Wild Child

by M. Leighton

  “What? I’m the one getting poked with a needle a zillion times. Why would you pass out?”

  “Sympathy. That’s why.”

  I tilt my head to the side. “Sarah, don’t be ridiculous. I want you to come back with me while I do it.”

  She twists her hand free of my grip. “I love you, Sloane, but this floor is probably the perfect place to get Hepatitis. You’ll be in the chair. I won’t. If I go down, it’ll be face first in someone else’s blood. So thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Sarah, there’s no blood on the floor. It’s not like that.”

  “How do you know? This is the first tattoo parlor you’ve ever been to.”

  “So? Look at this place. It’s spotless. It even smells clean, and you know that can’t be easy with all the drunk, smelly people that no doubt come through here.”

  “You’re just making my point for me. Nope. No way. I’ll be waiting for you right…” she says, backing away from me toward one of the chrome-and-leather chairs that line one small section of the wall. “Over…here.”

  “Fine. Miss this significant life moment. It’s all right. I’ll still love you.”

  With a heavy, loud-as-I-can-make-it sigh, I turn toward the door. Hemi has already disappeared into the next room, so I make my way slowly forward.

  I hear a frustrated growl from behind me. “Fine.” The word is followed by the clomp clomp clomp of platform-shod feet stomping toward me. “So help me, if I pass out and get some sort of face fungus, you’re paying for all my doctor bills and any necessary plastic surgery.”

  I smile broadly and loop my arm through hers when she stops at my side. “I won’t let your face touch the floor. I promise.”

  “You don’t promise. You never promise,” she observes, eyeing me skeptically as we enter the next room.

  “No, I just don’t make promises I can’t keep. This one, I can keep.”

  We stop and look around the room. There are two other people getting tattoos. They both look up at us. They don’t look like they’re being tortured. In fact, one of them looks kind of sleepy. Or drunk. Either way, it makes me feel a little more at ease about the pain I just signed up for.

  I tug Sarah forward and we make our way through the room. The overhead lights are still bright, but they are strategically placed over the three reclining tattoo chairs. It makes the rest of the space look intimately dim.

  I walk toward Hemi where he’s standing at a little cubby against the back wall. It’s occupied by a small cabinet with a mirror over it, a rolling cart of some sort, and an empty tattoo chair.

  I start to climb into it, but he stops me. “Wait. Show me exactly where you want the oyster shell before you sit down. I might have to put you on your stomach or your side, depending.”

  Feeling heat rise to my face yet again, I turn my right hip toward Hemi and pat the place where I want the shell. “Here.”

  Hemi squats beside me, reaches forward and raises the hem of my cami then drags his fingers up my side. “With the butterflies up through here?”

  I feel chills break out behind the warm path of his touch and I bite my lip. When he looks up at me with those amazing blue eyes of his, I nod.

  “Okay, then let’s start with you on your stomach,” he says, stepping on a pedal on the floor that raises the foot and lowers the back of the chair, making it flat enough to lie prone. “Hop up there and unbutton your shorts,” he says casually.

  “Pardon?”

  Hemi’s laughing eyes meet mine. “Which part didn’t you get?”

  “You need me to take off my pants? In here?”

  “No, I just need you to unbutton and unzip them a little. Just enough that I can comfortably get to the area you want inked.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling like an ass. “Okay.”

  I climb up onto the flat surface and reach for my button and zipper. I loosen them and then turn to stretch out on my stomach. I feel like burying my face in my crossed arms, but I don’t. I stare straight ahead until I see Sarah enter my vision and plop down in the chair across from me, promptly ignoring me for the phone in her hands. I watch her for a few seconds, but I’m far too interested in who’s at the other end of me to pay her attention for long. Finally, I turn my head to look down at Hemi, resting my cheek against my folded arms. He’s sitting on a chair with wheels now, facing me at the level of my waist, with a long-necked lamp aimed at my lower body.

