Chapter Twenty-Two
Nick
“Evie?” I turned on the lamp beside my bed, my hand automatically going to her side of the mattress even though I could plainly see that I was alone. Had she left me again? Did she call the car service and bail? I got up, my heart pounding out of fear. Where would she go? Maybe her friend’s studio, maybe running to whoever the hell Collin was? “Evie?”
“Yeah?” She popped her head out of my open fridge, her eyes wide but her brow wrinkled.
I nearly collapsed with relief at the sight of her. Would I have gone after her? Would I have simply washed my hands of the whole deal and called her parents? I had absolutely no idea. “What are you doing? Are you hungry?”
She held up a carton of yogurt. “This was your last one, sorry.” She shoved a spoonful in her mouth and then tossed the empty container in the trash. “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t seem to get comfortable.” She breezed past me, heading toward the living room. “Not that your bed isn’t comfortable, because it totally is.”
“You okay?” I watched, eyebrows raised in question while she paced the length of the loft. “You seem a little—”
“Manic? Crazy? About to blow?” She let out a creepy laugh. “Yeah, I know.” She paused to take a breath. “I woke up feeling super cranky and on edge. So I came in here to watch some TV. You have two TVs like six feet from each other, you realize that, right?” I opened my mouth to answer her, but she kept on talking. “Then Ollie came in and we started to play ball.” She pointed across the room, alerting me to the broken potted plant in the corner. “That happened, so we decided we shouldn’t play ball in the house, and then I got—”
“Evie.” I padded across the space, the stained concrete cool on my bare feet. “You want to get out of here for a bit?”
She glanced behind me to the large French doors leading to my small terrace. “It’s the middle of the night, but you know what I could really use? Something to help me sleep.” She was wringing her hands together, shifting from one foot to the other. “I don’t need the whole bottle, but maybe you could give me one? Just one, you know, to help me feel like I can be still.”
“No pills, little bird.” I picked up one of my discarded t-shirts on the couch, tossing it to her. “Put this on, let’s go.” I needed to help her come down a different way.
***
“So a few days ago I had to beg you to tattoo me, and now you’re offering to do it for free?” Evie was standing in my shop, her hands on her hips and my shirt hanging to her knees. “Really?”
We walked to my shop from my house. It was only a couple of blocks, but the activity and the night air had seemed to help calm her a little.
I poked her in the ribs as I walked past and flipped on the bright light in my workspace. “You were spiraling again.”
“I was not.” She gasped, like it was an outrageous accusation.
“You were pacing, eating everything in my fridge and begging for pills not ten minutes ago.” I cocked my head to the side. “Sounds like spiraling to me, little bird. Plus, you were breaking more of my shit.”
“The pot was an accident, and partly Ollie’s fault.”
“Do you throw every ball like a line drive? Or do you simply like to destroy my apartment?” I’d been almost impressed at the size of the dent she’d put in my bedroom wall yesterday. The girl had an arm on her.
“Baseball. All Luke’s boys play baseball.” She sent me a sassy smile over her shoulder, my t-shirt hanging off, exposing her perfect tanned flesh. And giving me an amazing idea. “I had excellent coaches.”
I snorted. “Yeah, remind me to thank them.”
Evie moved her attention to the framed custom art on the walls. They were all hand-drawn images of the more intricate tattoos I’d done for clients. “These are really good, Nicky.”
“Thank you. Now take off your shirt.”
She whirled around to face me. “Now who’s having the mood swings?”
“Still you.” I patted the leather table. “And I’m not trying to get you naked so we can fuck. I’m going to put a mandala on your shoulder.” Her lips had parted when I’d said fuck, like she’d let out a sexy gasp that had been too quiet for me to hear. I didn’t need Evie thinking about sex, because I didn’t need to be thinking about sex.
“Why?”
My gaze automatically went to the tattoo on her thigh. “You like the sting of the needle piercing your skin, it’s a release for you.” I turned back to my desk, getting all my supplies ready. “It’ll help calm your nervous energy. You’ll be able to sleep better afterward.” Evie had slept through the first tattoo I’d given her, and she’d been almost pliable during her second. “And mandala tattoos represent balance. I figured that was something you could use a little more of these days.”
She sighed, “You have no idea.” After that she pulled my shirt off and tossed it onto the chair in the corner. “Why my shoulder?” Next she stripped off her tank top, no hesitation, leaving her standing in front on me completely topless. Maybe I didn’t think this all the way through, because my eyes went straight to her naked breasts. Memories of having my hands on her flesh assaulted my brain. “Nicky?”
“Huh?” I tore my gaze back to her face, chuckling self-deprecatingly at her amused smile. She’d caught me. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t very professional of me, was it?” I knew the answer to my own damn question. Hell to the no. Pull yourself together, man.
It wasn’t like it was the first time I’d seen a naked body. It wasn’t even the first time I’d seen Evie’s naked body. But. I was horny, really fucking horny. And the naked body currently in my presence? Yeah, I wanted that naked body underneath me.
Evie got herself a blanket from one of my top cabinets, something I should have done before I even instructed her to strip. “It’s cool. You caught me staring earlier tonight. Fair is fair.” No it wasn’t, not by a long shot. She needed my help, not my fucking hard-on. “Why my shoulder?”
“Oh, uh, you’ll see.” The shoulder was the perfect place for the mandala design, and I was currently obsessed with Evie’s shoulder. It kept coming out of her too-big clothes to taunt me.
She wrapped the blanket around her, and then kind of bounced on her feet. She still had so much nervous energy that needed to be expelled. I brought her here to help her, and that was all. It wasn’t to see her naked, and it wasn’t because inking her skin turned me on. It was because we were both tired, and I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep until she did.
And she wouldn’t be able to rest comfortably until she had her release.
There were two solid ways I knew of to do that for her, but only one of them was an option at this point.