Discovering Dalton (Manchester Menage Collection #2) (25 page)

“I know, but you’re the only one I actually want here.”

“Despite everything else which is going on with us, I'm always going to be your friend, Dee. I may not be great at relationships, but this, at being around when you need a good friend, that I'm good at.”

Dalton shared a long look with him, something playing on the edges of his lips, a question not making it out loud, and then he turned from Liam and grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge. “Do you act this way with all your friends?” He tried to add a little humour into the question, but Liam would have to be deaf to not hear the judgement in his tone.

“Nah, I don’t fuck my friends. I barely know who they are.”

Dalton leaned back against the counter top and took a slow drink. “Well, I guess I'm special then.”

“I told you that you were.” Liam moved closer to him seeing Dalton wasn’t happy and knowing why.

Dalton didn’t know what he wanted, but he’d never played around, he’d always had a relationship. Sex meant something very different to Dalton. Sex to Liam was a physical need he had to fulfil, and he had Troy for everything else. Those lines were blurring more and more with Dalton, but still, did either of them know where this should go?

He kissed Dalton, not knowing what else to say.

Chapter
27

T
roy tried to hide the sly smile making its way onto his face, but Dalton caught it and laughed, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. He was currently sitting in the official looking black leather chair in Troy’s private room, his arm placed exactly where Troy needed it to be, recently wiped down with alcohol gel and primed for him to trace the image of the Koi and two lotus flowers positioned at the head and tail of the fish onto his flesh.

Troy took one of the wooden spatulas, which Dalton referred to as lollipop sticks, and dipped it a tub of Vaseline before smearing it tenderly over Dalton’s creamy skin, all freshly shaved and feeling smooth as a Baby’s bum. It was a big piece and would bend around the Orchid planned for later. Troy was touching Dalton just as he would do anyone else, but it felt very different.

He decided to take more time priming than usual, giving in to the need to just touch, slowly pressing his fingertips into the warm, enticing flesh of Dalton’s shoulder and working down to his elbow. The Koi’s tail would end there, but the Orchid would follow on, its flowers and stalk finishing on his forearm. Troy was thinking what else he could add onto Dalton already, aiming to improve the work and fill his whole arm like a sleeve. He just had to make sure Dalton would go for it before he ventured any more information.

“It’s okay to be nervous. It’s your first time.” Troy grinned childishly at Dalton and got a shake of the head back and more chuckles. “You don’t know what to expect. Everyone feels this way. I keep telling you, it’s not as bad as you're thinking.” Troy sat beside him on the comfy stool which he rolled around his clients on, looking from Dalton to the Koi print in his hand. “You ready to sit still and be a good boy for me?”

“This part I'm good with, it’s the needles and the pain bit which concerns me.” Dalton stopped fidgeting and looked a little more serious.

“I did say, like four or five times the last time we met, a tattoo would involve
both
of those things and to be prepared.” Troy chuckled as he made a final adjustment to Dalton’s arm, hovering the image of the Koi above it, ready to transfer the outline from the paper onto Dalton. “Okay, I usually get this right first time, but if you're not happy with how it looks, then we just rub it off and start again. This ink we can wipe off, the other, well… you have to go through several stages of having the ink burnt from your skin if we get that wrong, and trust me, if you think it hurts going on, you don’t wanna know how bad it is getting them off.”

Dalton smiled up at him, those blue eyes sucking Troy in like a vacuum and leaving them both just sitting there, the moment expanding into a longer one than either were expecting. Troy could feel the air around them crackle, he was sure of it.

The guy felt like static and Troy was constantly being shocked by him when they got close. He was just hoping when they got closer for his ink, things would settle down, because having his handshake when doing his job wasn’t a good thing for either of them to experience.

Troy finally broke contact with Dalton’s bright eyes and took in a slow, steady breath, much to the amusement of Dalton it would seem, and Troy huffed as he laid the paper on his arm, casting a very quick look at him.

“It’s not just you.” Dalton spooked Troy by placing a hand on his back. If his gun had been in his hand, it would have dug right into Dalton, and not how it should have. “Sorry.” Dalton removed his hand as they looked into the other’s eyes again. “I just didn’t want you to think I found you, or the situation, funny. That wasn’t it. I feel this too, you know. Whatever this is.” Dalton sighed, relaxing back in the seat and watching as Troy smoothed his hands gently over the tracing paper now stuck to him, lifting it carefully and checking how the ink had transferred onto him.

