Lukas (Ashes & Embers 3)

I take out my cell phone and check my calendar. I know I have nothing to do, but want to make sure there isn’t anything going on with the kids. There’s nothing in that little square of a day on my calendar. As usual.

“That works for me. You really shouldn’t be working on a Friday night, though. I could come a different night, or over the weekend if that’s better?”

He writes my name down on his calendar and then types it into his phone. “I don’t usually have any plans at night. The weekends are pretty booked here for months. That’s when everyone wants to come in.”

“That makes sense. Thank you then, for seeing me on a Friday night.”

“No problem.” He hands me a piece of paper. “This is the care sheet. Be sure to put lotion on it twice a day. It will feel a little sore for a few days, and then it will scab up and get itchy. Do not scratch it or pick at it. Wash it gently. If you have any questions at all, just call me. The shop number and my cell are on there.”

“Okay . . . thank you.” The scab part sounds concerning and kinda gross to me. Lindsay didn’t mention scabs or itching. “How itchy exactly?”

“Like really itchy. Like an itch you can’t scratch.”

“Is there such a thing?”

He grins wickedly at me. “Oh, you have no idea.”

He comes around the counter and walks toward the parlor door with me. “I’m going to walk you to your car. It’s late.”

My heart jumps a little at his thoughtful gesture. “You don’t have to do that, Lukas. I’m a big girl.” I smile up at him as I walk under his arm that’s holding the door open.

“I insist. It’s dark in the parking lot, and you never know what kind of psycho could be creeping around out there, wanting to scratch your itch.”

“I guess you’re right,” I agree as we walk together down the parlor’s walkway.

“Were you married for a long time?” he asks, glancing down at me.

“Eighteen years.”

“Yikes. You got married young.”

“Yeah . . . seemed liked a good idea at the time.” I look down at my feet as we walk. It’s surreal to think that half my life was spent with someone who let me go so easily.

“Can I ask what happened?”

I breathe out a long sigh. “He met someone else, and that was it. He just left.”

“Just like that? Really?”

My car and an older Corvette are the only cars parked in the dark lot, and he leads me right to my car. I turn to him before unlocking my door. “Yeah, pretty much just like that,” I reply. “It was devastating. I never saw it coming. I thought everything was fine.”

“That really sucks. I’m sorry.”

I hug myself against the cold chill in the air. “Thanks. I thought we’d be married forever, ya know? I didn’t think I’d be dumped at thirty-six for the first younger, gorgeous girl that gave my husband a little bit of attention. I guess our vows and our family meant more to me than to him.”

“He’s a fool.”

“Maybe, or maybe I’m the fool, thinking I’d be living that fairytale of happily ever after.”

Lukas opens my car door for me. “Nah, don’t give up on that. You know how fairytales go. You gotta kiss some frogs before you find the prince, right?”

I laugh as I climb into my car. “Hey, I didn’t think guys knew about fairytales,” I tease.

He grins down at me, holding on to the doorframe. “I’m not like most guys, Ivy. See ya in two weeks.” He pushes my door shut, and I watch him walk across the parking lot back to his shop, when he turns around about halfway and gives me a little wave. Blushing, I wave back at him as I start my car. Hot damn, he’s cute.

LUKAS

I’LL BE HONEST, I REMEMBER MOST of my clients by the design I put on them. All their actual names and faces kinda mesh together in my mind. It’s the canvas of their flesh I remember forever. But tonight, Ivy’s coming back, and I’m actually looking forward to seeing her again, which is unlike me because I don’t usually form any attachments to my clients. Of course, I enjoy working with them, but I’m usually so focused on my designs that I’m lucky if I can remember anything else about them at all. Something about Ivy is different, though. The moment I met her, it was like getting struck by lightning, and I haven’t been able to get that chick out of my mind since.

