Best not to leave any trace. Not this time.
It was time to go. With her hand on the doorknob, though, she paused and turned back. She argued with herself for a long moment, then gave in to her own rampant curiosity. With a quick glance at the bed, she hurried to his suitcase. Her fingers found the luggage tag quickly, even in the dark, and she waited for one of the lights from outside to break through the room so that she could see.
Fred Vaughan. Street address in a fancy part of Boston that she’d never even been to. She’d already known he was from one of those families, the ones that bled blue beneath pampered skin, but seeing it confirmed gave her a little clutch around her heart.
Even if she wanted what had just happened to change her life—and she didn’t—this would never work. Not outside the bedroom, no matter how earth-shattering it had been.
Dropping the tag, she swallowed thickly, then hurried back to the door. This time she didn’t allow herself a look back at the man sleeping in the bed behind her, instead opening the door as quietly as she could before slipping through and jogging back to the elevator.
If her heart hurt a little as she left behind a connection she’d never encountered before? Well, that was nobody’s fault but her own.
CHAPTER ONE
FRED VAUGHAN HAD walked by Four Sisters Ink a million times, but until now, he’d never been inside. He didn’t relish his errand today, and the letter felt hot against the skin of his palm. To his way of thinking, the tenant the letter was intended for didn’t deserve it, but he’d drawn the short stick, so here he was.
Despite the letter, he wasn’t actually sure what he was about to encounter. He’d never been in one, but when he thought tattoo parlor, his brain conjured images of walls covered in graffiti, chairs with naked people getting skulls and broken hearts etched indelibly on their skin. Blaring metal music, drugs and alcohol. Looking down at his seven-hundred-dollar Italian leather shoes, he acknowledged that he was likely going to stick out from the moment he walked in. Rather than the expected metal music, though, soft bells chimed overhead as he entered, brushing the top of his head since he’d forgotten to duck. He paused just inside the door, blinking, as he tried to make expectation merge with reality.
This—the interior of Four Sisters Ink—was a surprise. A shock.
He was familiar with the basic blueprint—every space in the plaza offered similar bones. Four walls, a soaring ceiling, laminate flooring that mimicked hardwood remarkably well and would hold up to traffic far better. Since its opening, he’d been impressed with the way each business had taken the basic space and made it into its own, but this...this struck him as something special.
Each of the four walls was a different soothing color—ivory, soft pink, mauve, creamy orchid. The shifting palette of colors added visual interest yet was simple enough to not take away from the gallery walls. Each wall was hung, floor to ceiling, with elegantly arranged art. With that many frames, he expected them to be plastic, purchased in bulk from some big box store, but when he looked closer, he noted that each slender square was wood, the grain visible through a walnut stain.
Again, he was surprised, and also a little bit impressed, something that wasn’t all that easy to do. Not as a member of his family.
Taking a few steps farther inside, he squinted, examining the walls, and saw that the pieces were grouped by type—something he thought was oil paint, watercolor, pastel and ink. Displaying them in homogenous groups was eye-catching in a subtle yet deliberate way, much like the different-colored walls.
Whoever owned Four Sisters Ink knew what she was doing.
Charcoal, dove gray and cream paper lanterns were clustered overhead, with small white fairy lights snaking around them. The fairy lights should have looked cheap, like the interior of a college dorm room, but they were charming instead. A massive bamboo room divider cut the room in half, adding to the bohemian vibe, and the whole place smelled like a spa, some kind of diffuser puffing away in a corner to cover up the very faint scent of rubbing alcohol that he could still detect. The music was quiet but energetic, and after he cocked his head to listen, he recognized an ’80s classic by Rick Astley, which shouldn’t have worked with the serene space but somehow did.
Against his better judgment, he was impressed. He didn’t want to be impressed. It wouldn’t help what he was here to do.
“Be with you in a moment!” The female voice was low and husky. Something in it caught his attention, snagged at his memory. Turning toward the back of the shop, he watched the hints of movement behind the latticed room divider. He took a step back, looking around the room at the range of art, which suddenly seemed familiar, too.
This couldn’t possibly be what his brain was suddenly insistent that it was. But then the woman came around the corner—a woman he’d never forget.
She blinked, and he saw what he was feeling reflected back at him from her face—for a moment, at least. Then her expression shuttered, and he was left reeling.
“You’re Amy Marchande?” He winced as he spoke—he sounded like an idiot. But his mind was whirling, past and present colliding in neon color...at least, until she spoke again.
“What are you doing here?” She frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, taking a moment to look at her—just to look.
Her shop might look more like a spa than a tattoo parlor, but she fit his image of a stereotypical tattoo artist perfectly. She was tall and slender, with a slim waist and hips and breasts that he knew damn well fit perfectly in his palms. Her skin, naturally a pale white, was covered in ink, most of it black and white, with the exception of some watercolor flowers. More ink than he remembered.
The biggest difference from past to present was her hair. Last time he’d seen her, she’d worn it in inky-black curls that reached her waist. Now it was a golden color that he suspected was natural, loose curls that barely reached her chin, as though she was growing it out.
