MidnightInk-epub Read online

  So why had he brought up the one regret from his past that had the potential to disrupt his happy life and tear him and Rhonda apart?

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Just got a chill.”

  Her expression said she had her doubts, but she didn’t call him on it—just held his hand tighter.

  Quit being such a pussy, he told himself. Maybe tonight wouldn’t turn into the goat-fuck he was expecting. Hell, maybe Eli wouldn’t even recognize him. It had been almost ten years, and he’d changed a lot in that time—cut his hair short, gotten wider in the shoulders, lost the baby face and streamlined the bulky muscle he used to carry around. And maybe Eli wouldn’t give a shit even if he did recognize him—events always seemed bigger and more dramatic than they actually were in those post-adolescent college years, and time had a way of changing your perspective on them.

  “There it is,” Rhonda said, pointing across the street to a storefront with a red-and-black-striped awning. “Midnight Ink.”

  The well-lit tattoo shop looked like it was hopping but Bart didn’t see Eli’s tall, slender figure anywhere in that wide plate-glass window.

  He swallowed the taste of bile in the back of his throat as they crossed the street. If the twinges and gurgles from his stomach were anything to go by, time hadn’t changed his perspective much at all.

  Maybe the alligator sausage hadn’t been such a bright idea when he was so tense. Eating every bite definitely hadn’t.

  When she reached for the glass door, he tugged her to a stop before she could open it and stared down at her beautiful face.

  “I love you, Rhonda,” he told her with all the intensity he was feeling.

  Her eyes widened and then she gave a fluttery laugh. “Bart, honey, it’s a tattoo parlor, not the Titanic. We’ll make it out alive.”

  “You’re gonna marry me,” he insisted. “You promised.”

  Rhonda’s smile faded and she searched his face for a moment. Biting bit her lower lip, she glanced through the door, which was vibrating with the muffled thump of rock music from inside. “We don’t have to go in if you really don’t want to.”

  He sighed. Now she said the words he’d been hoping to hear since they landed in New Orleans—hell, since she planned this trip in the first place. It made him feel a little better that she was probably as torn as he was.

  But they’d already passed the point of no return—probably had the minute he opened his mouth about Eli. They might as well get this over with.

  “Yeah. We do.” Reaching past her, he pushed the door open, triggering a doorbell.

  They were met with classic Bon Jovi underscored by conversation, laughter and the buzz of tattoo needles.

  The sound made him cringe. He didn’t mind getting the shit knocked out of him in the boxing ring or being tackled on the football field, and he frequently ran into burning buildings without thinking twice, but he’d never been inked and wasn’t sure he wanted to. He’d watched Rhonda getting the EMS caduceus, a winged staff with two snakes twined around it, tattooed across her low back, and judging by the redness of her skin afterward, it must have hurt like hell. There was nothing the woman didn’t love about getting tats, including the pain. It gave her an endorphin high, and the more it hurt, the higher she got. Bart couldn’t imagine lying still for that kind of protracted abuse of his nerve endings—he’d have too much time to think about how much pain he was in.

  A gorgeous woman with creamy brown skin and a blue-green streak in her dark hair sat behind the reception desk. She looked up at the sound of the bell and pushed her glasses up her nose, making the bracelets on her colorfully tattooed arm jingle.

  “Welcome to Midnight Ink,” she said with a smile. “My name is Sassy. How may I help you this fine evening?”

  “I’m Rhonda Giannetti. I have an appointment with Eli,” Rhonda told her.

  Sassy stood and gestured at the seating area in front of the windows. “Go ahead and have a seat. Eli’ll be right out. Would either of you like some coffee?”

  Giving him a quick glance, Rhonda said, “We’re good, thanks.”

  “Oh…” Sassy picked up a flyer and handed it to her. “I don’t know if Eli told you, but for every tattoo our artists do during December and January, we’re making donations to some of their favorite causes. And if you come back tomorrow night to get inked for New Year’s Eve, you can join our New Beginnings party. It’s gonna rock the block,” she added with an enigmatic grin.

