Chapter 16

Cain

Margot walked ahead of me, her ass swaying in those tight jeans, heels clicking on the sidewalk as we approached Get Ink’d.

I considered myself immune to the walks of women, to the swish of thighs meeting below the blessed thigh gap. None of it affected me anymore, except when it was Margot’s ass ahead of me. She wasn’t perfect. She was just herself, and that was what brought me to my goddamn knees.

And was the reason I’d laid out the rules in Japan. If I didn’t push her back, I’d set her on fire and she’d turn to dust in my hands.

Margot didn’t look back at me, thank god, or she’d catch me ogling her in a way that wasn’t entirely sexual.

We turned the corner and entered the street that led up to the shop. I caught up with her, cast a skewed grin in her direction.

She didn’t return it. Her brow was wrinkled, as it had been since we’d boarded the plane yesterday. Fun Margot had checked out, and business Margot had arrived and was raring to go in her black Get Ink’d tee.

Yeah, the one that clung to her curves, to her breasts. I switched my gaze to the street to keep my thoughts clear of her keening and moaning beneath me, her hair spread across the pillow like a fucking blonde curtain, a halo around her head.

“Back to the grindstone,” I said.

“Guy should come by later to talk about the pilot for the show,” Margot said. “It’s going to be on SBC sometime this week.” Her voice bubbled with barely contained anxiety. “And then we’ll know whether we’ve really got something here.”

“I think the first episode will be killer. A kiss, a few fights, spilled coffee, and a trip to Japan. Now, that’s good TV,” I replied.

“I don’t want them to put the kiss in.” Margot shook back her hair and those images flashed at me again—dropped jaws, lips quivering, legs spread. Fuck, I was in deep trouble here.

I wasn’t exactly a manwhore, but I’d never been concerned with what came after sex. The women I’d been with had always known that it was nothing more than a fling. They hadn’t become attached, and if they had, I’d let them down gently.

Except you’re on the opposite side now, ain’t ya?

“The kiss is good,” I said. “It’s TV-worthy.”

“If you do say so yourself.”

“Who else would say it?” I asked, and grinned. “Oh yeah, everyone. That kiss is going to sell that show, never fucking mind the trip to Japan. That kiss was legit.”

“I know,” she replied, and hooked her hair up, tied it into a messy bun. “I was there, remember?”

We halted outside Get Ink’d, and I brushed fingers down her arm. “How could I forget?” I rumbled.

Margot’s frown didn’t budge, but her lips did part slightly, as if she’d like a repeat of that kiss, right here in the street as cars rolled past, the morning light danced across the front windows of the parlor, and people pushed past on their cell phones.

She didn’t jerk away from my touch. She leaned into it a little.

Christ, I fucking adored that. Not loved. Not possible.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get into your office and—”

An asshole wearing a fucking fedora and a collared shirt pushed between us, a camera strap cutting into the back of his meaty neck. He was a thick boy, all right, in body and in mind—pity I’d have to rip his fucking head right off for interrupting me.

“Miss Reed?” The guy lifted a Nikon and snapped a close-up picture of her.

Rage boiled through me, threatened to cook me from the inside out.

Margot took a step back and someone knocked into her from behind, dislodged her handbag. It fell and popped open, releasing a roll of mascara and… good god, so many tampons. They rolled in all directions.

Margot turned beet red and bent to pick them up, while the neck-beard snapped nonstop pictures.

I bent and helped her, scooped up feminine hygiene products by the handful and fed them back into the cavernous mystery that was her handbag.

“This is mortifying,” Margot whispered.

“I mean, who knew you needed this many,” I replied, allowing the humor of the moment to scrape some of my anger away. “Do you think they designed them to roll around in case of being tipped out in front of strangers in broad daylight?” I snatched another one before it hit the gutter then placed it in the bag.

Margot snorted a laugh. “I’m sure that was the primary objective. You know, apart from absorbency.”

We finished packing all her shit back in the bag, and I picked it up for her. We rose, and I handed it back, then stood next to her, my head tilted to one side, studying the fuckhead who hadn’t quit taking pictures since he’d arrived.

I leaned in and tapped the lens of his camera. “Yo,” I said. “What the hell are you doing?”

He finally dropped the camera and leveled me with a smile that made me regret I had eyes. He was yellow-toothed, sure, but that grin belonged on a fucking shark, and his eyes were dark enough to back that up. “You’re Cain Foster, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Cain,” Margot muttered, and tugged on my sleeve. Don’t make a scene. That was what she wanted to say. Fuck not making a scene. Who was this splodge of a human?

