"So did I," I shook my head and sighed, "until she told me she loved me last night."
"Oh..." she trailed off knowingly. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked with a sympathetic face. Angel and I were good friends. We'd known each other since I started tattooing almost ten years ago. I'd stolen her away from the shop where we both had our apprenticeships to open Apex Ink with me three years ago.
"Maybe later," I said in a depressed tone. "I just want to get this inventory done, and try not to think about it."
"Okay," she said with a shrug and a wan smile. She was good about not pushing me to talk about something when I wasn't in the mood. "I'll unlock the door at eleven. I'm here if you want to talk."
"Thanks, Angel," I murmured as she walked out. I wasn't sure how talking about it was going to help, but I appreciated her concern. I turned to my computer with a sigh and threw myself back into my god-awful computer system. It would probably piss me off again, but that was preferable to contemplating my pathetic excuse for a personal life. I'd have time for that soon enough when I was home alone tonight.
**********
"Hey, Ford."
I glanced up from where I was just finishing cleaning up after my last client. It was Angel with a huge grin on her face.
"What's up?" I asked with a frown. My client, who had just left, had been an insufferable babbler and a know it all. It made what should have been a relaxing hour or so feel like an eternity. My mood didn't manage to improve this afternoon at all.
"You've got visitors," she answered in a cheery tone.
"Who is it?" I growled, not in the mood to be social. "The Board of Health?" The way my day was going, I wouldn't be surprised.
"Nope," her smile widened annoyingly. "It's way better than that."
"Are you going to tell me who it is?" I asked in irritation.
"And ruin the surprise?" she asked incredulously with amusement gleaming in her eyes.
"Fine," I said in exasperation as I rose from my stool. I followed her out of my small tattooing room, glaring at her back as she practically bounced down the hall. I wondered if you could fire someone for excessive perkiness. I walked out to the reception area to see a sight that brought the first smile I'd had on my face all day.
"Surprise, big brother," my younger sister Natalie greeted me with a wide grin, her green eyes bright with happiness. She looked adorable in khaki shorts and a loose-fitting peach blouse, with her light-brown hair pulled up into a long ponytail. She was standing next to her fiance David, who was dressed in cargo shorts and a red T-shirt. He was holding the handle of a baby car seat in one hand and a diaper bag in the other.
"Hi, Ford," David said with a warm smile.
"Hi, guys," I greeted them enthusiastically. I went to my sister and pulled her into a bear hug, lifting her off her feet for a second. I turned to David and gave him a hard hug too, then I stepped back and glanced down at the car seat. "How's the peanut?" I asked happily. I looked down at my sleeping nephew, Daniel. At three weeks old, he just kept getting cuter, with his perfect little face and the dark downy soft curls on his head that looked just like his father's hair.
"Eating, sleeping, and pooping like a champ," David said as his blue eyes softened like they always did when he talked about his son.
"What are you guys up to today?" I asked.
"We were going a little stir crazy in the house, and had to get out." Natalie answered. "I thought it'd be fun to surprise you."
"I am so glad that you're here, Natie," I said with relief, using her shortened nickname with affection. I was seriously in need of something good today. "Let's go up to my apartment, so we can sit and talk."
I led them down the back hallway, and through my office to the door that opened near the stairs up to my apartment, then up to my living room. I got a water for Natalie and a soda for David before he sat in my recliner, and Natie and I settled in on the couch to visit. Without even asking, Natie lifted her son out of his car seat and deposited him into my arms. Holy hell, holding him still made me nervous. He looked so little and fragile in my huge arms, and I felt myself tensing up.
"Relax, Ford." Natie's smile was reassuring. "He's not made of glass. You won't break him."
"But he's so tiny," I whispered as I watched the baby sleep.
"I know," she said sarcastically. "That's because he's a baby."
"Smart-ass," I mock growled at her with a grin.
"Don't worry, Ford," David added with a grin. "He has your Spencer blood. He'll probably end up kicking both our asses when he's grown up."