  Rhonda grinned back. “We might just do that. You can never have too many tats.”

  After Sassy sashayed across the hardwood floor to the back of the open work area and disappeared into a hallway, Bart put a hand in the small of Rhonda’s back and steered her to one of the black vinyl armchairs. Sweat prickled in his armpits. Was it just him or was it hot in here?

  Taking inconspicuous breaths through his mouth to control his nausea, he looked around as he unzipped his windbreaker. Three of the work stations were occupied—two artists, both guys, were bent over their clients, inking away, and another was obviously still in the consulting stage with a couple of women.

  “I didn’t expect it to be this busy at this time of night,” he said inanely.

  “Maybe it’s called Midnight Ink for a reason.” Her eyes on the women, Rhonda leaned toward him and said in a lower tone, “Boy, things have really changed since I was a teenager. Can’t you just see my mother getting me a tattoo for my sixteenth birthday?”

  He snorted, knowing her mother had alternated between swearing in Italian, praying in Italian and sobbing in Italian for two solid days after Rhonda came home with a delicate floral tattoo on her shoulder the night of her eighteenth birthday.

  Then he did a double take, first at Rhonda—who apparently had catlike hearing to go with her demon-sniffing nose—and then at the women. The two did look a lot alike, and one was obviously several years older, though she was far from matronly in her tight jeans and stiletto boots. “Maybe she’s her older sister.”

  Rhonda shook her head. “She called her ‘Mom’.”

  Bart shrugged. He’d only been a paramedic for a little over two years but it already felt like he’d seen it all. “Twenty bucks says a couple of years from now, Mom’s paying to have it lasered off for prom.”

  “I’ll take a piece of that action.”

  Sassy emerged from the hallway and his stomach spasmed, giving such a raucous gurgle that Rhonda heard it over ninety decibels of Whitesnake and raised her brows at him.

  He jumped up, tearing off his windbreaker and handing it to her as Sassy approached. “Do you have a restroom?”

  She pointed back toward the hallway. “Second door on the left.”

  Tossing an “I’ll meet you in there” over his shoulder, he made tracks for the john. Fucking alligator sausage. Why in the hell had he eaten it all?

  Come to think of it, why had he ordered it in the first place? He didn’t care much for alligator when he lived down here—it tasted exactly like what it was, a damn swamp-sucking reptile—but it was what the big boys ate so he’d always ordered it. When would he learn?

  His stomach gave another urgent pang and a cold sweat broke out on his upper lip. Jesus, that bathroom had better be empty.

  Without bothering to knock, he jerked the knob and flung the door open—

  And slammed right into Eli.

  Chapter Two

  Eli saw stars for a second, instinctively letting go of his toothbrush and paste to clutch at the large, hard body as they collided with the bathroom wall.

  “Whoa there, big fella,” he exclaimed when he regained his footing. “Where’s the fire?”

  Jesus, was his nose broken? It prickled and throbbed from the impact with another human face, and his forehead and eye sockets throbbed right along with it.

  The guy jerked back out of his grasp and Eli barely spared him a glance before turning to look in the mirror. Just a little trickle of blood in his scruffstache, thank the Lord—this wa
s his favorite tee shirt, a souvenir from the Aerosmith concert in Pensacola the spring after Katrina hit. He didn’t wear it often, trying to keep it in decent shape, but tonight had seemed like a good night for it, with the brunette from Chicago coming in. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on that sexy belly button, and all the other sexy extras that came with it.

  Snatching a paper towel off the dispenser, he wet it and pressed it to his left nostril for a second then leaned over the sink for a closer inspection of the damage. “You all right, man?” he finally thought to ask, looking at the tall blond in the mirror.

  “No,” the guy grunted as he leaned over to pick up Eli’s brushing supplies—which fortunately were zipped into a sandwich bag—and shoved them at him. “Could you get out now?”

