by Ophelia Bell
Toni leans back with a sigh. “You know, if you keep holding my hand I’m going to get the wrong idea.”
I give her hand a squeeze, opting not to mention the tattoo, though I’m relieved as hell that’s all it was. “Just want you to know I’m here for you. That I get it. That’s all. So why don’t you tell me about this award-winning tattoo design of yours that you’ve been talking about for the past month? The one that’s going to win Best of Show.” The con has contests in multiple categories daily, plus a final “Best of Show” competition, but the limitation is the work has to be completed within the timeframe of the convention.
That finally gets her talking, and she visibly relaxes as she describes the concept, then pulls out her tablet and shows me her final artwork. Her duo-chrome, neo-traditional style is the perfect vehicle for the design. The client who requested it booked Toni months ago with the intention of meeting her at this convention to get the work done, so she went all-out planning the design so she could have her client enter it in the contest.
“That’s fucking amazing,” I tell her. “You’re going to win this thing for sure.”
“I don’t really have a choice. Tendrils needs the publicity. I need to make a comeback, Sam. If I don’t, you’re probably better off partnering with your brother.”
“Tell you what: I will enter all the contests, so even if you don’t win—and you totally will—maybe I’ll score enough prizes to get noticed too.”
She smiles. “Honey, I think you are going to wind up being a star. You are that good. If I have to take second stage to you, then it’ll be worth it. Show me your designs?”
We spend the next hour looking at each other’s art, designs we both hope will find homes on the bodies of clients over the next three days, and maybe even get voted best in their categories for the whole convention. We order some snacks and more drinks, then I pull out my sketchbook and start working on some new ideas. After about an hour, I feel a soft weight against my shoulder and look down to see Toni’s dark hair falling across her cheek as she rests her head against me.
My heart skips a beat at how serene and beautiful she is, how perfect her smooth skin is. I carefully slip my sketchbook into the seat back pocket and lean back with a sigh. If all I ever am to her is a pillow, I can accept that. But I really hope I can be more.
We arrive in the afternoon to a Caribbean paradise. San Diego is a nice place to live, don’t get me wrong, but Cancún is like a dream. It takes a moment for me stop staring, but I finally rally and take charge. I’m here for her, and impressing her isn’t just about the partnership. If I’m lucky, proving I can be the man she needs will go a long way to her actually seeing me as an option when the time is right.
I get our luggage and find the hotel shuttle without issue, then help the driver load everything up before we head off. This place is non-stop white sand and blue water, and I crane my neck to look out the window for the entire ride to the hotel.
“You’re fucking adorable, you know that?” Toni says ten minutes into the ride.
I whip my head around and smile. “Yeah? Why?”
“So wide-eyed and full of adventure. You should go for a swim once we get settled in. The water’s just as nice as it looks.”
“How many times have you been to this convention?” Her pinched look makes me backtrack immediately. “Sorry, we don’t have to talk about it . . .”
Toni raises a hand to stop me. “No, it’s fine. I’ve spent three years avoiding the topic of Manny’s death, so it’s better if I actually talk about it for a change.” She turns to me and pulls one leg up under her, then gets a distant look as she stares out the window. “He came with me to every single event, but this was always our favorite because it felt more like a vacation than any of the others, even though I worked my ass off. He’d collected some pretty epic ink by the time . . .” She goes silent for a second, her throat bobbing with a swallow, then she looks at me. “By the time he died, he’d covered almost his entire torso and was working on his legs.”
“That’s dedication. And he got all of it at tattoo shows?”
“Not all of it. Everything I didn’t give him, up until your brother set up shop anyway. You know I accused him of stepping out on me when he showed up with a tattoo from your brother?” She laughs. “Fucking Mad Dog. It’s a shame Manny didn’t get to see how happy Leo is with Mad and Celeste.”
He’d want to see you happy too, I think, but I don’t want to weigh down the moment any more than it already is.
