LITMIR.BIZ

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eyelashes were speckled with watery pearls. His black hair drooped in long, damp tendrils over his cheeks. Joy’s dress was completely drenched as she ran a hand from his neck to his belly button, admiring that tiny detail. We did that.

      She picked up a bar of soap and began lathering it in her hands. Ink watched the bubbles form with kittenlike interest. The foam turned pink and gray and blue.

      “Feel this,” she said and spread a smear of soapy bubbles over his chest. Ink gasped and stepped back awkwardly, contained in the narrow tub. Joy held on to his wrist, his skin sliding against hers. She squeezed, slipping her fingers over his long muscles, massaging his arm. He stared, fascinated. She watched him feeling every inch of the new sensation. Joy pushed soap up to his shoulder. Froth cascaded down his back. Ink held on to the wall and exhaled with a hitch in his breath.

      Joy smiled, spreading her slick hands over his chest, fingers swimming through the suds, rubbing slow circles, washing the paint from his skin. The foam turned red and purple and yellow and green. Joy wiped away the colors and cupped her hands under the showerhead, splashing his front, trickling clean.

      Ink touched a hand to his chest, splayed fingers wide. There was a flicker in his throat, and his eyes brimmed full of mist and stars.

      “Again, please.”

      Smiling, she did. Running the soap through her fingers, she kissed him as she slid her hands over his back. His spine arched toward her, and he held on to her shoulders, kissing and gasping with one shared breath. She tugged him under the spray—now hotter—rinsing him off as she squeezed her eyes shut, her hair a dark curtain running all over her face. She squeezed past him, letting the shower hit Ink full in the chest. His head tipped back, and his arms loosened as his eyes slipped closed. She turned him around by the shoulders so that his back was to her. Water slid off his wallet chain. His signatura flashed in the dark. Joy touched the ouroboros under the water, watching the dragon-swallowing-its-tail circle spin, wondering if his mark was sensitive to temperature and emotion like Inq’s. Like hers?

      She smoothed her palms over his shoulders and up the sides of his neck, thumbs pushing into his hairline. She smiled, hearing him sigh.

      His head lolled forward, and he flattened his hands against the wall, warm water coursing down the back of his head. A tiny stream ran down the length of his spine, bisecting the ouroboros and her circle of soap. Joy traced it with her fingers and pushed the heels of her hands into the muscles of his back. He steadied himself and murmured, a sound crisp and clean through the splash; although she didn’t understand the words, she got the meaning loud and clear.

      Pushing her knuckles into his lower back, she kneaded upward and inched her thumbs slowly up either side of his spine. Ink arched again, lifting his head and turning to face her. His hair was drenched flat. His eyes were cavernous. Joy had the odd thought that he looked taller when wet. She stopped moving, her heartbeat loud in her ears, wondering what, exactly, would happen next.

      Ink slowly took the soap from her hand. Running it smoothly between his palms, he gazed at her, unblinking. Soapy bubbles dripped down his forearms, off his elbows, and hit the floor. His voice was a sort of whisper.

      “Now you.”

      He took her wrist and slid his thumbs up the inside of her forearm, squeezing gently as he soaped her to the elbow. Joy’s mouth opened, trying to catch enough breath, hot and misty and clean on her tongue. He cupped her shoulder, pushing the bubbles down her collarbone, suds dripping along the scooped neckline of her dress. His fingertips followed, drawing long, slow circles, working off smears of orange, blue and black. Joy’s eyes fluttered under his strong hands. One of his palms rested over her heart, fingers spread across her breastbone, his pinkie slipping under the shoulder strap of her bra. Joy’s pulse thudded in her chest, a thick beat through the foam. Ink’s hand slid up her neck, behind her ears. Her eyes opened as he brushed a dab of paint from her cheek.

      He looked into her eyes for a long moment, breathing.

      Joy reached over her shoulder and pressed his fingers to the tiny metal pull at the back of her neck. Ink pinched it in his finger and thumb. He watched her face, mesmerized, as he slowly unzipped her dress.

      She felt his hands slide over her bare back, and she made a small sound in her throat. He pushed the heels of his hands into the muscles above her hips, kneading upward as she had, running his thumbs along either side of her spine. Joy arched into him, meeting tongues and lips and wanting. He was following her every motion, mimicking her lead, and it was driving her crazy.

      “Ink,” she said, almost dizzy with heat.

      He slid her body against his. She gasped in his mouth.

      “Joy,” he said.

      Kissing him deeply, Joy pulled her arms through the straps and let the sodden weight of the dress hit the drain.

      She shrieked as the water turned ice cold. Ink plastered himself against the wall, gaping in shock. Joy twisted out of the bathtub and yanked the water off. Wrapping a towel around her shivering shoulders, she saw the last twinkles of a spell fade.

      “Take the hint,” Stef’s voice said through the crack in the door. “And chill out.”

      Joy’s teeth chattered. She was shaking, mortified.

      Ink and his boots were already gone.

       FOUR

      JOY JUMPED OUT of bed and tripped over the soggy pile of clothes. Picking up her shoes, she sighed. The multicolored scuffs on the heels looked deep, and she wondered if it was even worth trying to salvage the dress. She ran a hand over the smears of paint and smiled despite herself. She’d dreamed of lilies, dancing, feathers and fire. And Ink. So much Ink.

      She reminded herself to punch Stef in the face.

      After stuffing the dress into her trash bin, she tossed her shoes into the closet, pulled her hair into a ponytail and changed for work. The summer was almost over and then her hours at Nordstrom Rack would be cut in half. Dad was right—she should be thinking about colleges or work or what she wanted to do after her senior year, since she obviously wouldn’t be training with a private gymnastics coach in Australia come next July. She couldn’t say that she wanted to travel around the world with her boyfriend—not only did that sound bad, it wasn’t entirely true. She unwound her finger from the twist in her shirt and smoothed out the wrinkles. What do you do when your lifelong dreams change?

      Joy wandered into the kitchen with a head full of thoughts. Stef was still snoring in his room. She debated waking him with a glassful of ice water, but Dad was already at the table, so her best-served-cold revenge would have to be served sometime later.

      “Morning,” she said sleepily.

      Dad looked up from his laptop. “Morning,” he said. “I didn’t hear you come home last night.”

      “It was late,” she said as she poured herself some cereal and sliced a banana into the bowl.

      “I didn’t realize funerals ran late on Monday nights.” Her father tried to sound nonchalant but only got as far as “parentally concerned” with a dash of “gently warning his daughter that he’d noticed the time.”

      “Yeah, well,” Joy said, fishing the milk out of the fridge. “This wasn’t your average funeral.” Massive understatement. “And Ink and I went out afterward.” Massive understatement squared. She grabbed a spoon and sat down, quite pleased with her almost-deceptions. She was getting better at this. Maybe it ran in the genes.

      “Well, we’ve got two days to pack, load up and head out to Lake James,” he said around his last mouthful of eggs. Joy saw that the buttered toast was absent. Twelve more pounds to goal weight—he kept a total on the fridge. “We have

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