Title: Tattoo
Author: SneetchesToo
Rating: Mature(ish)
Pairing: Ethan/Leanne
Summary: Tattoos are one hell of a way to get the conversation flowing.
Author's Note: I needed some fluff in my life. This idea has been floating around in my head for a few weeks now and I just finally decided to put it in writing.
"You never told me you had a tattoo." Leanne whispered, her fingers tracing lightly over the object in question. She had been totally surprised to see the image on his bicep when she had rolled over and into his bare arms this morning. The black image had been hidden so well in the darkness of his tiny bedroom last night and while she knew that she shouldn't have been shocked by it's presence, she was.
"You never asked." He whispered, his hand raking through her wild hair as he tried to tuck her closer. She knew that wasn't possible however, and while she was still trying to accept the fact that she was indeed half-naked in bed with Ethan, she certainly wasn't regretting the feeling of his bare skin against hers.
"Now tell me, Colonel Willis, why would I have thought to ask that question of you?" She honestly never would have thought to ask him about having a tattoo. Not because she thought it was out of the question, but rather because she just didn't see him as that kind of guy. He was far to straight laced for that kind of thing. Or so she had thought, up until six months ago when he had finally worked up the nerve to ask her out on a date. She had learned very quickly how much fun he actually was and the fact that he never stopped making her laugh was something she could definitely get used to.
"I thought to ask it of you didn't I?" And he had, on their very first date, before they had even finished their first round of drinks. She had stared back at him like a deer in the headlights before she shook her head profusely in response.
"And why did you think to ask me that question?" She still wondered to this day if he had been aware of the fact that she had been lying to him the whole time.
"Girl like you, all prim and proper and polite." She rolled her eyes at his response, running her bare foot over his calf as she tugged his hip closer. "I knew you had a bad side to you."
"Getting a tattoo hardly means I have a bad side." She wondered if he realized that that meant he was saying that he himself had a bad side as well. She doubted that he would deny that though. He did have a bad guy reputation to uphold at Angels and all.
"Oh I don't know, Dr. Rorish," He rolled himself over on top of her, his legs settling on either side of her hips as he dropped his head to her neck, his lips pressing kisses against the already freckled flesh. She was going to have a lot of explaining to do at work if she didn't find a way to cover those up, "after last night, I'm pretty sure you have quite the bad side to you."
"You're impossible." She hooked her legs around his hips, pulling him flush against her as she tugged on his hair, her lips dying to press against his once more. "You know that right?"
"So everyone keeps telling me." He whispered against her chin, his hands running up her sides as he pushed the t-shirt she was wearing up to her breasts. He stopped there though, his hands settling against her ribs as he nipped at her bottom lip.
"Why did you get a tattoo anyway?" She whispered her question against his lips, her hands tangling in his messy hair as she tried to drag him even closer. At this point, she thought the only way that she might be satisfied was if they were to just become one person.
"I was 19 and drunk." She figured that had to be the reason. It was one hell of an ugly tattoo after all. "And in the Army. It was the cool thing to do."
"So it has absolutely no meaning?" She let out a soft moan when he returned his lips to her neck, his teeth tugging on the skin just above the shirt collar. She wanted to tell him to stop, that if he didn't he would be the one explaining to Jesse, and Ariel, why she was covered in hickeys like some teenager.
"If it does I don't remember it." He whispered, his lips pressing a gentle kiss against the red mark he just left. She was going to pay him back for that if it was the last thing she did.
"Childish." She whimpered, her hands tugging on his hair once more as he moved further up, his right hand reaching up to push her hair off her neck to give him better access.
"Probably." His teeth grazed her skin again and she reached down, her hand going to run under his boxers so that she could pinch his bare butt. He pulled back at her move and raised an eyebrow at her, his eyes growing dark despite the sparkle still left in them.
"What about you?" He must have given up on leaving more marks along her neck because he collapsed on the bed next to her, tugging her against his chest as he buried his face in her hair. She would never get over how insanely cuddly he was. Of all the things that she had learned about Ethan over the last six months, that one was still the most surprising. "Were you young and drunk? Or did you put a lot of thought into it like a good little girl?"
"I was a junior in college and I'm pretty sure my roommate and I were high." The look on his face sent her into a fit of giggles and she had to bury her face against his chest to keep from laughing in his face. She knew that that bombshell would come as quite the surprise to him. "Everyone got tattoos back then, it really wasn't a big deal."
