by Leslie North
It was over. Riley breathed out a sigh of relief and went to examine the broken display case. Clinton had cut his hand on it when he’d smashed it, and there was blood dripping from the jagged glass.
Making herself look busy, she looked down over it as she struggled to catch her breath and calm her rapidly beating heart.
Thorn Tattoo wasn’t the job she expected it to be, and Giovanni certainly wasn’t the man she’d anticipated.
A gut feeling told Riley that this was only the beginning.
7
Giovanni
Giovanni didn’t see in color or hear in sounds anymore. The intensity of his rage blinded him to the world and subdued his conscious mind. It wasn’t until his hand was turning the bolt on the door, making sure that dipshit Clinton didn’t come back in, that he realized what had happened.
The fight was a blur in his mind made up of scattered fragments of clarity, tastes and sounds that all banded together to create an experience.
He didn’t know where he’d been hit, and he didn’t know where he’d hit Clinton. All he knew was that if Clinton thought he was going to say one more despicable thing about Riley, he was out of his goddamn mind. No one was going to talk to Riley like that, to her face or behind her back.
No one was going to touch her, either, and Giovanni had a sinking feeling that Clinton had hit her.
Heart racing no longer from adrenaline, but from fear, Giovanni took the stairs two at a time as he descended back into the underbelly of Thorn Tattoo. Riley stood in front of a shattered display of jewelry, hunched over as if she were injured. There was blood dripping from some of the glass, and Giovanni’s blood went cold.
If Clinton had hurt her so bad she was bleeding, if he’d smashed her through the display somehow, he was going to track that bastard down and end his pathetic life.
Giovanni took the shop floor at a run, setting his hand on Riley’s shoulder. Her whole body tensed, and then reacted with such grace and fluidity Giovanni was hopeless to stop it.
Riley grabbed his wrist and spun around. She stepped back and tugged him forward; knocking him off balance, and then rolled him off her hip and onto the floor like he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes. Giovanni was two hundred and ten pounds of muscle, but she had him on the ground like he was a lanky high school nerd and she was the school jock.
“What the hell!” he cried out instinctively. Riley’s eyes were narrowed in focus and anger, but as soon as she clued into the situation, they widened and her pretty pink lips parted in surprise.
“Oh, my god,” she muttered. She dropped to her knees at his side, shocked. “I’m so sorry. I was just… so strung out by what happened I didn’t realize. I thought that Clinton was coming back, and I was on high alert, and oh god, I’m so, so sorry, Gio.”
She’d never called him by his nickname before. Adrenaline already flooding his veins, instincts on overdrive from what he’d just been through, Giovanni couldn’t help but find it sexy. She was loosening up to him, letting him get under her skin.
He wanted her. God, did he want her.
“Are you okay?” Riley leaned down over him, looking him in the eye. Her long brown hair tumbled over her shoulder and hung between them. “I didn’t mean to do it, and I know Clinton hurt you, and—”
“Shut up.” Giovanni reached up and palmed her cheek, tugging her forward until she stumbled on top of him so they lay chest to chest. His lips were on hers before she had a chance to so much as cry out in shock.
Giovanni’s hand rooted in her hair, and his other arm locked over her hip. He rolled them away from the glass, pinning her to the ground as the kiss deepened. Riley was in his head, in his veins, in his soul, and he couldn’t get rid of her no matter how hard he tried. It was because of her that he’d been worked into such a rage he’d smashed Clinton’s jaw in, and it was because of her that his lungs were still breathless with fear when he’d thought she’d been hurt.
Other girls had come and gone from Giovanni’s life, but none of them had made an impact on him like Riley had. If he didn’t touch her, he was going to go insane.
If he didn’t take her to bed, he would never be satisfied again.
Riley moaned into his mouth and the kiss deepened. Nothing existed beyond their sphere of existence. In the back of his mind, Giovanni knew that Ben was probably watching from the counter, snickering and figuring out how to use this against him to get time off. He knew that Mal and the rest of the artists were watching from the tattoo bay, probably grinning wide. He knew that if Antonio heard what he was doing, he’d never hear the end of it.
“You like her.”
Antonio knew it before he did. His oldest brother knew him too well. But how was he supposed to resist a woman like Riley? Passionate, outspoken, beautiful, and razor sharp. She kept him on his toes, and she knocked him off his feet both literally and figuratively.
He kissed her harder. Their teeth clacked. His cock throbbed. Giovanni wanted to feel himself stretching her, to know he was working himself deep inside her body and claiming her as his beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Beneath him, Riley’s body tensed. Her hands clutched at his shirt, fingers sinking desperately into the fabric as though if she didn’t, she might drift away. Her fragile beauty bound him to her, but it was her strong-willed determination that made him stay.
He hated what she represented when at the shop—a sign of his own shortcomings and a lack of trust from his eldest brother—but everything else about her twisted him up inside until he was so tightly wound he couldn’t take it. If Riley wasn’t going to be his, she wasn’t going to be anyone’s. No one was going to look twice at her. Not when he was around.
