Dangerously Inked (7 page)

“Maybe. If I can just pull myself together. I don’t like these teenage flashbacks. Hell, I don’t remember feeling like this even in high school. I am seriously losing my shit, and I just met the man.”

“Tia Theresa would be saying it’s written in the stars. At least, lately she would. She’s changed since I’ve been gone.”

“Tia Theresa hangs with the infamous Mamas, who actually put Voodoo spells on people, Etta. They probably dance naked in the moonlight.”

Etta laughed softly. “Only on special holidays. And only when they sacrifice chickens.”

“Ha!” Rosie shook her head. “Maybe they can put a ‘getting my head together’ and anti-libido spell on me.”

“Are you sure it’s just libido?”

“Of course.” She paused, spent several moments doing careful line work on Etta’s skin. “I think,” she muttered.

“Hmm.”

“’Hmm’ what? And how are you doing? Holding up okay?”

“Nothing. And I’m doing fine. It’s amazing. It doesn’t really hurt. The music is…distracting.”

“You still have a mad crush on him, don’t you?”

“Rosie!”

“Do you?”

“Let’s talk about you and your hunky Dom. Is that what you call him? When do you see him again?”

“Tuesday night after work.” Her pulse fluttered. This crap really had to stop. “But right now I’m focusing on 
you
. Tell me if you need to take a break. Or if you want my cousin to stop playing.”

“No, don’t make him stop.”

Etta and Christie. That would make her happy as hell. But her own happiness? That was a vague question she didn’t have an answer to.

***

“I’ll lock up, Sassy,” Rosie said, turning the ‘open’ sign on the door around on Tuesday night as Sassy started to turn lights off.

“You never lock up.” Sassy narrowed her eyes at her. “You need to spill, Rosie.”

“I’m just…meeting Finn here. It’s no big deal.”

Sassy put her hands on her hips. “
Something
 is a big deal. You’re usually TMI girl with me, and suddenly your mouth is shut tight as Fort Knox.” Sassy grinned. “But I’ll bet your legs aren’t.”

“Jesus, Sassy!” Rosie felt herself blushing. 
Blushing
, for God’s sake!

Her friend waved a hand as she headed for the door. “You do your thing, sweetie. I’m only your best friend and confidante for the last ten years or so that you haven’t said a word to 
all damn weekend
, then all day today. Don’t you worry about me.”

Rosie grabbed her and hugged her, gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Don’t you dare pull that martyr crap on me. He’ll be here any minute and I need to check my lips. I promise you’ll get every gory detail later. Okay?”

Sassy grinned and patted her cheek. “That’s my girl. You come through for me tomorrow with all the good bits, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am. Now go before he gets here!”

“Bossy,” Sassy murmured as Rosie shut the door behind her.

She went back to her station and freshened her red lip gloss. They’d texted a bit since the last time she saw him—maybe more than a bit. He’d sent flirty little messages several times each day, and had called her briefly last night until something came up with his work and he’d had to hang up. Just to chat, or so he’d said. But he was being awfully attentive. She liked it.

She liked him.

He was funny, sexy, smart. And Jesus, was he a natural Dominant. He could make her knees weak with a single word. Not an easy task—she was no pushover.

She heard the bell on the front door chime and dabbed a bit more gloss on her lips.

“Anybody home?” His Aussie accent went through her like a warm breeze, making goose bumps rise on her skin.

“Come on in,” she said.

He strode into the shop, all impossibly broad shoulders and even more impossible natural swagger. Her pulse hammered in her veins, hot and thready simply at the sight of him. He had to be the best-looking man she’d ever seen, and he wore his confidence like a second skin. So damn sexy.

He walked right up to her, paused, then raised a hand to brush a stray lock of hair from her face, his blue gaze on hers.

“Evening, Roisin.”

She bit her lip. “Hi.”

He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her—
watched
 her. Then he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck just firmly enough that she felt his command. And despite the fact that they were in the shop where she worked, she felt herself going down. She felt herself wanting to.

For him.

“Ready to hang out a bit and talk?” he suggested.

“Talk? About what?”

