by Stacy Gail
“Actually, that sounds pretty cool.” With great reluctance he released Becks, then had to fight the urge to pull her back into his arms. Man, he had it bad. “I’ll check out what he’s got while you two go into scheduling mode.” Fuck it, he thought, and grabbed Becks’s hand once more. “You can hang out here all day, if you want.”
The dubious lift of her brow spoke volumes. “Thanks for the offer, but after Scout and I wrap things up here, I’ve got to get across town to meet Claire for a lunch date.”
“I’ll call for a car to take you.”
“No worries, I’ll just take the L—”
“I’m calling for a car.” He leaned in for a quick kiss before heading for the door. “Please do it for me because I worry, okay? Oh, and when you two are putting together the schedule, make sure you leave room for your tattoo session, preferably after hours. I can’t wait to give you your first tat.”
All in all, considering how her day had started, Becks could have been a lot worse off than she was now. Taking a limo down to a kitschy little diner located a block from the Field Museum where Claire worked in the gift shop certainly didn’t damage her mood. But the truth was that instead of feeling like the world was coming to an end after clashing with her family, it was almost as though the turmoil had never happened.
Payne was responsible for that. It didn’t matter anymore how her family viewed her. He believed she was worth having in his life, as did Claire and Thomas and sweet old Mr. Janek. But even without their support, she suspected today’s run-in wouldn’t have crippled her. She’d come a long way from the time she’d tried to end her life. If anything, that moment had defined her. She had been through the worst anyone could go through, yet she was still there, a survivor with scars and a determination to not get any more. Even if she had no one in her life to support her, she had every confidence she was strong enough to stand on her own.
Claire’s eyes were threatening to pop out of her head when Becks slid into the chair opposite her. “Oh, my God, everyone in the restaurant watched you roll up. I think they were all expecting Oprah or someone like that to step out.”
Oh, crud. Becks tried not to look around to see if everyone was still staring. “I hope I didn’t disappoint anyone.”
“Is that Payne’s limo?”
“It certainly isn’t mine.”
“Smarty pants.” Claire wrinkled her nose and handed her a menu, almost knocking over her water glass in the process. “Oops, sorry. Speaking of limos, did I tell you Thomas wanted to reenact that sex scene from that old spy movie, No Way Out, when we got to ride in the limo?”
Becks stared, not sure if she was horrified or awestruck. “Did you do it?”
“Sadly, no. I was all for it, but Mia kept staring at us and it kinda killed the mood. Well, that and Thomas isn’t all that great in a car that he’s not personally driving. By the time we got home, he was thanking any god listening that he hadn’t horked up his tacos all over Payne’s car.”
“So, no body fluids were spilled at all? That story was anticlimactic.”
“Anticlimactic could describe sex life in general after a baby is brought into the picture,” Claire sighed before waving her hands as if she were being attacked by invisible bees. “But that’s not what I want to talk about. A limo? Who takes a limo to Noogie’s Café?”
“Apparently I do. It was Payne’s idea,” she went on before Claire could flail again and potentially put an eye out. “I can’t really blame him. It’s been an eventful twenty-four hours. I’m beginning to suspect his default response to stress is to go into hyper-protective mode.”
“Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. What happened?”
Becks sketched out the encounter with her parents, which had her friend staring at her in horror. But when she got to the part where Payne had boomeranged back to her place to save the day, she then had to explain why Payne had dropped her off at the loft at midmorning in the first place. She stopped long enough for orders to be given to their waiter, but by the time their patty melts and sweet potato fries arrived, she felt as thoroughly interrogated as any murder suspect.
“I want an Andreas for my house,” Claire lamented after her seemingly depthless well of questions had run dry. “And if you don’t invite me out to see this lakeside palace of yours as soon as humanly possible, I’ll never let you change Mia’s diapers again.”
Becks stared. “What kind of threat is that?”
“As a woman of peace, I suck at making threats. Sue me.”
“And it’s not my palace, it’s Payne’s,” she added, crunching down on a sweet and salty fry. “I stayed there last night, and I’m staying there tonight. But that’s it.”
“No, that’s not it. That’s you being an ostrich, sticking your head in the sand so you won’t have to see what’s right in front of you.”
Becks stared significantly down at her plate set before her, then at her friend.
“I’m not talking about your food.” Claire waved her hands again. The pepper shaker clattered across the table. “I’m talking about Payne. He wants you with him. He wants you to bring your things into his private sanctuary that no other woman has ever seen, and he wants you to make yourself at home. For God’s sake, he wants to share his personal workspace with you so you two can be artsy-fartsy together. It sounds almost as though he’s fantasized about doing that with you, the same way other men fantasize about being invited to the next bash at Playboy Mansion. Do you know what that means?”
Her heart began to pound as if she were in the midst of a flat-out run. “That Payne needs to up his game in the fantasy department?”
“Becks.” Claire grabbed both her hands, knocking a utensil to the floor along the way. “I seriously believe Sebastian Payne, the Sebastian Payne, has fallen madly in love with you.”
