I nodded, my dick twitching twice. Apparently, she got its approval too. “Let’s get you inked.”
I really was a lucky bastard because the parlor was mostly empty, despite it being one of the best places in the City. I didn’t know why Emilia chose to take me with her for her first tattoo, but hell if I cared.
She sketched her tattoo on the stencil paper over the counter, the tip of her tongue peeking out of her red mouth as she scrunched her nose and drew. There was a heavily made-up Goth girl leaning against a barstool. She looked at us like most people did. Like Emilia had kidnapped me or like I was her sensible brother. We were so different it was borderline comical. Me with my custom suit, expensive coat, and rich asshole air about me and her with her burgundy-wine sweater, beanie, Christmas leggings, and army boots.
When Emilia was done and showed her artwork to the girl—it even had coloring and shades—the girl nodded and took the sketch to the back room. Emilia chewed the pencil she’d used, and I took it out of her mouth and shoved it into my pocket.
“Hey, it’s not even ours,” she protested.
“They don’t need this shit with your saliva all over it,” I clipped out.
“Oh? And you do?” She grinned.
I didn’t reply. She was goddamn ridiculous. A big guy with a black goatee and matching long hair—completely tattooed from head-to-toe—stepped out of the back room, flipping aside a black vinyl curtain, and nodded hello to us.
“Name’s Shakespeare. ’Sup?”
We all shook hands. Then he proceeded to go over the process with Emilia. Since it was her first time, he explained the full procedure in detail. And when the fuck would this thing be over? It felt like days had passed since we’d agreed on screwing each other.
Shakespeare—whose goatee actually did make him look like an Elizabethan playwright—asked Emilia if she’d like me to tag along and enter the room. She started answering, “Well…”
Which was obviously not the right answer, so I answered on her behalf. “I’m coming in.”
The tattooist ignored me, moving his eyes between her and me, and tilted his chin down. “He doesn’t have to if you don’t want.”
Fuck him. He made it sound like she was a battered wife.
“Actually, I don’t care if he joins us. I know he loves watching me get hurt.” She winked at me, but she wasn’t smiling, and that thing in my chest sank a little.
Fuck her too.
We walked into the room. The floor was black and white, with red furniture everywhere, and there were framed pictures of Shakespeare’s work. He was good. I took a moment to appreciate his ink.
Shakespeare tossed his iPhone across his desk and dropped to his swivel chair in front of the adjustable tattoo table Emilia was already perched on. “What’s your poison?” he asked, sending her a wink.
I’m going to cut his fucking goatee off and feed it to him.
Emilia chose “Nightcall” by Kravinsky. He hooked his phone to a USB cable, and the music started blasting from every corner of the room. Shakespeare asked Emilia to take off her sweater and bra and lie on the table on her stomach, and to brush all her hair away from her back. She lifted her sweater, exposing her silky olive skin for the first time in front of me. My cock begged for my mind to do something, anything, to lure her to third base like we’d shook hands on.
When she reached for the back of her bra to undo it and turned her back to me, I snapped.
I pulled my wallet out of my pocket. “Here’s my credit card.” I extended the plastic to Shakespeare, waving it between my fingers like a bribe. “You can use it for whatever you want. Just give us ten minutes alone.”
Shakespeare opened his mouth, not touching the credit card, glancing between me and Emilia, who looked just as shocked as he did, if not more. But it was too late to take it back, and I didn’t want to anyway.
Come the fuck on, Goatee. Turn around and walk away.
“Anything,” I stressed, my face still blank. “Go get yourself a new chair. Or a table. Or ink, whatever the fuck it is you need. My treat. Go order food for the whole building. Buy the stray cat down the road a bed to piss on. I’ll give you ten minutes with my credit card if you give me ten minutes in this room with her. Alone.”
“Is your boyfriend always so aggressive?” He arched an eyebrow in Emilia’s direction, throwing her a questioning look that asked: Do you want me to leave you alone with this asshole, or do you want me throw him outside and call NYPD?