"High? Leanne Rorish?" He tugged on her hair gently, bringing her face up to his, his eyes sparkly with mischief as he ran a hand down her side before settling it against her hip. "Now that I'd love to see."
"Once Ethan. It was once." She had felt so horrible after that night that she vowed she would never do it again. And while she had been very tempted, especially during medical school, she had never given in. She wondered if Ethan had been a rebel like that. She imagined he had probably had more than his fair share of pot induced chaos. "I got a tattoo and made out with a stranger on a park bench. Never again."
"You were such a rebel." He dropped his forehead to hers as he danced his fingers against her hip, pushing the material of her underwear aside as he leaned in to kiss her. "Which is so hot."
"Shut up." She mumbled against his lips, her arms going to wrap around his neck gently, pulling herself flush against him. He smiled into the kiss, his body rolling them back over, his legs settling against her hips once more.
"So it has no meaning?" He moved the hand that had been tangled in her hair around to cup her face gently, his lips pressing to hers once more. The fact that the man loved to kiss her so much was mind blowing to her. Even her husband had never been so physically loving and intimate, at least not constantly. Ethan on the other hand, couldn't seem to get enough of her. Even at work he would try and sneak in kisses, little touches here and there, his hands always feeling the need to be on her body. At first it had been a little weird, but lately she had come to rely on his physical contact, without it, she found, she couldn't concentrate much.
"I guess I was really into butterflies?" She honestly had no idea why she had gotten a butterfly in the first place. She never really liked them, at least not as a teenager. She supposed that maybe as a high, over worked, college junior, a butterfly had seemed significant.
"I'm pretty sure 90% of woman's first tattoos are of butterflies." He raised an eyebrow at her, his fingers dancing along her stomach as he spoke. "And not just because they like them."
"Ariel wants a tattoo you know?" She knew that changing the subject would surely work in her advantage at this point. She was tired of talking about herself and her stupid tattoo.
"That's a negative." He whispered, his eyes growing serious as he furrowed his brow.
"Oh I told her, not until she's eighteen and no longer living under my roof." That answer didn't seem to suffice him though because he shook his head back and forth repeatedly.
"Try, not until I'm dead." There were many things about Ethan that she found attractive, in fact, there were a ton. For one thing, he was gorgeous, sexy actually. And he was a good listener, he never failed to make her laugh, and he had the biggest heart of anyone that she knew. But the way he loved Ariel, the way he cared for that kid like she was his own, well that was probably the thing that Leanne loved the most.
"Oh come on Ethan." However, he did have a tendency to be slightly overprotective and ridiculous when it came to her. Although, she supposed, that was a father's right.
"Nope." He whispered, his eyes full of determination and a slight drop of humor. "No kid of mine."
"At least she put some thought into hers." She knew that when it came down to it, all Ariel had to do was bat her eyelashes and say 'please' and Ethan would give in. She had managed to get out of two groundings in just the past week with that mess. And while she admired Ariel's ability to know how to work the system, she also wondered if Ethan giving in to her would mess her up in the future. But then, when she got to thinking about it, after all the horror she had been through in her life, she guessed that maybe having a 'father' like Ethan to spoil her was something she more than deserved. "It has meaning and everything."
"And yet, her first college party, she's gonna come home with a butterfly on her hip." Leanne didn't even want to think about Ariel going off to college. And she most certainly didn't want to think about her going to college parties. She remembered all to well what those nights were like.
"Then we'll match." She whispered, her eyes shining with humor as he shook his head, his face twisting up in disgust at her words.
"You know, not an image I want in my head." He growled, his face moving to bury against her neck. He nipped at her skin once more, payback she assumed for her previous comment.
"Sorry." She whispered, her fingers threading through his hair, which was currently defying all the laws of physics. She was confused as to how someone who was so well put together and well groomed could walk around with such a confusing haircut. Not that she didn't like it, because she surely did, but it's ability to just do it's own thing had always confused her.
