The tattoo artist removes one of the hoodies and holds it to her chest. “I. Love. This.” Her halo of dark curls bobs as she lays the thin jacket out and strokes a hand over the logo. “What else do you have?”
Together, we open the remaining boxes and moan and exclaim over the contents as if they’re piles and piles of chocolate and coffee instead of merchandise. Long-sleeve Henley-style shirts, T-shirts for men and women, beanies, baseball caps, custom-made leather wrist cuffs and necklaces… Even jewelry with the shop’s initials engraved on the silver. Pleasure swirls inside me, and every time V oohs-and-aahs over another article, my delight increases, mixing with a swelling pride.
“I want one of everything,” V announces, stripping off her fashionably shredded shirt and drawing on one of the woman’s black T-shirts with the purposefully ragged V-neck. It looks amazing against her chicory skin and her full-sleeve tattoos. “God, this even makes me look like I have tits. Now I can stop calling you a bitch out of breast-envy.”
I snicker, replacing all the merchandise in the boxes. “Uh, you know you just bought that shirt, right?”
She shoots me a side glance. “Employee discount?”
“Sure.” I nod. “I’m pricing it at $19.99. You can have it at 19.97.”
“Gee,” she drawls. “That’s really magnanimous of you.” She tosses one of the pieces of ripped-off shipping tape at me, grinning. “Like that word? The U of C professor I’m dating taught me that one. He helps me in expanding my vocab, and in return, I tutor him in…other things.” She releases a frankly lascivious cackle, and I shake my head at her. “Has Knox seen the logo yet?”
And like a needle to a balloon, just the mention of his name takes care of the joy bubbling in my chest.
Covering the elation that whistles out of me like a slow leak, I duck my head and concentrate on closing the packages. “Yeah. After Hakim drew the logo for me, I emailed it to him. He approved it, so I’m guessing he liked it.”
Not that I could show him the finished product now. Knox has been noticeably scarce around the shop since the Sunday before last. The Sunday I went down on him on my brand-new living room couch, and he reciprocated with a tongue-fuck that literally knocked me out for the count.
I swallow hard, shoving down the knot of anger and embarrassment that has lodged itself in my throat more times than I can number in the last two weeks. As if waking up alone after being so…vulnerable and exposed with him wasn’t enough, I arrived at work Monday to discover he’d left for a tattoo expo in Florida. Convenient.
And from Instagram, I discovered he was traveling with Jenika Travers, a local artist and shop owner who’s always nurtured a serious hard-on for Knox and is a doppelganger for Ryan Ashley, the gorgeousInk Masterchampion. I wonder if he had any trouble sleeping while he was gone. Sex has the habit of tiring people out.
Great. My subconscious has deteriorated into a straight bitch. I hate the licks of green fire that even now scald a hole in my belly as they did when I scrolled through the Instagram posts from the three-day expo. I, more than anyone, accept that I have zero claim on Knox, nor do I have the right to be jealous or resentful.He’s not mine. Still… None of that prevented the hurt from slicing into me and leaving me breathless.
Knox returned home on Thursday, only to leave back out on Monday for another expo in Detroit. And during that time in the shop, he shut himself up in his room with client after client. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he snatched people up off the street and offered to ink them for free if they would just keep him occupied. And too busy to speak to or deal with me.
Not that he’s the one doing all the avoiding.
I’m guilty. And there’s the key word: guilt.
Unlike the time he touched me in his apartment, when I woke up the morning after we’d christened my living room couch I hadn’t been crushed by the weight of unresolved grief and shame. Mainly because my head—and body—had still been reeling from the apocalyptic event that had taken place the night before. God. I curl my fingers into a tight fist to keep from pressing a palm to my lower belly…or lower. Sometimes, especially in the dead of night, I can still feel Knox’s mouth. Moving over me. Tugging at me. Licking at me. Fucking me.
The man licked my asshole, for fuck’s sakes. And—and I think I liked it.
I smother a mortified groan. What has he done to me? Transformed me into this sexual creature I don’t recognize. Didn’t know existed.
Sex with Connor had been gentle, tender, patient, loving.
Knox had been wild, raw, dirty, carnal, and the pleasure had been unmerciful.
He’d swept me up in this maelstrom of passion and ecstasy and left me battered and bruised by it. Confused by it. Because I’ve known love, affection. So how can I crave something so…animalistic? My mind knows the difference. My body doesn’t give a damn.
But this…thingbetween us is wrong. Lusting after, kissing, caressing, and sucking off my dead husband’s brother is justwrong. Katherine would never understand or forgive it. Neither would the rest of his family—myfamily. They would view it as immoral…practically incest. Maybe see me as a brother-jumping whore with no loyalty. I would risk losing the only family I’ve had since I was nineteen years old.
And then there’s another thought that has been nagging at me for the last two weeks. With the chaotic mess that was my childhood, growing up with an alcoholic father and neglectful mother, I grew to be independent. In my eyes, I had no choice. It was either fend for myself or be broken. And breaking wasn’t an option. But after meeting Connor, I lost that independence somewhere along the line. I can’t pinpoint where, and I don’t know why. Maybe it was the novelty of being loved, cared for, and protected? Maybe, in spite of surviving the hell of my upbringing, some residue of it burrowed deep into my subconscious, and when a man finally showed me love, offered me security, I was willing to do anything to keep him? Including surrender my ambition and goals to his? Not that Connor asked me to do any of that. He never even expected me to put my life on hold to support his dreams. That wasn’t him. Yet, I did just that.
I mentally shrink from that thought; it veered too close to who my mother had been. But I can’t escape my whirling brain; I can’t shut it down. And as my third-grade teacher was fond of saying, “The proof is in the pudding.” I’m twenty-four, no degree, about to enroll in college for the second time, and am finding my footing in a new position. Just finding myself.
Yes, my fear is losing my family. But… What if my bigger one is losing myself in Knox like I did with Connor?
“There’s a party in here, and nobody invited me?” Shana snaps from the office door, breaking into my troubled thoughts. Thank God for the interruption. I need a break from myself. The petite woman props a hip against the jamb, her arms crossed. But the bark of her voice is offset by the smile lighting her lovely features. This week, her black hair is streaked a vibrant pink and purple. I swear, if I didn’t love these women at the shop like sisters, their beauty would wreak hell on my confidence. “Hey, don’t worry about my client. I checked him out because I figured you were back here getting ready for your date.” She arches an eyebrow that states,I know you’re not.
I sigh. Right. The date. “No, I’m not getting ready yet. I have another hour—”
“Fuck that,” Shana interrupts, flicking my excuse off with a wave of her hand. “Knox isn’t here, so that officially makes you the boss. So as the boss, I think you can give yourself permission to clock out an hour early and start getting ready.”
“And don’t even think about saying you’re going home, Ms. Thang,” V adds, tossing the hoodie she’s holding back in the box. “If you think me and Shana are going to let you out of our sights until you leave for that restaurant, you’ve obviously been hittin’ some of Hakim’s weed.” She stands and twirls a finger over the packages. “We don’t trust you not to hole up in that apartment and chicken out. So, tie all this up so we can get you ready.”