  I catch and hold my breath when he reaches out and curls his fingers into the waistband of my shorts. Hemi tugs the material down, wiggling it over my hips and lowering it just enough that he can easily access the whole area. The only thing between him and my skin now is my underwear.

  I watch as he slips a finger under the lacy elastic of my panties and pulls them down as well, leaving nothing between us but the heat of his hand. Slowly, he rubs his palm over my hip. Back and forth, he does this several times before he looks back at the sketch and then starts to trace one fingertip over my skin, as if he’s drawing it out in his head.

  “You know,” he says, looking up at me, his palm coming to a rest, his thumb making an absent arc on my hip. “I think it would be better if we came up a little farther toward your waist with the shell and then let the butterflies spill out, curving to run up your side in a loose serpentine pattern, like this,” he says, moving his fingers up over my ribs in a languid snaking path. “I think it would look better than a straight line.”

  In my head, I can see exactly what he’s saying. And I agree. It’s just that I’m having a hard time thinking and responding with his hands on me like they are.

  “Sounds good. Whatever you think. You’re the expert.”

  Hemi grins and winks at me. “Oh, I like the sound of that.” He reaches back to the table that sits behind him, grabs a little prep kit, a marker and my sketch. He lays the drawing up on my butt. “This is your first time, isn’t it?” He’s not watching me when he asks; therefore he can’t see the color that burns in my cheeks. He has no idea how right he is. In many ways. Being the daughter of a cop and the little sister to three more makes dating a challenge to say the least. Add to that all that happened when I was little, and you get a twenty-one year old virgin. To tattoos as well as most everything else, too.

  “Yes,” I reply in a small voice.

  At this, Hemi finally looks back up at me. “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.” And for some reason, I believe him. “We may have to break this up into two or three sessions, though. I don’t want to overwhelm you, and there’s quite a few butterflies to do. Plus, ribs can be a little more tender and tricky.”

  “So you won’t do it all tonight?”

  “I don’t think so. Let’s start with the shell and one or two butterflies, and see how you’re doing. Then we can go from there. We don’t want you in the chair too long. You can make an appointment to come back another time to get the rest.”

  See him again? Yes, please.

  “Sounds good.”

  Hemi pauses, with no grin on his lips and no teasing in his eyes. This time they seem just…warm. “Are you always this easy?”

  Before I have to try to formulate some pithy or flirtatious (or stupid) reply, Sarah speaks up for the first time since I lay down. “Hell no! She’s stubborn as a mule.”

  “So it’s just me then.” He stares at me for several seconds before his grin returns. “Just easy for me. I like that.”

  The next thing I feel, aside from the damnable heat in my face, is the cool swipe of an alcohol pad as Hemi preps my skin for what’s to come. I barely notice the moisture. All my attention is riveted to the warm hand resting against my hip, holding me still. Keeping me steady.

  COMING NOVEMBER 12, 2013

  Read on for an excerpt of the next

  Wild Ones novel

  SOME LIKE IT WILD

  COMING March 4, 2014

  Some Like It Wild

  How far will a good girl go for the bad boy she loves?

  Laney Holt is a preacher’
s daughter. A good girl. Her only goal was to get married, have babies and live happily ever after, just like her parents. Only that didn’t happen. With the betrayal of two people closest to her, Laney’s dreams came crashing down. Now she’s left with an empty space she doesn’t know how to fill. Until she meets Jake Theopolis, a daredevil with a death wish who has heartbreaker written all over him.

  Jake has no interest in thinking beyond the here and now. All he wants out of life is the next rush, the next “feel good” thing to keep his mind off the pain of his past. His latest rush? Showing Laney there’s more to life than being a good girl—and that going bad can be so much fun. Her only concern now is how she can ever hope to satisfy the wild side of a boy like Jake. She’s looking forward to trying. And so is Jake.

  CHAPTER ONE- Laney

  Four years ago, Summer

  “Come on, Laney. You gotta live a little. You’ll be eighteen in a few weeks and then you’ll be leaving for college. This is the last fair you’ll ever attend as an adolescent. Don’t you want this summer to be memorable?”

