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I hold her stare, and the longer I look at her, the harder she becomes to resist, especially as she tries to fight a smile, only proving that she belongs with me. If she really wanted this to be over, she’d already be bitching me out, telling me to leave. Instead, her fingers are flinching at her side as though she’s trying to convince herself that she doesn’t want to touch me.
“What are you doing here?” Kyah asks, getting up from her table and meeting me at the counter, though she does her best to keep her distance.
My gaze lifts around the shop, noticing her boss, Big Jim, watching me like a hawk, and some other dude I’ve never seen before working on a client’s back. “You got a new guy?”
“Mm-hmm,” she says, sparing a glance toward him. “He came in for a trial this morning and Big Jim thought he was great and offered him to start straight away.”
“No shit,” I mutter, my gaze falling back to hers. “How do you feel about that?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “It’s weird looking over there and seeing someone else in Crew’s station, but I was drowning in work without him. I’ve finally had a chance to breathe and just focus on my own stuff today.”
“So, what I’m hearing is that you have time.”
Kyah’s face falls. “Alex, I . . . I was serious yesterday. You and I can’t work right now.”
“Oh,” I laugh. “You think I’m here because of you and me? Nah, babe. I’m flattered that I’ve had such a profound effect on you that you now assume everything is about getting together, but I’m here for ink. I figured, why not get the best in Brooklyn to do it.”
Kyah narrows her gaze on me. “You want a tattoo?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I grin wide, loving how she sees right through me. “It’s fine, babe. If you can’t handle it, I’ll get the new guy to do it.”
“Fucking hell,” she mutters, grabbing my wrist and pulling me around the counter and toward her station, muttering under her breath. “If anybody is putting ink on your skin it’s gonna be me.”
A wide grin cuts across my face, and as she drags me along, I brush my thumb across the inside of her wrist. Her steps falter as she glances back at me with a deep sadness in her eyes, almost as though this distance she’s trying to force between us is killing her just as much as it’s killing me.
She pulls me into her station, and as she turns her back to grab some paperwork from her desk, I step into her. Then as she turns back around to face me, my hand falls to her waist. She sucks in a breath, not having expected to find me so close.
My gaze lingers on hers, and a feeling of euphoria settles over me as her hand falls to my chest. “Alex—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. “I know you feel this between us. It’s not just in my imagination, and I’m not about to let you slip between my fingers because you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” she argues.
“Then what the hell is going on? One minute, everything is great, and the next, you’re sending me bullshit messages trying to end it,” I remind her. “And in case you haven’t worked it out, I’m not the kind of guy who’s just going to back down without a fight. Especially not now that I know how fucking sweet you taste.”
Kyah’s cheeks flame, and I press my fingers to her chin, lifting until her gaze settles back on mine. “Tell me what you want, Mace,” I all but beg of her. “If you really don’t feel this and don’t want to see where it’s going, then tell me now, and I’ll back off, but if I’m right and you’re getting in just as deep as I am, then don’t push me away. This is too fucking good to screw it up now.”
“I . . . ”
“What do you want, Mace?”
Kyah visibly swallows, her gaze dropping to the papers in her hand before a grin lifts the corners of her lips. “I want you to fill out your consent form,” she tells me, shoving the forms against my chest. “Unless getting a tattoo was just a ruse to get close to me.”
A wicked grin stretches across my face as I pluck the papers out of her delicate hand. “I would never.”
Kyah rolls her eyes and steps away from me, moving around her station to find a pen. She shoves it into my hand and points toward her desk for me to get a move on, and I jump to it, realizing that in order to stay right here and be close to her, I’m gonna have to go through with this.
As Kyah prepares her station, sanitizing everything before checking over her tattoo guns, I drop down at her desk, my gaze sailing over the design open in her sketchbook, and I’m blown away. I’ve seen a few of her sketches laying around her apartment. She likes to binge-watch shows while working on her designs, but she gets so lost in her work, I think the TV is just background noise.
I start filling out the consent form.
First Name: Alexander
Last Name: Reid
