5
TYLER
“NICE GUY,” I REMARKED AS Stella’s hulking coworker disappeared down the hall.
“He’s one of the best tattoo artists in the country,” she said in that low, sultry voice of hers. Fuck me, I hadn’t been ready for it when she’d first opened her mouth. Was still fighting my body’s reaction. Every time she spoke, it sounded like she was one breath away from telling me to get my dick out.
“And that somehow excuses his rudeness?” I asked, just to hear it again.
“He was looking out for me,” she said. “Surely even you can appreciate that.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Oh. Ohhh. I was twice her size, and she was about to be alone with me.
Yeah, I probably should have pieced that together, but for all my awful past, present, and let’s face it, future behavior, I would never, ever take advantage of someone sexually.
“You have nothing to worry about,” I said. “I’m not a predator.”
She cocked a pierced eyebrow at me. “That’s exactly what a predator would say.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. Damn, she was prickly. And oh so easy to bait. I hadn’t been lying earlier when I said I’d take any attention I could get, and if she kept snapping at me, I was going to get all riled up in the pantal region. Which would be pretty fucking obvious since these sweats left nothing to the imagination.
I leaned closer and dropped my voice. “You’re safe with me, Stella.”
Her eyes flashed when I said her name, like she’d noticed the way my tone caressed it, tasting it on my tongue. It made me want to say it again,
lower, rougher, to see how she’d react. No, I wouldn’t force her, but I didn’t think I’d have to. I hadn’t imagined what almost happened between us before her coworker so rudely interrupted. I’d been about to kiss her. And she’d been about to let me.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked like she was trying to rein herself in.
Come on, I wanted to say. Fight with me.
I’d come here with a plan to tell Stella that I held her brother’s fate in my hands, and then lay out my demands for how she could set Blake free. But then she’d opened those pouty lips and antagonized me, and I figured after all the hard work I’d put in, I deserved to have a little fun playing with my prey first.
She seemed to think better of whatever she was about to say (disappointing) and dropped her gaze to my arm. “I need you to sit back again and relax.”
I did as she asked but kept my face turned her way. Her head tipped down as she fitted the temporary tattoo against my skin, giving me a chance to finally study her in peace. Long lashes kissed her upper cheeks when she blinked. The metal of her piercings flashed in the light. Her midnight hair was pulled back in a loose braid, leaving her dramatic makeup on full display: cat eyeliner, red carpet–level contour, matte blue lips so dark they were almost black. Paired with her cropped band tee, barely-there ripped shorts, fishnets, combat boots, and innumerable tattoos, she looked like the poster child for depressed millennials.
I was an equal opportunity kind of guy. Meaning, I was attracted to just about everyone, but I’d never fucked an emo chick before. Hell, I was struggling to remember if I’d ever fucked anyone as hot as Stella. Up close, she didn’t look real. And yes, I knew some of that was down to how well she’d applied her makeup, but I could tell from her features and bone structure that she’d be just as stunning without it.
I’d known she was beautiful based off pictures, but they hadn’t prepared me for seeing her in person. Didn’t capture how impossibly long her legs were. How expressive her face was. The way her eyes flashed with annoyance. The way one eyebrow crept up in perfect disdain. We might have just met, but I’d spent enough time studying people at card tables that I was quickly learning her tells. She was enjoying our sparring, no matter
how much she tried to pretend otherwise, and it made me want to keep poking at her, let my not-so-inner douchebag run rampant until she was so pissed off that she finally snapped and— And what? I wondered. Punched me in the face like she’d threatened?
Dragged her nails down my bare chest deep enough to draw blood? What was it about this woman that made me want to goad her into violence?
Brat, a voice that sounded a lot like Lauren’s ghosted through my mind.
Nah. No way. That wasn’t what this was. I wanted Stella at her worst because it would make it easier to remember who she was: my enemy.
Nothing but a pawn on the chessboard, someone I planned to play with until I was ready to make my next move. And then I would discard her, broken and ruined, while I set my sights on winning the game.
I’d been prepared to manipulate her. Threaten her if I had to. What I wasn’t expecting was this instant spark of something between us. What I felt was too complicated to be defined, and what she felt … judging from the look on her face, she seemed torn between wanting to choke me and
fuck me.
Both please! my subconscious chimed in.
I did my best to muzzle it as her gaze slid away from my arm and down over the rest of my body, like she couldn’t help herself. The urge to touch her was so strong that I balled my hand into a fist between her ankles because I didn’t trust my fingers not to wander. I could feel the heat coming off her, longed to trace it to its source, wondered if I would find her wet and wanting.
