Passion and Ink (Sweetest Taboo) Read online

  I pull my phone free of my pocket now and peek at the screen. 2:03 a.m. If he keeps his word, Jay will be standing outside, waiting on me, the promise to screw me senseless in those startling emerald eyes.

  A barrage of anticipation and excitement runs through me. And a long-forgotten quote pops into my head.

  I was smart enough to go through any door that opened.

  While I seriously doubt the late, great Joan Rivers meant throwing caution to the wind and embarking on a hopefully hot-as-hell one-night stand with a stranger—a stranger who had gifted me with one of the most brain-numbing, panty-melting orgasms of my life—her nugget of wisdom still applies.

  This isn’t my first one-nighter by a long shot. Hell, that pretty much sums up my relationships with men. But it’s been over a year since I’ve been with a man. Since I’ve allowed myself to be naked, vulnerable—well, as vulnerable as I can be—with someone.

  When you have to suffer harassment and retaliation every day at work, the stress, anger, and helplessness kind of kills the libido. It also detonates your trust in people.

  So even though I’m long overdue to end my sexual drought, tonight… It feels different in some way I can’t pinpoint. That intuition that every woman possesses is tingling like a Spidey sense, warning me not of a super villain’s imminent arrival but of something just as important. Not dangerous—no, there’s not a hint that my safety is in jeopardy. But it’s still…important. And maybe because it does seem momentous, vital, that makes it just as ominous.

  If my vagina wasn’t at this very moment reminiscing on that glorious release Jay had treated it to in the alley, I would heed that premonition of self-preservation and duck out on him. But my vagina is a greedy, reckless slut, and I’m going to walk out of this bar and give her—and me—what we want.

  Him.

  The warrior angel with the heart-breaking beauty and piercing gaze as sharp as his metaphorical sword.

  I suck in a deep breath. Hold it. Then slowly let it go, attempting to settle my nerves.

  Well, that exercise was pointless.

  “Ready?” The bouncer guarding the door jerks up his chin in my direction. I mentally reach for his name, but who am I kidding? I don’t know it, and he’s probably never bothered to remember mine. The turnover for both of our positions are so high, I guess he figures like I have: Why bother?

  I nod. “Yes, I’m good.” He twists the lock and pushes the glass door open, allowing me to pass through before shutting and locking it behind me.

  And Jay’s not here.

  Except for a few cars parked along the curb, the sidewalk is empty and shadowed, lit only by the red neon from The Rabbit Hole’s sign.

  Damn. Disappointment and relief wrestle it out in my chest, and it’s difficult to tell which one will get the pin.

  Disappointment because…well, obvious reasons. For the last three hours of my shift, I moved on autopilot. Anticipation and lust had hummed under my skin, and my brain had been consumed with images of exactly what he could do when he had time for more than—how did he put it?—a quick finger-fuck.

  Disappointment because I was looking forward to drowning everything—where I would be living in a week, my uncertain career, Mom’s health, the ever-increasing pile of bills with Past Due stamped in angry red ink on the envelopes—in a few hours of pleasure with a man who could make me forget.

  Relief because now there’s no chance of what-if’s. Because he, Jay Whatever-His-Last-Name-Is, is a colossal What-If. You know, the men who have you wondering if there could be more than the one night. What if you could be the woman who changes his mind? What if you’re the one who’s special to him? That path of thinking will have you believing in Hallmark moments and Disney endings. Will have you mistaking love for obsession. Becoming a slave to the heart and the body, endlessly chasing the emotional and physical high only that person can provide. It’s better that he didn’t show.

  “Ro.”

  My head jerks up, and as Jay steps out of a parked black muscle car, all ideas of caution, relief, and warnings whip out of my head, whisked away like a trailer caught up in a Kansas twister. A scalding tide of lust sweeps in, and above it, the sharp crack of joy.

  Oh, I’m so screwed.

  And I can’t lie. I hope it won’t be just figuratively.

  “You good?” he asks, drawing to a halt in front of me, his gem-like gaze narrowing on my face. Probably because I’ve been standing there like a marble statue.