When he had first come to Angels she had thought he looked ridiculous. Sexy, but ridiculous. And while the rest of him had grown on her rather quickly, the hair, well the hair was something she could have done without. That was until they started dating, and she got to know the hair just as well as she got to know the person. She found out that it was actually the softest thing she had ever touched, and while he swore that he didn't do anything to it other than wash it, she knew there had to be a secret product hidden somewhere in his tiny bathroom. He had made fun of her once, after their third or fourth date, for her obsession with his hair. They had been making out on her couch one night, much like a couple of teenagers, and she had been unable to remove her hands from his head. The feeling of tangling her fingers in his hair, her nails dragging across his scalp as their tongues danced together, had been something almost unreal to her at first.
Now, well now it was just second nature. Her hands always went to his hair first when they would kiss goodnight. They would settle against the shorter strands at the base of his skull when they hugged, even at work, even when others could see the intimacy of the situation, she always placed one hand at his neck. Her fingers would itch to run through the multi colored layers when she was stressed or tired. They would shake and fidget at the lack of being able to tangle there at the end of a long day. She would die to scratch her nails against his scalp when he was panicking or overthinking, her touch seeming to sometimes be the only way that he would calm down. And her favorite thing? Well her favorite thing was when he would wake up in the morning, his hair having lost every bit of hold it once had, drooping down into his face and covering his eyes. Ariel had commented that it made him look him a small child, the way it was unruly and wild, his bedhead envying that of anyone she had ever met. She on the other hand, thought it was his sexiest look.
"Earth to Leanne." She heard him call out, his fingers dancing along her sides as he tickled her lightly. She must have zoned out because when she refocused on him he was staring at her, his gray eyes soft as he eyed her through the brown locks that hung in front of his eyes.
"Sorry." She whispered, her hands going up to his head, her fingers carding through the wild, untamed mess that she couldn't get enough of. "Just thinking."
"Anything good?" He asked softly, his hands settling against her hips, his thumb brushing over her tattoo gently.
"Maybe." She let her hand run down his neck and then his shoulder, settling on his left bicep as she offered him a curious look. "Have you ever thought of getting another one?"
"Not really." He replied, his eyes shining as he smirked down at her. "Why? Do you want us to have matching butterfly tattoos?"
"Ass." She slapped his arm gently, her eyes dancing with humor as she watched him break out in a giant smile at her. "No, just curious."
"I thought about it once." He whispered after a minute, his face growing serious as he reached up to run his fingers through her hair. If she didn't know any better she would think that maybe he was just as obsessed with her brown locks as she was with his. "After Robert passed away."
"What changed?" She knew that talking about his brother was hard, and while he would share tiny little details of the man with her here and there, he hadn't gone much farther than what she had picked up around the water cooler. Not that she could blame him though, she wasn't exactly an open book about her past either. They were both working on it though, something Jesse had made a not to subtle comment about over dinner the other night. She had just smiled and winked at him, but she knew that he knew better.
"I didn't really wanna let some buff guy from Georgia give me an illegal tattoo in a tent in the middle of the desert, again." She couldn't help but laugh at the image of a much younger Ethan, probably drunk out of his mind, getting tatted up by a guy who probably could have bench pressed twice his weight. She had seen pictures of Ethan as a teen, when he had first joined the Army, and he wasn't much to look at it, scrawny little thing and all.
"Good call." She whispered, her fingers tracing over the black lines on his arm as she closed her eyes. She didn't even know what the tattoo was, but she felt like she needed to commit it's sight to memory. Like it was something precious that she needed to hold too.
"What about you?" He whispered his question as he pressed a soft kiss against her forehead. She wondered if maybe he knew just where her mind was going. He always seemed to know when she was going down that path and needed him to bring her back. "You ever think of getting another one? Maybe something with some meaning?"
"Once. After the accident." She could barely form the words and when he squeezed her hip, his lips pressing softly against her cheek, she couldn't help the tear that slipped from her eyes. She didn't know what she had done to deserve this man, but she would take it. "Jesse thought it would be cathartic."
"I guess it wasn't turning out that way?" His question was soft and there was no sense of pressuring or urgency, for which she was thankful.
"I had made it all the way to the shop before I burst into tears." She had even had a friend draw up a sweet design, her children's initials included, but she hadn't been able to go through with it. Her heart just hadn't been able to keep up.
"Ah." He dropped another kiss to her cheek, his face nuzzling against her neck as he relaxed his body against hers. She was still surprised by just how soft and gentle he was. For someone who had the strength of a mountain lion, and the temper to match, when it came to her, he was a giant teddy bear.
