Tattooed on My Thigh

Getting bitten by a stray dog outside a dive bar at 2 AM was bad enough.

But freezing in the ER, waiting for my rabies shots, the attending doctor who just walked in was none other than the ex-boyfriend Id ruthlessly cheated on.

The flesh on my inner thigh was chewed up and bloody.

But right there, a mere two inches from the jagged bite mark in a dangerously sensitive spot, his name was still inked into my skin, glaringly obvious.

His latex-gloved fingers snagged the torn edges of my fishnets, pulling the mesh back with a rough snap. He let out a low, biting scoff.

"Still haven't lasered it off?" He paused, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "What, are you that addicted to my name?"

Chapter 1

I'd gotten trashed and insisted on waltzing with a stray dog by the curb. It bit me. Now, I sat half-dressed on a freezing stainless-steel triage bed in the ER, locked in a staring contest with the ex-boyfriend I'd ruthlessly dumped. Medical malpractice was definitely on the menu tonight.

Silas snapped the top off a glass vial with a sharp crack, the motion as ruthless as racking a slide on a Glock. He drew the clear liquid into the syringe, the dark eyes above his surgical mask fixed on me with the icy indifference usually reserved for trash.

He rapped his gloved knuckles sharply against the edge of the bed. "Skirt. Pull it all the way up to the top of your thigh."

I hesitated for a fraction of a second.

Silas let out a harsh, impatient scoff and shoved his hand roughly against my knee, pinning it down. "What are you hiding? Name one bone on your body I haven't already touched."

Silas warned me the immune globulin shot would burn. He undersold it. The dog had chosen the absolute worst spot to sink its teeth inmy inner thigh.

And right there, glaringly obvious next to the mangled flesh, was his name tattooed into my skin. Like I was still carrying a massive torch for him.

He shoved an iodine-soaked cotton ball into the wound. His grip was brutal. If you didn't know he was cleaning a bite, you'd think he was trying to aggressively scrub away the ink itself.

The needle plunged in. Zero mercy, zero hesitation.

I hissed, my nails digging into my palms as the sharp sting radiated.

His gaze flicked up to mine. "Hurts? Funny, you didn't make a sound when you were getting my name inked."

The second Silas finished with the needle, he vanished. The door clicked open a minute later, and a nurse walked in, telling me to bare my upper arm for the rabies vaccine. I tried rolling up my sleeve, but she told me she couldn't reach the spot, so I just shrugged the top half of my shirt off entirely.

"Where's Dr. Silas?" I asked, looking up as she flicked the syringe.

"He's back in consultations. Need something?"

"Just wondering," I muttered. I'd assumed he'd be the one stabbing me again.

The vaccine needle was thin enough that I barely felt a pinch. Pressing a cotton swab to my arm, I skimmed the paperwork the nurse handed me. It said I had four more rounds of this before I was fully clear.

"So, is Dr. Silas going to be here for the next" I started, lifting my head to ask the nurse.

My words died in my throat. I crashed straight into a pair of freezing, dark eyes.

Silas had slipped back into the room without a sound and was pulling open the door to the medication cabinet. The smirk on his face was anything but friendly. "Relax. You won't see me. I'm not on the schedule those days."

I just froze, my gaze dropping to his long, defined fingers gripping a glass bottle. The heavy door clicked shut behind him.

And then it hit me. Sitting there half-naked with my shirt hanging off my waist, I'd just put on a free show.

Two days ago, I get bitten by a stray. Yesterday, I run into my ex at the ER. And today? Moving day.

I spent hours wrestling heavy, taped-up boxes up the stairs, barely making a dent in the pile. I tossed an ice-cold can of Monster Energy to the blue-collar guy helping me unload, but he caught it and tossed it right back with a chuckle.

"Thanks, sweetheart, but the sugar in this crap would put me in an early grave."

Too sweet. Those two damn words instantly triggered Silas in my brain.