  “Yes,” I push out. Hiking my bag higher on my shoulder, I glance around him, zeroing in on his car. “Very Fast and the Furious,” I comment in a weak attempt at humor. And diverting his attention away from the fact that he flusters me.

  God, that’s humiliating.

  First fluttering, and now flustering.

  I swear to Christ, if I start giggling, I’m laying my own ass out.

  He doesn’t reply to my lame teasing and isn’t distracted by my diversion tactics. Instead, he cups my jaw, pressing his thumb to my chin. The light but firm pressure silently demands I look at him instead of the sleek lines of his car that I have zero trouble picturing Dom Toretto in.

  “You change your mind about tonight, it’s okay to say so, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

  Change my mind? I wish it were that simple. Wish I didn’t crave what he could give me so much that I’m going against my innate survival instinct that’s blaring a “You’re Screwing Up” signal.

  Wish I didn’t hunger to discover if his face would twist in pleasure when he came.

  Wish the curiosity to find out why a man who looked like him needed to pick up a dive-bar waitress didn’t dig at me. I think this need is the most hazardous of all, because it has nothing to do with the physical, but a desire to know him.

  Oh yes, I should so be running in the opposite direction of this man…

  “No.” I shake my head. “I haven’t.”

  My common sense sneers a “silly bitch” and stalks off while my vagina applauds and cheers.

  “Okay.” He nods, slowly releasing me, then something dark and more than a little fierce flashes through his eyes. “Good,” he growls.

  The low, menacing rumble echoes through me. My heart thuds against my rib cage, and a hard, aching spasm deep inside me has my knees trembling, threatening to send me tumbling forward against his wide chest.

  “One more question, sweetheart. You okay with going to my place? You don’t know me, so when I promised I’d never hurt you in that way, there’s no reason to believe me other than me asking you to take my word for it. But if you’re more comfortable going to your apartment, I’m down with that…”

  I cut him off with an abrupt shake of my head. “No, yours is fine.”

  No way in hell do I want my soon-to-be-ex roommate and her boyfriend to have a ringside seat to my sexcapades through the very thin walls of our apartment. And besides, as inexplicable and probably foolish as it seems, I trust Jay not to hurt me.

  He studies me for a long moment, and it’s a matter of pride that I meet that intense, penetrating gaze, even though it reaches too deep, trying to uncover things a one-night stand should have no access to.

  “Goddamn, I want to take your mouth right now,” he admits with a frown, his scrutiny dropping to my lips. They tingle as if he’s followed through on his desire, and it requires every bit of discipline I possess not to brush my fingertips over my mouth. Or not order him to do it.

  Inhaling, he steps back, doing that chin hike thing that seems to be a universal form of communication for men that translates to everything from okay to fuck off.

  “Where’re you parked?” he asks, shifting back again, inserting more space between us. Space I both appreciate and resent. Hell. Just the idea of having sex with him is obliterating brain cells.

  “Down the street.” I turn, headed in that direction. “I’ll follow behind you.”

  “Hold up.” His fingers wrap around my bicep, drawing me to a halt. I glance over my shoulder, and that f
rown from seconds ago has darkened into a scowl. “You’re not walking alone to your car.”

  “It’s fine,” I assure him. “It’s pretty safe over here, and I do it all the time.”

  “Pretty safe isn’t a ringing endorsement for the neighborhood watch, sweetheart,” he snaps. Then he presses his lips together in a grim line, his thick, unfairly long-for-a-man lashes briefly lower. When they lift, anger gleams in his eyes, but his voice is softer. Though no less irritated. “This is Chicago. The bouncer let you out, and I haven’t seen Ben leave yet, so that means there are two grown-ass men in there fully capable of walking a woman to her car so she’s not alone at two-fucking-o’clock in the morning.”

  The edge returns to his tone, slicing his words into sharp edges. But the fury isn’t directed at me, and God, doesn’t that detonate an eruption of more flutters.

  More freaking flutters.

  “C’mon.” He jerks his head in the direction of his ride. “I’ll drive you, and then you can follow me.”

