by Kira Blakely
“What the hell was that?” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Are you trying to fuck me, Cain?”
“Well, when you put it like that,” I said and laughed, the rumble traveling through the room.
Margot swept her blonde hair out of its messy bun then tied it up again. “I’m working damn hard to try and get this place running smoothly. Do you have any idea how popular tattoos are nowadays?”
I glanced down at my tatted-up forearms. “You tell me, gorgeous.”
“Margot,” she said. “Not gorgeous. And, yes, they’re super popular. There’s plenty of demand, but the supply is out there too in spades. Do you get that? We have a competitor right down the goddamn street, yet SBC is offering us the show. It’s huge.”
“I won’t be on TV.” I shrugged.
What could I tell her?
“Then leave,” Margot said, and jerked her thumb back toward the door. “Get out of my shop.”
“Our shop.”
“Don’t,” she said. “You don’t get to call it yours. This was my father’s place. He worked to the bone to make it run without any help from your dad or anyone else. It’s mine now. He left it to me.”
“We can debate semantics all you want,” I said. “I’m not interested.”
Margot bit her lip hard. She trembled on the spot. “Fuck,” she hissed. “Fuck, Cain. Please.”
“What was that?” I sat forward in her chair, and cupped a hand to my right ear. “I didn’t hear what you said, there.”
“Please, Cain, please. I need this to work.”
“Why? Why is this such a big deal to you?” I asked. “It’s just a shop. It’s just a job.”
“No, it’s not. It’s my life. It’s my everything.” The declaration was so strong and out there. Her cheeks were dry, and fire burned in her eyes. Fuck, she was irresistible when she looked like this. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.”
“No,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”
“I need this.”
I stood up and walked around the desk, right up to her. I pressed my finger to the center of her forehead, the least sexiest spot I could think of. The contact still made her shiver, and my cock twitched.
“I’ll give you what you need,” I said. “And it’s not a TV show.”
Chapter 4
Margot
“He’s infuriating!” It came out as a mini-screech, and I despised myself for that. “I can’t believe this has happened. Cain was never interested in the shop before.”
My mother bent in front of the oven and squinted at the lasagna baking away inside. She tut-tutted. “Not yet,” she muttered, then rose and placed her fists on her hips, leveled me with the classic Francesca Reed stare. Mom had the ability to see through to the soul. She’d measure and weigh and make her decisions. Before she even opened her mouth, she’d almost always figured out what the problem was and how to solve it.
“You know that’s not true,” she said. “Cain loved working with your father. In fact, your dad thought he was an incredibly talented artist.”
“So, you’re on his side,” I replied, and smiled in spite of the situation. “Mom, are you sure you don’t have a crush on him? Everyone else seems to.”
My mother patted the gray bun atop her head. “I believe you’re projecting, dear.”
“I—he won’t let me do what I need to do to make the shop work, Mom. You know how important it is that it makes money.” I lowered my voice for two reasons: a) I didn’t want my niece, Jemma-Kate, to hear and b) it was so ultimately shitty to bring that up to my mother when she probably felt liable for all the trouble.
She sighed and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, honey. I don’t want you to be this stressed. We should’ve just sold the shop and—”
“And nothing, Ma.” I crossed the kitchen and looped my arm around her shoulders, rested my temple against her head. I was petite but still a little taller than her. I inhaled her baked-apple-and-cinnamon scent. “Even if we sold the shop, it still wouldn’t be enough. Jemma-Kate’s starting big school next year and, god knows, there are countless costs involved with that.”
“I’ll get a part-time job at a diner or something. There are plenty around here.”
“No,” I said. She was almost seventy. She’d paid her dues in life, and she’d spent that life supporting my father as he followed his dream. She’d given up studying psychology in college for it. “No, I don’t want you working. I can handle this.”
“It’s not fair on you,” Mom replied, and stepped away. She paced to the sink and braced her palms against it. “You’re a young woman—”
“Thirty.”