  “Yes, but that does not include getting busted for drinking under age.” My best friend, Tori, gives me that look that says I’m hopeless. “What?” I ask defensively. “Daddy would kill me.”

  “I thought preacher’s kids were supposed to be wild as hell?”

  “I can be wild,” I tell her, avoiding her disbelieving blue eyes. “I just don’t want to be wild right now.”

  “Then when? When are you gonna do something? Anything? You won’t make it a single semester away at college if you don’t learn some of this worldly stuff now, Laney.”

  I chew the inside of my lip. I do feel ill-prepared for college. But the thing is, I don’t want to do wild things. All I’ve ever really wanted out of life is to find the perfect man to sweep me off my feet, get married, have a family and live happily ever after. And I don’t have to get wild to achieve any of those things.

  Looking at Tori’s expression, however, makes me feel like some kind of freak for not wanting to break the rules. At least a little. But she doesn’t understand my dreams. No one does, really. Except my mother. She was the same way when she was my age and she found everything she wanted in life when she met my father.

  “Come on, Laney. Just this once.”

  “Why? What is the big deal about getting it here? Getting it now?”

  “Because I want to get it from him.”

  “Why?” I ask again. “What’s the big deal?”

  “I’ve had a crush on him for years, that’s what the big deal is. He went off to college and I haven’t seen him since. But now he’s here. And I need a wing woman.” When I don’t immediately relent, she presses. “Pleeeeeease. For meeeeee.”

  I sigh. I have to give Tori credit for being one seriously gifted manipulator. It’s a wonder I’m not wild as a buck. She talks me into doing things I don’t want to do all the time. It’s just that, so far, they’ve been fairly innocent. Being the preacher’s daughter and living with such strict parents makes it hard for me to get into too much trouble. Tori ought to be happy about that. If it weren’t for the restrictions being my friend has placed indirectly on her, she’d probably be a pregnant, drug-addicted criminal by now.

  But she’s not. Partly because of me and my “taming” influence. And it’s those stark differences in our personalities that make us such good friends. We balance each other perfectly. She keeps me on my toes. I keep her out of Juvie.

  “Fine,” I growl. “Come on. But so help me, if he tells on us, I’m blaming you.”

  Tori squeals and bounces up and down, her ample boobs threatening to overcome the extremely low neckline of her shirt.

  “Why don’t you just go over and do that in front of him a couple of times? I’m sure he’d give you anything you want.”

  “That’ll come later,” Tori says, ruffling her blond bangs and waggling her eyebrows.

  I roll my eyes as we start off across the fairgrounds. As we near the farm truck where the shirtless guy is unloading crates, I ask Tori again, “Now who did you say he is?”

  “Jake Theopolis.”

  “Theopolis? As in the peach orchard Theopolises?”

  “Yep, that’s his family.”

  “Why don’t I remember him?”

  “Because your hormones slept through your freshman year. He was a senior. Jenna Theopolis’s older brother.”

  “You know my father would’ve killed me if I’d been caught hanging around with Jenna Theopolis. She was pretty wild. That’s about the only thing I knew about her. I’m sure that’s why I don’t remember her brother.”

  “How could you not? He was one of the hottest guys in school. Played baseball. Dated pretty much all the hot girls.”

  “Except for you,” I add before she can.

  She grins and elbows me in the ribs. “Except for me.”

  “And you’re sure he won’t try to get us into trouble?”

  “I’m positive. He was a bad boy. I’m sure there’s nothing we could think of that he hasn’t done ten times over.” We stop a few feet behind him and I hear Tori whisper, “Good God, look at him.”

  So I do.

  I can see why Tori would find him appealing. His tanned skin is glistening in the hot Carolina sun. The well-defined muscles in his chest and shoulders ripple as he picks up a crate from the back of the truck, and his washboard abs contract as he swivels to set it on the ground. His worn blue jeans hang low on his narrow hips, giving us an almost-indecent look at the way the thin trail of hair that leads away from his navel disappears into the waistband.

