THIS IS A BAD IDEA. NO, not a bad idea, a terrible idea.
Misgivings of every shape, size, and volume buzzed to life inside me as my hand landed on the doorknob. I didn’t have a tattoo, and more than that, I’d never even thought about getting one. Girls like me, the kind who watched the world from the outside looking in, didn’t go to places like this.
Before I could decide whether to twist the knob or walk away, the door flew open and I jerked back. A brunette stormed out, wearing only ripped jean shorts and a push-up bra with enough padding to turn her boobs into cannons.
“What an ass. Who turns this down?” She wasn’t talking to me, at least not until she almost collided with me. “Good luck with that prick. Maybe he goes for the good-girl vibe you got going on. His loss.”
My gaze lifted over her shoulder to see the back of the man-bunned giant inside the shop, and no one else.
I didn’t bother to reply that I wasn’t trying to get him to touch me because she was already melding into the crowd that I was trying to escape.
But she did make my decision easier. The chime jangled as I slipped through the open front door and shut it behind me. The giant didn’t turn around for several long seconds.
One look at his face, his arms, his hands, his . . . everything, and I knew I should walk right back out that door.
If there could be a universal picture of dangerous as hell embodied in the male form, the man-bunned giant would be it. Muscles rippled beneath the black T-shirt as he lifted a hand to his beard-covered face.
The world had apparently decided to throw me a bone. He was gorgeous, and I hadn’t accidentally grabbed his penis. Go, me. I could definitely see why she was pissed he wouldn’t touch her.
Unfortunately, the world had bestowed all that . . . man . . . on me. Also known as someone who needed to start at the beginner level, not the more man than you could ever handle in three lives level.
I’d had two crushes in my life, and one of them didn’t count. Gianni was replaced as my security when he “accidentally” grabbed my ass as he helped me out of the car, and Angelo had seen him and reported the incident to my father. It was the closest any guy had gotten to third base, and I’d gotten a cheap thrill. Unfortunately, that thrill had been killed when it had come out he’d stolen some of my panties. Ick.
Before Gianni, there was my aunt’s yard guy, Marcello. For three years, he’d trimmed and mowed and edged while I drooled from the window. Compared to this guy, Marcello was a gangly child, and my lady parts were sending out an SOS from disuse.
My brain snapped back into the present as my rescuer’s green eyes, almost emerald, scanned me from the soles of my Sperrys to the top of my blond head.
“Where the hell were you headed? The country club?” His voice seemed even deeper and louder in the confines of the black-walled tattoo shop.
“I wouldn’t wear jeans to a country club.” My response was instinctive, yet ridiculous. It wasn’t like I’d spent much time at the club, but even I knew they wouldn’t let you in wearing jeans.
His lips quirked as if he might smile, but they smoothed back into a lush line.
Lush? Wow, Eden. Simmer down.
Why had I thought following him in here was even a fraction of a good idea? Scratch the fact that my body thought he was the most delicious thing it had seen since that piece of triple-chocolate Almond Joy cheesecake Angelo had brought me last week when he picked me up from work. Apparently my body was waiting for the notification from my brain that this guy was beyond out of my league.
“I can just go.” I made a lame gesture toward the door. Getting a tattoo in New Orleans wasn’t on my Must Do list, anyway.
His expressive mouth turned downward. “You go back out there and you’re gonna get more of the same. You look exactly like the fucking tourist you are carrying that bag around. Makes you a target, if you haven’t figured that out yet. Why the hell didn’t you leave it somewhere?”
“Because the hotel didn’t have a room for me, and told me no one else would either. I didn’t exactly plan this.”
“Which hotel?”
“The Roosevelt.”
He didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a close call. Maybe he was staring up to the ceiling for divine guidance?
“You just showed up there thinking you could get a room a few days before Mardi Gras without a reservation? You fucking serious?”
I bristled at his tone. I was so freaking sick and tired of being scolded like I was a child.
“Hey—” I started, having no clue what I was going to say, but I was going to say something, dammit, and it was going to be good. But the giant interrupted me.
“Did you have a plan? Walk all over town looking for a hotel? Probably get fucking mugged, if not raped, in some dark alley too?”
The brunette who had stormed out of the shop had been right. He was a prick, even if he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
I propped a hand on my hip and injected confidence into my voice. “I’ll find something. Not every hotel can be booked.”
He shook his head. “Any hotel room within ten miles is booked. Even the ones that rent by the hour.”
My very first chance to venture outside the insulated world mandated by Dom Casso, and I manage to pick the one city with no vacancies. How is this fair? Maybe I am just a liability. The negativity welled up, but I shoved it down. I would not fail at this.
Straightening my spine, I gripped the handle of my suitcase tighter. “Then I guess I better start looking somewhere else.”
He pointed to one of the chairs lining the wall beside me. “Sit. Don’t go anywhere. I have an idea.”
I dropped into a seat at the authoritative command and froze as he turned his back to me.
How long had I been blindly following orders? And from some random stranger, at that? My judgment was clearly faulty.
I started to stand, but an inconvenient thread of curiosity kept my butt in the chair. If he had an idea, maybe I should stay. What other choice did I have right now? Run back outside and fight my way to a taxi to take me and have it take me to the airport Holiday Inn? That would be giving up my one shot at this adventure, and I wasn’t ready to admit defeat.
Besides, even if he was a jerk, his first instinct had been to protect me. That said something, right?
I stayed seated while he pulled out his phone and tapped something on the screen. When he was done, he leaned back on the counter and shook his head.
“You’ve got no business wandering around this city alone, and I don’t have time to be your keeper.”
