Nick took Kitty’s hand and shook it, his grin morphing into its usual wicked twist of his lips. “Nice to meet you, Kitty,” he said. “For a second there I thought I was going to have to call Melody’s big sister.”
“Why’s that?” Kitty asked, smiling up at Nick with a look of obvious appreciation, a look Melody wasn’t so sure she enjoyed seeing on her best friend’s face.
“She’s Melody.” Nick shrugged, as if that said it all.
Melody felt her blood begin to heat in a way that had nothing to do with attraction.
“If she’d come in here looking for a tattoo,” Nick continued, “I would have assumed she was either drunk or experiencing some kind of psychotic break.”
He laughed and Kitty, the traitor, had the nerve to join in.
“Either way, I’d have to call Lark,” Nick said. “John and I are barely breaking even with the shop. I’m going to need my catering job for a while, and Lark would fire me in a hot second if I inked her baby sister.”
“Lark would not fire you for giving me a tattoo,” Melody protested.
“You don’t think?” Nick asked in a patronizing tone.
“No, I don’t think,” Melody repeated, though she actually wasn’t sure what her big sister would do if Melody came home with a tattoo.
Lark would be surprised, that’s for sure. Aria, the eldest March sister, had always been the wild child of the family, and even she was tattoo-free. Melody was the sweet, positive, peacemaker of the family. The girl most likely to wear pink chiffon and kitten heels, not red retro pin-up dresses and five inch stilettos like the heavily tattooed girl in the poster tacked onto the wall next to Nick’s tattoo station.
A tattoo would be a significant departure from the norm for Melody, a bold step in a different direction. The thought made her nerve-endings sizzle.
A second later, her decision was made.
“Lark isn’t my mother,” she said, lifting her nose into the air. “Even if she were, I’m twenty-two, and old enough to make my own decisions, and I’ve decided I want to get my first tattoo. Tonight.”
Nick’s eyebrows shot up and Kitty made a surprised noise, but Melody didn’t turn to look at her friend, worried she might lose her courage if she met the eyes of someone who had known her her entire, wholesome, straight-laced life.
“You do?” Nick asked, disbelief thick in his tone.
“Yes, I do.” Melody smiled and pointed to the phoenix. “I’d like to get a smaller version of this.”
Nick glanced down at the phoenix and his eyes widened. “Even a small version of that is going to be huge. There’s no way you’d be able to hide it.”
“Why would I want to hide it? Aren’t you going to do a good job?” Melody asked, ignoring the hesitation prickling the back of her neck.
The phoenix was beautiful, but had she really thought this through? She had never even considered getting a tattoo before tonight. No matter how exciting the idea was, maybe she should take a few days to think it over, to plot the best place to put the bird and debate whether a pretty tattoo was worth causing both of her parents to flip their conservative lids. There was at least a tiny chance Lark and Aria might be cool about something like this, but Mom and Dad were firmly anti-tattoo. Mom hadn’t even let Melody get her ears pierced until she was fifteen.
“I’d do an excellent job,” Nick said after a moment. “If I thought this was something you really wanted.”
“Who are you to tell me what I want?” Melody asked, arching one brow.
Awareness leapt between them again and Melody watched with satisfaction as Nick’s gaze darkened with something that looked a whole lot like desire. In that second, Melody was positive he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Heck, if Kitty weren’t standing right next to them, Melody could almost imagine Nick leaping over the counter, taking her in his arms, and kissing her senseless right there in the front of the shop.
Instead, he said. “I’m not trying to tell you what you want. I just know this isn’t like you.”
“It really isn’t, Melody,” Kitty said in a gentle voice. “Why don’t we go have some donuts and think about this for a while? We have been drinking, so maybe—”
“Then I can’t work on either of you tonight,” Nick said, his relief obvious in the way his muscled shoulders relaxed away from his neck. “It’s against state law to work on people under the influence. Even if it weren’t, John and I don’t work on people who’ve been drinking. It makes you bleed more and can force the pigment out of the skin before it sets. Bad for your tattoo, bad for our reputation.”