He used to give me that exact same looklike I was a complete moronwhenever he complained about my addiction to syrup and junk food. Which naturally dragged my thoughts right back to the tattoo on my inner thigh.

I had booked a laser removal appointment ages ago. But burning ink out of your skin hurts. I hated pain.

"Fuck my life. What kind of sick joke is this?" I locked eyes with the man yanking open the door across the hall.

I thought to myself, Wow, his temper is just as garbage as it used to be. Though that face was still unfairly gorgeous. Even pissed off, he looked like a goddamn model.

"Silas," I said smoothly, leaning against my doorframe. "Trust me, I'm just as thrilled to find out we're neighbors."

Chapter 2

I looked up. He was leaning against his doorframe, glaring down at me.

"Unfortunate my a" He swallowed the rest of the curse word before it could slip out.

I held up the paper bag of homemade cookies. Id baked them as a peace offering for my new neighbor. I figured he'd tell me to shove them.

Instead, his long, defined fingers snatched the bag right out of my hand without an ounce of hesitation. His dark eyes locked onto mine, inexplicably aggressive. "What? Everyone else gets some, but I don't?"

I stood there in silence until the heavy wooden door slammed in my face. Apparently, two or three years of surviving in the real world hadn't sanded down a single edge of his garbage personality.

Though, thinking back on it, Silas and I never exactly had a meet-cute. Back in college, I was in line right in front of him at a food truck waiting for tacos. The heavily tattooed, overweight cook had a serious tremor going on, and the pitiful scoop of meat he gave me wasn't even enough to get stuck in my teeth. I slammed my knuckles against the metal counter and demanded more, but the guy just rolled his eyes and told me to get lost.

He didn't know that not only was I in the middle of a manic episode that day, but I was also starving.

I lunged right over the service window, snatched a half-slab of freshly cut ribs straight off his cutting board, and took a massive, savage bite.

Time stopped. The cook froze. Every single person within a five-mile radius froze. And Silas was standing directly behind me.

He told me I was clinically insane. Added that if it didn't violate his research ethics, hed love to put me in a lab and study my brain.

Obviously, I got chased away from the food truck. And the ribs I contaminated were tossed in the trash.

I was sitting alone on the concrete steps of the student union, chewing on my lip, when a tall shadow suddenly swallowed me. He was standing right behind me. I didn't feel like twisting my spine, so I just tilted my head all the way back to look up at him upside down.

"Need something?"

His eyes were striking. Even from this horribly unflattering angle, he was unfairly gorgeous. Humans are shallow, visual creatures. So when Silas asked for my number, I didn't have a single good reason to tell him no.

After that, he'd text me sporadically, dropping random snippets of his day. At first, I figured he was just a guy who did that with everyone.

It wasn't until later that I found out he had my name pinned to the top of his messages.

Silas was the untouchable golden boy of the pre-med program, always walking around with this icy, drop-dead handsome scowl. I assumed he was just naturally stoic. Turns out, he just genuinely hated everyone.

So, at 4:00 AM, I deliberately called him. Right on cue, his deep, incredibly attractive voice came through the speaker, articulating one single, sharp word.

"Fuck." A heavy pause followed. Then, his tone forcibly softened, just a fraction. "What is it?"

"Silas, I can't sleep." I gripped my phone, stomping my boots into a puddle outside my dorm building just to watch the water splash.

"Can't sleep? Go run ten laps around the quad."

His voice was thick with sleep, the usual coldness raspy and edged with exhaustion. He clearly wasn't fully awake yet, a low, teasing chuckle vibrating through the line. "What, you want me to come over and hold you?"

"Silas, come downstairs and hang out with me."

Here's the truth: I had actually gone down my entire contact list and called every single person. But that night, Silas was the only one who actually showed up.

And as a fantastic bonus, I woke up the next morning blocked by half the people on my phone.