She laughed her syrupy Southern belle laugh that always seemed to stab straight to the pit of my fucking stomach. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Shakespeare’s eyebrow shot up. “You should tell him that. Doesn’t seem like he got the memo.”
With a huff, I shoved the credit card into his chubby hand and wrapped his sweaty fingers around it. “Hey, Dr. Phil, get the fuck out of here.”
Shakespeare did as he was told, the door closed, and it was just Emilia and me. She held her sweater to her braless chest and sat on the table, grinning at me.
“Third base?” She bit her lower lip.
I nodded, approaching her in steps that were restrained and even. I didn’t want to pounce on her like a maniac. I mean, I did want to, but I couldn’t scare her away. Not after today.
Something had changed, whether I liked it or not. She knew my secrets. Some of them, anyway. I didn’t understand why I told her everything I did, but alarmingly, I didn’t regret it. Not one bit.
Just when I was inches from her body, watching her bare ribcage rising up and moving down to the rhythm of her heartbeats, I took a sharp right and walked to Shakespeare’s phone.
“Where are you going?” Her voice broke mid-sentence, and I suppressed a chuckle.
“I’m not eating you out to the sound of Kravinsky.”
After all, this is Emilia. The most important meal of the day.
And Kravinsky sucked ass, but I wasn’t going to argue with her over music. I switched it to “Superstar” by Sonic Youth, the song playing when I’d tried—and failed—to kiss her the first time ten years ago. When I turned around back to her, I saw in her eyes that she remembered it too.
“Apologize,” I ordered, striding in her direction once again.
“What for?” Her gaze shifted, and she looked like she was about to throw a punch at me.
“For not kissing me back when you clearly wanted to, you little liar. For fucking one of my best friends. For making that year the worst year of my life since I was nine. Apologize for not being mine when you should’ve been. Because Emilia, baby…” I tilted my head sideways. “It was always fucking us and you know it.”
“I won’t apologize unless you do too. For stealing my calc textbook. For treating me like trash…” She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes. “For throwing me out of Todos Santos.”
I reached for her, placed myself between her legs, and yanked away the sweater she held to her chest. I stared straight into her eyes. “I apologize for doing all those things to you in high school, but now we’re grownups, and I think I’ve met my match. Your turn.”
“I apologize for being too fucking irresistible for you to maintain your sanity.” She rolled her eyes.
I knew how rare it was for Emilia use the F word. I loved it on her lips. I stood there staring into her face for a few seconds before I let my eyes drift down. Her breasts were better than I expected. Slightly smaller than I’d imagined, but with pinker, smaller nipples. They were truly PPPs.
Perky. Pear-shaped. Perfect.
My pulse quickened and blood rushed to my swollen cock.
“May I?” I asked. Why the fuck did I ask? When did I start asking for stuff, anyway?
“You may.”
I lowered my face to her right breast and flicked it with my tongue, tasting her tight nipple, teasing. She sighed and ran her fingers through my hair. My whole back broke into chills. I sucked on her, barely applying real pressure, as I moved my hand to her waistband. I shoved my palm in, mov
ing my finger along her cotton panties.
“Jesus, Vic,” she murmured, clutching my head to her chest and loving every moment of it. “Jesus Christ.”
I moved to her left tit and sucked harder, and she reacted exactly as I wanted her to, moaning louder this time. That was my cue to nudge her panties to the side. My hand still tucked inside her leggings, I dipped one finger inside of her.
So tight.
So warm.
So mine.
“Emilia,” I whispered into her mouth before kissing her again. “How many times did you imagine me fingering you when you secretly watched me play football in high school?”
The music was slow and seductive, and we were completely fucking drunk.
Emilia cupped my face and stared at me, her eyes sparkling, like she was awestruck. Alcohol? Hormones? Who cared? She was vulnerable. For me.
“Please, don’t.” She moaned the words.
“Answer me,” I prompted, thrusting another finger into her. She was so soaked. I wanted to tear her stupid leggings to shreds and ride her on the table.
“All the time.” Her voice was strangled. “I thought about it all the time and hated myself for it.”
