“Ugh!” She jumps to her feet, her nose landing inches from mine as she hikes up on her tiptoes. “Listen, you Philistine, I don’t swing from the pole. I’m background. I make darn good money, and I don’t feel the need to etch every meaningful moment over my skin like some cartoon monument to the past.”
I inch back. “Are you making fun of my tats?”
“Are you making fun of my job?” She stalks off and heads into my bedroom.
A muffled scream emits from the other side of the door as she jumps right back out and heads into the room next door with a definitive slam of the door.
A petite blonde flies out of my room, and my stomach grinds to nothing.
Shit. “Gina.” A nervous laugh gets buried in the pit of my stomach because I know what’s coming next as a brunette peeks out behind her. “Camille.” A sickly smile tries to come, but I can’t seem to land it.
They scamper the hell out of here, citing something about too many crazy bitches, and I catch the press snapping pictures of them as they make a run for their car.
Last night was pretty damn insane.
Another scream comes from the spare bedroom down the hall.
Something tells me Hurricane Daisy is about to school my ass when it comes to women and redefine insanity altogether.
All of Monday I lose my ass down at Think Ink, drilling over one client after the next while a handful of reporters set up shop outside the window. It was less than a year ago when I first saw Daisy Pembrooke’s beautiful face. I knew right then I could easily have her likeness stamped across my chest for the rest of my life and not have an ounce of regret. And that body. I don’t dare get started on that body. You don’t see tits like that every day. Not that I’ve seen her in the buff, but that nude colored bikini she prances around in down at Stilettos doesn’t leave much to the imagination. I’ve seen my fair share of girls in all shapes and sizes, and those tits move the way God intended. Most of the girls down at the club are inflated with silicone, boobs too far apart they refuse to sway naturally with the rest of their body. I’ve had more than my fair share of silicone land in my bed as well. Not that I mind it, and for damn sure not that I’m judging. It’s just that when Daisy first came out strutting her stuff, it was her wiggle and her natural giggle that kept my attention—and the attention of just about every other kook in that place. Something about the desperate way she tried to fit in, her exaggerated moves, her schoolgirl smile—instead of sponsoring a hard-on in me, something about Daisy Pembrooke broke my heart. Earlier last summer, I decided to do something about it and started sending a few hefty tips her way, hoping to get her out of whatever ditch she landed herself in. Not one time has Daisy taken it all off for the world to see, and that pretty much let me know she didn’t really want to be there. She was in it for the money, trying to get back to her dorm night after night with her dignity still in tact.
Honey Babcock pokes her head into my office. “Jody Kyle, that chick with the documentary, called like five times this morning.”
I groan at the mention of her name. Jody Kyle has been after me for weeks. Her production company would like to include Think Ink in on a documentary they’re shooting. I’ve run it past Lucky, and she isn’t that hot on the idea. I’m not so sure I am either.
“Got it.” I can’t just keep ignoring Jody. In the least I owe her a phone call. Hell, maybe I’ll listen to her spiel once again.
“And your next appointment is here.” Honey pokes a pencil into her beehive while obnoxiously snapping her gum. Her dark purple lips move up and down as if chewing cud. She’s a decent, semi-nice girl, always ready with the attitude, which seems to be my only requirement with women.
“I’ll be right out.”
I’ve banged Honey. I’ve banged just about every chick that’s ever worked for me and not because it’s some twisted policy I have when it comes to hiring for the front desk. It’s just who I am. Somewhere along the line, I’ve accepted the fact I’m not getting involved in a relationship, so I’ve gone in the opposite direction and began what Owen likes to refer to as “panic fucking”. But just because I don’t want to squeeze myself in a serious commitment doesn’t mean I’m panicked. I just need that release. And it just so happens I’m not all that picky who I get it from so long as she’s sporting the right kind of plumbing.
I head into the next room and find a couple of girls huddled over the Hidden Treasure book I keep out for display purposes.
“Whoa, knock that off.” Normally, I wouldn’t object to anyone looking into that depraved style manual rife with pictures of piercings and tats where most piercings and tats should never venture to go, but with the girls in question, I feel I have the right to object to just about anything.