As he stared, he noticed two more things. One, she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her thin white cotton tank top. And two, she still had barbells pierced through her nipples. He had a bright flash of memory, of one of those decorations caught in his teeth as she writhed on top of him, and perspiration broke out along his hairline.
“Why are you here?” She arched a thin, groomed eyebrow. Her smirk told him she’d noticed his perusal of her body. He also noticed that she didn’t give him one in return. “How are you here? Five years is a bit long to wait before you start stalking somebody.”
Seeing her again was a vibrant, memory-drenched blow to his solar plexus. Seeing him again, though? She didn’t seem fazed at all. Irritated, if anything.
“Uh...” For a moment he was tongue-tied, swallowing against a suddenly dry mouth. He didn’t know what to do with himself, and that was unusual for him.
He couldn’t say that he cared for it, either.
“I’m assuming this isn’t a social call?” She cast him that challenging little curve of her lips again, the one that made him want to give her mouth something better to do.
“What do you mean?” He smiled at her assuredly, the same smile he used in the courtroom. As he did, he slipped the warning letter from Vaughan Enterprises into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He hadn’t felt great about delivering it before he’d walked in, and he’d be damned if he was going to be the one to give the bad news to the one woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind since their one night together, five years ago.
He needed to think about this.
“It means that I highly doubt you’re here for anything I have to offer.” She laced her hands behind her back, then stretched, and it was difficult to keep his mind on the conversation, rather than her breasts and their naughty adornments.
“Why would you assume that?” He frowned, vaguely insulted. “Maybe I am here for a tattoo. Why else would I be her
e?”
She frowned slightly, and it was his turn to smirk—he’d stumped her. Then she shrugged and pointed at one of her walls with a graceful arm.
“That’s the inspiration wall.” She smiled benignly as she called his bluff. “Those are ink renderings of the best of the tattoos that I’ve done. Pick out a few you like and we’ll work out a design for you.”
“Ah...” He felt his eyes widen as he stumbled over his words. Damn it.
“Unless you already know what you want?” She cocked her head, studying him, clearly amused. She was enjoying this.
“Oh, I know what I want.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, then fixed his gaze on her. The cocky set of her lips faded, and unless he was very much mistaken, she exhaled slowly.
“Well, then.” She ran a tongue over those full lips, and he was again transported back in time. He remembered looking down at her as those petal-inked curves wrapped around his cock. “Why wait? Let’s get you in the chair and get started.”
“Don’t you already have someone back there?” He looked past Amy to the room divider, saw the movements of someone still back there.
“Oh, Sallie’s done for today.” Her smile was a swallowed-the-canary smirk. “Lucky for you.”
“You know, I need to think about my, ah, design a bit more.” He nodded, punctuating his words. Gone was the collected lawyer, the reserved man with roots dating back to the Mayflower, just at being around her. How was it that she could still do that?
“Sure you will.” She continued to watch him with that unnerving stare, and he felt himself respond, something sparking along his skin. He met her gaze, his own green eyes looking into her blue ones—a deep navy blue, startlingly dark against her porcelain skin.
He sucked in a breath. As he did, he thought he saw her do the same, and he understood. He hadn’t seen her—hadn’t touched her—in years, but that animal attraction they’d experienced on their first and only night together had transcended time. He wanted her again—still.
“I’ll be back,” he repeated firmly, and he knew that his meaning was clear. He’d be back not for a tattoo, but for her.
Thoroughly unsettled, he turned on his heel, heading for the door. His entire world had been turned upside down in the space of ten minutes, and he needed to go think on how the hell he was going to manage this.
“Hey.” Her voice stopped him with one foot out the door. Melodious brass bells tinkled over his head as he paused, looking back at where she still stood. “The only thing you wanted that night was to know my name. I guess now you do.”
“That wasn’t the only thing I wanted.” He felt the satisfaction of watching her flush, a cloud of pink infusing that porcelain skin. A tendril of triumph snaked through him, letting him edge closer to the control he craved. He scrambled his way back onto solid ground. He winked at her, then exited Four Sisters Ink. Once outside, he exhaled a deep breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
He’d gone to serve Four Sisters Ink with an official warning from Vaughan Enterprises Retail Plaza. Other vendors had circulated a petition protesting the presence of a tattoo shop among the luxury stores and upscale restaurants. As the in-house lawyer, it was up to him to inform the proprietor.
That the proprietor was the woman he’d had an epic, nameless (on her side, at least), European one-night stand with years ago? A night he’d never been able to get out of his mind?
Fate was a cruel bitch. And he was absolutely, completely, one hundred percent fucked.
CHAPTER TWO
AMY SAT ON the wicker bench that she’d placed outside the entrance to her shop on the day she’d opened. In her hand was a cold bottle of beer that she’d taken from the minifridge in her back room. Open alcohol wasn’t allowed in the open-air plaza, not outside the restaurants, but it was after hours, twilight settling in. Also, she just didn’t really care.