The song ended and I knew we had about five minutes more, if not less. Not nearly enough time for me to do what I wanted to do. So instead of feasting on her pussy, I fingered her faster, plunging deeper into her. She unbuckled me, slipped her hand into my briefs and squeezed the head of my cock, twirling a drop of pre-cum around it with her thumb. I groaned and devoured her mouth while she jerked me off.
Who would have thought. Emilia LeBlanc from Richmond, Virginia. So sweet. So proper. So fucking out of her mind for me, in this small tattoo shop on Broadway a couple of days before Christmas.
We were rubbing each other and moaning each other’s names into our mouths—both of us desperate to make sure it was real…
I realized I was about to come all over her Rudloph and his fucking red nose. I stopped her hand on my cock, still honing in on her throbbing clit. What the fuck was I doing? “Don’t,” I barked. “I’ll come.”
“And?” She smiled into one of our dirty, hot kisses.
“And I’d prefer not to come in your hand like a twelve-year-old,” I said. Barely.
“Ask me nicely, or I’ll continue.”
Was she fucking threatening me?
“You’re going to regret—” I started, but she started pumping faster, and I caved. Like a pussy, I gave her what she wanted. “Fine, fuck. Please.”
“Please what?” she teased, and holy hell, she was filthier than I’d imagined. Not at all the innocent little damsel in distress.
“Please…” I cleared my throat. “Don’t let me come all over your hand.”
That was the moment when Emilia LeBlanc jumped from the table with a naughty grin I’d never seen on her face before and got on her knees for me, her beautiful lavender hair in my fist, pumping my dick as she clasped the head of my cock between her lips.
“Come,” she mouthed on my cock.
And I did. Before she even finished the word.
It was stunning, the best thing I’d ever done with a woman in my entire life.
Three hours later, we walked out of the tattoo shop. She had a cherry blossom tree on her skin. It wasn’t that small. The nape of her neck was where the brown trunk stood tall, strong, with thick roots adorning her shoulder blades. Pink and purple blossoms caressed her thin, delicate neck.
And I was fucked.
So. Fucking. Fucked.
It was weird to have her in his penthouse.
Over the years, I’d brought girls to Dean’s apartment plenty of times. I took them in his kitchen, Jacuzzi, bathtub, the balcony overlooking Manhattan, and even got one flexible Juilliard dancer to do it on his very narrow, very packed wet bar. I didn’t think much of it. He did the same in my condo in LA. It was just the way we were. But when we finally got home, at close to midnight, I knew exactly where I had to take Emilia LeBlanc.
On her ex-boyfriend’s bed.
It wasn’t malicious. Not at all. She was right. This was too important to be done in a hotel or some random Starbucks. This was going to happen in a bed. She wasn’t a nameless one-night stand. She was a fantasy, and like all fantasies, she was meant to be savored, cherished, and treated with caution and respect.
Besides, Emilia didn’t know it was Dean’s bed, and I didn’t see how withholding the information from her could hurt her. It made no difference. At least to me.
She looked a little tired in the elevator, so I decided to wake her up by sucking on her neck, mere inches from the bandage covering the pink flowers. I crushed her body to the wall of the elevator and lifted her by the back of her knees, tying her legs around my waist.
“Does it still hurt?” I asked, brushing my fingers lightly over the wrapped up tattoo. She whimpered into my mouth and dragged her tongue over my lower lip but didn’t answer me. I wanted her words. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did.
I dry-fucked her, slow and lazy, through our clothes until the doors glided open, then I carried her the rest of the journey to Dean’s door while she was still wrapped around me. It was with great sadness that I had to let her go so I could unlock the door, and when I pushed it open, something occurred to me.
I’m a fucking idiot.
“Close your eyes,” I ordered. Shit. It sounded like I had a surprise planned for her, but the only thing surprising was that I was a complete and utter amateur. Goddammit.
“Why?” she questioned, sobering up a little from her alcohol-induced exhaustion.
“Because I said so,” I snapped.
