Pierce pops off the champagne bottle cork, and lets the froth spill off the edge of the balcony.
“There could be someone down there, you know.”
“Oh, there probably is.” He peers over. “Yup, there’s people down there.”
I go to the balcony, and look over. The line to his club is right below us. Some people are looking up now. They put their palms out, checking if it’s raining.
I hold back a laugh, and say to Pierce, “It’s like you can’t help but to be a prick.”
“That’s called charm, Pen.”
He pours me a glass and hands it to me.
“You drink much?” he asks.
“No. And I don’t need babying,” I tell him, frowning. “It’s just a glass of champagne.”
He shrugs. “So, what are you in Melbourne for?”
“How do you know I’m in Melbourne for anything?”
“You’re American. You’re here for a reason.”
I lick my lips. “I’m here to do an apprenticeship.”
“So you’re not yet a tattoo artist.”
“No, not technically. I’m here to train to be one.”
“You like tattoos?”
“I like the art, the meaning. I like the idea of people wearing their skin as an expression of themselves.”
“Are you any good?”
“Yeah,” I say, grinning. I take a liberal sip from my glass. It actually tastes far better than I thought it would. It’s my first time having champagne. I don’t know the brand, but Veuve Clicquot sounds pretty fancy.
“I think I’m pretty talented. I’m not being stuck-up or anything, just that I know how to analyze my own talent. I’ve spent a lot of time studying drawing technique and all that.”
“So, what, you opening your own shop?”
“No, it doesn’t work like that. I’ve got to apprentice for an established artist, first. They need to vouch for me to get my license. Then I can open my own shop.”
“When do you start?”
“I’ve got an interview tomorrow,” I say.
“Think you’ll get it?”
“I hope so.”
He grins. “What did you think of my tattoos?”
“I didn’t notice them,” I lie.
“Bullshit. Let me tell you something.”
He gestures at me to sit in one of the expensive-looking chairs on the balcony. I do, and he sits after.
“Tell me what?”
“When I first step into the cage, I instantly notice certain things.”
“Like fighting is similar to art. Please.”
“Fighting is an art, Pen. I notice whether he’s a lefty or a righty. I notice which leg he puts his weight on. I notice if he’s strong in the thighs, or strong in the calves.”
“How can you even tell that?”
“The way he stands. Is he putting his weight on the balls of his feet – which suggests calf strength, which means he can change direction quickly – or does he rest more on his heels? That suggests he’s got upper-leg strength. He can push, bully, kick.”
“You notice all of that, huh?”
“Fucking right I do. I notice if he watches my eyes, or if he watches my fists. I notice if he inhales through his mouth, or through his nose.”
“What’s your point, Pierce? The intricacies of fighting technique are boring.” I flash him a quick smile.
He grins. “My point is that this is what I do. I notice it. So, if tattooing is what you do – or what you want to do – then you’ll notice it, for sure. So, don’t lie to me. Tell me what you thought of my tattoos.”
I hold my breath, leave him hanging. He’s got this small smile, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I relent. “The wolf on your shoulder is detailed, intricate. It’s not a stencil, but a personal design. The ears are slightly out of line – I’m talking perspective here. The eyes may be a little close to each other, but I’m guessing that effect fades the closer you get. The shading on the fur is imperfect; with wolf’s fur, or any animal, really, you can definitely achieve more depth and volume with better technique.” I pause, look into his bright eyes. “Did you design it?”
He laughs. “I did.”
“You should have let your artist make some corrections.”
“She tried to,” Pierce says.
“But you didn’t want her to?”
“No.”
“And the serpent on your chest and stomach… that looked like it started out as a snake, but turned into a dragon.”
“Yeah.”
“That was also too poor to be a design from an artist. You drew that, too?”
Pierce is wearing a broad smile. “Hell yes, I did.”
“Well, no offense, but you’re not very good. Also, the perspective is off once the body of the serpent starts to turn into that of a dragon. You’re style changes, too. It’s inconsistent. The snake is quite realistic, with scales visible, and the dragon is more symbolic, artistic, with only hints of shape and texture. Why the snake-dragon?”
“Got bitten once.”
I recoil a little. That’s not something you hear every day. “Where?”
“I was backpacking through Indonesia one summer. It was a king cobra. I had a fever dream where the snake turned into a dragon.”
“I meant on your body.”
“My thigh. Too fucking close to my balls, I’ll tell you that.”
