Her voice wraps around me, making it hard to breathe.
This isn’t good.
Not good at all.
Get your shit together, man.
She’s only a woman. An extremely hot woman, but still a woman. One I am never going to sleep with. I am an experiment to her and my cousin. A pet project…nothing more.
“It’s been a while. I didn’t know you became friends with my cousin.”
“We’ve been hanging out.”
“We’ve all been hanging out,” Lily adds. “We go out every few weeks for ‘book club.’”
“No one told me that,” I whisper.
“You were on a need-to-know basis, and you didn’t need to know. It’s not like you were going to come to book club,” Lily says.
“I may have,” I lie, but I stare at Arlo, soaking in her beautiful eyes and dark hair. She’s just as stunning as she was the last time I saw her.
“Lily said you were the best tattoo artist at the shop, and since she wanted me to work with you on the other thing, I figured I’d get a tattoo in the process.”
“Ah, right. The other thing. I’m going to warn you now. I love a good challenge.”
“Me too.” Her smile morphs into a smirk. “But this is more of a learning opportunity than a challenge. I’m not here to push your boundaries.”
“Push or cross any boundaries you want, sweetheart. I’m yours for a month.”
“It’s going to be fun,” she says, and I have no doubt it will be. “I needed a project and a little excitement, and when Lily told me about your issue, I thought I could help. You saved me twice, and now it’s my turn to return the favor.”
“I have no issues,” I tell Arlo, but I’m staring at my cousin when I speak. “Not wanting to settle down is not a disease or a weakness. It’s a lifestyle choice and not something that needs to be fixed.”
“Sure, Carmello. I’m not here to fix you. I’m just a keen observer. But today, it’s all about my tattoo consult and laying the groundwork for the next month.”
My eyes finally wander, taking her all in, and goddamn, do I love every bit of her. “Where do you want to get the tattoo?” I ask, going back into business mode.
She runs her hand down under her breast to the top of her hip over her ribs. “Right here.”
Naturally, she wants it on a part of her body where I have to navigate around her breasts and tons of exposed skin. Of course, she couldn’t pick the top of her foot or her wrist to keep shit easy and basic.
“What do you want…a flower?” I ask, knowing she totally looks like she’d have something beautiful and delicate like a flower.
“A dragon,” she says softly.
I blink. “A dragon?” I ask, thinking I heard her wrong.
“Yes, a dragon. Why are you surprised?”
“It’s just… Do you have a design idea?” I ask her, Lily’s head swiveling between as we go back and forth.
“I do.”
I fucking hate doing other people’s designs, but I’m not one to turn down a job, especially when it’s a friend of a family member, even when she’s here to fix me.
“I showed her your book, Mello. She wants the dragon on page five.”
I swing my gaze to my cousin. “You showed her my book?”
She nods, her brown hair moving as she smiles. “She wanted to see your work, and she fell instantly in love with that design.”
“You want my dragon?” I ask Arlo this time. “It’s not girlie at all, and it’s pretty big.”
“I’m not super girlie, and I like them big,” she says, smiling at me with those green eyes and pretty face. She knows exactly what she said and how she said it, fully aware of how I’d react.
I cough, almost choking on my own spit. “It’s a good four hours of work and a lot of pain. It may require more than one session, Arlo.”
“I don’t mind pain, Mello. I can handle it if you can,” she challenges, her eyes sparkling.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.
This girl is trouble and completely different from the meek and mild woman I met for the first time over a year ago.
And I’m not talking about a little bit of trouble, but a ton of it. How am I supposed to spend a month with her and not have sex?
My fucking ass, she’s a virgin.
“If you think you can handle it, I know I can,” I tell her, holding my shit together. “I’ll get the consultation room ready, and we can go over a few things and come up with a final size and do any design changes. It’ll be better to have some privacy.”
I don’t even have to turn around to know Gigi, Pike, Trace, and Rocco are behind me, elbowing one another, all in on the bullshit. This wasn’t just Lily’s doing. This was a relationship intervention, and they were all cockblocking me.
“Whatever works for you. I don’t mind being in public,” Arlo replies.
“I mind,” I say, shocking myself a little. “You’re going to have to remove your shirt, and there are going to be a lot of people in and out of here in the next few hours.”
“They’re just breasts,” Arlo says like I’m totally overreacting.
Again. The signs are there.
She is not a virgin.
No freaking way.
No woman who hasn’t given herself to anyone would say They’re just breasts.
Nope.
I’m not believing it.
They’re totally yanking my chain and lying to me.
But that’s fine.
I can play the game.
“I’m just going to throw this out there, and you can totally tell me to fuck off, Arlo, but this is a big tattoo for your first. You may want to think about something smaller and in a different area.”
She steps forward, getting in my personal space, and I do nothing to move away. “Carmello, a woman knows what she wants, and I want it. I want it bad. As for the pain, I can handle it. My pain threshold is really high, and sometimes, I actually enjoy it.”
Someone could punch me in the face right now and I wouldn’t flinch or feel it. Her words have smacked me down, making my cock hard, and left me winded already.
Arlo is an enigma. Someone I want to peel the layers away from to expose the real woman underneath. So much about her doesn’t add up, and I am going to make it my personal mission to figure her out.
“Whatever you want, babe,” I tell her. “You want it, I’ll give it to you. You want to start the tat today, I have some time this morning and can squeeze you in.”
Arlo stares at me and I stare back.
There’s a spark and sizzle to the verbal tango we’re doing. She likes me, and not in the platonic way either. The chick wants a piece of me, and I will be more than happy to oblige.
“Um,” Lily mutters. “Hello…”
“What, Lil?” I ask, but I don’t dare tear my gaze away from the green-eyed temptress.
Lily clears her throat and steps next to us to stand to our side. “Maybe you two should move to the other room. We have customers coming in, and your back-and-forth is…”
“Hot,” Gigi finishes from behind me. “So fuckin’ hot.”
“Shall we?” I say, motioning toward the back of the shop with one hand. “You can keep me company while I prepare everything instead of waiting out here. I’m sure you can read in a quiet room just as easily as you can out here.”