But at 4:00 AM, under a clear, star-studded sky, while I was splashing dirty puddle water onto the hem of my jeans, Silas appeared. He was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt under a hastily thrown-on trench coat. He was pressing down his messy, sleep-tousled black hair with one hand, stifling a yawn with the other. I still have no idea how the hell he managed to sneak past the RAs.

Chapter 3

Seeing me, he squinted, not bothering to hide his amusement. "Little psycho."

I viciously kicked a splash of dirty puddle water right at him. He dodged it with infuriating slowness.

"I told you. If you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason," he said, closing the distance between us. He was a foot and a half taller than me, staring down with heavy, sleepy eyes. "I will literally pick you up and throw you in the water."

I pulled my jacket tighter. The night wind had a sharp bite to it. Instinctively, I shrank into the warmth of his imposing shadow.

"Silas, I'm so wired I can't breathe. My heart keeps racing and then stalling out, you know? My brain is screaming in static. It's been like this for days"

He watched me in complete silence for a few seconds. "Manic episode?"

I nodded.

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"I did. They gave me meds, but I'm still like this. I can't turn it off. I'm buzzing out of my skin, and everyone looks at me like I'm a total freak"

I tugged at the hem of his trench coat. He kept his hands shoved deep in his pockets, looking like he couldn't care less. "Oh."

I thought he'd at least offer some generic comfort.

"Right. So it's a manic episode," he stated flatly. "And I told you, if you woke me up for no reason, I was throwing you in."

What?!

His large hand clamped around my wrist like a vice. He dragged me forward, my boots stumbling over the pavement. But as I realized we were heading in a very specific direction, a sick thrill spiked through my chest.

"Silas, are you out of your damn mind! That's the century-old fountain in the campus plaza! Where the hell are you dragging me"

Fuck, was this bastard actually planning to throw me into the fountain to sober up?! Talk about following through on a threat. Though the one detail I didn't see coming was him jumping over the stone ledge right alongside me.

If either of us couldn't swim, tomorrow's campus newspaper headline would be about two idiot lovers drowning in two feet of water in a bizarre suicide pact. Even though it was early summer, the water was freezing, and God knows how much bacteria was floating in it. I panicked, thrashing my legs to stay upright, while the guy beside me casually snaked a strong arm around my waist and hauled me up against his chest.

The campus fountain wasn't exactly deep. Standing near the edge, his boots were planted firmly on the concrete bottom. I gripped his collar for dear life, my soaked clothes clinging uncomfortably to my skin. "Are you clinically insane too, Silas?"

His dark bangs were plastered to his forehead. It annoyed me, so I reached up and shoved the wet hair back. That was when I realized he was smiling. The guy had features carved from marble, and with that smirk, he outshined the goddamn moon.

"Yeah. I'm sick too." His hot breath brushed against the sensitive shell of my ear, sending a violent shiver straight down my spine.

"So let everyone else think you're a freak. I won't."

I never understood why Silas zeroed in on me. I was the outcast nobody wanted to touch, and Silas was the golden boy everyone worshipped. You could tell just by looking at ushe was swimming in full-ride scholarships and prestige, while my classmates treated me like I was radioactive.

So when I was sitting alone in the dining hall, numbly stabbing my fork into my dry rice, the last thing I expected was for someone to drop their tray across from me.

"Hey, Silas. What a coincidence," I greeted him dryly.

He didn't even look up as he tore open his chopsticks. The sharp, elegant lines of his knuckles made even snapping cheap wood look like a fucking art form.

"No coincidence. The dining hall is practically empty. Why do you think I sat directly in front of you?"

He locked eyes with me. "Because I was looking for you."

He never did know how to sugarcoat a damn thing.

I shoved another bite into my mouth. I could feel the weight of his stare burning into my skin, but I didn't have the guts to meet his eyes. I just sped up my chewing by three hundred percent.

Right up until I felt a long, hard leg slide under the table and deliberately bump against my knee.

