Page 6 of Skin Deep

She wanted to run even as she craved the feel of his skin on hers.

Taking in the bursts of light and sound from the street that cut through the darkness of the room intermittently, she lay there with her pulse pounding. She could feel him watching her but kept her gaze focused on his chest. She didn’t want to see her own spinning thoughts staring back at her from someone else’s eyes.

That...what they’d just done...that was more than sex. That had been life-changing.

She didn’t want her life changed.

“What do you want?” His breath was cool on her damp forehead.

She couldn’t bring herself to reply, so she shook her head instead.

“I want something,” he started, shifting closer on the bed. She could smell his skin, his sweat, the heady miasma of sex in the air. “I want to know your name. I want to know it more than anything in the world.”

How was it possible that he didn’t know her name? That he didn’t know her birthday, or how many sisters she had? How could he not know all the things that outlined her life, when he’d just looked inside her, down to the rhythm of her heart inside her chest, and had seen everything that made her who she was?

If she gave him her name, it would take this to another level. One she wasn’t ready for. Rather than replying, she gave a purposefully sleepy hum and pretended to fall asleep.

She lay still for a long time, savoring the sensation of his skin on hers. When his breathing deepened, the body against hers relaxing into sleep, she slipped out of the bed slowly, carefully, so that she didn’t wake him up.

She shivered as she picked up the discarded items of her clothing, the night air cool on skin that had so recently been hot and flushed from sex. She dressed quickly, but after she’d tugged on her boots, she indulged in one final look.

Awake, Fred was a force of nature, charisma coming off him in waves, charming those who came close enough to be tugged inward by his magnetic pull. Asleep, she could focus on the sheer physical perfection of him. That impossibly tall body, leanly muscled, that she’d quivered beneath. The aristocratic planes of his face, the fan of eyelashes on his cheeks, darker than the auburn of his hair. Redheads—gingers—were often the target of jokes in Europe, but as far as Amy was concerned, he couldn’t have had any other coloring and been nearly as appealing.

She hadn’t bothered donning her ruined thong when she dressed again, and it dangled from her finger as she took one last, lingering glance. If this had been anyone else, any other night of fun sex, she would have left it behind, a sexy little memento to fuel the fantasies of both parties for months to come. She considered this for a moment, then tucked it into her pocket.

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.

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