Fuck. This was a complication I didn’t need. I hadn’t dated a woman in over six months, had stuck strictly to men, so I figured there was no reason to worry, because I wasn’t in a girl phase. Of course, Stella would be the woman to remind me that I liked pussy just as much as dick.
It made me resent her even more. She was everything I hated: the product of wealth, born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She’d never wanted for anything in her life. Had no idea what it felt like to go without, to constantly worry about where her next meal was coming from, or if there would even be one. Hell, this tattoo parlor was likely bought and paid for by her parents, all to support her little hobby. She probably wasn’t even any good, the place kept afloat by the other artists who worked alongside her.
She made a low, contemplative noise and pulled the transfer paper away to make a few small cuts.
My gaze dropped to the final design for the first time. I had to admit the tattoo was good—a stylized skeleton, hooded, holding five playing cards in its bony hand, bright with color and contrast. Seeing the rough sketch was one thing, but seeing it in full, glorious finality was something else entirely.
“You did that yourself?” I said, unbelieving. No way this pampered rich girl had actual talent.
Her jawline flexed like she was grinding her teeth. “Yes.”
“No one helped you?”
Her eyes flashed as they lifted to mine. “No. Now if you’re done asking questions, I’d really like to get this placed and send you on your merry way to go piss someone else—” She cut herself off, forcing a smile that looked painful. “I mean, let you get on with the rest of your night.”
I grinned, unable to help myself. “But I’m having so much fun here with you.”
She ignored the goading comment, lifting the paper back to my arm, and I realized the cuts would allow it to contour better around my muscles.
“I think it should sit here,” she said, leaning back to inspect her placement.
“Fine,” I said. I had no plans to get an actual tattoo, so it didn’t matter where she put it. This was all just a ruse so I could get close enough to get a good read on her, learn which buttons I would need to push to get her to do what I wanted. Lucky for me, the woman seemed to be made of buttons.
“I’m gonna go through all the steps, like if I was about to tattoo you,” she said. “That way, we should get the best fit.”
I bet it’ll fit real good, came an unbidden thought, my gaze dropping straight between her spread legs. Those goddamn shorts had ridden up, lean muscles on display beneath the fishnets. My online stalking had revealed a lot of things about Stella, including that she’d been a ballerina when she was younger. She still had the body for it, almost rail-thin. Her movements were graceful, too, hands all but floating through the air as she turned to grab a clean pair of nitrile gloves from her cart.
The motion pressed her thigh against my arm.
A slight pressure came from my crotch.
Now? my dick asked.
Absolutely not, I told it. Stella was so close that there was no way she’d miss the trouser trout forming if I lost control of myself. Goddamn sweatpants. I should have taken the time to pull my jeans back on post- workout, but I’d been in such a rush to get here that I’d dressed at Mach speed.
She turned back my way, wetting my upper arm with a soapy solution and then wiping it dry. My gaze dropped to the seemingly random tattoos dotting her pale skin. I spotted an anchor, a dancing skeleton, the lunar cycle, and a snake wrapped around her forearm. It shouldn’t have worked, but the way they were placed, paired with the spacing between them, made it look more eclectic than arbitrary, like she’d planned them out with care.
She swapped the soap for a razor and started dry-shaving my arm.
I lifted my gaze to her face, watching her brows draw together with concentration, the way her eyes followed the motion of the razor. She had beautiful eyes. Light brown with honey tones running through them.
A strand of hair had come loose from her braid, and it brushed against my arm as she leaned close. I clenched my jaw and tried to think of absolutely anything else but the feel of her warm breath on my skin. Once she was done, she spun away to set down the razor and pick up a bottle of hand sanitizer, giving me a brief respite in which to beg my nether regions to behave. And then she was back, leaning in as she wiped my arm down for a second time. She smelled good. Like incense. The kind they burned in hippie stores to cover the reek of the devil’s lettuce from the break area out back.
One more half turn brought Stella’s leg back in contact with my arm, and something in me finally snapped. I unclenched my fist and brushed my
fingers over the inside of her ankle.
She froze.
So did I.
What the fuck was I doing?
And why couldn’t I seem to stop myself?
Slowly, she pivoted away, her expression unreadable, and it clicked. She was too calm, too collected, too flawless. Like that almost-kiss hadn’t happened. Like it was that forgettable. Like I was that forgettable.
Meanwhile, here I was begging the chub in my pants not to go full flagpole.
It made me want to drag her down to my level. Undo her. Ruin her. Grab
her by the shirt and haul her forward so I could smear that perfect lipstick all over her face with my mouth.