I nudge her thigh with my hand. “Hit the beach with me later. We don’t have to be anywhere until they open the convention hall for us to set up, right? We have a few hours to take a load off, catch some sun, drink something fruity with lots of rum and an umbrella.”
Her smile is brilliant and breathtaking, and I can’t help but grin back.
“That sounds like the perfect plan. I knew there was a reason I liked working with you.”
6
Toni
My determination to reclaim some control over my life is on the verge of being sabotaged by an irrational sense of guilt. It’s ridiculous because Manny isn’t here. Yet checking into my hotel room alone feels wrong.
I push through the feeling anyway, unpacking and pulling out my bathing suit and a wrap to change into. I take a quick shower first, then slip into the tiny little black string bikini and tie the sarong around my hips. It’s a sheer white silky thing with dyed cherry blossoms that hangs past my knees. Most of the women who attend this event are tattoo groupies who prance around in as little as possible, but I still need to exhibit some level of professionalism. Not to mention the testosterone here is thick enough to suffocate a bull, and I definitely don’t need to attract any more male attention than necessary to help my business thrive. Simply having a vagina at a tattoo convention is enough to get all the unwanted attention I can stand.
I’m arranging my hair into a bun held up by two short black sticks when there’s a knock. I grab the shoulder tote I brought just for this reason, stick my tablet and some sunscreen into it, and head to the door.
Sam stands on the other side in nothing but dark blue board shorts and leather flip-flops, and I need to take a beat to keep from drooling. This kid has no business being as hot as he is, and I’m a perverted old lady for even letting that idea cross my mind. There are so many boundaries to maintain between us it isn’t funny. He’s my former apprentice, fellow artist, and soon-to-be business partner. Plus he’s the baby brother of a good friend, who also happens to be shacked up with my two best friends in the entire world. Which makes Sam practically family. And of course he’s also eight years younger.
With that very sobering thought in mind, I manage to drag my gaze up from the dusting of dark hair on his perfect abs, but my eyes snag on a glimpse of black ink on his side. Without thinking, I reach out and grab his hip, forcing him to turn.
“Where did this come from? I thought you only had the one.”
I glance up and he stares back, beet-red as if I’ve just uncovered some dark secret. I look at the tattoo again, and it’s a gorgeous black tribal hurricane-type tribal pattern with one arm a single stripe of brilliant red.
“Mad Dog?” I ask.
Sam nods, then clears his throat. “Yeah. Graduation gift.” He eyes me warily.
I drop my gaze to his tattoo again and nod. The artwork is uncomplicated, but speaks to me. It reminds me of me, but that’d just be silly. But the streak of red… I draw my fingertip across it lightly, thinking of the stripe I’ve had in my hair for the last five years. Could it be an homage? Should I even ask?
Sam clears his throat, his ribcage quivering. “Tickles,” he says.
I snatch my hand away, my cheeks heating. “Sorry! It’s gorgeous. He did a great job.”
He looks like he wants to say something, then turns and nods toward the elevators. “Ready to go?”
Reclaiming my composure, I say, “Let’s hit it!”
The resort is a behe
moth, but I managed to snag us adjacent rooms overlooking the beach, so it’s only a quick elevator ride down and we’re steps from the water. Sam’s on a mission and stakes us out primo loungers near the bar.
“I’ll get us drinks,” he says, turning toward the bar before he even sits.
“Dude! Park your ass and relax, okay? They have waiters. It’s called ‘all-inclusive’ for a reason.”
“Right.” He gives me an abashed look and settles next to me beneath the umbrella. A moment later, the waiter arrives. “Two of your frothiest, fruitiest, rummiest drinks, please,” Sam says. “With extra umbrellas.”
I can’t even bring myself to complain about him ordering for me, but when he shoots me a horrified look and apologizes again, I wave him off. “You know what? The fewer decisions I have to make, the better. If this is your way of proving you can be a take-charge partner, it’s already working for you. Just promise me you’ll save the planning for when we’re home. Manny used to like having a schedule for every waking hour. I loved that about him, but it didn’t leave much room for spontaneity.”
