Page 8 of Skin Deep

“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.

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