Lisa stifled a laugh. I went behind the counter and used her as a barricade.
“I thought we agreed you’d keep that to yourself,” Hayden said.
“It was a slip.” Sort of.
“You’d better watch it. No one’s going to be around later to save your ass.” He went back to tattooing Nate’s arm.
“Promises, promises.”
I could see him smiling even though his head was down. His hair had grown out some since the trial ended. It was almost in his face again, as it had been when I’d first met him. I liked it a little longer, so he hadn’t gotten it cut.
He took his time with the last few lines of ink. After he put the machine down, he spent longer than necessary checking it over. “All right. You’re good. I’ll want to have a look at it in a week or two in case it needs a touch-up, but we’re done for now.” Hayden’s satisfaction was evident.
Nate pushed up out of the chair. He was wearing a thin wife-beater; his button-down shirt and tie hung neatly on a hook by Hayden’s station. The first thing I noticed—but tried not to—was the outline of a steel ring at his left pec.
“Is that—”
“A nipple ring?” Lisa finished. “I did that for Cassie’s birthday a few years back.”
“Those two are kinda freaky, aren’t they?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Her grin said it all.
I held up a hand to stop her. I had no desire to hypothesize about any other metal Nate might have. “And I’m good with that.”
Nate and Hayden had gone to the three-way mirror to check out the finished ink.
“When’s your next session?” Lisa pulled at the neck of my offthe-shoulder shirt, peeking down my back at the mostly finished design.
“I have no idea.”
I’d been in Hayden’s chair four times in the past eight weeks; two more sessions and I’d be done. He was taking his sweet time with the shading because it needed to be perfect, and he still didn’t want to work on me for longer than two hours.
I had a feeling he was prolonging it intentionally. It was the place Hayden felt most comfortable sharing what happened during his appointments with Beatrice, so I wasn’t in a rush to lose the time with him. With only two sessions left, I worried how we would achieve the same connection elsewhere.
Lisa clicked the mouse and pulled up Hayden’s schedule. “How’s next Friday night work for you? He’s got two hours blocked off at the end for no reason I can see.”
“That’ll be two weeks since the last session, which is perfect. He has no reason to say no.” Although he was pretty damn good at coming up with one if he wanted to.
Lisa slotted me in.
“All right, girls. Hayden gives the okay to look,” Nate called out.
He angled his arm to give us an unobstructed view of the art. The likeness to Cassie was remarkable. The pin-up version of her was both demure and sexy.
“It’s gorgeous. Cassie’s going to love it,” Lisa said.
Nate smirked. “I’m banking on that. It’s been a pain in the ass keeping it bandaged so she can’t see it. I woke up twice last week to her sneaking a look in the middle of the night.”
“What a shocker,” Hayden said drily. “Let’s cover that up. No friction for at least a few days, Nate. I don’t want to have a two-hour touch-up session.”
“I’ll tell Cassie to be gentle.”
“Dude, really? Don’t you have a censor?”
“Have you taken Tenley back to see the house yet, or are you just partial to the garage?” Nate needled him.
Hayden turned around, ready to fire off another dig. The color of my face was likely the reason he didn’t.
Nate dropped back into the chair. “By the way, if you were thinking to take Tenley there to see it, tonight or tomorrow would probably be good.”
Hayden raised a brow but didn’t look at Nate. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Nate nodded, watching Hayden smooth the cellophane over the tattoo and secure it with medical tape.
Obviously something was going on, but whatever it was, neither of them seemed inclined to talk about it while Lisa and I were hovering over them. I was glad Hayden and Nate had grown closer over the past months, but I didn’t like not being in the loop.
“So,” Nate said as he pushed his arm carefully through his sleeve, “when is Jamie starting your pin-up?”
“Uh . . . I, uh—we haven’t talked about it—” Hayden stammered.
Lisa coughed to cover an expletive.
“Pin-up?” I asked.
“Oh, shit,” Nate said quietly.
“Would someone care to share?” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.
Lisa was the one who answered. “Hayden’s been toying with the idea of getting another tattoo for a while. He has a design in mind, but he and Jamie are still working on placement, so nothing’s come of it yet.”
“Why haven’t I seen it?” I asked.
This was the second time I felt that I was missing something since I’d come into the shop. Even Lisa knew about the prospective tattoo.
Hayden rocked back on his heels. “I wanted it to be perfect before I showed it to you.”
“Is it perfect now?”
“Not quite, but I have a copy in my filing cabinet at home. You can have a look later.”
“Sure.” I backed off, aware there was more to this with the way Lisa was twirling the end of her hair and Nate was overly interested in his tie.
Nate tried to pay Hayden, but he refused to take the money. It was after nine by the time Hayden finished cleaning up his station. His first client the next day required one of the private rooms, so he took me with him to set up. I sat down in the tattoo chair and played with the recline lever while Hayden gathered ink and the various implements required for the session.
“So, I was thinking.” He dropped down on the stool beside me. “Maybe you want to go look at the house tonight?”
“So I can see the inside this time?” Cassie hadn’t stopped with the little barbs about that.
“That’s what I had planned.”
“I’d like that.”
“Though if you want to spend a little extra time in the garage, I wouldn’t be opposed.” He rubbed at his bottom lip, trying to hide his smile.
“Of course you wouldn’t.” I grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him closer, and nipped at his lip. “I know you’re keeping something from me.”
He swung one leg over and straddled the chair, facing me. “You are far too clever for your own good. Haven’t you ever heard of a surprise?”
“I don’t like that everyone is in on it but me. I’m supposed to be your person.”
“You are my person.”
He sat down on my thighs, bracing his weight on the backrest. His head dipped down, his teeth skimmed my collarbone. I felt his erection against my stomach. I couldn’t do anything but squirm since he was sitting on my legs.
“Have you ever fucked in here?” I used the profanity on purpose. I’d discovered it turned Hayden on because I used it so rarely.
“No.” He shifted, nudging my legs apart with his knee.
“No?” Every time I was in his chair, I wanted to take off all my clothes and get him inside me.
He shook his head while he settled between my thighs.
“Would you fuck me here?”
He stopped with the kissing and lifted his head to look me straight in the eye. “I don’t fuck you, Tenley. I have sex with you. Sometimes I even make love to you, but we don’t fuck.”
I stared at him in open disbelief. That was completely untrue. On many occasions sheer need had superseded either of our attempts for sweet and gentle. And that didn’t bother me in the slightest.
I was about to call him out on it, but pointing out that he could love me and fuck me at the same time wouldn’t help my current plan. I was horny. He’d been so tired the last couple of nights, he’d passed out on the couch as soon as he got home from work. And my courses and my thesis were demanding a lot of my attention. We hadn’t had sex in days.