Before I could retort that I didn’t need a keeper, the door chimed, and I jerked my head around to see a blue-and-black-haired woman in a retro neon-green leopard print dress, complete with black petticoat fluffing out the skirt, strut inside.
“Working during Mardi Gras season sucks.” She held up a brown paper bag in one hand and a drink carrier in the other. “But I got the food. And coffee. So hopefully we can get through tonight and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”
Her gaze landed on me as she lowered the bags and drink carrier onto the counter. “Well, well. Don’t you look like a little lost lamb? You here for some ink, sugar?”
The man-bunned giant let out some kind of half laugh, half scoff. “She look like she’s here for ink?”
“Guess that means she doesn’t fall into your hands-off rule then, Bish.”
What did that mean?
The dark glower that took over Bish’s face had me poised on the edge of my seat to run. Man-bun plus beard plus all those tattoos plus angry scowl finally tipped the scale from dangerously gorgeous to just flat-out dangerous.
“I think I should get out of your way.”
The woman cocked her head to the side, and her inspection sealed my decision to take my chances on the street. I’d be fine. Probably.
I shoved out of the chair but only made it a few steps toward the door with my bag in tow before long fingers wrapped around my wrist. Fight-or-flight instincts burst to life as I turned with my hand balled into a fist.
“If you actually knew how to throw a punch, you wouldn’t tuck your thumb under your fingers.” He dropped his hold on my wrist to pry my thumb out of my fist. “Otherwise, you’re liable to break it.”
I tucked the knowledge away in case hand-to-hand combat came up in the near future. His scowl had lessened, but I didn’t like the patronizing expression.
“You shouldn’t just grab people,” I said, tugging to release my hand from his grip, but Bish held fast.
“If you hadn’t jumped out of your chair so damn fast, I would’ve told you I’m trying to get you a place to stay.”
I looked from him to the woman who watched us like a zoo exhibit. Her black eyebrows rose so high, they disappeared behind her blunt-cut Bettie Page bangs.
“You’re . . . you’re trying to find me a room?”
“During Mardi Gras?” the woman interjected. “Damn, Bish. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think she already blew you in the back to get that kind of help.”
I stiffened at her insinuation. I wasn’t the kind of girl to . . . blow a guy in a tattoo parlor. Although now that she’d put the idea in my head, I couldn’t keep my gaze from dropping to the level of his belt buckle.
Whoa. There’s a bulge.
“Shut it down, Delilah.”
I jerked my head up to look at both of them, hoping no one had caught where I was staring.
The woman, Delilah, smirked rather than replying, and heat burned up my cheeks. She’d definitely caught me. The wink she threw me sealed it.
A quiet buzz sounded from Bish’s phone, and he tapped out something else. When he looked up, he nodded. “I got a place for you to stay for a couple days, but I need to clean up before I can take you.”
“I can go myself if you tell me where. I’m not completely helpless.”
He shook his head. “Not fucking happening.”
Delilah followed him as he disappeared into one of the small rooms toward the back of the shop where they must do the tattoos. It was actually a really cool place. The interior said gothic voodoo plus a touch of heavy metal and rock ’n roll—at least, that was my interpretation of it. Regardless, I could see why Delilah had given me such an odd look. It was way too cool for me and my polo shirt and Sperrys.
Part of me wanted to take a closer look at the pictures of their work on the walls, and maybe even stick around to watch them give someone a tattoo, but I knew that wasn’t in the cards. Instead, I stayed by the door, one hand wrapped around the handle of my suitcase as part of my brain told me to grab the door handle and run.
Delilah had plenty of questions for Bish, and her voice carried well enough for me to overhear.
“What the hell are you doing? You don’t get involved and try to help people ever. Where the fuck did you find a room, anyway? You taking her home?”
My fingers grasped the knob. There was no way I was going home with him. But before I twisted the knob, he replied.
“Fuck no, I’m not taking her home. A friend saved me a balcony room at the Royal Sonesta for a few days to party. I wasn’t in the mood to party tonight, so I was gonna let it go. Now I’m not. Simple as that.”
I released my grip on the door handle with a rush of relief. A hotel.
“You’re gonna give up a balcony room on Bourbon during Mardi Gras to help some girl you’ve never met? What the fuck happened while I was gone, Bishop?”
Bishop. I rolled the name around on my tongue, surprised at how much I liked it—and how well it suited him.
“Nothing happened. But you know as well as I do from one look at her that she doesn’t have a fucking clue what she walked into.”
“And since when do you care?”
“Leave it alone.”
Delilah backed off, and I dropped my gaze to the black-and-white-tiled floor and pretended like I wasn’t exercising mad eavesdropping skills.
Bishop strode toward me, his face impossible to read. “Let’s go.”
Decision time. Based on Delilah’s shock, this wasn’t something that was in character for Bishop. My hesitation must have been obvious, because he stopped in front of me.
“Your choice, cupcake. Hotel room or take your chances on your own. We both know the smart move here.”
Delilah followed behind him, her heels clicking on the floor. She propped a hand on her hip and her gaze swung from him to me.
“He’s not gonna hurt you, sugar. He might be an ass, but he’s the kind of ass you can trust with your life.”
What choice did I really have?
I forced my lips into an imitation of a polite smile. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
He grunted in response before peeling back my fingers to release the death grip on my suitcase.
“What—”
My question was cut off when he lifted the carry-on and strode out the door.
“Would you look at that . . .” The words came as a whisper from Delilah. Her eyes cut from the doorway Bishop walked out of to me. “Better catch up with him, because at this rate, who knows what he’ll do next.”