Chapter 4

Silas lounged comfortably against the back of his plastic chair, waiting for me to look up. "Eat. Your food's getting cold."

I tried to shoot him a look that said stop staring, tried to subtly push his long leg away from where it was unapologetically pressing against mine. But he just arched an eyebrow, the corner of his lips kicking up into a smirk. Even his smile was aggressively captivating. His knee bumped mine again under the table.

"I want you. How much longer are you planning to play dumb?"

He was the one who confessed first.

Sitting on the concrete steps of my new apartment building, staring at the shadows of the trees swaying outside the window, I couldn't stop the memories from bleeding in. The sharp ding of the elevator finally snapped me back to reality.

Dr. Silas certainly took his sweet time getting home. It was late spring, probably the last couple of weeks he could get away with wearing that signature trench coat. And damn, he wore it well.

The sleeves were pushed up, exposing the corded muscles of his forearms. He was casually twirling his car keys, the long coat doing absolute favors for his tall, lean frame.

It was 2:00 AM. His dark eyes were heavy with exhaustion. "What?" he asked, his gaze raking over me without an ounce of politeness.

"Silas, my water heater is busted," I stated flatly.

He stared at me for two solid seconds before his lips twisted into a cruel smirk. "And a gym shower isn't an option because?"

"It's two in the morning. Everything's closed."

He reached up to press his thumb to the biometric lock. I shadowed him, stepping right into his personal space.

"A 24-hour Planet Fitness is that hard to find? Or better yet, go use someone else's shower. Weren't you just handing out homemade cookies to the whole damn floor?" He was merciless, crossing his arms and planting his broad chest right in the doorway, blocking my entry.

"But I'm right across the hall. And you're the only one I know"

I'd thought about this. Over the years, God only knows how many female patients had batted their eyelashes and faked an injury just to get his attention. He had to be immune by now. A heart of absolute stone.

"Then stay dirty."

Yep. Heart of stone.

I just stared at him. It took a second to summon the right mood. But the frustration and the lingering sting of rejection bubbled up quickly enough.

My nose burned, and big, fat tears started rolling down my cheeks. Who knew how much of it was real and how much was a performance, but it actually cracked his ironclad defenses in a matter of seconds.

"Are you seriously pulling the exact same crying routine?"

Yeah, I'd cried in front of him plenty of times before. I kept it up until my throat felt raw. Finally, he dug into the back of his shoe cabinet, pulled out a pair of disposable sterile booties, and tossed them at my feet.

I sniffled, struggling to hook the elastic band over my heel while teetering on one leg. After watching me almost eat shit twice, he let out a harsh breath, grabbed my ankle in a firm grip, and expertly snapped the booty into place himself.

His apartment was as painfully sterile and minimalist as ever. Not a single trace of human warmth. If someone told me this place had been staged for a showing and empty for months, I'd believe them.

"Bathroom. In and out." He jutted his chin toward the hallway.

But I just stood directly in front of him, planting my feet.

"What the hell are you doing now?"

Clearly, a few years apart had made Silas forget exactly what kind of psycho he was dealing with.

I stepped right into his space and lunged, straddling his thighs like a feral cat.

The sheer momentum caught him off guard, sending him crashing backward into the deep leather couch.

A sexy, muffled grunt and a low curse slipped past his lips, but those large, defined hands instinctively shot out, gripping the small of my back in a bruising hold to brace my fall.

He really should have been worrying about himself first. Without an ounce of hesitation, I yanked the hem of his t-shirt up.

The sharp ridges of his lower abs proved the man hadn't skipped a single day at the gym over the last few years, and the way his core instantly tightened under the sudden contact was insanely distracting.

But that wasn't my target tonight. My gaze dragged up, landing directly on the left side of his chest.

Right over his heart, the elegant, cursive ink was still there.

Chapter 5

Inked right there was my name. "You haven't lasered it off either, Silas."