“Thirty is still young,” she said and laughed at that, the mirth breaking the tension in the kitchen. It mingled well with the scent of baking pasta and bubbling cheese. “Though, I know I didn’t feel it when that particular milestone came around. You’re in the prime of your life now, and I don’t want you to spend it working yourself raw for us. You should be out there looking for love or having kids of your own.”
My sister had had Jemma-Kate, and all it’d resulted in was pain for both of them. Kiera had disappeared, and Jemma had spent the last five years living with her grandparents. And with me.
We loved her enough for twenty people, but it still wasn’t the ideal situation for her.
“I don’t want anything of the sort,” I said. “Especially not the love part.”
My mother pursed her lips.
“Look, it’s fine. I’ll just have to figure out a way to convince Cain to—” The doorbell rang, and a frown tugged at my forehead. “Are you expecting someone?”
“The Queen,” Mom replied.
I clicked my tongue at her, and she aimed a dishcloth at my head. I dodged, and it whacked the counters behind me.
The doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it!” Jemma-Kate called out and ran down the stairs in the hall at full speed—thump-thump-thump-thump.
“No!” Mom and I yelled in unison.
Jemma wasn’t officially allowed to open the door without an adult. In this day and age, it paid to be careful. And Jemma was, well, she was our gem. And you’re not going to let her go hungry because of some middle-school crush.
I hurried out into the hall, carpeted and decorated in warm but light yellows, and pinched Jemma’s cheek on the way past the table nearest the front door. It held pictures of the family, even one of my father standing with his arm around a teenaged Cain.
The misted glass segments in the front door gave me a hazed view of the visitor.
Tall, dark-haired, wearing a jacket with popped collar. God, I’d know that shape anywhere. It made my stomach twist so hard, it felt as if it’d bore a hole through the side of my body and pop out the side.
Not here. Why here? This is my home. This is—
Another impatient knock, commanding, this time.
I drew back the chain on the door, then opened it, because what the heck was I going to do? Cower behind a door simply because Cain made all the cells in my body jump around like I’d been electrocuted?
Cain leaned one forearm on the doorjamb, his fingers brushing the air, and gazed at me with those molten hazel eyes. “Took you long enough,” he said.
“Yeah, well, this door isn’t made of glass. I figured I had more time before you bashed it down.”
Laughter rolled from him as it had yesterday afternoon. It was an addictive sound, and it curled through me, tickled all the hardened, closed-off places I’d built to stop feeling stuff I didn’t want to.
“Who are you?” Jemma-Kate asked and clopped forward in her little heels—she loved wearing them around the house and pretending to be Grandma. “I’m Jemma-Kate.”
Cain dropped into a crouch in front of her and extended a hand. “Hi, Jemma-Kate, I’m Cain. I’m Margot’s best friend.”
“He’s not,” I said, and placed my hand on top of Jemma’s curly blonde locks. “He’s a colleague from work.”
“Partner,” Cain corrected
, but didn’t look up at me. “Say, Jemma,” he said. “Do you think I can steal Margot away for a little while?”
“Steal her?” Jemma’s eyes went round. She was in the phase where everything was literal. She’d almost had a heart attack when I’d said “pigs will fly” the other day.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Cain said, and pinched her cheek. “I promise I’ll bring her back. We’ve got a lot of business stuff to talk about, you see.” He did look up at me then, and the fire in his gaze burned me to a crisp on the spot. “Important stuff.”
“OK,” Jemma squeaked, and pinched Cain’s cheek right back—reciprocity was her credo. “But if you don’t bring her back, you’ll get in big trouble with my gamma.”
“Where is she?” Cain asked.
“She’s making a lasagna for dinner,” Jemma continued.
I winced. Cain was a sucker for Italian food. He’d crashed plenty of family dinners when he’d worked at Get Ink’d during our angst-filled teenage years, and it’d driven me crazy. In part because he’d teased me viciously, and also because he’d given me unwanted butterflies back then.
