolfe. By Monday morning his face — and her wedding ring — is on every gossip site in the country.
tags: sex, explicitly steamy, sweet, tattoo au, trauma, is that a twist? <3
The Truth In Your Skin - 16
Darlin woke up slowly, no nightmares chasing them out of their sleep this time. That was happening more and more.
So was waking up to a heavy arm slung around them and David’s chest to their back.
Darlin would never have imagined themself as a little spoon before, but it was nice. Especially when they woke up first and started squirming their ass back against him…
They were in a hotel room, with the impossibly poofy covers and giant pillows.
It was the first time they’d gone away anywhere together and they were definitely a fan.
David’s arm tightened around them when he started to wake up. They smiled when other parts of him started waking up too.
He grumbled against the back of their neck. It sounded like a vague threat.
Darlin continued the slow roll of their hips, feeling him harden against their ass and giving them a clear target to grind against.
They felt his mouth pull into a smile against their shoulder, his chest rumbling with a slow laugh. His hand squeezed their side and then slid lower. “You’re a hazard to good sleep,” he mumbled into their skin.
They hummed agreement, but didn’t stop. “So…kick me out of bed,” Darlin suggested, knowing he never would.
David’s hand slid lower, over his tattoo on their side and lower still, gliding over their hip and thigh until he was palming them through their underwear.
Darlin’s breath caught and the rhythm of their hips stuttered.
He kissed the back of their neck, fully awake now. “What do you want to do today?” he asked, type A personality to the core.
Darlin grinned, closing their eyes and rocking their hips between his hand and his hard on. “I’m doing it…”
All of a sudden David had pushed the covers off of them and changed positions.
Darlin was on their back in the middle of that bed and David was sliding down between their thighs. They stretched out, looking down at him, and for the first time in a long time, able to look at their own body. He’d finished the cover up and they loved it, loved the way he’d used his style by softened the edges to match the work they’d already put on their skin. Everything on them flowed now, like one continuous piece. He was the part that connected theirs, making it all work. They were already talking about having him do the back of their thigh to wrap the work they’d done on the front years ago all the way around.
His mouth moved down their stomach, thick fingers dragging their underwear off.
They moaned, lifting their hips to help.
“I hear the spa upstairs has a pool on th-the roof,” they said conversationally, his tongue tracing a tattoo on their inner thigh.
He rumbled something close to agreement against. “I could do a pool.”
“You could do me in a pool…”
David grinned and turned the attention of his mouth from their thigh to their sex.
Darlin arched, head pressing back into the pillow. “Fuuuuck…”
-
Going out of town a night early to get a hotel stay in had been a great idea. David was immediately a huge fan of hockey.
They had at least four hours before their friends would start showing up.
He could think of a lot of things to do with four hours.
First he was going to make them come, then he was going to fuck them into this mattress until they got sound complaints.
Their hand slid into his hair, fingers spasming against the back of his head. He pressed a hand against their thigh to hold them in place when they started spasming.
Darlin was a livewire. His livewire.
Rain pattered the window.
It had been raining that first time they met–the day Darlin walked into his shop with their head down and hoodie up. His whole life had changed that day and he hadn’t even known it.
“Dav-Davey…” they gasped, writhing. “More…” It was almost a plea.
He moaned against them, using a hand as well as his mouth now. He teased a saliva-slick finger against them, and then pressed it in slowly–so slowly that their grip in his hair tightened and their sounds pitched. “Fuck! Yes… Just… fuck… more,” they whined.
He had to lift his head to get a look at them now, enjoying this level of frustration. “How much more, Darlin?”
They gasped air, body squeezing down on his finger. “Another.”
David smiled, kissing their thigh and moving the finger in and out a few times before adding a second. He watched them rock against him, spread out on that hotel bed in the glow of morning light. They mewled. “More… Davey…” They looked at him, their eyes dark with lust and a question.
His dick was already hard, but it ached at that look and the implication. They’d done plenty of stuff together but not quite that. Oral sex, hand stuff, and an incredible amount of grinding, but not this. “Really?”
Darlin shivered, their body clenching on his fingers involuntarily. “Unless you don’t want to?”