Steaming hot water pounded down from the showerhead. My mind kept replaying his flustered reaction from two minutes ago. His face had darkened, those long, defined fingers half-covering his eyes as he practically shoved me toward the bathroom.

He slammed the door hard enough to rattle the hinges. Thinking about it, I couldn't stop a sharp laugh from echoing against the wet tile.

When my gaze dropped, it landed right back on the script tattooed on my thigh. Sitting next to the crusted bite mark, the ink had blurred slightly around the edges over the years. I remembered exactly what Silas had said when we got them: "Only brain-dead couples do this."

Back then, my symptoms were spiraling. Bipolar mania felt like someone had shoved a blender into my already chaotic life and hit the highest speed. When it got bad, I'd stay awake for days, calling him at all hours.

His pre-med workload was brutal. Half the time, his head had barely hit the pillow at 2:00 AM before my call dragged him right back out.

He never actually lost his temper.

I was slumped against my dorm balcony railing that day, telling him I wanted to get inked. He stayed quiet for a second before his raspy voice came through the speaker, asking why.

"I scrolled through the Reddit Bipolar support sub all night. Some girl posted that whenever she went manic, she'd just go to a tattoo parlor and go under the needle. She said the pain of piercing the skin was the only thing that made the screaming in her head stop."

"So I figured, why not try it? What if it actually works? Silas, I'm literally going to claw my skin off from this wired energy."

I was constantly dumping this dark, heavy garbage on him back then. I always assumed someone as untouchable and perfect as him could never understand it, but I still couldn't stop myself from spilling every broken piece of my brain at his feet.

"Fine. What are you getting?" His tone was as flat as always, rubbed raw with exhaustion.

"Your name."

He went dead silent for a second before letting out a dry scoff. "Yeah? Ever think about how much it's going to burn when you have to laser it off later?"

Why did I want Silas's name? Because in my twenty-something years of utterly pathetic existence, he was the only distorted ray of light I had. Simply put, I just wanted it. His name worked as well as anything else, since I didn't have anyone giving a damn about me anyway.

So I dragged him to this shady little tattoo parlor tucked into an alleyway downtown that a friend recommended. Silas came along, explicitly stating he was only there to babysit and wouldn't let a needle near his skin if his life depended on it.

I laid back in the vinyl chair. The stencil going on was nothing. But the second that tattoo gun buzzed to life, every survival instinct in my body screamed at me to run.

Silas stood next to me, hands shoved deep in his pockets. I tilted my head up, catching his lowered gazecold, striking, and completely unbothered.

"Silas." I hooked my fingers around his. His skin was cold, but he didn't pull away. "I hate pain."

"A little late to be bringing that up now, isn't it?" He flipped his hand, his grip tightening around mine. The rough calluses on his palm scraped against my skin, sending a spark up my arm. The smirk on his lips was barely there.

"Silas"

The second time I called his name, his resolve visibly cracked. His thumb brushed over my knuckles in total defeat. "You really can't handle it?"

I nodded.

Silas was a guy who made ruthless, lightning-fast decisions.

Two seconds later, he pivoted, snatched the flash book off the counter, and pointed straight at the artist. "Give me one too. Right here."

He ordered it with the exact same casual authority as asking a bartender for a glass of water.

Chapter 6

I just stared at him, stunned. Honestly, I was just whining to get his attention. I never actually meant for him to go under the needle.

But he said he was doing it, and he did it. Just like that, completely unbothered.

The skin on his chest was thin right over the bone. It had to hurt a hell of a lot worse than my thigh. When the artist finished, the area was angry and bright red, but Silas acted like he'd just been sitting there reading the news.

"There. Matching tattoos." He shrugged his trench coat back on, flashing a relaxed, effortless smirk as he casually ruffled my hair.

"Stop crying about the pain. I took the needle with you. Doesn't that count for something?"