Lucky and Ava stand at attention as I snag the book away. Neither one of them looks too guilty, probably because the two of them are just alike—a ball of attitude and snark, two things I don’t usually mind in a girl, but when it comes to these girls, I firmly object.
I glance over to my sister and frown. Lucky is vamped up a little too much, but it was the first day of school. She probably went all out. Ava is a bit more girl next door, but she wears Owen’s devilish grin like it’s nobody’s business. She’s a handful. They both are. It’s not a huge surprise they get along.
“What’s up?”
“I’m up.” Lucky jumps onto the table and crosses her legs. Her shorts are way too close to home, and that tank top she’s wearing shows off more than her midriff.
I take a seat on the stool and roll over as if I were her doctor. “How were your classes? Did you like your first day?” It took a lot of fight not to head down to Briggs and follow her around from class to class. “Did you have enough money for books?”
“Yes, but you can give me more if you want.” Lucky blows a tiny pink bubble in my face, and I hold back a smile. Lucky will always be that same pigtailed six-year-old following me around, annoying the crap out of me. Only now the tables have turned, and it’s my turn to annoy the crap out of her. “I’m here because it’s time for you to pay up. You said if I got into Briggs, I could get the tattoo I wanted.”
“Crap,” I mutter. “What are you looking for?” It’s true. Last fall, in an effort to get her to apply to WB, I may have bribed her with some ink. In theory I have nothing against Lucky tatting herself up like a Japanese mafia princess if she wants to, but, now that the theory is about to become a reality, a part of me has changed my mind. I see the way people look at me, especially when I happened to wander into the campus administration building to help Lucky out a handful of times. I don’t want Lucky to endure a lifetime of those same judgmental looks. I can take it. Hell, I don’t give a rat’s ass what anybody thinks of me, but, then again, I pretty much have my life established, and hers is just starting out.
She clicks her tongue at me, eyes to the ceiling. “Stop overanalyzing this from every angle. Relax. I want something private, something just for the man in my life and me.” She glances to Ava as they break out in titters.
“You don’t have a man in your life, and that’s the way you should keep it for the next five years.” Make it ten.
She growls in my direction before stabbing her finger over her inner thigh. “I want a giant X right here so he knows where to put his tongue.”
“All right, stop messing with me and get out of here. Don’t you have finals to study for or something?”
“Very funny.” Lucky runs her finger up her leg a little too close to home. “How about a rose? I want the thorns leading all the way up my happy trail.”
“First, you don’t have a happy trail, so get that out of your head. And second, it runs the other way. Are you trying to give me a heart attack? That’s disgusting by the way. There’s no way I’m doing that for you, now or ever.”
Her eyes flit with fire, and that little angel I keep trying to envision her as turns neon red as a proverbial pair of horns and a tail pop out of nowhere. “Then what do you recommend?”
&n
bsp; “Dinner on campus and then maybe a study group—toss in a Bible study while you’re at it.”
“Wow, you’re a real comedian. Have you considered stand-up as a side gig?”
Ava shakes her head at me as if I just let off an offensive odor. “Oh, I know!” She looks to Lucky with that same look Owen gets right before he births a piss-poor idea. “How about something ironic like Mom. It says wow backward.”
“No.” I don’t waste time in shutting down that idea. Next thing you know, she’ll be wanting a hula girl. How’s that for irony? All her life I’ve been protecting her from boys when it was the girls I really had to look out for.
“I like it.” Lucky gets her own wild look in her eyes, and I’m sunk because I’ve seen that look before. “But I think it should say Dad!”
Shit. My stomach clenches. “Nope.” It pisses me off that she even said the word in here. Not going there. For sure I’m not etching those letters into her skin for the world to see.
“Yes,” she snipes back. Gone is her friendly demeanor. Lucky is about to go off the rails if she doesn’t get her way. I’ve seen Lucky hemorrhage into hysterics enough times to know. “He was the best dad in the world.”
