Ross 04 Take Me On (3 page)

“Of course, the finished product will be ten times better. Are there any changes at all you’d like to see?”

“I really can’t think of a single thing. Honestly, Ian, it’s perfect. Oh my God.”

“Once I draw it on, I’ll let you look in the mirror to make sure it’s the way you wanted.”

“Okay.” She gave a little laugh. “Now I can’t wait to get started.”

Candace ushered her toward the back with a sweep of her arm. “Right back there. I doubt you want to be up front for it.”

“Oh, good call. Thanks.” Her green eyes sought out Ian’s, and she gave him a giddy smile, lightly bouncing on her toes. “I’m ready when you are.”

Chapter Three

Something about the way Gabriella’s eyes followed him stirred longings best not dwelled upon.
Boss’s sister, dude, boss’s sister
, he kept telling himself, but it seemed the more he hammered the thought into his mind, the more his body rebelled.

She listened raptly to his sanitation-procedures spiel. Then he stepped out to let her get ready and positioned on the table before going back in with his markers.

Ian had hoped having those astute eyes off him would squelch the unwanted thoughts creeping into his head. No such luck. Because having her eyes off him meant the unmarred expanse of her back was completely bared to him, waiting for his art. He swallowed against the dryness of his throat at the sight of her stretched out on the table, her dark swath of silky hair pulled over to one side.

And she’d missed a lone tendril. “You missed some hair. I’m going to move it for you,” he said.

“Oops. Okay.” Gently, he brushed the wayward strands over to the side with the rest, and she gave a little shiver and laughed. “Sorry.”

That faintest contact with her skin almost caused him to groan—and he was about to have to sit here for an hour or two touching her. Jesus, how would he survive?

He had to suffer through more of her shivers and laughs as he drew on her with markers. Her skin was so soft and sensitive. He hoped the sting of the needle wouldn’t be too much for her, but he didn’t think it would be. She was tough.

He snapped on his black gloves and made sure she saw him open the needle package in front of her. With a deep breath to steel herself, she put her head back down and said, “Let’s do this.”

Fortunately, the answer of how he would survive came easily enough. He often zoned out when he was working. Life constricted to the end of his needle, and he liked it that way. Once they got through a few minor adjustments in his drawing and she accepted the first pass like a champ, Gabriella lay quiet, her breathing slow and easy. Since he followed his client’s cues, he didn’t disturb her except to ask occasionally how she was doing. As expected, she was fine.

Still, it was her first tattoo, and after some time had passed, curiosity got the better of him. Besides that, he was beginning to need a distraction again from the delight of her skin.

“Is it everything you thought it’d be?” he asked, wiping away excess ink.

She chuckled. “How do you mean?”

“The total experience. Is the pain about what you expected?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re handling it well.”

She didn’t reply. Which might mean she wanted him to shut the fuck up. So he did, at least for a little while. But damn, she had him interested. He tried to recount in his head all the things he’d heard Brian say about her in the past few months.

She was the older sister. If she was older than Brian, then she was older than Ian. Like, several years older. She didn’t look it at all. He thought he could recall something about her living in Dallas, going to medical school. Marrying a doctor. Left at the altar.

Jesus, what a fucking idiot that guy was.

And that was the extent of Ian’s knowledge, but he wanted so much more.

“So you live around here?” he asked, coming to a decision. He’d play dumb and try to get her talking. But if she shut him down again, he’d let her.

“I live in Dallas. I’m only here for the summer. I’m, um…staying with my parents for a while.” She grumbled the second sentence as if it wasn’t something she was proud of, but he played it off.

“Hey, that’s cool. My mom lives in Dallas. I used to, until I moved here to help Brian out. He and I have some mutual friends up there. What do you do?”

“I
was
a nurse. I plan on being a pediatrician. Just finished my first year.”

“That’s…wow.” He’d known it, of course, but somehow hearing her say it made it sound ten times more impressive. “A pediatrician with a kickass back piece,” he finished lamely.

She gave a light laugh, careful not to jostle him. “I figure that’s a good place to hide it when I need to.”

“Yep. Excellent.” His machine buzzed on for a moment as silence settled again. He fought it hard. “A doctor. I could never shoulder that much responsibility. I fuck up enough that I don’t need someone’s life to depend on me.”

“I hope you don’t mean you fuck up your tattoos,” she said, the little note of teasing humor in her voice stirring things that didn’t need to stir right now.

“Oh, hell no. That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, see? You shoulder plenty of responsibility. People wear your art for the rest of their lives. That’s pretty major, I’d say.”

He grinned, not liking how her approval made pride swell in his chest. He knew it was major, no matter what his fucking stepdad said. And it was an honor that people put that much trust in him. He loved what he did; he couldn’t do it otherwise.

Gabriella gave a long, shaky exhale, and he quickly withdrew. “Need a break?”

“No, I’m good.”

“A drink of water? Anything. Don’t be afraid to speak up.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

Brian took that moment to stick his head in the door. “How’s it going back here?”

“She’s a champ,” Ian said.

“Go away,” Gabriella said at the same time.

“Go away? You wanted me to do it! Now I can’t even come in? Aw, hell no.”

Ian chuckled and lifted his needle as Brian walked in and peeked over his shoulder. “Looking awesome, dude. ‘Dunce’ doesn’t have an ‘s’ in it, though.”

He bit down on laughter as Brian turned and ran out, thinking Gabriella wouldn’t appreciate his approval of the joke. “Oh my God!” she yelled after Brian. “I’m
so
glad now that you’re not doing this, you little shit!”

“You big shit!” came Brian’s gleeful voice from the front. Ian got the distinct impression it was a common insult between the two of them.