The slight buzz allowed her to let go of the tension that had been riding her since her surprise visitor earlier. Her feelings were still a hot tangle, and she didn’t know how she would even begin to sort through the snarl.
Fred freaking Vaughan. She’d started her business five years ago out of a cramped room in Boston’s Jamaica Plain. She’d sought out a new location because she’d wanted to have a space to display her paper and canvas artwork as well as the designs that she inked onto skin. The fancy seaside shopping plaza had been an unlikely location for a tattoo shop, but she’d known what she wanted and had moved in six months ago. It had been a gamble, but it had paid off in spades. Her clientele now ranged from serious ink junkies to celebrities who booked their time with her months in advance. Her neighbors in the luxury plaza didn’t love her presence there, but that wasn’t her problem.
What was her problem, though? The fact that she apparently leased her space from the one man she’d never been able to get out of her mind.
Vaughan Enterprises. Fred Vaughan. She’d never put that together, but why would she have? Vaughan was a common enough name, and their tryst had occurred an ocean away. The chance that they’d come back into one another’s lives was infinitesimally small.
And yet, there he’d been, standing in the entrance to her shop, as commanding as if he owned the place. Which, she supposed, he kinda did.
She’d looked up Vaughan Enterprises after he’d left. It was a family empire that had existed for three generations. They owned retail spaces, mostly malls and shopping plazas, all over the Eastern Seaboard. Fred Vaughan and his twin, Frank, were members of the youngest generation—Fred a high-powered in-house lawyer, and his identical twin some kind of acquisitions wizard.
She’d met them both that long-past night in Europe. It had amazed her that she could be faced with mirror-image faces, matching lean and lanky bodies, and only feel a gut punch of attraction to one.
Sipping her beer, she let her mind wander back to that night, something she rarely allowed herself. She’d been in Amsterdam on a sponsored, six-month tattoo internship. Sponsored was a loose term, too—she’d had an online flirtation with the sponsoring artist. He’d invited her to visit, to learn under him in more ways than one. He’d been far more interesting online than in person, however, so she’d broken off the romantic part of their arrangement after a month. She’d stayed on with the artistic side, learning from someone who might have been a crappy lover but was indeed a talented artist.
She’d been poor as hell, living in a hostel down the street from the shop some nights, sleeping on her tattoo chair others. Poor didn’t mean miserable, though—she’d loved Amsterdam, the freedom of it, the fact that no one looked at her strangely for being a white girl with dreaded hair, or for having more skin that was inked than not. Nobody cared if she went home with boys or with girls or with both. She’d had the time of her life, exploring who she really was.
This was why she’d been so surprised to find herself in one of her favorite bars, part of a group of people that included, for that evening at least, two American travelers...one of whom caught her eye the way none of the free-spirited locals or Zen backpackers already had. She remembered sidling over to the pair, who were attracting no end of attention with their six-foot-four-inch heights and dark red hair, but there had really only been one for her.
There had only been Fred.
Footsteps sounded, pulling her back from her reminiscing. She took another large gulp of beer before sitting up straight on the bench, anticipation coursing through her veins.
A large herd of men in suits tended to strut by her shop about an hour after the plaza closed for the evening. Her space was near the entrance/exit that was closest to the executive parking lot, and she imagined that they were returning to their leased Mustangs, ready to jet off for dinner with pedigreed fiancées or clandestine town house meetings with mistresses. None of her business, and she’d never before cared.
Not until this afternoon, when it had occurred to
her that Fred might be one of these suits. Though if he’d walked past her before, she wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed him.
She cocked her head to listen, her heart in her throat. One set of footprints approached—just one. She held her breath as Fred Vaughan came into view—he was unaccompanied.
Somehow, she’d known he would come. And she’d known he would be alone.
“Open alcohol on plaza premises is a seventy-five-dollar fine.” He stopped in front of her, hands in the pockets of his suit pants. At five foot ten, she was a tall woman, but being seated while she looked up at his impressive height made her feel like a dainty fucking flower.
“You going to report me?” Lifting her beer to her lips, she took a large, deliberate swallow. He watched her, and she looked at him, letting her stare rake over him the way she hadn’t earlier.
In her memory, he wore worn jeans and a T-shirt an outfit that had let him blend in well enough with everyone else. Now, he was wearing a suit that fit him so well she was certain it was custom-made. And she couldn’t deny that he wore the hell out of it.
Her mouth went dry, so she took another sip of her drink. She was surprised—shocked, even—when he reached out and tugged the beer bottle out of her hand.
“Cockblocking my good time.” She shook her head in mock exasperation. “Figures.”
Rather than pitching it in the nearby trash can, as she expected him to, he merely arched an eyebrow and took a drink himself. She found herself transfixed to see his lips press against the glass where hers had just been. The way the muscles of his throat moved as he swallowed made her mouth water.
Shit. She was in so, so much trouble.
“If I remember correctly, I didn’t block your good time.” He handed the bottle back to her, and her skin sizzled when his long fingers brushed against hers. “I made it even better.”
Harlequin Dare May 2021 Box Set Page 50