"And with his Mazur side, he'll convince us that it was our idea in the first place." I smiled widely at David. The man had a gift for handling emotionally charged situations and people. It was why he excelled at his job as a psychiatric nurse. I'd never seen anyone handle my overprotective and smothering mother like he did. He was a great guy, treated my sister like a queen, and I considered him a brother now.
"We don't stand a chance," David added with a laugh as he gazed at his son with soft affection. "He acts just like his mother."
"Hey." She glared at David sternly.
"You should have seen him at his two-week check-up," David continued with a smirk and an amused gleam in his eyes. "He was pissed off as soon as Natalie undressed him for the exam. He screamed his head off the whole damn time the doctor checked him over."
"His stethoscope was cold," Natalie grumbled. "Who wouldn't be pissed?"
"Just wait until he needs his shots," David told her.
"You're taking him in for that," Natalie shuddered with a horrified look on her face. My little sister despised needles. I still remembered the screaming and the manhandling from the one time she needed stitches as a kid.
Daniel started making adorable little cooing sounds, and I looked down to see his eyes were open and staring right at me.
"Hey, peanut," I said softly. He cooed again. I felt like we were having our first conversation. "Who's the greatest uncle on earth?" His reply was some grunting and arm waving. "See?" I looked at my sister triumphantly. "The kid's a genius."
"No, Ford," Natalie said with a laugh as Daniel's fussing suddenly turned into wailing. "I think he's hungry."
"Or he pooped his diaper again," David chimed in with amusement.
"Alright then," I swiftly handed my nephew back to Natalie. "I'm out."
"Wuss." My sister laughed at me, ignoring my glare. She gathered Daniel in close to her chest as he continued squawking. "Can I use your room to nurse him, Ford?"
"Sure," I said, suddenly very grateful that I'd picked the rope up off the floor this morning. My sister was the last person I wanted to know about my kinky side.
She rose, and David immediately handed her the diaper bag that was at his feet. His eyes were riveted on Natalie and the baby as they walked over to my bedroom door. His eyes didn't come back to me until Natalie closed the door behind her. I smiled softly, wondering what it was like to feel that kind of connection with a woman, and if I ever would.
"How's she doing?" I asked David in a more serious tone. He confided in me a week or so ago that Natalie was irritable, crying a lot, and not sleeping well. That, in addition to her mood swings, made him concerned that she might be developing postpartum depression. I looked it up on the Internet when he told me. I started worrying myself after that. I wouldn't wish it on any mother.
"Much better this week," David nodded with relief on his face. "I think she had a case of the baby blues, but she's coming around now."
"Good," I said with relief.
"How are you doing, Ford?" David asked curiously. "How are things going with Sarina?"
I sighed heavily. "We broke up," I answered him dejectedly.
"What?" David asked in surprised concern. "When did that happen?"
"This morning." At this point, I wished I hadn't confided in David about my hopes for a real relationship with Sarina at all. Curse the guy for being so easy to talk to.
"I'm sorry, Ford," Dav
id said sympathetically. "What happened?"
"She said she loved me last night."
"Oh." His eyes widened and he pulled his head back in confusion. "And that's a bad thing?"
"It is when it makes you realize you don't feel anything remotely close to that yourself." I shook my head. "I don't love her and I'm not going to, so I ended it."
David gave me a long accessing look as he rubbed at his beard thoughtfully. "You can't force love, Ford," he finally said in serious tone. "It's an organic thing that just happens. It's not logical or predictable. It can't be planned or orchestrated. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it. Hell, I wasn't even looking for it when I met your sister, but it happened nonetheless."
How did he unerringly know what was going on in my head? He hit the nail on the head with eerie precision. That's exactly what I tried to do. Just like a tattoo or binding a woman with rope, I thought I could make a plan, execute it, then follow it to a predictable conclusion. I took something that was wild and illogical, and tried to bend it to my will. I was such a dumbass. I told David as much.