I didn’t need a repeat of that.
“Are you going to stay for dinner?” Jemma-Kate asked, and raised her eyebrows.
I pressed a palm to my forehead.
Cain chuckled again. “Not tonight, princess. But take me to your gamma, girl. I’ve got to say hello. It’s been far too long.”
I dropped my arm and watched them leave, stiff from head to toe. This wasn’t good.
Cain had already wormed his way into my business, and god knew, with his behavior, we were on the edge of disaster. I didn’t need him interfering in my home life as well. Things were complicated enough.
I had a load to bear, one I’d taken on willingly and wouldn’t dream of dropping, but that didn’t mean I needed to pile his crap on my shoulders as well.
Laughter rang down the hall from the kitchen, accompanied by enthusiastic chatter from Jemma-Kate.
I sighed but stayed where I was, arms folded, staring at my reflection in the mirror over the entrance hall table. I squished the messy bun of blonde hair atop my head, then pressed a finger to the cartilage piercing in my left ear—a silver butterfly. My father’s nickname for me.
I was still in my work uniform, and I rearranged the collar of my shirt and dusted off the front of my jeans.
God, this was dumb. Why did I care what Cain thought?
Maybe because he’s been floating around in your fantasies since you were a teenager?
Middle-school crush turned high-school crush, until he’d changed and became the crazy asshole he was today. And even then… even then.
Footsteps thumped down the hall toward me. “Are you ready?” He halted beside me, head cocked to one side, burrowing into me with all the distilled trouble in his eyes, his breath, his body.
“For what?” I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I’m glad you asked,” he replied, and slipped an arm around my waist. He pressed his nose to my cheek. “I’m about to take you somewhere you’ve never been before.”
“Do you always have to talk like that?” I asked, and swallowed hard. “Just say where we’re going. You don’t always have to ooze—uh—you know.”
“Tell me,” he said, and guided me toward the couple steps to the front door.
“Forget it.”
“I won’t.” Cain opened the front door, and we walked out onto the front steps.
This was ludicrous. I hadn’t even made the decision to leave the house, and I was already out here in the crisp spring air. “Cain—”
“Margot.” He shut the door behind us. His tone was so firm, so serious, it froze my tongue mid-word. “I didn’t like this afternoon.”
“Huh?” I pulled away and looked up at him, at his slightly crooked nose, likely from a fight, and the tattoos creeping up his thick neck. The sun had dipped between the buildings in North Ravenswood, but folks still walked down the streets or drove them, heading home after a long day at work.
“That goober—”
“Hey!”
“That asshole.”
“Cain, he’s a Current Executive. He’s—”
“Not worthy of licking the soles of your shoes,” he said.
My jaw dropped. What the hell?
“Two things.” Cain raised fingers, and I instantly pictured them places they’d never be. Never. “Locking yourself in the office with him was unnecessary and fucking annoying.”
“You—”
“And I came to talk about what you need. This TV show. Don’t change my mind before I’ve even made it.” He took my wrist, and drew me closer to his body again, pressed me right up against it. “Do you remember what it was like to work with me everyday?”
“Infuriating,” I replied, trying but failing to ignore the heat of him, the hard planes of his abs. It was too difficult to think and talk with him around. It felt awkward to force words out correctly when my body hummed and sang like this.
Like I was a tuning fork, and he had thwacked me against the side of a piano.
“Exactly,” he said. “We don’t get along, darlin’. We never have. What makes you think that will change with cameras around? You think it’ll make good TV for them to watch us fighting?”
“You don’t have to be in the shop,” I said.
Cain snorted. “I don’t usually make concessions. I’m giving you an opportunity to discuss this TV show shit.”
“Giving me an opportunity?” I went supersonic. Dogs could probably hear me at this decibel level. “It’s my shop.”