  But then Tori’s words come back to me and I’m immediately turned off. She said he’s a bad boy. And I’m not interested in bad boys. They don’t figure into my plans. At all. In any way. That’s why I don’t have to worry about being attracted to him.

  Even though he’s hot as blazes.

  Tori clears her throat as we move closer. “Hi, Jake.”

  Jake’s dark head turns toward us as he pauses in his work to wipe his brow. He looks first at Tori. “Hi,” he replies around the toothpick stuck in one corner of his mouth. His voice is low and hoarse. His smile is polite and I think to myself that he’s handsome enough, but nothing to warrant Tori’s insistence to talk to him.

  But then he looks over at me.

  Even with him squinting in the bright sun, his eyes steal my breath. Set in his tan face and framed by his black hair and black lashes, they’re striking. The amber color is like honey, honey I feel all the way down in my stomach—warm and gooey.

  “Hi,” he says again, one side of his mouth curling up into a cocky grin.

  For some reason, I can’t think of one single thing to say. Not even a casual greeting, one that I would give a perfect stranger. I stare at him for several long seconds until, finally, he chuckles and turns back to Tori.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Uh, she’s just shy.”

  “Shy?” he asks, turning his attention back to me. I almost wish he hadn’t. My belly is still full of hot liquid and I’m starting to feel breathless. “Hmm, I don’t meet shy girls very often.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Tori wave her hand dismissively. “Eh, she’ll loosen up in a minute. In fact, that’s sort of why we’re here.”

  Jake glances back to Tori, releasing me from the prison of his strange eyes. I take a slow, deep breath to settle my swimming head.

  “Oh, I’ve gotta hear this,” he says, leaning back against the tail gate and crossing his arms over his chest. I can’t help but notice how his biceps bulge with the action.

  Tori steps closer to him and whispers, “We were sort of hoping you’d sell us a bottle of that peach wine. You know, on the down low.”

  He looks from Tori to me and back again before he bends to pick up one bottle. “One of these? To loosen her up?”

  “Yep. It’s sure to do the trick.”

  His golden eyes return to me as he slowly straightens to his full height
. “I don’t believe you. I don’t think she’ll drink it.” His gaze drops to my mouth and then on down my neck and chest, to my stomach and my bare legs. I wonder what he’s seeing—just the light green strapless sundress that sets off my tan? Or is he imagining what’s underneath? What’s underneath my clothes? Underneath my skin? “I think she looks like a good girl. And good girls don’t drink.”

  The fact that he so accurately pegged me stirs up my temper for some reason. Immediately defensive, I pull in my stomach, puff out my chest, and jack up my chin. “What? I’m just some simple, one-dimensional country girl? Is that it?”

  He shrugs, his eyes never leaving mine. “Am I wrong?”

  “Yes,” I declare defiantly, even though it’s an outright lie. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  One raven brow shoots up in challenge. “Oh yeah? Prove it.”

  Too proud to back down, I reach out and snatch the bottle from his fingers, unscrew the lid and tip it back, taking one long gulp.

  It’s just local, homemade wine from his daddy’s peach orchard, but that doesn’t mean the alcohol doesn’t sting the throat of someone who’s not used to drinking.

  As I lower the bottle and swallow what’s left in my mouth, my eyes water with the effort not to sputter. Jake watches me until my cheeks are no longer full of the wine.

  “Satisfied?” I ask, shoving the bottle into the center of his broad chest.

  “I’ll be damned,” he says softly.

  Ignoring the way his voice makes my stomach clench, I reach for Tori’s hand. “Come on. We have to get back for our shift in the booth.”

  Tossing my hair, I turn and stomp off with as much dignity as I can muster. Tori is reluctant, but when I tug, she follows along.

  “What the hell are you doing? You just totally screwed that up for me. Not to mention that you left the wine.”

  “We don’t need that jerk’s wine.”

  “Uh, yeah, we do. And what’s this about the shift at the booth? We aren’t supposed to be there for another forty minutes.”