Riley broke the kiss, gasping. From the counter, Ben catcalled. Deeper in the tattoo bay, the artists burst out in laughter. Her cheeks red, Riley scrambled out from beneath him and stood, brushing off her dress. The part of her arm Clinton had hit was already starting to bruise, her fair skin betraying the trauma done to it.
Before Giovanni had the chance to stand up, she hurried from the front of the shop and into the back office, heels clicking a desperate beat as she scurried.
The moment was over. The fantasy was shattered.
Giovanni swallowed and stood up. The taste of Riley’s mouth was still on his lips.
“What the fuck are you staring at?” he growled at Ben. “The show’s over. Let’s get to work and salvage as much of this jewelry as we can without cutting our hands to fucking ribbons. And if I hear anything else about this, one word, you can walk your ass home. I’ll take care of the front of the shop myself.”
The display case suffered structural damage and needed to be replaced, and for a whole week, Giovanni groused about how Clinton should be the one to pay to replace it. They were able to salvage the jewelry from inside, which was a small grace, but even the expense of paying for a new display weighed heavily on their bottom line for the quarter when money was stretched as thinly as it was.
No matter how much Giovanni wanted a new artist to fill The News’ place, hiring someone wasn’t in the books anymore and probably never was if his stubborn brain had listened to Antonio originally and now Riley. To get Thorn Tattoo into the black might well take a miracle, if that was even possible. Giovanni stepped in to take over as much work as he could and entrusted the rest to the other artists. They were overworked and underpaid, but they were fiercely loyal, and Giovanni hoped they’d stick by him to see things through.
Everyone at Thorn Tattoo knew that the workshops were coming up, and when they arrived, there’d be cash flow that once hadn’t existed. Giovanni usually took over when artists were sick, or helped fill in for walk-in appointments, but he never solidly invested his working hours in turning immediate profit for the store.
Thanks to Riley’s suggestion, that was going to change. If he could exert himself a little more, teach classes for a premium, and keep his brother’s shop open just a little longer, he knew he’d be set for life. Giovanni would
never leave the tattooing industry, even if it meant going back to work as an artist at one of the less reputable shops in the area. Some men were drawn to sports, others to gambling, but Giovanni never felt right without the buzz of a working machine in his hand, and the taste of colors on his tongue.
From a young age, art had always captivated him. It wasn’t until he was older that he realized why he was so drawn to it, while others couldn’t care less. Synesthesia made him associate colors with tastes, and art tasted delicious. The brighter the color, the sweeter it was. When he did big, bold traditional tattoos, there was no better blending of sensations.
Seeing those bold, beautiful colors on a woman’s body? There was more than one-way Giovanni found that women tasted delicious.
But keeping Thorn Tattoo up and running was more important to him than comfort and pride. Their late father had built the tattoo shop from the ground up during a time in Vegas when there were more mobsters riding around in the desert than tourists. His decision to make his artists salaried rather than fee per tattoo meant he’d quickly built up a stable of loyal tattooists who were more than willing to put their time in rather than be forced to choose a side in the rapidly growing city. Shortly before his father’s death, Antonio, the business oriented brother, took it over with the promise that they would maintain as many of his father’s work preferences as possible. While Thorn Tattoo existed in the twenty-first century in terms of modern equipment and board of health expectations, they would always pay their artists like employees and not freelancers, making sure their loyalty was unquestionable. Both Giovanni and Luciano, Giovanni’s middle brother, were both artists from an early age and they took to tattooing the second their first needles met skin canvases. Granted, some of their early work had their father gritting his teeth but they soon excelled making names for themselves as only a DeRose could do.
Thorn Tattoo was their father’s legacy, and it was a symbol of what the DeRose brothers were capable of doing. Without it, Giovanni would be lost.
Keeping the shop open was important not only to him, but to his family.
He only wished Luciano were around to help.
One day, during that first week, Riley floated him a stack of papers about a mile high and asked him to sign them. Between all of the legal sign-offs involved in setting up the workshop, all of the orders she placed on his behalf, and the installation of the new glass display case, Giovanni signed them without bothering to read it through in detail. ‘Shop Rules,’ the header declared. He skimmed it, shrugged, and inked it to get it out of his face. Taking over The News’ appointments was stressful, and Giovanni wasn’t interested in spending time pouring over trivial paperwork.
It was a mistake.
By the next day, the leather appointment book at the front desk was missing, and there was an old laptop sitting there instead. When Giovanni made his way down the stairs and spotted it, he scowled.
“What the fuck is that?”
Ben was behind the desk, as usual. He looked up at Giovanni and shrugged. “What you signed off on.”
“Cut with the bullshit, Ben. What the fuck is it?”
“A computer.” Riley popped up from beneath the desk. Her big hair was messy, and she smoothed it back as she stood. “I was just setting up the cord into the outlet beneath the desk, making sure it doesn’t get knocked out of place. I installed a free agenda app, capable of tracking multiple events per hour for six months at a time. With its convenient search functions and user friendly interface, it’s going to save us a lot of time when we’re trying to book clients.”