  He doesn’t wait for me to comply, but then again, my feet are obeying before my brain delivers the message. Shock that he actually gives a damn when no one else does has me trotting alongside him like a meek little lamb.

  Another sign that I should call this whole thing off before it goes any further.

  I don’t do meek, and I’m nobody’s lamb.

  And yet…yet I’m still following.

  I tail Jay through the North Side neighborhood of Andersonville. It’s been years since I’ve been over here, but I remember enough to know that during the day, Clark Street—a quirky, eccentric, and diverse community—is packed and bustling with people and traffic.

  But tonight, or rather, this morning, it’s quiet, and I’m more focused on the muscle car in front of me rather than the boutiques and eateries. Minutes later, we pull up to a multi-unit brick and wood building. Bay windows arch out from the right side, while a wide, columned porch wraps around the front of the second level, and a set of steps lead up to the bottom-level patio. A building similar in size and architecture borders it on the left, a small, empty corner lot on the right.

  Jay appears at my door just as I open it and step out of my late model Mercedes Benz. Just like the first time he glimpsed my ride, his gaze trails over it, no doubt wondering how a dive-bar waitress could afford this luxury car. He’d pretty much voiced that when he commented on the quality of my coat in the alley.

  But like then, I pretend not to see the speculation in his eyes. I could say, “See, my coat, clothes, and car are the remnants of the formerly well-off life I used to have. The life I abandoned and sold off piece-by-piece after I quit my job because I dared to object to being sexually harassed.”

  But that would be a serious mood killer.

  And besides, explanations about the scorched-earth state of my life aren’t meant for one-night stands. They’re barely meant for family. Only my half sisters Dara and Jesse know the truth. My mother couldn’t handle it, and my father—a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of person—wouldn’t understand or sympathize. And my stepmother and stepbrothers…? Well, I barely spoke to them when I lived in Chicago before.

  So, there it is. The few trappings of wealth I have left are my story, and I’m not sharing it with a man I don’t plan on ever seeing again after a night of, hopefully, multiple orgasms.

  “You good?” he asks the same question he did outside the bar. Checking in to make sure I’m still in this, still willing. Has a woman ever said no to him? I can’t imagine who that brain-dead chick would be.

  “Yes.” Glancing down, I press the lock button on my key fob, the headlights flashing on and off.

  When I turn back to him, it’s to an extended hand, palm up. For a second, I contemplate ignoring the gentlemanly gesture that is odd to me but, then again, isn’t. It fits this particular man. After a moment of hesitation, I slide my hand over his, and his fingers immediately enfold mine. A shiver trickles through me—a promise or an omen?

  We climb the steps to the patio, and within moments, he’s opening the outside door. I follow him inside and up a flight of stairs to the second level. My nerves pull taut like a thin cord of wire, then coil in a hopeless tangle. The wide expanse of his back fills my vision, and I concentrate on it like a spot of light at the end of a long, increasingly narrowing tunnel.

  Curling my fingers inward, I squeeze my fists tight, and the bite of nails into my palms centers me enough to fight back the dimming edges of panic. It can’t quell the nagging barrage of worries, though.

  What if he doesn’t find me as sexy once he gets me naked?

  What if I can’t reciprocate the pleasure he’s already shown me?

  Did I shave?

  “Sweetheart.” His low, sex-and-sin voice slides through the paranoid whispers, and I jerk my head up to find his apartment door open and him peering down at me, that emerald contemplation a little too insightful. He moves into me, forcing me to shuffle backward until my spine hits the wall of the landing and his large frame counters mine from chest to thigh. A big, warm hand cradles my jaw, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone in calming, patient sweeps. “Your pace. Your decision. Your choice. You get me?”

  That snarl of rope slowly starts to unravel in my chest. Enough that I can loose a self-deprecating chuckle on a puff of breath. “What if I decide that I came all the way here just to cuddle? Is it still my decision?” I drawl, only half joking.

