Page 1 of Just Between Us

ONE

ROYAL

“So who are we creeping on?”

I startled and screamed in a high-pitched decibel that had no right exiting my body.

Then she screamed.

I locked eyes with Luna Gray, the piercer at my tattoo shop, and we both dissolved into fits of laughter.

I planted my hand across my chest as it heaved. “Shit. You scared me.”

Luna grinned and flipped a lock of bleached, white-blond hair over her shoulder. “You scream like a girl.” The diamond studs that served as her dimples winked under the fluorescent lighting of my tattoo parlor. “If you stop being the town Peeping Tom, I wouldn’t have to scare you.”

I frowned. “I’m not being a Peeping Tom. I’mobserving.” I gestured toward the large storefront window with my chin. It was a bit too early for King Tattoo to be open, but my small coastal town of Outtatowner, Michigan, was already bustling with energy.

Shop owners were placing A-frame boards outside each storefront, and signs were turned toOpenwhile tourists were lining up at the Sugar Bowl to get hot coffee and WesternMichigan’s best pastries. Getting a tattoo at 7:00 a.m. was a rarity, so I typically used the quiet mornings to catch up on administrative work, deep clean, or sketch new designs.

But that morning I had a date with chaos.

Parked across the street on Main was Beckett Miller’s sleek new black Range Rover.

I noted the hue of Luna’s brown eyes was unnervingly dark given her pale complexion. Her skeptical gaze called my attention to Beckett’s car. I watched my employee as she scanned the streets of our small town.

Luna had been working with me for over a year now and had become an honorary little sister of sorts. On an unusually quiet Saturday night last year, Luna had come into the shop requesting a tattoo revision. She was heavily inked, so I wasn’t surprised when it seemed as though she’d be adding to her artwork. What shocked me was when she went into my booth, hiked up her skirt, and showed me her ass without an ounce of shame.

Scrawled in a Gothic font were the wordsDrake’s bitch. From a strictly artistic perspective, the line work wasokay. The font was only an outline with some technically strong shading at the base. I’d learned early on there were all kinds of people in the world, and I never judged what people chose to tattoo on their bodies, so I didn’t give the choice of phrase a second thought.

Hell, I was covered from neck to knuckles and down my thighs with a variety of styles. Half of the tattoos were from artist friends I knew and trusted, and the other half were designs for which I used myself to practice.

Tattoos that people eventually regretted were common, though I didn’t have any of those myself.

At the time, Luna had flashed her ass and looked at me over her shoulder. “So can you fix it?”

In my rolling chair I had pulled myself closer to get a better look. “Covered?” I had asked, assuming she’d want a design to hide the entire thing.

A hearty laugh had burst from her throat. “No. I was hoping you could find a way to stick a littleain between the words.”

I had lowered her skirt and looked at her. “You want it to readDrake’s a bitch?”

Her grin had carried an evil glint. “Damn right.”

I had scoffed but gotten to work. It had been only after we’d finished up that she’d revealed her ex-boyfriend was also a tattoo artist and had inked the phrase without her consent. I had been fucking livid for her and had happily told her the simple revision was on the house.

As I looked at her now, she was sporting significantly more tackle and ink than the day we met. Her arms were nearly as covered as mine, and each ear was lined in silver hoops and diamond studs.

After the night I fixed her tattoo, she’d asked to stick around. I’d needed help answering phones, greeting customers as they came in, and managing my other artists’ schedules, so it all worked out in the end.

Come to think of it, I don’t recall if I everactuallyhired her.

“So what are we waiting for?” Luna whispered.

I peered over her shoulder at the car. “Just delivering Beckett a littlegood morningbreakfast.”

Luna’s eyebrows bunched in question.

“I paid some kids to egg his windshield. When he gets in and turns on the wipers, the egg smears all over. That shit is impossible to get off.” A childish giggle tickled the back of my throat.

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