As he was peeling it from Dalton, he glanced through hooded lids, finding Dalton’s gaze stuck on him like glue, that soft smile which made Troy shiver all over on his handsome face. “Stop it,” he chuckled out, turning back to check out how the transfer went. “You don’t want to put me off. This is technical stuff.”

Dalton touched him again. This time Troy was less jumpy and he smiled to himself, feeling Dalton’s fingertips run down his overheated flesh. Troy didn’t need to look to see what Dalton was so teasingly following on his arm. It was the outline to his own ink, the bright red poppy and green vines. Although men had been captured by his ink before, Dalton’s touch felt deeper, more meaningful and considerate than any which had come before. It jarred Troy, and he had to stop what he was doing and just breathe.

“I'm sorry.” Dalton shifted in his seat, not removing his hand, but instead doing something which Liam did, cupping the back of his neck in his searing hold and rubbing slow, methodical circles with his fingertips.

“This is going to be a difficult session.” Troy eventually met the warm eyes of Dalton and shook his head, a smile breaking out on his face. “I have a rule about this sort of thing, you know.”

“Should I stop breaking them?” Dalton obviously knew the answer already and Troy could see he was enjoying being a rule breaker.

“When I'm working with the gun, you can’t go touching me like this. If I cock up, I would hate myself for it.”

“I promise no touching while you're stabbing me repeatedly with your needle thingy.”

Troy paled instantly. The thought of stabbing someone repeatedly brought back the vision of his mum laid on her kitchen floor and he stood up quickly, moving to the shelves where he stored all the little tubs of ink and tried to compose himself. He was gripping onto the table so tightly his fingers turned white, and he tried to relax his hold before either they or the wood snapped.

“What did I say?” Dalton was behind him, warm hands now rubbing Troy’s shoulders, his firm body bigger and thicker than Troy’s, warming his back as they connected in a way they hadn't yet experienced.

Troy was shaken from one strong emotion to the other, like he was holding onto a huge pendulum while it took him for a wild ride. He had to get back in control, and having Dalton so close to him wasn’t going to work out. “It’s nothing really. I just needed to get these.”

Dalton moved beside him, leaning his backside on the table, fingers tapping a steady rhythm onto the countertop. The stance and look reminded Troy of one of the coppers who used to hang around their estate as kids. It was the look you got when the guy knew you were lying.

Troy huffed. “You look just like the coppers who followed me around as a kid.” He noticed Dalton’s brows twitch, averting his eyes to somewhere just behind Troy. Maybe he had issues with the police and didn’t like being referred as one, so Troy quickly continued. “I don’t like you referring to this, or what I do, as stabbing you. It’s just personal to me, nothing more. It bothered me. I'm not… I don’t want to hurt you, Dalton. That’s not my aim, but this isn’t pain free.”

“I get that.” Dalton was more serious than Troy had seen before when their gazes met again. Liam said he gave away a lot more than what Troy thought he did and there was no need for words, but that was with Liam, not someone he’d just met. Dalton couldn’t be so in tune to him already, he couldn’t read him like someone who’d known him for years. “There’s a reason, and I see it bothers you a lot. I'm sorry. I know you would never hurt anyone. It was a joke, one I understand upset you. It won't happen again.”

“You're either really good at reading people, or I'm more expressive than I thought.”

“A bit of both I think,” Dalton replied with a charming smile and soft tone.

Troy took down the black and blue inks from his shelf and motioned for Dalton to take his seat again before climbing over his stool and rolling it right next to Dalton, their thighs now brushing up against each other and the static flickering between them. Troy sighed.

Dalton rolled his head back and groaned. “I swear, I'm not doing anything.”

Troy smirked. “Yeah, it’s a mutual reaction. Like when you touch something metal and get a shock. We’re either super compatible or we really should just stay as far away from each other as we can… I mean, after the hours we’re in here we’re going to be spending together obviously.” Yeah, hours of reacting like they were to each other was going to wear Troy down, and quickly.

Dalton shared a long, understanding look, and then nodded. “Okay, let’s see what happens when you start.”

Troy took a moment to try and prepare Dalton for exactly what he would feel, but everyone described it differently and he was hoping Dalton would be one of those who went numb fast and just went with it. “I’ll do a bit and see how it goes.”