David groaned, moving his fingers in and out. He nudged his chin up toward the bedside table. “Grab the lube and a condom.”
Darlin shivered, taking seconds longer to compute his words than usual. They looked up, toward the table and the bag there. Darlin had to stretch for it, but he never stopped pumping his fingers, the added movement actually making his partner whine and shiver. They swore when they finally gave up and just tossed the bag at him.
He pulled the bottle out and uncapped it, adding that extra slick to his fingers and still working them in and out.
Darlin’s whining sharpened. “Fuck! I-I meant… I want you…” they tried to string words.
He smiled, purposely not understanding now. Adding a third finger to stretch them.
They gasped, arching.
“This is me,” he pointed out.
They whined, legs twitching. “You know what I mean…”
“Do I?” he asked, still fingering them.
Darlin clicked their teeth. “You. I want you. I want your cock inside of me. I want you to pound me into this fucking mattress.”
His rhythm stuttered, his dick jumping at the words and the image conjured. “Shit…” He took his fingers out of them and was quick to get out of his underwear, using the same hand to stroke himself when he moved up the bed a little. He flicked the metal bar pierced into the sensitive skin at his base, making himself shiver a little.
They were gorgeous, stretched out with that crisp white sheet for a background to contrast all that ink on their skin. His ink there too. He rocked their hips together, grinding against them. “You sure?” he asked, mostly teasing but also checking in.
Their whine was almost a snarl. “If you think you’re going to make me beg again…”
David had already torn open the condom packet and slid the latex on before they were done threatening him. He spread their thighs, tipping their hips to see their hole. Fuck. He pushed the head of his cock in, hissing at the tight hug. He pushed deeper. Deeper.
They moaned loudly, arms up to grab at the headboard.
He wanted to make them even louder.
He pushed all the way in, bottomed out and bent over them. For long seconds they stayed like that, pressed together as deep as he could get, watching their eyes roll back and kissing the fluttering moans off their lips.
They squeezed him, hips flexing, trying to move but pinned.
He drew his back and slammed down testingly.
Their eyes opened wide, a moan heaving from their chest like they couldn’t stop it.
He did it again, and again, building a pace and hoping they got a fucking sound complaint.
They came around him, body spasming out of control, and he followed.
“You feel so fucking good…” he panted into their neck.
They groaned, shuddering under him. “Your piercing…” they started, still catching their breath.
He raised an eyebrow, worried for a second.
“Good. Really good,” they said. “When you push all the way, it flicks…” they struggled to explain, too blissed out.
David kissed them. It definitely wasn’t going to be hard to burn a few hours together before the rest of the group arrived…
-
“Asher’s on his way,” Sweetheart called from the mainroom.
Milo was at his station, gloves on and his last client of the day in the chair. “Ten minutes,” he called back.
The guy, Michael, smiled. “Am I making you late for something? I can come back,” he offered.
Milo smiled and shook his head, opening the sterile packed needle for the piercing. “Not at all, man. This won’t take long.” The client even brought his own piece for the piercing. He had enough ink to suggest he wouldn’t be squeemish about it.
“Kind of early to be closed on a Saturday,” he mused. “Vacation?”
Milo swabbed the spot they’d agreed on on his lip. “I guess. We’re going to the hockey game. The drive is a little over an hour but we’re making a day out of it.”
Michael nodded.
The lip piercing went smooth, the metal ring he came with looped to the right side of his lip.
The bell on the shop door chimed and he heard Asher and Sweets talking in the other room. Asher wanted to get snacks for the drive.
Milo handed the guy a mirror to check it out.
“Perfect,” the client smiled.
Milo smiled back, but it felt forced. He wasn’t sure why. The guy was nice. Maybe he was stressed about making everyone wait?
He waved off Milo walking him to the cash register and paid in cash right there, leaving a heavy tip. “Thanks for getting it done for me. Have a great time at the game,” the client said.
Milo thanked him, told him something similar, but still walked him out.
He wasn’t sure why.
Asher was cleaning up his station to get them going faster, talking about how he was starving to death the whole way.
Sweets locked the door and flicked off the front lights.
