Tall, Tatted and Tempting (The Reed Brothers 1)

***

I’ve been working on this tat for weeks. It’s a huge bald eagle that goes from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. Not to mention that it’s on a really big guy. I drew the outline, and then I started shading it last week. I need to finish it today. It’s a five hundred dollar tat, and we could use the money. Particularly now.

I settle down to work on it, and Kit watches over my shoulder for a few minutes. But then she goes to the front of the store to sit down with Friday and Paul. Paul is updating Friday on Matt’s condition. Friday adores Matt; if there’s one of us she hangs with the most, it’s him. She wipes a tear from her eye.

I can read her lips from there. “What are the odds that he gets accepted in that trial? It’s so strange,” she says. I can’t see what Paul says in response.

Kit ambles up to the front of the store and says something to Paul. He looks shocked for a minute and then he pulls her forearm down to look at it. She’s not hurt, is she? I move to set my gun to the side, but she looks over her shoulder and smiles at me. She’s fine. Paul motions for her to follow him and he takes her behind a curtain. I see his lips when he says, “Keep him out of there,” to Friday. Keep who out of where? Then he pulls a curtain around the two of them to separate them from us and I have to put the gun down. I start in that direction. Friday gets between me and them. “She’s just getting a tat,” she says, turning me around.

“What kind of tat?”

“A tiny little butterfly or something equally as cute. Maybe a Disney princess. She hadn’t decided yet.” She rolls her eyes. Friday has skulls and crossbones, and turtles, and all sorts of weird shit all over her body.

“I want to help her pick something,” I say, trying to push past Friday.

“Stop,” she says. “She wants to surprise you.”

I run a frustrated hand through my hair.

“Tats mean different things to different people,” Friday says. “This means a lot to her and she should be the one to decide what she gets.”

I already know this, but I want to be involved. Damn it.

“You don’t trust Paul to take care of her?” Friday asks, her brows crashing together.

Of course I trust him. “But this is my girl,” I say. I know I sound like a baby. But there it is.

She pats me on the arm. “Suck it up, buttercup,” she says. Then she narrows her eyes at me. “Wait a minute! When did you start talking?”

My face flushes with heat. “Don’t get used to it,” I grumble. “I may never talk to you again.”

“I could only be so lucky,” Friday says, rolling her eyes. But she jumps up onto her tiptoes and hugs me tightly. “I’m so happy for you,” she says.

I can’t figure out what she’s talking about. Kit? Me? Our relationship? My talking? I brush her off when the guy I was working on starts waving his arms from the back of the shop. I have a lot of work to do. So, I had better get busy.

An hour later, Kit comes out from behind the curtain with Paul. She’s smiling, and her forearm is covered with a large bandage. She walks over to me. I finished my tat ten minutes ago and have just been waiting for her. “You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet,” Kit teases.

Paul walks out behind her. He’s smiling, but he won’t meet my eyes.

“What did you put on her?” I ask.

He scowls at me and says, “Shut up.” He points to a sign on the wall that says, “Tattoos are as individual as the people who get them” Then he points to another that says, “One man’s ink is another man’s purpose in life.” Then he points to a third. “We do not tattoo drunk clients.” Then he points to a roll of duct tape below a sign that says, “Keep whining and I’ll use it.”

“You are not amusing,” I say.

Kit falls into my side and wraps her arms around me.

“What did you get?” I ask.

She looks into my eyes. “Something that will keep me from ever forgetting you and what you mean to me.”

“It’s about me?” My heart lurches and my breath catches and I suddenly can’t think.

She smiles and she nods. “It’s about you.”

“Can I see it?” I’m dying here.

She shakes her head. “Not today.”

“When?” Still f**king dying here.

She shrugs and she suddenly looks sad.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, tipping her face up to mine.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. She hands it to me. Her face flushes with heat.

“Is this the tattoo?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No.”

I open it slowly.

MY NAME IS EMILY.

Emily

My heart is pounding so loudly that I can hear it. Logan opens the piece of paper and he freezes. He looks down at it for a long time, longer than I expected. I try to take it back from him. He jerks it away. Then he takes my hand and pulls me from the shop. I don’t get a chance to say goodbye to Paul or Friday. I don’t even get my feet under me before he’s tugging me down the street.

“Wait,” I call. But he can’t hear me. His gaze is fixed on his route to wherever he’s taking me. I tap his shoulder. He doesn’t stop. He just pulls me through the crowd. I dig my heels in and stop. He turns to me and reaches for my hand again. I’m afraid he’s going to toss me over his shoulder one last time. But I want this to be my choice. I want this to be our choice, together. “Wait,” I say, framing his face with my hands. He looks down at me. “Why the rush?”