I move swiftly on. “The ram and owl you have on your knees are actually really good,” I say. “I’m guessing those were pro designs.”
“They were.”
“No story behind them?”
“No. They don’t all have meaning.”
“They should,” I say. “In my opinion.”
“Not a good attitude for an aspiring tattoo artist.”
“Ha!”
“You’ve got a good eye, then, considering you were ten meters away from me. I mean, if you can tell the quality of a tattoo on my skin at that distance.”
I shrug. “Like you said: We artists notice these things.”
“Fucking right we do.”
“I also saw that you’ve also got an incomplete tattoo. I’m guessing it extends from your pubic region down to your thigh.”
“Inside thigh,” he says, patting his left leg.
“I couldn’t figure out what it was.”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you what it is. I’m sure that’ll eat you up.”
I wave it off. “I really don’t care what it is. So, why a wolf on your shoulder? You didn’t tell me about that one.”
For a moment, the expression on his face changes. But then the same smug self-satisfaction returns. I’m positive I’ve just witnessed a momentary break in the façade. Maybe it is an act, after all…
“The wolf was my father’s favorite animal.”
I swallow. “And?” I ask gently.
“He died when I was young.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. Walked into that one…
“It’s not a big deal,” he says.
I reach over to the bottle, and pour myself another full glass of champagne. I take a big sip, grinning. I’m feeling it, the buzz. It feels good. I like this sensation.
“So you got daddy issues, then?” I tease. I’m feeling a bit prickly now.
“Just to remember him.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged a person who fights for a living to be sentimental.”
“The best fighters have the strongest emotions. It’s where the strength, the drive, comes from.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say, nodding. I’m feeling good. I’m feeling confident. Maybe it’s the champagne. Maybe it’s the fact that, for the first time tonight, I seem to have the upper hand… I seem to be in control of this conversation.
“My mother and father divorced a few years ago,” I say. I feel like I’m balancing the scales, making the conversation fairer. After all, he told me that his dad died.
“I know,” he says.
I blink. “How?”
“My mother told me.”
Inside me, I feel a kind of irritation begin to bubble like the champagne is in the glass I’m holding. Am I wrong to feel that this is too personal information for him to have known via my father’s girlfriend?
“She told you that?”
“Yeah. You’re uncomfortable with that.”
I don’t miss that it’s a statement. “It’s personal,” I tell him.
“I also know you don’t have a good relationship with your mother.”
“So?” My voice betrays my tension. I don’t like that he knows these things about me. I don’t like that I didn’t know he knew.
He shrugs. “Nothing. Just want you to know what I know about you.”
“Oh, you’re doing me a favor are you? So I don’t tell a lie or something?”
He shrugs again, and it pisses me off.
“No,” he says. “But I’d want to know what you know about me. I never want to be at a disadvantage. Isn’t it the same for you?”
“There’s a thing called discretion.”
“Discretion is fucking overrated,” he says. “So, what has your dad said about my mom or me?”
“Nothing!”
He frowns. “Really?”
“Disappointed?” I fire. I’m biting back now. But he doesn’t react the way I expect him to. Instead, he just looks at me for a while. His eyes go to my lips, then to my neck.
He leans forward, and he presses his forehead against mine. I don’t know what to do. I’m at a loss for words. I’ve never been this close to a boy before. Not like this, anyway.
“Have you always got your claws out?” he asks, his voice low. I can smell the champagne on his breath. It’s so intimate, so close.
“I don’t have my cl—”
He presses his lips against mine, and I melt. My whole body falls limp and I let him kiss me. I let him claim my mouth, my lips. I let him taste me with his tongue, give my lower lip a soft bite with his teeth.
Eventually, feeling returns to my arms, and I wind them around his neck. It’s my first kiss ever, and I don’t know what to do, but all I want to do is press my body into him, get closer, feel his heat on me.
I get up and try to straddle him, but he stands, too, and pushes me against the glass window. I know there’s a security guard in there somewhere, and he’s probably watching – or awkwardly trying not to – but I don’t care.
The only way to describe his hands is hungry. They’re running up and down my sides, over my hips, my ass. He gives it a squeeze lifts me up to my toes, and breaks the kiss.
I try to capture his lips again, try to give myself to him again. I want him. Oh, God, I want him.
“Pen,” he says, pulling his head back a little.
I gaze into his eyes, brow furrowed, feeling self-conscious and rejected.