"Don't know that I would've gone through with it anyway." She whispered. "Not a fan of needles."
"You're a doctor?!" His head flew up at her comment, his eyes sparkly as he stared at her with shock written all over his face.
"I have no problem with needles and other people." Which was true. She did just fine taking care of others, but when she was sick or hurt, well she was honestly the worst patient in the world. She was uncertain how he hadn't figured that out after the outbreak last year. She had been a horrible patient once she was awake, and she had driven Jesse absolutely insane. Although, now that she thought about it, Ethan had spent the majority of his time at Ariel's bedside, for which she would be eternally grateful, but she guessed that maybe he had missed the part where she had started throwing things.
"You're evil." He muttered, his head falling back to her shoulder where his lips tugged gently on her ear lope as he spoke. "Pure and utter evil."
"Well I promise to only use my evil powers for good from here on out." She whispered, her eyes closing tight as his hand worked its way under her t-shirt once more.
"Like seducing me?" His question was soft, his lips gentle against the warm flesh of her neck and she couldn't help but chuckle at his words.
"If I remember correctly," She let out a soft moan when he grazed his teeth over her collarbone, his fingers gripping at the hem of her shirt roughly, "you're the one who seduced me."
"I did no such thing." His eyes snapped up to meet hers and she could see the humor dancing behind the seriousness of the gray orbs. "I was quite the gentleman last night if I do recall."
"You hiked my dress up in public!" She wanted to sound angry, to make him feel a tiny bit guilty for his actions only a few short hours ago, but she couldn't. Not when he was staring at her with the same hunger in his eyes that he had possessed then, his fingertips warm against her stomach as he tugged at the material between them.
"We were in the driveway for Christ's sake." He whispered, his fingers tickling the skin at her sides gently. She let out a low growl, followed by a giggle, and when he dropped his head down to capture her lips in his she hooked her legs around his waist as tightly as she could.
"Still…" She had so many thoughts dancing around in her head that she wanted to say, but then he was running his fingers under the waistband of her underwear and she suddenly forget every thought she had ever had.
"Besides," He whispered, his lips pressing kisses down her neck as his hands finally pulled that damn shirt over her head, "you shouldn't have told me about that tattoo until we had made it inside the house."
She rolled her eyes at his words, chuckling softly when he dropped his head down to her stomach, his lips soft and gentle as they pressed kisses to the various scars covering her skin. She had tried to pull him away from there last night and had failed. And while him seeing her scars had made her extremely nervous, she had loved how he had taken his time mapping them out. She bet he probably knew them almost as well as she did at this point.
"It's just a damn butterfly Ethan." She growled out, her hand reaching down to grip his hair tightly. She knew exactly where he was headed next and while she wanted nothing more than to forget that damn tattoo, she wanted him to forget about even more.
"It's still sexy." He whispered, his fingers tugging her underwear down at last, his lips hovering over the tattoo right above her right pelvic bone. He pressed the gentlest of kisses to the ink covered flesh, before he dragged his teeth over it gently. She felt his lips curl into a smile when she let out a soft whimper and she wanted to smack him.
But then he was kissing his way back up her stomach, and then her chest and then her neck, and the next thing she knew his lips were on hers and his hands were in hair. She kissed him back, her legs relaxing against the mattress so that she could remove his boxers once more. She decided then that sleeping naked was probably just easier for them, after all, this had been the fifth time since last night that they had had to undress each other.
"You know," She whispered against his lips then, growling when he tugged on the bottom lip, one of his hands going to rest against her hip as he lined himself up against her core, "if I had known that all it would take to get you in bed with me would be to tell you about that tattoo," She let out a whimper as he entered her slowly, his lips gentle as they pressed kiss after kiss against her neck, "I would have told you about it a long time ago."
"How long ago?" He whispered, his eyes snapping up to meet hers. She reached up to run her fingers through his hair then, her other hand settling against his lower back as she allowed herself to meet him thrust for thrust.
"The very first day." She whispered back, her head leaning up off the pillow so that she could capture his lips in hers. She heard him whimper into the kiss, his grip on her hip tightening as he ran his tongue along her lips, begging for entrance. She eagerly granted it to him and she couldn't help but wonder if maybe keeping that stupid tattoo a secret all this time had been her best idea.
*Don't forget to comment!