When I finally stepped out of his bathroom, tugging at the collar of my shirt, Silas was lounging on the deep leather couch, scrolling through a Kindle. He was wearing thin, gold-rimmed glasses that rested on the high bridge of his nose, somehow making him look even more intensely attractive. It was ridiculously distracting.

"Silas, you got any Neosporin or first-aid spray?" It was a stupid question. Obviously, a doctor had basic medical supplies.

He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto mine. I'd deliberately chosen this specific sleepwear, so I definitely didn't mind him looking. But his gaze didn't linger for long.

He stood up with a lazy grace, tossing the Kindle onto the couch cushions, and walked toward the hallway. I trailed right behind him.

When he pulled open the large utility closet, I caught a glimpse of something insidethe massive stuffed bear I'd bought him years ago.

He actually hadn't thrown it out.

I leaned over, trying to get a better look, but he shifted his broad shoulders, deliberately blocking my line of sight.

"Has anyone ever told you it's rude to snoop when you're a guest in someone else's house?"

The word guest stung more than I cared to admit. He kept his eyes down, completely uninterested in looking at me, leaning casually against the open closet door. He dangled a tube of antibiotic ointment in front of my face.

"What's wrong? Is the bite still infected?" His tone was flat, though the soft ambient lighting still made him look painfully good.

I shook my head and pushed my wet hair back to expose my ear. "My piercing is acting up again. Look."

I'd gotten my ears pierced years ago, and they'd been chronically infected ever since. Silas knew all about it. He used to mock me for letting a mall kiosk do it, insisting he could have done a better job with a sterile needle.

"Silas, I can't see the back to put the cream on."

I hurried after him as he walked away, his long strides easily outdistancing me, until he stopped dead in his tracks. I nearly slammed right into his chest. I heard him let out a heavy sigh.

He turned around and leaned down until his face was inches from mine. He was close enough that I could see the tiny mole right at the corner of his dark eye. "Here?"

He lightly flicked the metal stud.

I nodded.

He squeezed a drop of the ointment onto a Q-tip. One large hand gently pinched my earlobe while the other meticulously worked the medicine around the piercing. Whenever he focused on something, his eyes grew incredibly dark and intense.

"If it's still inflamed, take the jewelry out. You're reacting to the metal." His breath washed over the sensitive shell of my ear as he spoke.

His rough, warm fingertips didn't let go of my earlobe. Instead, they slid dangerously lower, grazing the soft, sensitive skin behind my ear, sending a sharp, electric shiver straight down my spine.

"Silas." I breathed his name, and he let out a low, acknowledging hum.

"I don't really want to sleep at my place tonight."

I had a terrible habit of letting words fall out of my mouth before my brain could process them. And the second they were out, the humiliation usually set in. Just like now. He went dead quiet.

When he finally spoke, his voice was ice-cold, laced with a mocking scoff as he straightened up. "Do you just lack the concept of boundaries completely? Are we really close enough for you to be asking that?"

Chapter 7

"Silas, I"

I reached out to grab his wrist. He let me hold him, his dark eyes dropping to stare at me, but I couldn't force a single word past my lips. The heavy silence of the night swallowed my voice entirely, leaving my throat tight and burning.

A low, dark chuckle slipped from his chest. He leaned in close, his rough fingers deliberately brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "Do I really look like your fucking dog?"

The absolute black of his eyes mirrored my pale reflection perfectly. I won't liea shiver ripped straight through my spine.

He abruptly clamped his hand around my wrist and shoved me backward into the deep leather couch.

The premium material absorbed the impact, but all the air left my lungs the second his massive frame hovered over me, pinning me down.

His grip on my wrists was bruisingly tight.

"So when you want me here, I come running. And when you're done, I'm just supposed to tuck my tail and roll over?"

"Now you snap your fingers, and what? Am I supposed to bark for you?" He leaned closer, his hot breath hitting my collarbone. "Hmm