"I was a dumbass too," he said matter-of-factly. "I tried to deny the love I felt for Natalie because I was afraid. Things would have been so much easier if I had embraced it from the very beginning. I'm just glad our love was strong enough to get us through our rough beginning."
I didn't know all the details, but I knew that he tried to end things with Natie out of fear a few weeks into their relationship last fall. However, my stubborn sister didn't go for that and hounded him until he came to his senses. Things got even harder when Natie ended up getting pregnant, but things had worked out. They were a happy family now, and I couldn't be happier for them, even if seeing them together reminded me of what my life was lacking. I liked it better when I was content being a bachelor. I don't know what possessed me to join a fetish dating site to try to find the kinky love of my life. I wondered what David would think of that detail, which I had no intention of sharing with him. It was embarrassing.
"It'll happen, Ford." David gave me a reassuring smile. "You need to be patient and let it happen when it's supposed to. And when you do find it, embrace it for the beautiful thing that it is and never take it for granted."
I nodded in agreement. I understood patience. It had been a hard-won thing for me to learn over the years. It was something that I had very little of in my teens and early twenties, when all I wanted was instant gratification. It got me into a whole hell of a lot of trouble. Becoming a tattoo artist and learning to play with rope both helped me cultivate patience in similar ways. Neither could be rushed if you wanted an ideal outcome. You could end up with an unsatisfied customer or an injured psychologically scarred submissive. I wondered how I let myself slip back into old habits like that. Obviously, my approach was a mistake, and it was time for a change in plans. I felt the tension I'd been feeling today start to ease.
"Thanks, David." I gave him a relaxed smile. No more dating sites, no more trying to force myself into a relationship thinking I could make myself fall in love. I needed to relax and let things happen naturally, no matter how much my inner impatient dumbass thought otherwise.
**********
Saturday afternoons like today made me worry about my business. There were no more appointments, and no customers set foot in Apex Ink after Natalie and David visited me earlier. These things happened occasionally, but it still freaked me out. I ended up sending Angel and everyone else home three hours early at five o'clock, figuring the peace and quiet would give me time to finish the shit I needed to get done on the computer. That, and no one would witness me beating the shit out of the thing if it crashed again.
I was sitting at my desk glaring at my computer screen not long after everyone took off, when the shop keeper's bell on the front door rang. Thank God. I needed to get away from this damn machine. I stood, flipped it off with a growl, and headed down the hall to the reception area. I hoped like hell it was someone wanting a tattoo and not someone looking to get pierced since Devon, my piercer, left with everyone else. I needed something to do that had nothing to do with computers.
I came out of the hall and saw her standing in front of the reception desk looking down into the display case. This woman was stunning, dressed in a sleeveless white blouse and a navy pencil skirt that hugged the curves of her unbelievable ass and the outline of her full luscious tits. Her hair was a long dark curtain of silk hanging down her back, the smooth locks shining in the sunlight coming in the front windows. I let my eyes glide down her gorgeous legs to a pair of blue snake-skin stilettos that made me want to develop a fucking foot fetish. Holy hell, her boring business attire did nothing to hide the fact that she was built for hot unbridled sex. An image of my hands sliding over her ass as I took her from behind suddenly popped into my head. It took an effort of will to shake my reaction off. I didn't want to greet a potential client with a hard-on. I was supposed to be a professional here after all.
She glanced over and met my eyes, and I almost lost it again when the most vivid sapphire blue eyes I'd ever seen focused on me. For a second, I saw a flash of vulnerability in her eyes that left me feeling sucker-punched, before they heated with interest and her gaze drifted down to check me out. I suddenly felt hot and aroused all over again. Get a fucking grip, Spencer. I reined my libido in with a Herculean feat of strength.
"Can I help you?" I asked calmly, as a smile that I hoped wasn't as idiotic as it felt, spread across my entire face.
"Um..." she faltered for a second, that vulnerability peeking out again, and it intrigued me.
There was more to her than a gorgeous face and a rocking body. There was a sharp intelligence in her eyes that most men would have missed. I wasn't most men. I'd always had a gift for reading people. It was a useful skill when dealing with the public or deciding if someone could be trusted.