Dipping the tip of his gun into the black ink, Troy took a breath, splaying his palm over Dalton’s skin and stretching it, taking a moment for the fizz of them touching to die before placing the tip onto his skin, looking up for one last check and getting a smile back.

The first line was always the hardest one for anyone. Even if you’d had tons of ink done, you still needed to take a breath and relax after that first line. Troy made it a short one, and then checked Dalton. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He breathed out and Troy continued, checking and pausing, wiping down the patch of skin and removing excess ink as he went.

Soon enough, they both settled into a rhythm, the hum of the gun and the small pauses when Troy would dip the needle into the ink gave them both breaks, and soon enough, forty minutes passed by with small talk and periods of comfortable silence which Troy presumed Dalton was using to compose himself before the needle began to pierce his skin again.

Troy wiped down Dalton’s shoulder again, looking over the thin lines of the Koi’s head before smiling at Dalton. “You okay to keep going?” He’d booked Dalton in for three hours, not knowing if he would stick it out, but Dalton finished sipping his water then nodded.

“It’s gone all hot and kinda numb, so go for it. It looks amazing.” He was beaming as Troy filled up his gun and started inking more of the curvy scales from the fish onto him. “You look so focused. It’s a cute look on you.”

Troy tried not to laugh, but one made it out and he paused for a second before starting up his work again. “Cute? Really? Not a word I have used on me often. In fact, never.” Troy laughed as he dipped the needle in the ink again.

“You have this little frown, and you stick your tongue out a bit when you're checking it over. That’s cute.”

Troy had to stop so he could laugh. “This will take longer if you keep chatting me up like this.”

“Is that what I'm doing?” Dalton met Troy’s eyes with a smile which was full of mischief plastered on his face and a twinkle in those eyes which didn’t often show.

“I like making you smile like that. It looks good on you.”

“It’s not happened in a while. Thank you.”

As Troy began inking again, they chatted about his dad, what he’d been like, all the good things they’d done together. It eventually came round to Troy’s family and he took the opportunity to evade the question by saying he needed coffee and a smoke. Dalton noticed he didn’t want to talk about it, and let the issue pass by, saying he needed a bathroom break and a coffee would be good.

Troy was in the kitchen, smoke still clinging to him as Dalton leaned against the wall, watching him stir in the sugar. “You want sugar in yours?”

“No thanks. Just a splash of milk.”

Troy didn’t get how people couldn’t have a ton of milk and sugar in coffee. He needed lots. Liam liked his black and no sugar, and Dalton wasn’t far off the same. It was another thing which made Troy consider the similarities in them both. Although different in many ways, they shared more than he wanted them to. Had he found another Liam?

The thought made him smile and hope he hadn't. There were things Troy loved and hated about Liam, the fact he disliked relationships being the main one he didn’t want Dalton to share. That jarred him again. He wanted to kick himself for thinking like that already. He had to slow down. He always moved too fast and Dalton wasn’t ready for more either.

“Here you go. How’s the arm holding up? Feeling sore yet?”

“Not really.” Dalton grinned as he looked over the ink work on him. “It’s so strange seeing that on there.”

“It looks good.” Troy moved closer, tracing the newly inked lines on Dalton’s shoulder, being careful to not place too much pressure on them, but happy there was no bleeding or raised scars. “You're handling it better than I thought. These hard muscles make it more painful.” He chuckled, remembering when he worked on Liam. He had two big block capitol pieces of writing on the underneath of each forearm. That was a sensitive place anyway, but Liam’s muscles made it feel even worse.

Troy realised silence filled the tiny kitchenette and he looked up, blue eyes on him, his breath halting in his chest. The world slipped into slow motion and he felt like he was watching them both from above.

Dalton moved those full lips to his, Troy taking in every detail about his face, his scent, the way he breathed, then they were touching him, moving against his own, and despite how much he felt he shouldn’t, Troy kissed him back, slow and tender, gradually pressing deeper but still keeping that softness.

Despite never opening their mouths, not delving into the other’s lips and searching out more, their bodies never connecting in any way other than their mouths, Troy felt floored by the way he reacted to Dalton. It wasn’t just physical, he was sure he’d have to cut his cock off for it not to jerk and rise in his jeans, but it was so much more.