Seriously? He wanted to 
talk
? She didn’t know whether to be pleased or insulted. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d imagined them having mad, animalistic sex in the back of the shop the moment they saw each other.

“About you. Come on, Roisin. Let’s walk the city. You can show me around.”

“You want to walk?”

“You’re not wearing heels. You should be able to walk.”

“No, I wore flats today. I mean, yes, I can walk.”

Why couldn’t she put a sensible sentence together? He wasn’t that hot.

Yes, he is.

“Good thing.” He grinned at her. “Otherwise I’d have to throw you over my shoulder.”

She laughed. “You would not.”

He raised a brow, then he lunged at her, grabbed her and had her over his shoulder before she had a chance to resist.

She pounded on his back, on muscle that felt like it was carved from stone. “Put me down, you monster!”

He smacked her ass. “Not until you kiss me, wench.”

“Jesus, Finn. If all you wanted was for me to kiss you, you could have just done it.”

He could kiss her forever, as far as she was concerned.

Forever? Where had that idea come from?

“But it wouldn’t have been as much fun, would it?”

She laughed. She didn’t know what else to do as he gently set her back on her feet.

“Brace yourself, sweetheart,” he said before wrapping a big hand behind her head and pulling her in close.

Oh, his lips were lovely, pressing harder and harder on hers. And his big body, every inch solid as carved steel, was hot against her. She hung onto him as his tongue pushed into her mouth and he deepened the kiss before pulling back.

“Ah, much better.”

“Mmm,” she agreed.

He smacked her ass again. “Let’s go, pretty girl. I want to see this city.”

“Okay, okay. Let me grab my coat.”

In a moment she was with him on the sidewalk, the shop lights off and the door locked.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“I don’t know. We’re in the French Quarter. What should I see?”

“Do you want the tourist spots or the underbelly?”

He chuckled. “I love that you asked me that. Let’s have a sampling of both.”

They started off down Canal Street toward the Jackson Square area, the streetlamps casting halos of gold onto the pavement. There was a bright half-moon out, the sky clear of clouds. She felt his presence at her side almost as if their bodies were touching, she was that hyper-aware of him. She didn’t want to admit how much she liked it.

“So, where are you taking me?” Finn asked as they passed the bars and cafes, the tattoo parlors and small shops that sold Mardi Gras beads, shot glasses, and other items for the tourists who flocked to the city’s French Quarter year-round.

“I thought we’d head toward Café du Monde, but maybe stop at the Old Ursuline Convent on the way.”

“Me at a convent? Now that’s a variation on my life.”

“No nun fetish?” she teased.

“Maybe if it was you in the outfit.” His blue eyes were sparkling, catching the light from the streetlamps and the shining moon.

“That is 
so
 not happening. I’m a good Catholic girl.”

He laid a palm against the small of her back and it went through her like a shock. “Really now? Even if you go to mass on Sundays, I’m not sure we could call you good. Not that it’s a problem for me. I prefer a bad girl. But tell me, Roisin…if we were at your club and I asked you to dress as a nun, you’d refuse me?”

She bit her lip, purposely keeping her eyes on the sidewalk. “Maybe.”

“I might have to test that theory. But tell me first why you’d take 
me
 to a nunnery.”

“I like the place. They say it’s haunted. I know it may seem like a silly show put on for the tourists, but I love all the haunted places in New Orleans. If not there, then we should go by the Octoroon House on Royal Street.”

“Octoroon House? What is that?” he asked.

“You haven’t heard the story of the Octoroon Mistress? Julie was the secret lover of a wealthy Frenchman in the 1850’s. She wanted him to marry her, but he refused because of her lower social status. Anyway, the bastard devised a test for her, saying he’d consider marrying her if she passed it. On a cold, damp December night he told her he was going to play cards downstairs, and she was to undress and wait for him on the roof. Hours later he found her frozen body up there, patiently waiting for him, poor girl. They say he died a few months later of a broken heart, so I suppose that’s some divine retribution. The place is supposed to be haunted by both of them. You can see her pacing the roof, waiting for that asshole Frenchman.”