Something ugly was crawling up the back of my throat, demanding to be let out. This was a sickness I’d been fighting my whole life, the need to prove that I was good enough, that I was worthy. And what better way to do that than by fucking a spoiled brat in the shop her parents paid for? She was always going to hate me for what I had done to her brother, and for what I planned to do to her and everyone else she’d ever cared about, so what did it matter if I added one more sin to my list of crimes?
If I was going to be the villain in her story, I might as well earn the title, right?
Plus, it wasn’t like Stella was some innocent nobody. She was a villain herself in someone else’s story, and that was a large part of why I’d chosen her. It was easier to hate her knowing what she’d done, knowing that the protection of her wealth and privilege had kept her from paying for her crimes.
“See you tomorrow!” her grizzled coworker called before the chiming
door announced his departure.
Alone at last.
This time I wrapped my whole hand around Stella’s ankle.
“What are you doing?” she said, echoing my earlier thought.
“What we both want me to,” I answered, dragging my fingers up the inside of her calf.
She shuddered, eyes closing, lips falling open, just like they had before we’d been interrupted. “I don’t even like you.”
“Who said this has anything to do with us liking each other?” My fingers reached her knee and curled around the back of it. Gripped.
She started to say something, but I cut her off before she could talk us
out of this.
“Get up here.”
I grabbed her arm, and with a tug, I had her moving, but her leg swinging over mine? That was all her. A clear indicator that I wasn’t the only one who’d lost their goddamn mind. The transfer paper fluttered to the floor, forgotten, as she landed in my lap. I dropped my hands to her hips and ground up just enough for her to feel what she’d done to me, gripping her hard enough to know I resented her for it.
Her palms slapped against my bare chest as she was forced to brace herself upright. But no one was forcing her to dig her nails in so hard. And no one was forcing me to like it as much as I did.
“You’d be prettier without the piercings,” I said, some small part of me trying to save myself from this stupidity by being an asshole.
“And you’d be prettier with your mouth stapled shut,” she shot back.
I rolled my hips into her. “So you only want me for my body?”
“No, your winning personality.” Her tone was deeply sarcastic.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
We moved forward at the same time, shutting each other up. With our mouths.
Stella’s lips popped open immediately, and I knew from the first glide of my tongue against hers that this was a mistake. Because it wasn’t awkward.
Or hesitant. Our teeth didn’t click together. We didn’t have to go slow at first as we learned each other’s kissing style. No, we went into it hard, rough. Like we’d been doing this for years.
Her tongue felt like heaven, pausing, swirling, deepening the kiss as her hands gripped my face and she tilted my head back to give herself better access. And her hips. Fuck, she knew how to move, that slow drag of her pussy up and down the length of my cock making me want to shred the layers between us and drive up into her wet, welcoming heat.
“Don’t let this go to your head,” she said as we shifted angles. “I make out with all my clients.”
“Dirty little slut.” With my voice gone low from lust, the words came out even rougher than I’d intended.
Stella must have liked the sound of them, because her lips crashed back into mine on a moan. Our tongues met again, mouths pausing open as we twirled them against each other in an absolutely filthy kiss. My hands swept up from her hips, briefly framing her narrow waist before stroking upward to her ribcage and pausing there. I brushed my thumbs along the underside of her breasts, felt her arch into me with a silent plea for more.
The sound of a chime echoed through the shop. We froze, eyes opening, staring at each other as heavy footfalls headed in our direction.
Stella dove sideways off me. Or maybe I threw her. Either way, the squawking noise she made as she went flying had those footfalls picking up
speed.
“Your mouth,” she hissed, scrambling back onto her stool. She was one to talk. Blue was smeared from her nose to her chin like she’d cannibalized a Smurf.
At least I’d achieved my goal of ruining her perfect face.
I clapped a hand over my lips and yanked my knees up to shield my now raging erection from view.
Stella put her back to the door just as her crotchety coworker strode into view. He paused on the threshold, eyeing us with obvious suspicion.
“Everything okay in here?”
“We’re fine,” Stella said, facing the wall.
His gaze narrowed. “Forgot my keys.”
“Oh, okay,” Stella responded, her voice a whole octave higher than normal. Real smooth. “Did you find them?”
“Yeah.” The big guy looked between us again. “How much longer you
going to be?”
“Maybe ten minutes?” Stella said.
He jerked a nod. “I think I’ll wait after all. Spend that time setting everything up for tomorrow.”
He shot me a warning look and stomped away.
Stella released a shaky breath and grabbed a paper towel to wipe at her mouth. Afterward, she tossed it my way. “Here, clean your face off.”
