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When Emilia was done and showed her artwork to the girl—it even had coloring and shades—the girl nodded and took the sketch to the back room. Emilia chewed the pencil she’d used, and I took it out of her mouth and shoved it into my pocket.
“Hey, it’s not even ours,” she protested.
“They don’t need this shit with your saliva all over it,” I clipped out.
“Oh? And you do?” She grinned.
I didn’t reply. She was goddamn ridiculous. A big guy with a black goatee and matching long hair—completely tattooed from head-to-toe—stepped out of the back room, flipping aside a black vinyl curtain, and nodded hello to us.
“Name’s Shakespeare. ’Sup?”
We all shook hands. Then he proceeded to go over the process with Emilia. Since it was her first time, he explained the full procedure in detail. And when the fuck would this thing be over? It felt like days had passed since we’d agreed on screwing each other.
Shakespeare—whose goatee actually did make him look like an Elizabethan playwright—asked Emilia if she’d like me to tag along and enter the room. She started answering, “Well…”
Which was obviously not the right answer, so I answered on her behalf. “I’m coming in.”
The tattooist ignored me, moving his eyes between her and me, and tilted his chin down. “He doesn’t have to if you don’t want.”
Fuck him. He made it sound like she was a battered wife.
“Actually, I don’t care if he joins us. I know he loves watching me get hurt.” She winked at me, but she wasn’t smiling, and that thing in my chest sank a little.
Fuck her too.
We walked into the room. The floor was black and white, with red furniture everywhere, and there were framed pictures of Shakespeare’s work. He was good. I took a moment to appreciate his ink.
Shakespeare tossed his iPhone across his desk and dropped to his swivel chair in front of the adjustable tattoo table Emilia was already perched on. “What’s your poison?” he asked, sending her a wink.
I’m going to cut his fucking goatee off and feed it to him.
Emilia chose “Nightcall” by Kravinsky. He hooked his phone to a USB cable, and the music started blasting from every corner of the room. Shakespeare asked Emilia to take off her sweater and bra and lie on the table on her stomach, and to brush all her hair away from her back. She lifted her sweater, exposing her silky olive skin for the first time in front of me. My cock begged for my mind to do something, anything, to lure her to third base like we’d shook hands on.
When she reached for the back of her bra to undo it and turned her back to me, I snapped.
I pulled my wallet out of my pocket. “Here’s my credit card.” I extended the plastic to Shakespeare, waving it between my fingers like a bribe. “You can use it for whatever you want. Just give us ten minutes alone.”
Shakespeare opened his mouth, not touching the credit card, glancing between me and Emilia, who looked just as shocked as he did, if not more. But it was too late to take it back, and I didn’t want to anyway.
Come the fuck on, Goatee. Turn around and walk away.
“Anything,” I stressed, my face still blank. “Go get yourself a new chair. Or a table. Or ink, whatever the fuck it is you need. My treat. Go order food for the whole building. Buy the stray cat down the road a bed to piss on. I’ll give you ten minutes with my credit card if you give me ten minutes in this room with her. Alone.”
“Is your boyfriend always so aggressive?” He arched an eyebrow in Emilia’s direction, throwing her a questioning look that asked: Do you want me to leave you alone with this asshole, or do you want me throw him outside and call NYPD?
She laughed her syrupy Southern belle laugh that always seemed to stab straight to the pit of my fucking stomach. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Shakespeare’s eyebrow shot up. “You should tell him that. Doesn’t seem like he got the memo.”
With a huff, I shoved the credit card into his chubby hand and wrapped his sweaty fingers around it. “Hey, Dr. Phil, get the fuck out of here.”
Shakespeare did as he was told, the door closed, and it was just Emilia and me. She held her sweater to her braless chest and sat on the table, grinning at me.
“Third base?” She bit her lower lip.
I nodded, approaching her in steps that were restrained and even. I didn’t want to pounce on her like a maniac. I mean, I did want to, but I couldn’t scare her away. Not after today.
Something had changed, whether I liked it or not. She knew my secrets. Some of them, anyway. I didn’t understand why I told her everything I did, but alarmingly, I didn’t regret it. Not one bit.
