Page 33 of Love What's Left
Standing on tiptoe, I whispered in his ear, “If we’re here to shake somebody down for information, this isn’t my wheelhouse.”
He grinned, then brushed my hair aside to whisper back, “No shaking . . . unless I can interest you in a leg-shaking orga—?”
I clamped my palm over his mouth. “No.”
He lifted my hand away, only to hold the inside of my wrist against his cheek for three aching heartbeats.
The act was oddly and profoundly intimate.
A whirring tattoo gun sounded from a room behind a closed door. He released my wrist, straightened, then sauntered over to the reception area like he owned the place.
Rainbow-streaked space buns added four inches of height to the petite woman behind the counter. Tattooed, pierced, and pretty, she visibly lost her breath at the sight of the man in leather before her.
I could tell she did, because when she said, “Welcome to Rebel Ink. Do you have an . . . appointment?” it came out unnaturally high-pitched, and she had to take an extra breath before the word “appointment.”
“Idohave an appointment.” He winked at her. “Zack will be working on me.”
She giggled and smoothed down the Peter Pan collar of her short, baby-blue dress. “I’ll need you to read and sign some paperwork . . . sir.”
She passed over a clipboard. “I’ll let Zack know you are”—breath—“here.”
He smiled that sparkling ought-to-be-on-a-toothpaste-commercial smile. “Thanks.”
She giggled again, glanced at me with an excited expression, then practically sprinted to find the missing Zack. The moment she turned the corner and disappeared from sight, a stifled squeal and the deep rumble of a male voice drifted back to us.
I smacked my companion’s chest lightly with the back of my hand. “Stop winking at that poor girl, or she’s going to pass out.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You don’t know that was my fault. She could have asthma.”
“She doesn’t haveasthma.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Stop pretending you’re unaware that you’re obnoxiously hot.”
“You think so?” he purred.
“Heavyon obnoxiously.” I took a calming breath. “Why am I here? If you didn’t have time to meet with me at the lab, you could have sent a text or an email.”
“This has nothing to do with Dad’s contract. You’re here as my Tattoo Support Person.”
Tattoo Support—?“Tattoo Support isn’t in my job description.”
“Good thing this has nothing to do with work, then.” He signed his name on the release forms with a flourish.
I sputtered, then thought back to him knocking on my apartment door this morning. He hadn’t said a word about his father’s company or the lab.Well-played, McRae.
A big man with a bald head, a long red beard, tattooed arms, and gauges in both ears entered from the back corridor and headed straight for us, the receptionist hot on his heels.
“Zack.” He thwacked the tattoo artist on the back.
Zack scowled at me, crossed his giant arms over a beefy chest covered in a black logo T-shirt, and jerked his chin.
“This her?” he asked without looking away from me.
“Yup.”
Zack’s face creased into a smile that was equal parts the unfettered joy of a happy toddler and the mischievous smirk of the devil on vacation. “Good to meet you, Sydney. Come on back and pull up a seat.”