“Your sympathy is to be commended,” Finn said wryly.

“It’s a horrible story of a woman sacrificing everything—one that’s all too common. That and men who abuse their power.”

He looked at her closely for several moments, and she had the feeling once more that he was reading her in some way—some way beyond the usual Dominant’s tendency to look for changes in breathing and pupil dilation while playing a bottom. It made her shiver.

Finally he said, “So why do you like to go there?”

She shrugged. “I like a good haunting.”

He shook his head. “’Curiouser and curiouser…’”

She turned to look at him. “You’re the last person I’d expect to quote 
Alice in Wonderland
.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, apparently. There’s a lot we don’t know about each other. Except I’m finding out you’re a strange and unusual girl.”

She grinned. “That coming from a man who likes to chain up ‘pretty girls’, as you say, and hurt them.”

“Touché, Roisin.”

He stopped walking and stared down at her. She couldn’t tell what was going on with him, exactly, other than that he seemed pleased, which pleased 
her
. She was finding it difficult to keep the submissive ‘her’ separate from her everyday self, even here on the street, outside of the club environment. Even more so when he dragged her in close to his body so fast she would have lost her footing had he not been hanging onto her so tightly he was squeezing the breath from her.

When he kissed her, she lost the last of her breath, her body melting, heat simmering in her belly, between her thighs.

Oh, his tongue was soft and wet, pushing into her mouth, demanding, exploring. She was helpless to do anything but give in. She didn’t want to do anything else.

Finn felt the yielding in her body as she went soft and loose against him, her mouth opening up without protest. And Christ, if she didn’t taste better to him than anything—or anyone—had in his life. He found himself sinking into the kiss, into the sensation of her tiny waist in his hands. Into the knowledge that this woman full of fire and a little rage allowed herself to belong to him in this way. That she chose to give herself over. There was power in that—in the way a sub gave. He’d maybe never felt it so acutely. It hit him like a punch in the gut.

He released her. 
Had
 to.

He took a small step back, trying to ignore the haze in her lovely eyes.

“Show me this haunted Octoroon House,” he said. “Then maybe Café du Monde. I’ve heard Mick go on and on about the place.”

They walked a few more blocks and stopped in front of an old brick building—classic New Orleans architecture, with a second floor hung with intricate wrought-iron balconies. The small doorway was an arch of brick, with a dark green-painted door set with ironwork. The narrow, dimly lit street was quiet.

“This is it,” she said, her voice low, almost reverential.

He wasn’t sure what he thought about the idea of anyplace being haunted—other than a man’s own soul, maybe—but he had to respect her feelings about it. And the quiet and the moonlight, seeing her pale face shadowed by her long, thick lashes, was all doing something to his head. He didn’t understand it. He only knew it felt good.

He’d just met this woman, but something about her…it was as if she opened him up.

Bloody fucking crazy. But true.

He reached out and thrust his fingers into her hair, pulled out the clip that held it up and ran his fingers through the dark tresses. There was always a little command in him when he handled a woman, but now…this was different. She was different. Or maybe it was just where he was in his life. What he was trying to learn from Kenji’s death. Something about reflecting back on those earlier losses that had driven him his whole life, which he hadn’t realized until he showed up at Kenji’s funeral and found himself to be one of the sparse few who had. It was time to stop running so damn hard. And this woman…even though he’d known her only a week, she made him want to stop the running.

Christ, he couldn’t think about all that now. He couldn’t figure it out.

“Finn…?”

“Shh.”

He leaned in and kissed her. And this time it was gentle, a soft press of his lips to hers, then again, and again. He just needed to feel the texture of her.

When he pulled back, he could see the confusion on her face. Hell, he didn’t know what he was doing, either.

“Tell me the story of the Octoroon Mistress again,” he said, his voice low.

She did, going into a little more detail, describing Julie’s cold body in almost romantic terms, the artist in her showing in her words. He liked that about her. He liked a lot about her.

What the fuck are you doing?

He didn’t want to answer that question.

“Take me to the café now,” he said, pushing down the thoughts tumbling through his head faster than he could track them. “I want some of that famous chicory coffee.”