Derrick Destruction was an explosive mess of a man, and he’d set off Giovanni’s bullshit radar from the second he’d walked through the office door. It wasn’t only because he looked like an asshole, with his smug grin and the way he held himself like he was hot shit, it was because he treated Riley like she was already his.

There was no fucking way Giovanni was letting that bastard into his shop when he couldn’t stop himself from flirting with Riley. Flirting with anyone in the shop was risky territory, but flirting with management?

It fucking pissed him off to no end.

“You sent him away before we could ask him any questions about his work ethic,” Riley said. She still stood by Giovanni’s desk, her arms back crossed over her chest. Giovanni could tell she was uncomfortable. Her thighs were pressed tightly together, and paired with the way she crossed her arms, he knew she was trying to make herself as small as possible.

That Derrick jerk had pushed her past her limits and all Giovanni could do was watch. He’d been waiting for the second Derrick’s fingers dipped down any lower than they should have so he had a proper excuse to punch the guy square in the jaw, but it hadn’t happened.

Giovanni had to make him leave before he lost it for good.

“Yeah, because we’re not hiring that asshole.”

“What?” Riley’s lips twitched, and he did his best not to let them draw his eye. Seeing her only made his heart beat faster, and as strung up as he was on anger and adrenaline, he didn’t need the extra push. Not unless he was going to pin Riley against the wall and take her like he’d wanted to from the moment he’d first met her. Every day that week, she’d tempted him especially the way her clothes hugged her curves and the tap tap tap of her heels as she walked left him wondering how they’d look up by his ears, as she lay splayed across the desk. He wanted to silence her lips with his own and make her bend to his will.

She didn’t belong here, and there was no fucking way he was going to adhere to the rules she’d put in place.

She was going to be the one who’d have to come around.

“I’m. Not. Hiring. Him.” Giovanni didn’t bother hiding the anger in his words anymore. If Riley was going to work at Thorn Tattoo like Antonio insisted she did, he wasn’t going to coddle her. Some days life got real. If she couldn’t handle him when he was at his worst, then she could walk. The choice was hers. “He’s a lying bastard. He’s not who he says he is.”

Riley said nothing, and Giovanni took it as license to explain himself. “The tattoos in the portfolio he just brought in? They were lifted straight off the internet, and from some pretty famous names in the business, too. They’re not the most recognizable designs, or their best work, but they’re not his. I remember seeing some of those tattoos live at some of the conventions I’ve been to.”

Nothing made Giovanni madder than being lied to directly to his face, but in this instance, he was glad that he had a reason never to speak to Derrick again. The guy was a fraud, and he was a pig. No one was going to look at Riley like that and make comments like he had.

No one.

“I thought there was something off about his design,” Riley said softly. She picked up the sketchbook and traced her fingers over the tattoo. “I know it was only a fifteen-minute sketch, but there are some fundamentals that are sorely lacking here. The line work, the composition….”

How the hell did she know about any of that? Giovanni scowled and took the book out of her hands. He positioned the sketchbook against her hip, just like Derrick had. “It’s not just the work that was jacked; the placement was off, too. You see this?” Giovanni took the sketch off her hip and handed her the sketchbook again. Riley took it and looked down at the image, and he unceremoniously lifted her shirt and planted his hand on the silken, pale skin he found there. It looked like she wasn’t hiding ink beneath her designer clothes. “A design like that, rigid as he made it, would throw off the natural curves of your body.”

Touching her shot sparks up his arm and through his chest and did nothing to stop his impulsive thoughts. Giovanni moved his hand up her back, beneath her shirt, until he crossed the thin strap of her bra to trace against her shoulder blades. “A design like that would look better on a flat, angular surface. We’re talking shoulder blade, or calf, probably. I’d put something like that—not that I’d ever design such a shitty tattoo—right here.”

Riley didn’t move as his hand caressed her shoulder blade. The skin he touched was smooth and tight, warm in the most alluring way. Giovanni traced the design with his finger, working blind beneath her shirt. Every time he crossed the stretched fabric of her back bra strap, his cock throbbed. It wasn’t hard to imagine what Riley’s creamy breasts would look like spilling out of her bra when he undid the clasps. Just a peek at the skin on her hip had him hard.

“Feel the way that pattern fits here?” Giovanni asked as he traced the rough outline of Derrick’s sketch. “Feel how it pairs with your shoulder blade and follows the length of your shoulder just right? How the angles would match up? That’s where a tattoo like that would go. I would never disfigure a beautiful young woman by putting a busted up design like that on a part of her body that didn’t suit it.”

Giovanni’s hand dropped from her back and his finger traced along her hip now. The skin there was softer, padded by her curves but still tight. It drove him wild.

“Here?” Giovanni asked. He realized his voice had dropped to a whisper, husky with desire. His cock strained against the front of his pants. Riley turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and he saw up close how her pink lips had parted in a silent gasp. The air became heavy between them, charged with unspoken chemistry. “Here’s where you put softer, more feminine designs. Natural patterns. Ethereal creations. Swirling galaxies. Tattoos with true beauty and movement.”

As he spoke, his fingers traced across her skin, from the peak of her hip to the valley of her waist. Slowly, Riley turned to face him. Giovanni’s fingers never broke from her skin.

“That’s what skin this beautiful deserves,” Giovanni told her. The distance between them was close to non-existent, and their noses nearly brushed. Giovanni made out every detail in her dark eyes, and heard the way her breathing hitched slightly whenever he glided his fingers across her skin. “Not some bullshit like what Derrick did. So that’s why we’re not hiring that asshole.”

Riley’s lips parted as if she was going to speak, but Giovanni didn’t want to hear it. His hand on her waist grew firm, and he pushed her back against the wall and kissed her hard.

To his surprise, Riley kissed him back.

Their lips crushed together, Giovanni spearheading the passion, but Riley eager to meet it. She wrapped her arms around his neck and wove her fingers through his hair, and Giovanni loved the way she tugged, as if she had any say in what happened between them.

He pinned her body with his own, letting her feel his erection as he pressed it against her stomach. Riley groaned into the kiss, and he fed his tongue into her mouth and tasted her for the first time. She was sweet. Giovanni couldn’t get enough.

At last, with a sudden gasp, Riley broke from the kiss. Her fingers relinquished their grip on his hair, and she set her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back.

“No,” she said, firmly but finally. Her lipstick was smudged, and the big gorgeous hair she always kept so perfect was messy. She’d never looked so fucking beautiful before. She pushed past him and left the office to lock herself in the shop bathroom, leaving Giovanni alone with his thoughts.

She said no now, but she wouldn’t say it forever.

He’d make her bend to his will, and when he did, Riley would be his.