She sat as still as a statue, while the words rattled around in her suddenly empty brain. Payne… in love with her? The mere thought of it was akin to believing unicorns existed, and that they lived in a candy-coated wonderland built by Santa Claus. It just couldn’t be.
Claire shook her head. “You should see your face. You look like somebody unplugged you. What’s the matter? Do you think it isn’t possible that he could fall for you?”
“No, it’s just…” Getting her thoughts in order was like trying to herd cats on crack. Becks put a hand to her forehead to see if that would hold things still. Nope. No help at all. “It’s not about whether or not I thought something like that could be possible. The fact is, I’ve never thought about Payne falling in love with me at all.”
Her friend stared at her as if she’d never seen her before. “How is that possible? I mean, I’ve only met Payne the one time, and as a happily married new mommy, even I wondered briefly what it would take to make a man like that swoon over me. Hormones,” she added hastily when Becks fried her with a narrow-eyed look. “You can’t blame a hormonal train wreck like me. I’m a hot box of crazy, I freely admit it.”
“I was always so busy trying not to fall in love with him—to not allow myself to think of lasting involvement—that I never thought about how Payne felt. God, I’m just as self-absorbed and narcissistic as my father.” With a groan, she dropped her face into her hands. “All I’ve done from the beginning is think about myself.”
“Idiot.” Claire waited for Becks to resurface from her woeful hand-cradle of shame, grinning all the while. “Everyone’s self-protective when they’re falling in love. The impact from falling could be the worst pain ever if you’re not braced for it. You’re nothing like your dad. You have an amazing capacity to love, and that’s something that asshole’s never had.”
“I don’t know about that.” With her heart fluttering with something that could either be excitement or panic, Becks at last let go of the restraints she’d lashed over her feelings for Payne. “But I do know that I have an amazing capacity to love Payne. He’s… everything. He’s my everything.”
Claire beamed and raised her glass. “About
damn time you admitted it.”
“I’m going to do more than admit it.” Becks lifted her almost empty water glass as well. “From this point on, I’m putting his feelings first. Here’s to hoping he won’t know what hit him.”
Claire hit their glasses together with a dangerous crash. “You go, girl.”
Chapter Sixteen
As the art exhibit’s date approached at mach-level speed, Becks wasn’t sure she’d managed to wow Payne in any way other than keeping pace with his gung-ho push to promote her art exhibit. They had managed to fall into a kind of routine that suited her right down to the ground, by sticking to the schedule she and Scout had put in place, then heading to his home together. She was almost never at the loft, only dropping in to pick up clothes and other necessities on her way to his place. Neither one mentioned the obvious—that she was moving in by degrees, and he was making all the room in the world for her to do it.
She was now almost used to being in front of some type of camera, whether the traditional kind or a webcam as they did the rounds on various webcasts and ezines related to tattoos and digital art. The conversion of her art into tattoo stencils took a surprising amount of time, since she wasn’t happy with the shading needed to fool the eye. Finally she managed to get the perfect balance of depth by highlighting various structures within the art itself with lighter lines to make them appear as though those details jutted out at a higher elevation and caught more light. When they ran it through the thermal fax, House Of Payne’s commercial-grade tattoo stencil-making machine, the 3D effect was even better than she had expected. It was exhausting and anxiety-filled, and she had never felt more alive.
Too bad the tattoo Payne now had time to give her wasn’t exactly her idea of the cherry on top.
“It’s a Payne exclusive.” Guiding her into the frosted glass tattooist’s booth she knew was his, Payne closed the door and flipped a switch that activated the light outside to indicate the booth was occupied. “I have a member of the royal family of Monaco and a tennis superstar from Australia flying in later this week to have their ink done by me. Not to brag, but an exclusive Payne tattoo is kind of a big deal.”
“Uh-huh. Right. A big deal.” Nervously she looked around the roomy work area. A disposable razor, tubes of ointment, Vaseline and ink caps in red, gray, white and black were set on a rolling tray table, along with a bizarre-looking instrument. It looked like a glue gun, a syringe and a pen all got together for a drunken threesome and had a twisted-up baby—the tattoo machine. The tray table itself was placed beside a padded chair that probably shouldn’t remind her of a dentist’s chair, but did.
Oh, shit.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, dawdling in a corner and as far away from the work area as she could physically get. “We’re only seventy-two hours out from the exhibit, right?”
“Right.” He slanted her a sly look as he assembled what he needed. “What’s your point?”
“Maybe it isn’t a good idea to do this right now. What if something goes wrong, like… I don’t know, a rampaging infection or something? Mr. Janek told me he got a blood infection when he got his tattoo. I could land in the hospital and you’d be all on your own for the exhibit. But if we put it off—”
“Nice try, but no dice, babe. You’re not going to get an infection. I would never let that happen to you.”
She wasn’t done yet. “Are you sure you’re awake enough to do this? It is after midnight, and you know you’re always tired after you close up shop for the evening. So if you want to give this a pass—”
“Get in the chair, you.” He goosed her to get her moving, then chuckled when she squeaked. “While you’re at it, do me a favor and take your shirt and bra off.”
Automatically she looked around, horrified.
He chuckled again. “You’ve been here at House Of Payne for weeks now, Becks. You know that no one can see into these booths from the outside.”