“Try again. The non-jerk version this time,” she said sleepily.
Fuck, it was like behavioral boot camp with this woman. I took a deep breath. “I want it to be perfect,” I explained, almost softly.
Her eyes fluttered shut and I took her hands in mine—I fucking held her hands, another first—and led her to the master bedroom as we passed by pictures of Dean with his extended fucking family, smiling at us from every corner of the room.
Dean had a perfect family life. Amazing parents, two over-achieving sisters. The whole deal. But as great as his family was, it wasn’t interesting enough for me to keep the mementos of them in what was supposed to be my apartment. I couldn’t explain these pictures to Emilia, and I didn’t want to tell her it was Dean’s place because I didn’t want her to think I was fucking her to avenge what happened when we were teenagers.
Because I wasn’t.
I was fucking her because I’d wanted her pussy ever since I first saw her standing outside the library door and knew those peacock eyes were going to haunt me.
I lowered Emilia to the bed and ordered her to keep her eyes closed as I rushed to the living room. I grabbed the framed pictures of Dean and his family and shoved them all into his pantry. There were plenty of them, too. All over the living room, hallway, and kitchen area.
Fuck! Why couldn’t he have had a shitty family like mine? He could bring a whole FBI unit, fifty CIA agents, and fucking Nancy Drew to my condo and none of them would know I lived there. The guy’s place was more family-orientated than a Chuck-E-Cheese restaurant.
It took me ten minutes to get rid of Dean’s crap, and when I walked back to the bedroom, breathless, I saw Emilia lying flat on the mattress, her arms stretched out like a snow angel, snoring softly.
Snoring.
As in, not awake.
Snoring.
As in, she fell asleep.
Goddammit.
“Thanks a bunch, Cole,” I muttered, biting my own fist to suppress a frustrated scream.
This day was for nothing. We weren’t going to fuck. Well, not tonight, anyway. It wasn’t that today was torture—far from it, I’d mostly had a good time—but the only reason I agreed to it was because I knew what was waiting for me in the end.
For a slight second, I contemplated whether I should accidentally wake her up by breaking something or turn
ing on the music because I simply didn’t know she was asleep, but apparently, even my assholeness had its limits.
I covered her with a blanket—again—and strode to the walk-in closet, pulling out my work-out clothes. The night was young, and sleep wasn’t on the menu for me, as usual.
I worked out at the indoor gym Dean’s building had to offer, then went back up to the penthouse—she was still asleep—and took a shower. When I was in my jeans and plain black tee, I padded barefoot to the living room and started going over documents for work. There were two agreements I needed to draft before New Year’s Eve. Easy Peasy. It wasn’t like I needed to spend some time with my family.
At four in the morning, I felt her arms wrap around my shoulders from behind as I sat on the sofa, scrolling through one of my client’s files.
“Do you have insomnia?” she asked bluntly into my ear before blowing on it teasingly. “You never sleep. Ever. I’m starting to think you’re not human.”
“My stepmom seems to share the sentiment.” I set my laptop on the coffee table and got up, spinning to face her. She looked how I felt. Pretty goddamn tired.
“Well, do you?” she probed.
“No,” I lied. “It’s four in the morning. Go back to sleep.”
“I’m not tired anymore,” she protested. “And my new tattoo burns.”
“Pretty sure that’s not unusual. And you can go to sleep or let me fuck you, but we’re done talking for the day.”
“You know what, Vicious? I’m trying. I really am. To take you as you are. But sometimes, even I’m not immune to how horrible you can be.” She turned around and walked to the bedroom.
I watched her ass disappear down the hallway before she came back out with her courier bag and threw it across her shoulder. Her shoes were on. Why the fuck were her shoes on?
“Thanks for a mediocre day.” She collected her hair into a messy, high bun. “See you tomorrow at the office.”
She was leaving?
I felt like a chick. This was the male equivalent of being fucked and dumped. Some men called a taxi to pick up the women they screwed after sex. But she…she just wanted to leave after milking the longest date in the history of dates out of me.