I flicked it onto the floor. “Ew.”
She rolled her eyes. “Your tongue was just cleaning the back of my teeth.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to use your dirty rags.” I reached past her and snagged the roll of paper towels myself.
Somewhere nearby, a loud noise sounded, like her coworker had slammed a drawer.
Stella glanced toward the hallway. “I don’t think he likes you very much.”
“Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual,” I grumbled, wiping my lips clean, but maybe I should have been thanking him instead. Seducing Stella would have been fun in the moment, but it also would have complicated things further down the road.
I didn’t need to fuck her to play my part as the villain; what I had planned was more than enough to make her hate me forever. And plus, that kiss had quickly gotten out of hand, had been a little too good. Even now, I felt the ghost of her lips over mine, working, coaxing, and it made me want to reach out and haul her back up here, to hell with her grouchy employee.
I chucked the used paper towel onto her work tray and then handed her the roll. Our eyes met as she took it, held for a moment before her gaze dropped to my lips.
“That won’t be happening again,” she said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.
“Then maybe you should stop staring at my mouth like you’re about five seconds away from re-attacking me.”
She yanked the paper towels out of my hand. “I didn’t attack you.”
“Yes, you did,” I said, gesturing toward the doorway. “I’m half-tempted to invite your buddy back in here to make sure you keep your hands to yourself.”
“You are so egotistical,” she said, spinning away to set the roll down and scoop her design from the floor.
“I like to think I have the appropriate level of self-confidence.”
“Sir, you are a blond man. Calm down.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She scooted back toward me, repositioning the transfer paper. “I can’t explain why that’s a burn. It’ll ruin it.”
I eyed her while she refocused on her work, wanting to say more, wanting to keep taunting her because I didn’t like how quickly she was getting herself back under control.
More loud sounds came from nearby, another reminder that we weren’t alone.
A wave of irritation washed over me, and this time, I did nothing to stem the tide, letting it distract me from Stella’s nearness and remind me of how I should have been feeling this whole time.
Her coworker’s return had fucked up my plan to reveal myself. I’d booked this appointment so late because Stella had a (bad) habit of closing the shop herself, and I’d wanted us to be alone when I explained my true intentions. I couldn’t do that now with Lurch loitering nearby. Not that I couldn’t take the old bastard in a fight—I still met Josh at the dojo once a
week so we could kick the shit out of each other. No, it was because I didn’t want witnesses, especially not a dude who looked like he might have ties to the seedier side of this city.
So I’d just have to sit here and suffer through Stella’s nearness in silence.
Getting her alone again was going to be a pain in the ass. She never seemed to leave this place except to run across the street for coffee, and unlike my best friend, I didn’t have the time to sit around watching people like a creep.
I had places to be, another event to prepare for.
Goddamn it, I was going to have to book a second late-night appointment, wasn’t I? Hopefully she had something open in the coming days, because the sooner I laid out my cards, the better. Stella and her brother were incredibly close, and my blackmail banked on that. Blake and I had only interacted briefly, but between my “research” and being a good reader of people, I’d determined a few crucial things about him: he was young for his age (having obviously grown up sheltered), gullible, naïve, and in a vulnerable state because of a recent breakup. It made him the perfect victim, and he’d fallen easily into my trap.
Now he was in trouble. Trouble too big for his frat boys to get him out of. This was blood-is-thicker-than-water trouble. The type you’d only bring to someone who’d feel obligated to help you. Someone who’d been protecting you your whole life, so you wouldn’t repeat their mistakes.
Which meant there was a very high risk that Blake might go running to Stella for a bailout before I could break the news to her myself.
Would that be the worst thing? I wondered, eyeing her as she taped the transfer paper into place. If Blake got to her first, she’d have all the pieces she needed to figure out my identity. He hadn’t seen my face at the party, but he knew my hair was blond, and that I was tall, muscular, and went by Mr. Strickland. Plus, if he told her, I wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout.
The yelling. The potential tears and pleading for mercy I didn’t have. God knew I dealt with that shit enough with my regular clients.
Was I worried about Blake going to his parents instead? Or worse, the cops? Absolutely not. Because I’d done my homework. Thanks to Stella’s checkered past, I was convinced that Blake wouldn’t want to cause their parents any more grief or embarrassment. And going to the cops risked a public scandal, something the McCormicks would do anything to avoid.
At my core, I was a gambler, and it was time to roll the dice.
One way or another, by the end of the week, Stella was going to find out who she was really dealing with. And then I could set my plan in motion.