Right before Ivy’s appointment, I make a last-minute decision to run upstairs to my apartment above the shop to put a clean shirt on and wash my face. Just as I’m coming down the spiral staircase from my place to the back of the shop, the front door cowbell sounds, and I find her in the waiting room, looking at some artwork on the wall, her back to me. She’s short, petite and curvy, with long wavy auburn hair that I suddenly have an urge to take in my hands and feel it sift through my fingers like silk. It looks like she came directly from work this time, because she’s wearing a black pants suit instead of jeans.

“Hey,” I say, and when she turns and smiles at me, I get that zappy feeling inside like last week when she looked at me.

“Hey, yourself. This drawing is beautiful. Did you do this?” She gestures to a charcoal drawing of a dragon perched on a mountain that I drew about five years ago.

“I did.”

She looks back at it and then at me again. “It’s absolutely beautiful. I wish I could draw.”

“Thanks. I’ve always loved to draw, even as a little kid,” I tell her. “You want to come on back?”

She nods and I lead her back to my work area and take the sketch of her artwork out of a big folder on my table.

“So how’s it looking and feeling?” I ask. “Everything okay?”

She beams. “I love it. It’s so pretty. I think I spent way too much time looking at it. It was sore for a few days and then got really itchy, just like you said, but I promise I didn’t touch it.”

I grin at her. “Awesome. Why don’t you go get changed, and I’ll get ready?”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

When she comes back, I have to smile at how different she looks wearing a faded t-shirt, black cotton shorts, and white socks, compared to the business outfit and high heels she had on a few minutes ago. She’s adorable.

“What?” she asks, noticing me eyeing her as she’s climbing onto the chair.

“I love how you went from looking all professional to cute in five minutes flat.”

Her cheeks redden at my words. “Well, thanks. I had to work late, so I didn’t have time to change first.”

I gently run my hand over the design on her outer thigh, visually mapping out what I want to do for this appointment. I should have put gloves o

n before I touched her, but I didn’t, because I wanted to feel her, and just as I imagined, her skin is soft and warm. A quick fantasy of me running my hands up her naked thighs flashes through my mind.

“You could have cancelled if you were having a bad day. I would have understood,” I say, reluctantly pulling my hand away from her porcelain skin.

“No, I wanted to come. I’ve been looking forward to this. Plus, my son is with his father for the weekend, and my daughter had plans tonight, so I would have just sat home in an empty house anyway.”

Leaning carefully over her body with the tattoo gun in my hand, I realize how bummed I would have been if she had cancelled. “I’m glad you came,” I admit, glancing up at her. She catches my gaze and then quickly looks away. Her shyness intrigues me even more. “So how have you been?” I ask her, hoping some conversation will help her relax a little. I can feel by how taught her body is that she’s wound up like a top.

“Good. Crazy busy at work, as always, but I like it because it makes the time go by and keeps my mind busy so I can’t dwell on things. “

“I like that, too. Things have been really busy here the past few weeks, and I love it. I’m never bored.”

“Do you work here alone?” she asks.

“No. My brother, Vandal, works here, too, but he’s also in a band, so sometimes he’s not able to come in for a while if he’s practicing or on tour. I may have to hire someone else to help keep up with all the appointments we have.”

“That’s great. So many small businesses are struggling right now. It’s a nice change to hear that someone is doing well.”

“So true. I feel kinda blessed and lucky.” I gently turn her to her side a little bit and bend her knee up so I can get a better angle, and the feeling of my arm leaning against her bare thigh sends a rush of heat to my cock. Fuck me. I never get turned on when I work on a female client. Ever. I shake my hair out of my eyes and peek up at her, but she seems lost in her own thoughts.

“Speaking of small business, I have to find someone to come and fix the roof on my shed. During the last snow storm, a big icicle pulled a few of the shingles right off,” she says, oblivious to my attraction to her. “Paul was still coming by to do little things like that, but I guess, obviously, he’s not going to keep doing stuff around the house now that he’s shacked up with someone else.”