Melody nodded, surprised by how disappointed she felt. “All right,” she said, forcing a smile. “Guess we’ll have to come back some other time, then.”
“Or don’t,” Nick said, banishing the smile from Melody’s face. His voice was kind enough, but the words still cut. “I really don’t want to work on you, Melody. I’m sorry, but it just wouldn’t feel right.”
“Well…thanks for letting me know.” Melody stood up straighter, refusing to show how much his words hurt. “I wouldn’t want you to do anything that didn’t feel right.”
Without another word, she grabbed Kitty by the arm and headed for the door as fast as her aching feet would carry her. She didn’t look back to see if Nick was watching, or deliver any parting shots, but inside her a storm was brewing.
She was going to show Nick she wasn’t a child, or some fluffy blond bunny that needed to be handled with care, or someone generally too boring and traditional to be worthy of his interest. She was going to show him that there were parts of her he hadn’t taken the time to see, new, adventurous, unexpected parts that would make Nick as wild for her as she was for him.
He had to feel the same pull she felt—the kiss they’d shared had been hot enough to set fire to a glass of sweet tea.
Melody had never felt like that before. Nick had awakened a new curiosity inside her, and she would be darned if she’d give up before she found out if her and Nick’s second kiss would be as hot as their first.
“I’m sorry,” Kitty whispered as they moved down the sidewalk, away from the shop. “I’m all about going a little wild, I just didn’t want you to do something you might really regret after the tequila wore off. A hangover you can sleep off, a tattoo…not so much.”
Melody smiled. “No worries. But you know, I don’t think I’m in the mood for the tequila to wear off. Why don’t we go check out The Horse and Rider, have a beer or two, and call a cab when we’re done?”
Kitty’s eyes widened, but her lips stretched into a delighted grin. “I don’t have to work tomorrow. Let’s do it, wild woman.”
Melody and Kitty giggled as they dashed across the street.
At least someone was enjoying Melody’s wild side. With a little luck it wouldn’t be long before Nick came around to Kitty’s way of thinking.
Chapter Two
Nick watched Melody and her friend run across the street, unable to take his eyes off of his boss’s little sister. Melody March was something else.
And that dress she was wearing tonight…
“Don’t think about it,” Nick muttered beneath his breath, crossing to the door to flip the sign from “Open” to “Closed.”
It was nearly midnight. Any customers who showed up in the next twenty minutes would probably be drunk anyway. Better to close up and head for home before he gave into the urge to follow Melody into The Horse and Rider and offer to buy her a drink.
He could imagine how it would play out—he’d buy her a beer and apologize for being an asshole, she’d forgive him because she was a forgiving sort of person, and they would spent the rest of the night getting tipsy enough for him to forget all the reasons why he shouldn’t get close to her. Close enough to brush her honey colored hair over her shoulder, to gaze deep into those soulful brown eyes, to smell that honeysuckle perfume she wore and feel every tempting curve pressed against him until—
“Stop,” Nick said in a louder, firmer vo
ice. He was pretty sure Melody was interested, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t afford to be.
“Stop what? Who are you talking to, man?” John’s voice came from the door at the back of the building.
Seconds later, John, in his typical uniform—faded jeans and a threadbare t-shirt with an obscure band logo on the front—eased through the archway into the main portion of the shop. He still hadn’t shaved the mangy beard he’d been growing for the past three days, and Nick wasn’t entirely sure John ever brushed his curly red-brown hair. Still, John had a lovable, ruddy-cheeked Irish guy thing going, and women couldn’t seem to get enough of him.
John’s nonchalant grooming habits would make Nick feel ridiculous about spending fifteen minutes on his hair every morning if he didn’t have a special, loving relationship with his hair that was immune to ridicule or shame.
“No one. What’s up brother,” Nick said, turning to greet his co-owner, relieved not to be alone with his thoughts anymore.
John was one of his oldest friends. They’d grown up drawing together and had dreamed of opening their own tattoo studio since they were seventeen. They’d lost touch after high school, but had run into each other again the first week after Nick had moved home from Atlanta.