“That’s kind of sad.” He sits back and stares at his phone screen for a second.
It dawns on me that I’m probably too late. “Did you make dinner plans already?”
Sam clears his throat. “Sort of. I did some research, and they say the restaurants tend to fill up, so it’s best to make reservations in advance. I booked all four nights at different places. I can cancel them, though.” He taps his phone.
An involuntary laugh bursts out of me because I’m not even angry. He’s just too adorable. “Keep them. Knowing we’re guaranteed a place to eat is actually a load off, but please leave the rest of the schedule open. We’ll have enough of our time committed to the show and seminars and everything else. I love that you thought about that.”
“Good, because I intend to be your go-to guy while we’re here. I will anticipate all your needs if it kills me.”
He sits up and turns toward me, propping his elbows on his knees. His expression is adorably intense, his messily spiked hair and sideburns just making him all the more endearing to look at, and the dimple in his chin is positively cherubic. See, not hot. In fact, I think the right word to describe him at this very moment is adorkable.
“What do you think I need now?”
“Sunscreen.”
I glance up at the big umbrella that shades us. “I think we’re fine. I’ll put on sunscreen if I go into the water.”
“Nope. Not good enough. Did you know that more than eighty percent of the sun’s UV rays can penetrate you under an umbrella? And with all that beautiful ink, you don’t want to risk your skin. Hand me your sunscreen.”
I blink at him for a second, my stupid brain fixated on the idea of being penetrated under the umbrella. Context doesn’t even matter; it’s the way it sounded in his smooth, deep voice, and it takes a second before I grasp what he’s offering.
“Wow, you really did do your research. I had no idea.” I reach into my bag and grab my sunscreen, which he scrutinizes for a second before evidently deeming it worthy of using on my precious skin.
He makes a spinning motion with his finger and I adjust the back of my chair so it’s flat, then turn onto my belly. He shifts over to perch on the edge of my chair by my hips, and I am so not prepared for how amazing it feels when he starts to rub lotion onto my back. He squirts a daub right into the center at first, which I know is the goblet at the center of the alchemical wedding design that covers most of my back. Then he begins to work in an expanding spiral before adding more lotion.
I sigh and let my body go lax. He’s so determined to impress me I’m tempted to just let him keep doing it. I could get used to this level of no-strings attention, and frankly, I kind of need it. It’s safe and helps me let go of some of the stress of trying to keep my shit together and failing for so long.
I give in and let my guard down cautiously at first, expecting more of the old pain and grief to well up. It comes, but for the first time I feel removed from it. Like I’m observing it at a distance rather than being immersed in it so deep I feel like I’m drowning. The urge to seek pain as a distraction is but a distant memory as long as he’s touching me. Instead Sam’s voice echoes in my head, repeating penetrate over and over.
His hand is warm and firm as he spreads the sunscreen across my upper back, massaging as he goes, then covers my shoulders and upper arms. He’s thorough and I’m growing lethargic, the crash of the nearby waves lulling me. Then he shifts to my back again, slipping his fingers beneath the tie across the middle and working the sunscreen lower. The contact is still business-like but when his fingers glide over my lower back and down one side, a surprising tremor of need courses through me.
“Okay, I’m good,” I blurt, rolling over and sitting up. “I can handle the rest.” I reach for the sunscreen and he releases it, but when my eyes drop, it’s impossible not to catch sight of the pronounced ridge jutting down one side of his shorts.
My cheeks heat and I dart my gaze away, sitting up and focusing on slathering the lotion all over the rest of my skin. Sam doesn’t say a thing. He just moves back to his seat and resumes messing with his phone.
When our drinks arrive, he utters a “thank fuck,” and I silently agree. I reposition the back of my lounger so I can drink, then proceed to take enough swallows of the frozen beverage to give me brain-freeze, but at least I get a good buzz out of it. I proceed to stare at the e-book on my tablet without actually seeing it, then surreptitiously glance over at him again.