  “Yes.” The answer is blunt, quick, and unequivocal. “If we go in there, and all you want is for me to warm you through the night, then I will. Do I want to fuck you? Yeah. But if you don’t need that from me, then tell me what you do want, and I’ll give it to you. No questions asked. No explanations needed.”

  I stare at him. Believing him. Even with his erection a hard, impossible-to-ignore brand against my stomach, I believe him.

  And that calms the last of my nerves, smoothing them out like a crystal-blue lake with the barest of ripples disturbing its deep waters.

  “Let’s go inside,” I breathe, lust returning hot and thick now. My skin prickles with the desire to be pressed naked flesh to naked flesh. My hands itch with the yearning to finally test out the strength in those muscles that his shirt couldn’t hide. My sex clenches and spasms with the hunger to be claimed, filled, pounded, used… “I don’t want to cuddle,” I tell him, so he has zero doubts about where I stand or what I’m here for as soon as we step into that apartment.

  “Make it clear, sweetheart,” he presses, his head lowering so he’s almost uttering the words against my lips. “What do you want?”

  I bring my arms up between us, which is an extremely tight fit. But I fist the lapels of his coat, hiking myself higher. “I want to still feel you inside me when I walk out of here in the morning.”

  Heat flares in his eyes, brightening them like a flash fire. He doesn’t reply, but eases back, prying one of my hands from him, and, once more, enfolding it in his. Then he leads me inside his home.

  Quickly, I get an impression of a long, narrow hallway branching off into a large living room, several windows, and a huge sliding door. He ushers me through the place and into a shadowed bedroom. Pale beams streak through curtained windows. It’s enough to glimpse the king-sized bed with a utilitarian set of covers and a couple of pillows. The no-frills decor continues with two short drawers flanking each side of the bed, a tall dresser against the far wall, and a free-standing table that looks like the kind an architect would use in a corner.

  Then there’s the art.

  It covers nearly every inch of the walls.

  Framed. Frameless. Huge. Small.

  It’s like I stepped into a room in the Art Institute of Chicago. With the lack of good light, I can’t determine what the pictures depict, but this sudden urge to stroll over to his bedside table and flick on the lamp so I can study them pulls at me like a riptide. I would’ve never pegged Jay as an art lover. I’m used to men who plunk down hundreds of thousands of dollars to collect p
aintings for their investment portfolios. Men who hang them in conspicuous places in their homes so their guests can “ooh” and “aah” over their obviously exquisite taste and ability to afford those treasures. That’s if they hang them at all instead of hoarding them away.

  But for Jay to hang them where he can avidly enjoy them, in his most private room, speaks to something about this man that I don’t want to delve into. Because curiosity means there’s more to him than your average hit-it-and-quit-it. And he’s not more. He can’t be.

  Determined to get this one-night stand started, I turn around to face him. “I need you to—good God.”

  I gape at the shirtless man in front of me.

  Jesus Christ. He not only has art hanging on his walls, it covers his body.

  Those thick arms, roped with muscle, the solid wall of chest, the corrugated planes of his abdomen…even the delicious slopes on his hips that slide down into the faded jeans hanging on them—all of it is wrapped in ink.

  The breath expels from my lungs, and this time, I surrender to the impulse to investigate, study, touch. Crossing the bare inches that separate us, I run my fingertips over the dark swirls and geometric shapes; the black and grey of a skull that’s so lifelike, I swear I can feel the cracks and ridges in the bone. More tattoos beckon my inspection. The lush petals of roses circle his forearm, the rendering so vivid I’m only half convinced the dagger-sharp thorns won’t draw blood. More dragons, a hauntingly lovely Day of the Dead portrait, animals, words… Jesus, he’s stunning. I would’ve thought it an impossibility, but somehow, he became more beautiful.

  The need to see what else his clothes are hiding sparks deep inside me like a struck match, swift, hot, and bright. My overeager, trembling hands drop to the button on his jeans and pop it open. He doesn’t stop me as I tug down his zipper, his only reaction the slight intake of breath and hollowing of his stomach as my knuckles brush his skin. When I drop to my knees in front of him, he allows me to drag the denim down his hips and powerful legs.