“Our shop,” he replied. “Mental arithmetic won’t change that.” He released me then and brushed past, walked down the concrete steps from our front door and hit the sidewalk. “Hurry up, sweetheart.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “I don’t wait for anyone.”
Chapter 5
Cain
“It’s a hotel room.” Margot stood in the center of it, her arms folded across those luscious breasts, still trapped beneath her tight work shirt. She scanned the suite, the king-sized bed, the open-plan living area adjoined to it, with the glass coffee table and those puffy leather chairs my father had been obsessed with.
“Told you,” I replied. “This is somewhere you’ve never been. My bedroom.”
She pursed her lips, and fuck, it was so adorable I wanted to wrap her into a ball, stick her in my pocket, and carry her around in there. Adorable? Fuck off. Sexy. Edible. Delectable. You’ll take her and break her like you do everything else.
But I couldn’t do that to Margot.
“Have a seat,” I said, and gestured to one of those fruity chairs. Fuck, I hated the style of this place. I’d chosen it for the panorama of Lakeview it provided. The massive windows looked out on the city.
It reminded me of what was out there. That there might be a chance I’d find something that stopped the constant need to do something crazier, bigger, better.
Margot walked to one of the armchairs and lowered herself into it like it’d bite her ass off. “We’re here to talk.”
“And eat,” I said. “Since you missed out on your mother’s lasagna. I’ll call room service.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Margot replied, and touched two fingers to the piercing in her ear. “The last thing I want is people seeing me with you.”
“Nobody cares who we are.”
“That will change,” Margot said. “When the TV show starts.”
And there was our segue. She was set on this outcome, and I’d been set on the opposite, but second thoughts were a bitch. “I’m not interested in having my life scrutinized by a bunch of assholes with remote controls.”
“But you’re perfectly OK with walking into a room of people totally naked, cock out?” Margot blushed at the word “cock,” and I immediately pictured putting mine in her mouth.
Fuck it, how many times had I pictured that over the years? The first time I’d jacked off it’d been to thoughts of her sucking my
dick. And here she was, in my room, her body hot and ready, her mind sharp.
That was what I’d enjoyed about Margot from the start. Her intelligence. She was sharp as a tack and, frankly, there was nothing sexier. Apart from her peach-shaped ass, of course.
Did she have a nipple piercing?
“Uh, hello?” Margot rapped her knuckles on the glass table. “You’ve been staring at me like you’re going to murder me for the past two minutes.”
“That’s not what I was thinking about,” I replied.
The blush deepened.
“Can I ask you a question?” Margot’s tone was low.
“You just did.”
She clicked her tongue. “Why?”
“Why what?” I studied her, constantly, traced the line of her jaw, down her throat, admired her breasts, that tiny waist, down to her thighs, squished against the sides of that armchair.
“Why are you back? Why did you come back to the shop?”
“What does it matter?” I asked. “I’m back. I own half of it. That’s what’s up.” She didn’t need to know all the rest. The chest hole and the charity and Mom… Fuck, nobody needed that information.
“But Cain, you never wanted the shop. You never seemed to care. I mean, you worked there, and you were good at the artistry of it, but the actual functioning of the business was not your thing. If you really wanted to work at Get Ink’d, you could have. Why own it?”
“I don’t do well with authority. I don’t take orders,” I said. “And this is wildly off-topic. Focus, Margot.”
“Don’t you tell me to focus.” Margot rose. “I’m the one who’s been focused on making this business work for the past three months. The only thing you’re focused on is the next rush. Or the next fuck.”
Anger hurdled through me, and I stormed across the room, knocked a chair out my path, and took hold of her arms. “What do you know about it?” I asked. “Nothing. You know nothing about what I am or what I want.”
“Then tell me,” she grated out.
“I need to maintain a good image,” I replied. “At least for a couple months until things have calmed down.”
“You? A good image? You can’t go a minute without doing something crazy. You’d probably base jump off this building given the chance.”