  Eli turned and took them, focusing on the blond’s pale, sweaty face. Why did he seem familiar? “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “Eli, get. Out,” he growled, clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides as he breathed through his nose.

  Eli’s heartbeat tripped as his eyes widened. “Bart?” Merde, it was him. His blond curls were cut military-short, and he was harder, broader and leaner, but the man standing in front of him was definitely Bartholomew John Rigger the Third. “What are you doing here?”

  Muttering “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Bart grabbed the front of Eli’s tee shirt, swung him around and shoved him backward out the door, slamming it in his face and locking it. Five seconds later, Eli heard the unmistakable sound of retching.

  Stunned, he leaned back against the wall and stared. After all these years, the biggest mistake of his life was on the other side of that door. Bart Rigger was here, in New Orleans. In Midnight Ink.

  Ten years ago, Bart had left Baton Rouge without a word to him or Josh, snuck off while they were in Florida visiting Memère, and they’d never heard from him again. If it weren’t for the internet, they wouldn’t have known whether he was dead or alive.

  And now he’d shown up just as suddenly as he’d disappeared.

  Suddenly Eli was twenty-one again, breathless and vulnerable, his heart rapping unevenly against his breastbone. He could hardly think with the pulse throbbing in his ears.

  Was it just some bizarre twist of fate that he was here, blowing chow in the shop where Eli worked, or had he finally seen the light and quit living to please his daddy? Had he come to admit he was wrong, beg for forgiveness, maybe find out if there was anything left between them?

  If he’d shown up five or six years ago, Eli would have told him, “Go fuck yourself, couillon—I got prettier crawfish than you to fry!” But time and experience had opened his eyes to his own culpability in Bart’s panicked flight from Louisiana. He should have handled that boy very differently, but he’d been little more than a boy himself in those days—impatient, demanding, possessive and hardheaded as the devil.

  He could still be demanding and hardheaded, but he’d developed some patience and self-control, and he’d learned to share. Most importantly, he had a better understanding of both himself and Bart, of the inner demons each of them wrestled with and the unique dynamic between them. If it wasn’t too late, maybe he’d have a chance to prove it.

  Then he remembered his appointment and let his head drop back against the wall. Mais, what a dilemma—Bart was in the bathroom and Miz Rhonda Giannetti was down the hall waiting for him.

  He and Rhonda had spent well over two hours talking on Skype a few weeks back, and what started out as a video consultation had grown into something unexpected but far from unwelcome. Not only was she pretty as a peach, but she was intelligent and easy to talk to. She’d expressed genuine interest in him and his life in New Orleans, asking one leading question after another and drawing him out in a way he hadn’t experienced often. As a tattoo artist by trade and a dom in his private life, Eli was accustomed to asking most of the questions and putting nervous clients and subs at ease, but somehow he’d wound up telling her a great deal about himself.

  A great deal more than she’d told him, he realized later. He’d thought there would be plenty of time to delve a little deeper into the dark-eyed fille while she was here, but he might have to forgo that pleasure, at least for tonight—he couldn’t let Bart get away without at least trying to talk to him.

  Telling himself to suck it up, he straightened with a sigh. There were much worse dilemmas to have than which beauty to spend the evening with.

  Striding to the break room, he stuck the toothbrush and paste into his bag o’ tricks, which hung on one of the hooks just inside the door, and then headed out into the shop. The lovely Rhonda was already on her feet, walking his way, and she looked even more desirable than she had on Skype.

  Didn’t that just figure?

  “Miz Giannetti, you’re even more gorgeous in the flesh,” he told her, offering his most charming smile as he approached.

  She took his outstretched hand in a businesslike fashion, obviously thinking he meant to shake. Instead he drew hers up and, without breaking eye contact, bent to press a brief kiss on the soft, pale olive skin just above her knuckles.