John had recently moved back from North Carolina, where he’d been apprenticing with a tattoo artist, and had just signed the lease on the shop in Summerville. The two old friends had gone for a beer. About three in, John had confessed he was worried about being able to afford the lease on the store on his own. Within an hour, they’d decided to join forces and open N&J’s Tattoo Emporium.
Nick thought “Emporium” sounded more civilized than “Parlor,” and that the more civilized they sounded, the better. In a small, conservative, sleepy bedroom town like Summerville, a tattoo shop was going to have to keep it classy if it wanted to survive.
“I came to check supplies before I called it a night,” John said, grabbing Nick’s outstretched hand and slapping him on the back before moving toward his station on the opposite side of the room. “I’m heading to Atlanta tomorrow. You need anything? Gloves? Ink?”
“No, I’m good,” Nick said. “I ordered gloves online and I’m set for ink.”
He did all the shopping he could online. He hated going to the tattoo supply store in Atlanta. The chances were too good that he’d run into Wyatt or Nelson, fellow tattoo artists and his old roommates, the same ones who had kicked him out of their shared apartment when he’d stayed drunk and disorderly for a few too many weeks after the last sweet, southern, good girl he’d dated had dumped him to go back to her ex-boyfriend.
Sarah Beth. Just thinking her name was enough to make Nick’s jaw clench.
He’d known they were wrong for each other from the start—Nick was a night owl; Sarah Beth got up at five-thirty every morning to go to Zumba. Nick hadn’t darkened a church door since he was eighteen; Sarah was in a pew every time her church opened. Nick’s idea of a good time was a long day of rock-climbing followed by beers at a bar where they played the music too loud; Sarah Beth enjoyed antiquing and wine-tasting.
He’d known better, but he’d let Sarah Beth convince him that their differences didn’t matter, that a mutual love of Kettle Chips and being naked together was enough. He’d let down his guard and started to enjoy Sunday afternoons at the park with Sarah Beth and her roommates, rainy mornings lying in bed watching movies before he went to work and she went to class, and coming back to her place and eating supper at a decent hour for the first time since he’d left his mom and dad’s place years ago.
Sarah Beth took care of him. She brought some much-needed stability to his life, and made him wonder if he might be the settling down type after all. Six months in, he’d decided to ask her to be exclusive, and she’d agreed. Two days later, she had dumped him to get back together with her ex, a boy she’d known since high school who was already developing a middle-aged paunch at the age of twenty-one.
Nick knew that for a fact. He’d seen the pictures of “Trevor” that Sarah Beth kept hidden in her underwear drawer. Nick had been dumped for a cheesy looking guy with a gut and thinning brown hair who wore pleated khaki pants. What’s worse, Nick had been jealous of that guy. Jealous of a douche named “Trevor.”
The shame of it still made his gut feel full of acid, even two months later. He was over Sarah Beth—he hadn’t loved her nearly so much as he’d loved how easy it was to be with her—but he wasn’t over the sting of rejection. Nick had never been rejected before, he was the reject-or, not the reject-ee.
From here on out, he was going to stick with safe girls. Wild, fun-loving, free-spirited, liberated girls who couldn’t care less if he ever settled down. Those girls knew how to keep things light and simple. Those girls never made you wake up in the morning and feel like someone was punching you in the gut from the inside.
“You ready to hit it?” John asked, flipping off the lights.
“Yup.” Nick crossed to his station and snagged his keys. “You parked out back?”
“Yeah, but I was thinking about swinging into The Horse,” John said. “I could go for a beer or two. You want to join me?”
Normally Nick would say “yes,” or even “hell yes.” Nothing helped him unwind and loosen up after a long day of hunching over the tattoo table like a beer. But Melody March was in The Horse and Rider, and no matter what that sexy dress and her impulsive behavior tonight might lead the untutored to believe, Nick knew she was the very opposite of the kind of girl he wanted in his life.