And this woman would make the coolest doctor he’d ever met. But then, he hadn’t met many, at least not outside of their offices…or his stint in the hospital several years back. He didn’t want to think about it.

“
Now
do you need a break?” he asked. “Got your blood pressure up?”

“It’s always like that with us,” she said, but there was no small amount of affection in her words. “I swear, sometimes he’s no different than when he was a freaking teenager.”

“Ah, well, where would be the fun in growing up?”

That induced her to silence again, and he got back to work. It lingered for a while this time, filling the air thickly, and he didn’t know why it bothered him so much now. Usually he was pretty content to keep the chatter to a minimum, but with her…

“Are you okay?” he blurted, and though he wasn’t talking about the pain of the needle, she would probably take it that way.

“Fine.”

“I guess what I mean is…why the phoenix?”

“I’m rising from the ashes.”

“Right.” He couldn’t muster the courage to be nosy enough to ask what ashes she was rising from. It was obviously about her failed relationship, but that was her story to tell.

And then she surprised him. “I was supposed to get married in March.”

“Yeah?”

“It didn’t happen.”

“Sorry about that.” Sorry that it hurt her. Not sorry that she wasn’t with some prick who didn’t deserve her. “That sucks.”

“Better that I should find out he wasn’t into it before the wedding rather than after, I suppose.”

“Good way of looking at it.”

Bitterness twisted in her words. “I just wish I hadn’t found out
at
the wedding.”

On that note, he had to stop for a second and shake his head. “Son of a bitch.”

“I mean, why? Why let it get that far? Obviously, this wasn’t something he realized ten minutes before he was supposed to meet me at the altar. He had to know this well in advance.”

“What was his excuse?”

“It wasn’t what he wanted. That’s all I got. He denied there being anyone else. He actually said if we could keep going on as we were without getting married, he’d be happy. Well, to hell with that.”

“Yeah, fuck that. I hear you.”

“Sure, let’s go on living the way
you
want to live, doing what
you
want to do. Never mind what
I
want,” she all but snarled, as if she were talking to her ex-fiancé right now.

Oh man, he probably should have heeded Brian’s warning and not opened this can of worms. Or even encouraged its opening. “Like you said, at least you found out beforehand.”

“It’s hard to focus on that sometimes. I just want to know why I had to find out at all. Why this had to happen. It was so humiliating.” She fell silent for a long, pain-filled moment, and when she spoke again, he could barely hear her. “
So
humiliating.”

He wanted to touch her somewhere, to comfort her. But he couldn’t, not without being highly inappropriate. Glancing toward the open door, he rolled his chair around to her head. She raised it slightly to look at him, her eyes wet and, goddamn, so bright, sparkling like precious emeralds.

“I think you’re doing a good thing,” he told her. “This is therapeutic for a lot of people, you know. The pain is cathartic. So I’ll shut the door if you want, and you can cry, or cuss him or scream, do whatever. I’m cool with any of it. And we’ll get this done, and it’ll be this beautiful testament to some very harsh shit you went through only to come out stronger on the other side.” He gave her a small smile. “I’ll even shut the fuck up from here on out.”

She shook her head. “No. Keep talking to me.”

“I can do that too. Take a deep breath.”

Smiling, she did as he instructed, inhaling deeply and letting some of the tension ease out with her breath. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”

“All right.” He wheeled back into place, rolling his head on his shoulders in an attempt to ease some of his own tension. A woman near tears had that effect on him, but this one was even stronger than most. He eyed his work critically, thinking the soft blue lines on her skin just invited fingers to trail along them. But not his. Before he got started again, he shut the door as he’d promised, hoping the move wouldn’t bring Brian sniffing around again. Brian and Gabriella might give each other shit, but Ian had the distinct impression Brian might throttle anyone within reach who upset his sister. He’d mentioned how Evan, his brother, had physically hauled him away from the guy who jilted her. For that, Ian wanted to buy Brian a beer, and really it was unfortunate Evan had intervened so soon. Surely he would’ve liked to see at least a few punches get thrown. Ian certainly would have.

They chatted on as he worked. Nothing too deep, nothing too emotional. She didn’t cry or cuss or scream, but she’d loosened up, and he liked her that way. He really liked her a fucking lot, more than he should.

Once they were done, he explained aftercare and walked her back up front where they set up her next appointment. She gave him a hell of a tip, even though he wanted to tell her to keep it. He’d nearly caused her to have an emotional breakdown with his prying, and he felt bad about it. Maybe she’d needed it, though.

After she’d walked out the door, he watched her through the windows as she crossed the street to her car. No barely leashed anger in her steps anymore. No, she almost seemed to float along now. She’d even had pleasant words for Brian before she’d left.

“You’re a brave man,” Brian said from beside him. Ian turned, not having realized he’d walked up. “Thanks for taking one for the team.”

He chuckled. “What are you talking about? She’s not that bad.”

“No, no, it’s not that she’s
bad
, necessarily.”

“Well, then, what?”

“High strung. Perfectionist.”

Oh yeah. That he could see. He could also see that she seemed much more relaxed now, after getting her ink, having her emotional moment. Maybe after talking with him?

Nah. No way. He wouldn’t even let his mind go there.

Brian shrugged. “And now, after having that guy dump her like that? She’s kind of going through this…thing. I think it’s an early midlife crisis. She used to hardly ever drink, but now she’ll hit a bar in a heartbeat. Mom said there were a couple of nights that she didn’t come home, so who knows what went on there.”

That
disturbed him. He got that she was in pain, and everyone needed to blow off steam, but she had such a bright future. He hoped she wasn’t spiraling so much that she ended up throwing that away.