He’s still hard, but doesn’t seem concerned about it. Maybe it just happened and he doesn’t want to draw attention to it because it would be unprofessional? But it’s so . . . there . . . I can’t help but dart glances at his lap, wondering if he’s just that big and I never noticed, but no, I’d have seen a bulge of that magnitude when he knocked on my door earlier. He’s definitely aroused.
And I’m definitely far too fixated on his dick than I have any business being.
After a moment he lets out a soft, frustrated, “Fuck this,” almost to himself, then stands. He’s two steps across the sand before declaring, “I’m going for a swim.”
I watch him walk, then break into a jog. He’s at a full sprint by the time he reaches the water, as if he can’t get away from me fast enough.
My entire perception of him is turned on its head by the time he disappears beneath the clear blue water. The Sam I just watched stalk away is so much more man than I bargained for. I suppose I’ve taken for granted all this time that he even has a dick, much less might be attracted to me enough to get turned on that much. He has always been the picture of a polite mama’s boy, refusing to participate in Mako’s crude banter and being far more enthusiastic in conversations with Vic about the other artist’s various projects. Vic is a jack of all trades with a workshop in his garage where he does all manner of art projects, most of which are just him screwing around with different media. His latest passion is blacksmithing, and he’s actually come up with some pretty neat iron sculptures since he started it.
Sam’s boyish enthusiasm for knowledge is just that: boyish. He’s always been that way. But I’ve also never seen him around another woman besides his sister, who he is extremely close to. He answers whenever she calls.
If my own brothers were half as attentive to me, we’d probably be closer, but Baz and Ben are younger and too involved trying to impress Papá Flores to worry much about me. I would probably go ballistic if they were half as protective of me as Sam is of Elle, but Elle doesn’t seem to mind.
I mull that over. Sam is the same age as my twin baby brothers. That probably doesn’t help this idea I have of him being a kid.
Had—because no way would a horny kid who spends any time listening to the bullshit Mako preaches about picking up women not try to pull something asinine to cop a feel when given the opportunity. I always chalked his attitude toward me up to brotherly affection because he tends to treat me with the s
ame care and respect as he affords his sister. Which is more than I get from my own brothers.
Yet now that I’ve seen him get an erection from simply touching me, I have a very different impression. At least I hope he’s not sprouting wood when he’s around Elle.
He’s walking out of the water as I grapple with the conflicting thoughts. I watch him through my dark sunglasses, making sure to keep my head tilted back so it looks like I’m relaxed and dozing.
He’s physically perfect, with the same tall, muscular build all three of his older brothers have, and he has half a day’s growth of stubble that magnifies the impression of maturity exponentially. The only thing betraying his age is his lack of tattoos, which in our line of work is a definite sign of youth, though it isn’t necessarily a sign of maturity for those who have a lot.
His erection is gone and he seems more relaxed, though he’s panting from his swim and dripping wet. The entire effect is mesmerizing and forces me to take stock of all the fears I wrangled with when embarking on this trip. What is it about my reaction to him that makes me finally look forward to the future?
I’m not quite ready to answer that question because the reality of our situation is still front and center. He makes me believe I can get past my pain and move on. But that doesn’t negate the actual age difference or our working relationship.
One of Manny’s favorite sayings pops into my head at that moment: What happens in Cancún stays in Cancún, and it occurs to me I really ought to return Sam’s favor. I won’t cross any lines, and I am definitely not ready for a fling, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy myself with one of the hottest male specimens I know.
I sit up and push my sunglasses on top of my head, then fish into my bag for the sunscreen again. I give him a smile as I stand, but before I can make my offer, I hear a hoot from my left.
“No fucking way! Is that Toni Valentine?”
I whip my head around and blanch at the swaggering, muscle-bound figure with spiked black hair marching across the sand toward me. Alex Augustine is Midwestern artist who turns up at every convention with his pushy attitude and overblown ego, insinuating himself into conversations wherever he gets a chance. He’s friends with the organizers of this particular event, so he acts like he owns the place.