“What?” I ask, now pulling my own head back. He cups my face in his hand, and brings my head forward, and slowly, ever so slowly, he runs the tip of his tongue around my ear.
Then he whispers, “You’re drunk.”
“So?” I say defiantly. But I notice now that I’m standing, I’m feeling off-balance, wobbly. I can’t focus on his eyes properly.
“I can see it,” he tells me. “You eat dinner tonight?”
“No,” I tell him. “So what?”
He backs up, leaves me standing alone pressed up against the window. He picks up the empty champagne bottle and the two glasses. He empties one glass over the edge of the balcony.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll drive you home.”
“I don’t want to go home,” I tell him. I feel… compromised, now. I feel like he’s seen my cards. I feel at a disadvantage.
I hate it.
“Besides, you can’t drive.”
“I didn’t finish my glass.”
I can’t help but look at his lips. I want them again. I want to taste him again, smell him up close. Beneath his cologne was something manly, musky. He smelled so wonderful. I want to push my nose into his neck and inhale.
“Pierce,” I tell him, but a nervous laugh betrays me. “You brought me all the way down here. I mean, we only just got here.”
“We’ve been here for over two hours.”
I blink. Has it really been that long?
“It’s nearly four.”
I go to my bag and pull out my phone. Jesus, it really is.
But I don’t want to go yet. I go to Pierce, slither my arms around his waist and look up at him. “Come on, let’s drink a little longer.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His face is hard now, all serious. “Because if I stay here with you any longer, you’ll come home with me tonight.”
I chew my lower lip. “So?”
He pulls away without replying.
“What is this, some kind of honor thing?” I ask angrily. “If a girl gets drunk it’s no longer a challenge?”
He shrugs, pours the contents of the second glass over the balcony. “Let’s go.”
I don’t know where it comes from. It just explodes out of me. “You pussy! You’re all talk.”
Something changes in him. He drops the bottle and champagne glasses. I watch as the neck of one of them breaks against the tiled floor.
Pierce steps toward me, grabs my hands and pins them above my head, and lifts me into the glass window, presses his body right up on mine.
His face is in mine, eyes boring into mine, lips hovering millimeters away. “Is this what you want?” he says, and he kisses me hard, forces his tongue into my mouth. It’s rough.
“Is it?” he asks, tearing his lips from mine. He presses his hips into me, and I feel his hardness. “Like this?” he pushes, taking my lips again, biting me until it hurts. I feel his hard cock against my pubic bone.
I don’t know how to respond. My heart is beating furiously. I want to say both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
“Well?” he asks, and his hand goes to my jaw. He rubs a thumb along my lower lip. He pulls it down, leans in and takes it in between his lips and sucks on it.
This time I kiss him back, but he pulls away again, and I let out a mewl of frustration.
“You want your first time to be like this?”
The world drowns away. I can’t hear anything but a dull whine. It’s like a bomb has just gone off.
“What?” I whisper.
“Do you,” he says, spacing out the words. He bucks his hips again. This time his hardness hits my clit, and even through my jeans, the sudden sensation pulls a small sound from my throat, a jolt from my body. “Want your first time to be like this?”
My voice is scratchy now. “Who says it’s my first time?”
“Christ,” he whispers, letting go of my hands and letting me down onto the ground. He shows his back to me, leans over the balcony.
Again, I find myself feeling undone, unraveled, bared. Why is he doing this to me? An anger starts to bubble. I’m embarrassed.
He turns around, and he takes my hand. “Pen.”
“What?” I say, looking away.
He brings himself close, and again I can smell him. I want to fall into his arms.
“I want to be with you,” he says. “God, I’d fuck you straight through to lunch.” There’s a flicker of his lips, an almost-smile. “But not like this. I’m not into this.”
“Not into what?” I say. “You think it’s no longer a conquest if the girl is drunk, ain’t that right? Your ego needs me to be sober.”
“Drunk girls are a sloppy lay.” He shrugs. “It wouldn’t be worth my time.”
“Fuck you, Pierce.”
“Time to go, Pen.”
“I don’t need you to parent me.”
“Parenting you,” he says, “Is the last thing I’ll ever do. But you’re still going home.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going home.”
“So? I’ll stay here!”
“We close in thirty minutes.”
“Then I’ll stay the thirty minutes.”
“With who? Do what? Go back down to the club?”
I don’t reply. That’s exactly what I don’t want to do.
He coils an arm around my waist and pulls me forward. “We’re going.”