Milo looked at the cash in his hand. He could just pocket it. He usually would. Instead he hit the button on the register and crammed it into the drawer, like he didn’t want it.
“You okay?” Sweets asked, eyebrow raised.
Milo scratched his head but nodded. “Yeah.” He huffed a laugh. “Yeah.”
“He’s probably hungry,” Asher prompted from the other room. “Let’s fucking GO!”
Milo rolled his eyes but grabbed his jacket. “I’m driving.”
“The fuck you are…” Sweetheart argued holding up his keys.
Milo laughed for real this time and snagged his keys from them. “You always end up in an argument with Ash and trying to turn around in your seat. So let’s just skip the part where you’re in the driver’s seat this time!”
-
He walked around the building to the back, tonguing that new piercing in his lip.
He opened the door and headed upstairs to the apartments. It looked like it might rain.
It was pouring the night they met–not a little rain but the whole sky just bearing down on the world like they might all drown.
In a way, they had. He had.
And if he was drowning…well, he had never been going to go down alone.
When they met, they already had so many friends in common that it was like they’d met before. He’d seen their grin first, gleaming teeth and that snug piercing on one side. They were dripping wet from the storm like they’d just jumped into a pool. Once inside the tattoo parlor, they stripped off their hoodie and wrung it out–their shirt went next with zero shits given to flashing all that skin.
They had been a walking, laughing middle-finger to the world back then.
Quinn had never wanted anyone or anything more in his life.
But he’d let himself get comfortable in their relationship. It was passionate, volatile, and perfect. And then Misfit had fucked it up. They’d ruined everything good the two of them had going on. But he’d had a couple years to think about it. To really think about everything he should have done.
It hadn’t occurred to him back then that his Misfit would actually press charges. The two of them fought–it was what they did. It was their fault for pushing it so far that time.
It didn’t take long to pick the lock on the apartment door.
No one was home to turn a deadbolt or add a chain.
He walked in and closed the door.
He took off his shoes and hung up his jacket, noting one of theirs here.
He walked around the living room, looking at the couch, picking out where he thought his Misfit would sit. They weren’t the same now, he knew that. He’d broken them that night. He’d used his teeth to rip away their smile.
Quinn flicked his tongue against his new piercing–thier piercing. It had always been his though, hadn’t it? How many times had he kissed it? Licked it? Nibbled it? It was inevitable that he’d bite one day. They only had themselves to blame.
He walked into the kitchen and perused the cupboards and the fridge. He put a frozen pizza on the counter and set the oven to preheat.
He made his way down the narrow hall, poking his head in the rooms.
He found what he thought was the roommate’s room. Smaller and looking like no one had been there in a while.
The bathroom was tidy.
And the other room…
He dragged the covers off the bed slowly, like he’d unveil something, his mind wandering.
Quinn knelt on the mattress and leaned forward, hands to the sheets, sliding up like he’d be able to find exactly where their skin had been on this bed. He leaned down and breathed in the bedding, looking for them and hating how easy it was to find them still, even after years alone.
They had broken something in him too, and it had taken those years to figure out how to fix it, but he knew now. He knew what to do.
Maren Vass is a New York food critic with a tongue sharp enough to end careers and a private grief sharp enough to end her own. When she files one review too many — and the magazine kills her column — her editor offers her a way back: go to Il Respiro, a discreet Tuscan wellness retreat that may not be a wellness retreat at all, and bring back the kind of exposé that ruins lives.
She books in under her mother's maiden name. She does not plan on enjoying herself. She does not plan on Dante Orsini — the retreat's founder, an ex-sommelier with a quiet voice and a fifteen-year-old sin he has never stopped paying for. She does not plan on the body she abandoned four years ago waking back up at his table. She does not plan on the night in the kitchen, alone, when she finally eats.
Ty and Cassie lose themselves in the coolest places around the globe. But even when you’re the hottest Insta couple on the net, the sparkle can dull, and the greatest adventures become rote. Relationships are work, and sometimes you forget what matters.
Until…
—
Told by Ty and Cassie themselves in words and audio. Click the link and listen to Ty tell you why Cassie became his whole world. Seven steamy, fast-paced episodes…