"I want a tattoo," she finally blurted out, then immediately looked embarrassed.
I snorted out a laugh. "Well, you came to the right place," I said warmly, not wanting her to think I was laughing at her. I didn't want her to leave. I tried to delude myself that it was only because I needed the business, not at all because I was attracted to her. She smiled impishly then, and her gorgeous face lit up. She had the fullest most decadent looking lips that I had ever seen. I'd bet anything that she sucked cock like a fiend. And there went my libido again. What was this woman doing to me? "What did you have in mind?" I asked, my voice coming out a little rougher than usual.
"Well," she looked uncomfortable and glanced away. "I'm not really sure. I just know I want something to change in my life. I...I want to remake myself, be someone different. I thought getting a tattoo could help do that." Pain ghosted across her face. "I know it probably sounds stupid, and I'm wasting your time."
"It's not stupid," I assured her, feeling a sudden need to comfort and reassure her that was completely unexpected. "For some people, getting a tattoo is a meaningless diversion that doesn't mean much to them, but I like to think of it as more profound than that. Did you know that a lot of cultures consider getting a tattoo a rite of passage? A tattoo can mean as much or as little to you as you want it to. It's all up to you."
Her smile softened as she eyed my tattooed arms meaningfully. I had to fight an urge to shiver from her attention. "So every one of your tattoos mean something profound?" she asked as her lips twisted wryly. It made me think about pushing her up against a wall and kissing her senseless. I shoved that thought away.
"Well..." I smiled sheepishly. "I suppose some of them could be considered a profound lesson in my own stupidity." She laughed and it sounded like music to me, low and sexy and irresistible. Holy hell, I was in over my head here.
"Good," she said. "You sounded like my stodgy old philosophy professor there for a second."
"Stodgy?" I asked incredulously. "No one has ever described me like that before."
"Sorry," she said with an unapologetic glint in her eyes. "I heard you say 'rite of passage' and '
profound' and just assumed."
I laughed again. This woman just kept getting hotter. Her sharp witty sarcasm was hitting all the right buttons for me just as much as her body. I felt myself starting to get hard and moved behind the reception desk to hide it. I fought an urge to readjust myself when it got a little uncomfortable confined in my jeans.
"I'm Ford, by the way," I stuck my hand out to her across the display case, hoping to distract myself.
"I'm Jenny," she answered and took my hand.
Her hand was warm in mine, her fingers long and elegant as she gripped me firmly. I met her eyes and a zing of electricity hit me out of nowhere, surging up my arm from where we touched. A had a sudden vision of me coiling rope around her arms while she looked up from a kneeling position with wicked defiance in her sapphire eyes. I felt blind-sided for a moment as she stared back at me with a shocked expression. Did she feel that too? What the hell was that? I lost track of what I planned on saying next.
"Um..." I mumbled as I released her hand. I must have sounded like an imbecile. I needed to regroup here. "Let me grab my sketchpad and see if I can come up with something."
"Alright." She nodded with a slight panicked look in her eyes. Hell yeah, she did feel that too.
"Have a seat," I motioned toward the black leather sofas to my left. "I'll be right back."
She turned to walk over to the small waiting area. I watched her go, mesmerized by the way her hips swayed as she moved gracefully in those four-inch fuck-me heels. Damn, this woman knew how to work a pair of stilettos. My semi was quickly turning into something that could pound nails into a wall. I fled the room to try to hold on to my dignity.
When I came back out to the front, I had myself mostly under control. However, when I sat down on the couch across from her, I crossed an ankle over my knee and used the sketchpad to hide my groin, just in case. She looked at me expectantly. Her legs were crossed, and my eyes fell unbidden down to the slit in her skirt that was baring creamy skin halfway up her left thigh. When my eyes somehow managed to meet hers again, she looked smug. Busted. I decided to act like it never happened.
An Act of Restraint: Order & Chaos Book 1 Page 4