“Right.” Wrong actually. Both of our parents are long gone, and I get that she wants to keep their memories alive, but my father is best long forgotten. “You can believe what you want, but it’s still not happening.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Says every three-year-old.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not three. Maybe you shouldn’t treat me like I am.” She hops off the table, and they head to the front.
“Wait, I’m sorry. Nobody gets a tattoo on their first day of college,” I say, following them out the door.
Ava smirks at me as if I’ve just taken a crap on her book bag. “That’s not what Piper said!”
Lucky gives me the finger as they head to the used pickup I bought her last Christmas. “We’ll find someone else to take my money.”
“You mean my money. And don’t you dare! I’m the best, and you know it.”
I watch as they take off in a dust storm, the tires leaving their greasy tracks in her wake.
Nothing new.
Lucky always seems to leave her mark. But that tattoo she’s thinking of—that’s one mark I hope she has nothing to do with.
A week drifts by, and each night when I arrive home, another area of the living room disappears in a sea of boxes. It’s safe to say I’ve been Daisy Pembrooked. How the heck did she manage to cram all this crap in her dorm anyway? I’ve been in my fair share of those glorified coffins Whitney Briggs provides, and there’s no way she’s had this stuff lying around in or out of boxes.
Designers, knock-offs, sweaters, boots, summer clothes, coats—three entire boxes labeled purses—but it’s the one down near the bottom that reads kink that has my attention.
“Don’t get your hopes up, tat boy.” I turn around to find a drop-dead gorgeous, dripping wet from the shower Daisy Pembrooke standing tall, hair slicked back like wet spaghetti, a tiny white robe wrapped around her body that highlights the fact her nipples are glad to see me. “It’s a misspelling. It’s supposed to say Pink, as in my supplier of all things underwear.” She snatches a pen off the counter and quickly rectifies the K to a P.
“Tat boy?” I cock my head a moment, taking her in like this with that pale blonde hair, those glowing eyes, and that mouthwatering body before heading to the fridge to cool myself off. It was the fridge or her. I knew I had to get my hands on one of them. “You want something?”
“No thanks.”
“Good.” I flip the lid on the OJ and down half the jug straight from the container.
“Nice.”
“I am nice. That’s why you’re here.” I thump the juice back into the fridge before turning around, hoping to hell my boxers don’t commit to a spontaneous salute.
“Oh, you’re nice, all right.” She nods with those wild eyes—a shade of ice blue that matches that glacier sitting in her chest where her heart should be. “Amy, Laura, Jessica, Michelle, and Tracy have all stopped by this week to tell me exactly how nice you are.”
I take a bold step in, her heaving chest a breath away from mine. “You have something you want to say to me?”
Her pink little lips knot up in a bow as if the words she wanted couldn’t quite get out. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be bitchy. I guess you can say I’m a little on edge these days.”
“No worries.” That tension wire in my gut snaps once she apologizes. She didn’t have to do that. In fact, I don’t ever want her to do it again. My finger grazes along her cheek without meaning to. Before I know it, I’m lifting her chin to get a better look into those pale starry eyes, and my dick gives in and salutes her the only way it knows how. “I’ve got a surefire way to relieve that tension.” There, I did it. I swore I wouldn’t, but my little head won out. It usually does.
“What’s that?” Her breathing picks up pace as if she already knows.
I pull off my shirt nice and slow, letting her get a good look at the offerings before unbuttoning my Levi’s, stepping out of both them and my boxers at the very same time.
Her eyes enlarge as she snakes up and down my body with a wandering gaze. Her lips twitch in that all too familiar smirk, and I don’t bother to suppress a smile.
“There’s the naughty little bitch I know and love.”
Her mouth opens, and for a second, I’m tempted to put something in it. “Did you just call me a bitch?”
“Did you call me tat boy?”
“Why are you naked?”
“Why do you ask so many damn questions?”
Daisy swallows hard while openly glaring at me. But nothing about Daisy’s demeanor has me retreating. My fingers find their way into the back of her hair. Daisy closes the distance between us as her hands sear over my chest.