“Yeah, I do know that. Logically.” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “Hey, um… I don’t suppose you’ve ever tried to tattoo someone through their clothes? I mean, if anyone could do it, it would be the great Payne, right?”
“Oh, my God, I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before.”
“What can I say? I have a very unique way of thinking.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Clearly having a grand old time, Payne grinned through the kiss he pressed to her mouth before resting his brow against hers. “You know I’d never allow anyone else’s eyes on your body but mine, right? You’re safe with me.”
Her heart flipped over. “I love feeling safe with you.” She paused. “Safe, and fully clothed while in public.”
“Off. Now.”
“Damn it.” Grudgingly she slunk out of her top and bra while Payne, the jerk, didn’t bother to muffle his laughter at her cringing movements. “I should make you take your clothes off for this. Then we’d be even.”
“Now there’s a thought. Nude tattooing. I like the idea, but it’d probably be frowned upon by the Board of Health.”
“I wouldn’t frown. Looking at your body is my favorite pastime.” Struggling with the overwhelming sense of being exposed and wondering how people did this in front of strangers, she rested back against the chair… and sprang back up with a howl. “Holy shit, that’s freezing!”
Payne lost it completely, almost doubling over with laughter before he snagged up her shirt and smoothed it over the backrest. “God, I can’t tell you how much fun I’m having right now.”
“Yay for you.”
“You make everything fun, Becks.” Still laughing under his breath, he eased her back into the chair, his hands warm on her shoulders. Then, almost as if he couldn’t stop himself, he cupped her breasts in his palms, lifting them together so he could bury his face in the cleavage he created. “I guess I’d better say goodbye to the girls for now. You’re going to be a little sore here for next couple of days.”
“If this is your way of getting me to relax, you’re doing it wrong.” It was, however, turning her on in the worst freaking way. The chilly insult her back had suffered was quickly forgotten under an engulfing wave of seductive heat. She arched like a cat into his touch, her nipples tightening hard with need, and a purr of approval escaped her.
“Now, now. No more delaying tactics.” But his voice was satisfyingly rough before he ran his tongue around first one areola, then the other, as if he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her. But before she could dive her fingers into his thick hair he reluctantly lifted his head, and the hunger smoldering in his eyes was echoed with almost painful yearning in her. “If we don’t stop now, I’m never going to get this done.”
“I’m fine with that.”
“I’m not.” With one last wistful kiss to each breast, he sighed and reached for a pair of disposable gloves. “You’re going to hate how cold the disinfectant wipes are. It’s basically just rubbing alcohol on gauze, and it feels like I keep them in the freezer. After that, I shave the spot I’m going to be working on, then disinfect again. If you’re going to be a baby about it, all I ask is that you do it in an entertaining way so I can bust a gut laughing at you. Agreed?”
“Your professional chair-side manner could use some work.” She sighed and tried to relax, resigned now to her fate. “Okay. Do me, baby.”
“Oh, I will. After.” With a grin, he got to work.
The minutes ticked by as he prepped the spot between her breasts and along their undersides. As promised, he laughed when she squealed over the medieval torture devices he innocuously referred to as wipes. She knew, however, the real test of her inner fortitude was getting the tattoo itself, and along with a healthy dose of trepidation, she also felt a burning curiosity. At first she had tried to get him to show her what he had designed for her, but he kept it as secret as classified war plans, telling her only that she should trust him. This was clearly a part of his continued campaign to get her to lower her defenses, until finally she r
ealized that she did trust him. Allowing him to embed a permanent image onto her flesh without even seeing it was the ultimate expression of trust.
And if that image was a sombrero-wearing frog riding a chicken or something equally ridiculous, she’d be within her rights to kill him.
He moistened her skin with some kind of roll-on ointment, then told her not to peek as he brought out the tattoo transfer referred to as a stencil. This took some time, as Payne situated it carefully between her breasts, standing back several times to make sure it was placed exactly straight before he pressed it in place. He was such a perfectionist, which is what made him the best in the world at what he did. Just as much as he pushed to make House Of Payne the premiere tattoo gallery in the world, she had seen him in the art studio, honing his own skills so that each design he dreamed up was better than the last. Somehow, his dedication to be the best in his field made him that much more magnificent in her eyes.
The buzz of the tattoo machine coming to life seemed inordinately loud in her ears, drawing her out of her thoughts.
“Okay.” For the first time, a hint of concern touched his eyes as he leaned over her. “I know you told me you’ve never fainted while getting shots or anything like that, but I need you to tell me if you start feeling weird at any time.”
She felt more than weird right now, but she figured that had to be par for the course. “If I do, what’ll you do about it?”
“The one thing I won’t do is stop halfway through a tattoo,” he drawled, correctly reading her hopeful tone. “I have my reputation to consider, and there’s nothing uglier than a half-done tattoo. What I would do is allow you to have a break and get a nice shot of alcohol into you before finishing it up.”
So that was why House Of Payne offered complimentary champagne to every client that walked through the door. That, and Payne loved to pamper his clients. “Tequila would be nice right about now. And a taco, now that I think about it.”