Melody was a Sarah Beth, but worse. Melody had a killer sense of humor he’d witnessed in action with her sisters, Melody was brave enough to stand up to disorderly wedding guests when they tried to reclaim their keys from the drunk hat, and Melody had a body that wouldn’t stop and a face like an angel and kissed like the devil’s concubine.
Nick hadn’t been able to get that kiss out of his mind. It had been a month now, and he still woke up from dreams starring Melody and that filmy skirt she’d had on that day, imagining the way it felt to have his hands sliding up her thighs.
“Nick?” John asked, proving Nick had stayed quiet too long. “You okay?”
“I’m not up for The Horse tonight,” Nick said, wrinkling his forehead. “I’ve got a headache. Want to head somewhere a little quieter?”
Nick didn’t want to see Melody, but he didn’t want John to see Melody either. The men always outnumbered the women two-to-one at The Horse and Rider and Melody was definitely going to stand out from the crowd in that clingy purple dress. John would be all over her in ten minutes flat. John, who had brought home a different woman every weekend since they moved in together three weeks ago.
Nick had always gotten his share of girls, but lately John had the Midas touch when it came to women. Except instead of turning to gold, all the girls he went after woke up naked in his bed the next morning.
Nick didn’t want John anywhere near Melody. If he saw her stumble out of John’s bedroom tomorrow, he was pretty sure he’d have to punch his best friend in the face, which would likely result in Nick moving back into his parents’ house, aka the ninth circle of hell.
“Sure, that works. What are you thinking?” John asked as they headed for the back door. “The Last Chance? Or is that too far to drive?”
“Last Chance works for me,” Nick said, relief banishing the tension from his jaw. Melody was safe from John’s lady-magnet powers. For tonight, at least.
Now if only Nick could create a force field to protect Melody from all the other Johns of the world. When it came to the youngest March sister, Nick couldn’t allow himself to succumb to temptation, but he didn’t want anyone else succumbing either.
Don’t strain yourself resisting temptation, buddy. Melody may be infatuated with you now, but a girl like her will be off the market soon enough. If you don’t want to lose your chance, you’d better act fast, asshole.
Nick ignored the inner voice, but later that night, after he and John shut down The Last
Chance and he was lying alone in his bed, he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to have Melody lying next to him. The way her blond hair would spill across the pillow, how sweet she would look with her lips parted in sleep, and every soft, needy sound she would make as he kissed her awake and made love to her again and again, until they were both sweaty and sated and lying heavy in each other’s arms.
He went to sleep aching for her only to dream of a naked Melody with his phoenix tattooed down the side of her ribs and over one curvy hip. She sat on his bed in a shaft of morning sunlight, looking so perfect Nick wondered why he’d ever said ‘no’ to giving her the ink she wanted.
His tattoo belonged on her beautiful body.
“And you belong with me,” the dream Melody whispered, motioning for Nick to join her.
His dream self didn’t even try to resist. Seconds later he was naked, too, pushing her back onto the sun-warmed sheets, claiming her lips and urging her soft thighs apart with his knee until he—
The air horn alarm on Nick’s cell blared, wrenching him from his sleep.
He slapped at the phone with one hand until it finally fell silent, then squeezed his eyes shut and moaned, a sound of need and frustration and longing that was so pitiful it was almost funny. If he hadn’t been hard enough to drive nails with his cock, he might have been able to muster up a laugh at his own expense.
As things stood however…
Nick dragged his aching, frustrated body out of bed and limped toward the shower, but even after ten minutes under the lukewarm spray and a two-minute blast of cold at the very end, he still couldn’t completely banish the dream, or Melody March, from his mind. This was becoming more than attraction. He was getting obsessed with this girl.
He hadn’t had a crush like this since he was…
He couldn’t remember ever having a crush like this. A crush so intense he sought out reasons to linger in the kitchen at work to listen to Melody chat with her sisters, so serious he got a weird happy/turned-on/anxious feeling every time their eyes met, so overwhelming he couldn’t bring himself to fantasize about anyone else when he was awake and dreamed only of Melody when he was asleep.
Wild For You (Always a Bridesmaid 3) Page 2