Fuck, was she beautiful. Giovanni let his eyes wander down her brown tresses to the translucent white blouse she wore. Beneath, Riley wore a neon blue bra, tempting his eye with her curves. Since she’d started, her fashion choices had become bolder. A shop babe she wasn’t, but she was starting to borrow some of their aesthetics and mix them with her own feminine style.
Every day she made it harder for Giovanni to keep his hands off her. He was sure that she knew it, too. The way he caught her looking at him when she thought he wasn’t looking made his cock hard. The look of unbridled want stirred him, like in those quiet moments she was able to let go of the cheerful, overly productive person she was on the floor and indulge in something wilder and forbidden.
Giovanni couldn’t get over the thought of how badly he wanted her in his bed and how much he still wanted her out of his shop. Now that he was scheduled to host workshop lessons, he was actively bringing in revenue.
Riley? Not so much.
As hot as she was, and as much as she made him question his sanity, Riley was an addition to the shop that was only bleeding them money. If she didn’t find a way to add to their bottom line, she was a detriment rather than an asset. Giovanni didn’t need her accounting skills to tell him that, he needed that damn miracle.
“What money did you use to buy this thing?” Giovanni asked, gritting his teeth.
“It’s my old laptop from when I was in college,” Riley replied. She furrowed her brow, eyes hardening. “I’m not spending shop money unnecessarily, Gio. I would never do that in a million years. My degree is in finance, and I understand the unique situations this shop is going through probably better than any of you do, even though I’m the newest. I’m not trying to take this place down.”
When he had her body pinned and their lips met, she was all over him. Face to face, dealing with work issues, she was as stubborn and irritating as ever.
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“I’m shutting the words down before they leave your mouth. What you infer is clear, Gio. I’m simply getting to the point before you go accusing me of things I would never do.” Riley dusted off the knees of her jeans and shot Ben a meaningful look. “You remember how to use it? I showed you while I was inputting the data from the book earlier this morning.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Ben said with a nod. He shot Giovanni a look, as though unsure he was allowed to proceed. “So, part of the new shop rules is we need to use this agenda app, and only this agenda app, for bookings, right?”
“Right.” Riley nodded.
“Then Gio’s in shit,” Ben said. A smirk grew on his face. “Pretty sure before he stepped out for lunch, he was making appointments on a pad of paper in the tattoo bay for some follow-ups.”
“You shithead,” Giovanni grumbled.
Riley’s lips tightened and drew into a frown. “They better be logged before the end of the day, Gio. I’m not going to deal with any more double-booked appointments. The reason we have this new system is because schedules kept clashing. I’m not going to have that anymore.”
It was a needed improvement, but the fact that Riley was so smug about it made Giovanni hate it. They bickered like a married couple most of the time. From what display case to order, to how to set it up so it was angled the most pleasing way possible, to the stupid shop rules she insisted were to be in writing and that everyone had to adhere to now. She was turning this place from a DeRose paradise into something more her own.
Giovanni didn’t like it.
“I’ll record them if you stop hovering over my shoulder all the time, on my back about procedure this or procedure that. It gets fucking old after a while.”
“Then you need to start making small changes that will get me off your back,” Riley insisted. “Thorn Tattoo needs to kick it up a notch if we’re going to survive. We’ve got the talent, we’ve got the skill, and now all we need is the etiquette to go with it. If we’re going to run a high class establishment, we’ve got to act like one.”
Giovanni exhaled slowly through his nose, but he knew that fighting her was pointless. With Riley, he needed to save his strength and pick his battles. Something like this wasn’t worth fighting for, especially when their goals were the same.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll behave, read your rules over, and try to be good. In exchange, you lay off for a while. Go stick your nose in some figures and sniff out where we’r
e bleeding money the most. Close those wounds. Do what my brother hired you to do.”
With an arch of her brow and a delicate shrug of her shoulders, Riley spun around and exited from behind the front desk with a sway to her hips that drove Giovanni’s gaze straight to her perky round ass. “Good. All I’ll need to do is continue what I’m doing, then.”
That woman was going to be the end of him, Giovanni just knew it.
8
Riley
Interest in the first workshop exceeded Riley’s expectations. What she’d planned to take place in the tattoo bay of Thorn Tattoo during the hours before the shop opened had morphed into a full on class. Thirty professionals, all with their own equipment, inks, and practice canvases, would need more space than Thorn Tattoo could offer.
They needed to go bigger.
“We’re in Vegas,” Giovanni said with a shrug when she brought it up. “Convention center of the world, the city dedicated to sin and excess. All I’d need to do to find a place willing to accommodate us is step outside the shop and shout. Someone’s bound to answer.”
Riley crossed her arms, but said nothing.
“Here. I know a few places already that held a couple low-key gatherings for artists. Sometimes traveling artists do private sessions. Lemme get in touch with my people, and I’ll set something up that’s going to work, okay?” Giovanni was all confidence, but Riley couldn’t bring herself to trust him entirely. Giovanni hadn’t given her much of a reason to. He was brash and impulsive, and easily influenced by his emotions. Trusting him to book a room suitable for a workshop like what they were putting on gave her reason to worry.