“So, are you going to relieve my tension or what?” Her voice trembles. Her lips quiver with the question.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Talk Dirty to Me
Daisy
According to my American Express card, I’ve been spontaneous on more than one occasion and liberally so. I’m forever stymied by how a couple of small purchases here and there, over a span of thirty days, quickly add up to hundreds, thus leaving me thousands in debt and then some. So deductive logic begs to reason, that, yes, my spontaneous behavior has landed me in trouble on more than one occasion. And trouble is exactly what’s brewing in Jet Madden’s marble blue eyes.
His chest thumps with a quiet laugh, and my hands remain sealed over that scalding battleship he calls a chest. A part of me wants to study the intricate designs he has stamped over his body. Those muted blue-gray tones have been calling to me, and I’ve more than enjoyed the luscious sneak peeks I’ve stolen. That serpent wrapping itself around his neck has begged me to follow his slithery path for months—but, at the moment, I can’t seem to rip my gaze from his... There’s something paralyzing, magnetic, undeniably addictive about this inextricable bond we seem to be locked in.
Jet Madden has never shared more than a few words with me over the entire last year, and here his fingers are knotted up in my hair, his piping hot hard-on grazes my robe. For whatever reason, I’ve deemed Jet off limits. Most men have been just that to me for as long as I can remember. I’ve never wanted to be tied down the way some of my friends were. I never wanted to feel like I had to answer to anybody, or God forbid that someone else might actually think they can control me. Worse yet, I never wanted to fall dependent on anybody for any single thing. People only hurt you in the end. I’ve always known that the best way to avoid a crushing heartbreak is to build an impenetrable wall, high and fast. I’ve also had enough rejection in my past to know that’s one bitter cup I’m not interested in sipping out of ever again.
The heat radiates off his body in dizzying waves as this moment of silent debate rages between us. Verbally we’ve committed
, but our bodies have yet to take the proverbial plunge. My gaze drifts to those full lips of his. It’s strange that I’ve never noticed the lips of any man before. I’ve noticed a lot of things about a lot of men, and their lips were not even on the short list. The subtle hint of his cologne permeates us like a cloud, spiced, luxurious, and unmistakably manly. If Jet Madden is anything, he is the textbook definition of manly.
According to his reputation, Jet has had his fair share of spontaneous moments. That fifth appendage he’s saluting me with has seen more action than prom night at every US high school combined in the history of ever. Do I really want a piece of this beautiful, hard-bodied, sculpted, well-chiseled, mapped-out-piece-of-art-that-belongs-in-the-Louvre, glowing blue-eyed man? My thighs tremble as if giving up an answer of their own.
There are so many reasons why I should turn around and run, but that dark cloud of a shitstorm that’s been following me has my feet taking root to the floor. To say I’ve had a crap week is an understatement. Those caustic phone calls from my father were enough for me to want to bury myself alive. My parents have never expected much from me. When I applied to every pricey university known to man, my father wasn’t shy about offering his opinions. He sang an entire choir of you’ll be married and knocked up before you’re twenty! Both your mother and I know you’re sleeping around! College is a waste of time for you! That right there is the sole reason I’m hoofing the tuition on my own, not that they could have afforded a state school, let alone WB. Between scholarships and student loans, I’m squeaking by without their help, but they did somehow manage to pay for my brothers’ tuition. Now they were an investment—the family treasure. Here I had proven to be the embarrassment they always knew I would be. And my boss down at Stilettos? Let’s just say I’ve been persona non grata for the last week. He suggested I come back in a few days when this entire nightmare blows over. Only, according to those stalkarazzi that have been posing as students all week, making my brand new fall semester fresh hell, this isn’t blowing over quickly. And those articles—the vile lies the media is openly vomiting on the Internet… Saying I bopped the senator’s bologna? Piper actually had to explain to me what that gross little lunchmeat tidbit meant. Who the hell speaks like that, let alone lies about it? And those hideous threats against me from the senator’s grown children? The cease and desist from his rabid wife?