  A knowing smile curved her lips, drawing his eyes to the intriguing little mole just above and to the left. He’d wondered if it was real and daydreamed more than once about finding out with his tongue

  “Back atcha, Mr. Bell,” she murmured, watching his mouth in a way that pulled his nut sac up tight.

  Man, she was hot hot! Taller and more lustrous than she looked on the internet, she had endless legs and a ripe figure displayed to perfection in a black leather skirt that rode low on her hips and a spangled blouse the color of a fine Bordeaux. Her dark brown hair fell in lively waves over her shoulders, just beggin’ a man’s hands to come play with it. And the way she smelled… Mm-mm-mmm, like sin of the carnal variety—leather, spice and a subtle hint of womanly musk. Man, such a temptation! If it were anyone but Bart in the bathroom…

  He released her hand with a sigh of regret. Maybe he should tell her to come back so he could check the piercing in a day or two, just in case Bart hadn’t come to kiss and make up.

  “This way, chère,” he said, gesturing to the piercing room.

  She took a step forward and then stopped with a frown, looking almost nervous. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I brought my fiancé along for moral support.”

  Fiancé?

  He stared at her for a second and then just about busted out a belly laugh at himself. Here he’d thought the chemistry between them was so combustible, and she was engaged! Shit, he was barely thirty and already an old fool.

  “The more, the merrier,” he told her with a self-deprecating smile. “Where is he?”

  She smiled back wryly. “In the bathroom. I don’t think he’s feeling very well.”

  Eli froze solid. There it was, that God-damned twist of fate. Bart wasn’t here to beg for forgiveness or anything else from him—he’d come with his fiancée, who naturally happened to be the most interesting woman Eli’d met in a coon’s age.

  He didn’t even try to put on a happy face. “Bart’s your fiancé.”

  “Yeah…” She drew the word out, her sharp brown eyes studying him as though he were a bug on a pin. Obviously it was no surprise to her that he knew Bart.

  How in the name of fuck had he misread her so completely? Had she deliberately led him on? Was this some kind of petty revenge plot to rub his nose in the fact that he’d been wrong about Bart all along?

  Which he hadn’t, not by a long shot, but Bart might still see it that way.

  “Mais, c’est foutu,” he muttered, forking a hand through his hair. “Why are you here?”

  Sassy spun her chair around and frowned at him. “Eli…”

  He gave an exasperated sigh. “I was cursing the situation, not the client.”

  “Splitting hairs, mon amie,” she said, shaking her head.

  Only Sassy could make “my friend” sound like “don’t make me hurt you”. And she wasn’t even Cajun.

&
nbsp; “Aller en, peeshwank,” he told her. Go away, pipsqueak.

  She looked him up and down, making it clear she found him wanting. “Beck moi tchew, garçon.” Bite my ass, boy.

  He almost grinned in spite of himself. She knew all the important insults—his job here was done.

  Crossing his arms, he gave Rhonda an uncompromising look. “Now why, exactly, are you here?”

  She gave the look right back. “To get my navel pierced. You know, Eli, my mom always told me it’s not polite to speak another language around people who don’t understand it. What did you say to get in trouble?”

  The good Lord save him from feisty females.

  Since the waiting area was empty for the moment, he walked away. “I said I’m off the clock. I’ll be in the break room, Sass—holler if you need me.”

  When he didn’t hear footsteps behind him on the hardwood floor, he glanced over his shoulder at Rhonda. She was just standing there, watching him warily. “Come or not, chère, it’s up to you.”

  He paused on his way by and pounded on the bathroom door. “I got your fiancé, galette. Last door on the right, when you can tear yourself away from the pot.”

  When there was no I’m not a pussy! forthcoming, he frowned. Had Bart forgotten what galette meant or was he truly ill?

  He pounded again, a little less ferociously. “Bart?”

  Even through the bathroom door, he heard the man’s gusty sigh. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Are you okay, honey?” Rhonda asked, laying her lovely hand on the door as if to touch Bart and looking worried as she listened for his answer.