“Trent Mitchell,” the camera guy said, and extended a sweaty palm.

I didn’t shake it. “OK,” I said. “I’ll repeat myself just this once, Trent Mitchell. Who the fuck are you, and why do you think it’s appropriate to interrupt a conversation to take pictures? You ever heard of invasion of privacy, blockhead?”

Trent’s grin faltered slightly. He looked at me as if he hadn’t noticed me before, his gaze drifting to my arms, where my biceps practically fucking ate my shirt. Yeah, I’d worn the Get Ink’d uniform today. I’d tried.

“I’m a freelance photographer for the Lakeview Sentinel,” he said. “I’m here to take a couple pictures of you guys for the paper. Everyone’s heard about your new show. I figured I’d beat the curve and get here before anyone else did.”

“Fuck off, then,” I said.

“Cain!” Margot tugged on my arm this time.

“Nah, we don’t have time for this. We have a shop to run.”

She tapped incessantly, and I looked down at her.

“Can I talk to you for a moment? Over there?” She gestured to the spot right in front of the parlor’s glass front door. “Please?” The questions were tight with nerves.

I sniffed, nodded once, then turned my gaze on Trent again. “You stay right the fuck here,” I said. “Understand me?”

The guy didn’t reply, just plastered up his shark smile again.

I walked over to the door with Margot, bubbling with anger and barely containing it. He’d almost made her fall, and he’d been rude and shocked her. Little asshole. I’d wipe him off the face of the planet. I’d—

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Margot said, “Stop. Stop it, right now.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything important.”

“Good,” she replied. “Cain, he’s annoying, but we have to accept that these types of people are probably going to start popping up now. I mean, we’re going to be on TV. That’s news in a loose sense of the word. They’ll want to find out more or scoop up whatever gossip they can, so we’re going to have to deal with it.”

I folded my arms and considered her words. Basically, if I kept my cool, Mr. Begay would hear about it and it would help my case with my mother’s charity, but that didn’t register in the here and now, for me.

In the here and now, there was a cunt standing two feet away, staring a hole in the side of Margot’s face and acting like he had a right to snap pictures of her. No one had the right to make her uncomfortable except for me, and then, it was in the best ways possible and it was what she wanted.

This wasn’t what she wanted or needed.

This was fucking annoying.

“Cain,” she said, “I’m serious. I can’t afford for anything to go wrong, and if it does—”

“I know,” I replied. “But I’m not going to let anyone disrespect you or me or Get Ink’d. Do you get that?”

She blinked and shuffled back a pace. “I—what?”

“What?”

“You—that’s why you’re angry?”

“Of course,” I replied. “Why else would I be angry? The guy interrupted our conversation, and you nearly fell back there. I don’t want anything happening to you, Margot.”

She was floored by that. She stood there, clutching her bag to her side and staring at me, her mouth half-open, caught between whatever was in her brain and the reality of what was out there. Me, standing here, staring at her, burning a hole through all her perceptions.

The breeze plucked at her hair and sent a few tendrils sweeping up into the air, then backward. She blinked. “Regardless, we have to play nice, OK?”

“I don’t play nice,” I said. “I just play.”

“Are you guys done?” Trent called, and raised his camera again.

“No,” we said, in unison.

“Margot, open the door and let’s lock this dickweed out in the street,” I said.

She fumbled the keys out of her pocket and inserted them into the lock, and Trent went crazy snapping pictures. He wandered forward, click-click-clicking the fucking camera, and the rage I’d tamped down for Margot’s sake screeched back to the surface.

“Boy, you must love taking pictures,” I said, leveraging a shit-eating grin in his direction. Step closer, asshole. Come on, step closer. One step. That’s it. Come on, make my day, motherfucker.

“It’s what I do,” Trent said, his voice snaking out from under the Nikon.

Margot unlocked the door and stepped into the shop, then hurried over to the pad on the wall to enter the code for the alarm. It blipped twice and silence followed, except for the gritty scrape of shoes and the click of that camera.

One more step. “Yeah? Do you know what I do?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Trent said, and hesitated, peeking at me over the top of the camera. “You’re a tattoo artist.” He lowered his tone. “And you’re a fuckboy. I hear you’re getting what you want from Margot, over there. That true? I gotta say, man, if it is, you’re one lucky son of a bitch. Good on you, buddy, that bitch looks like a good lay. She’s got an ass like—”

“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you,” I said, still smiling.

Trent shrugged and lifted the viewfinder again, snapped another picture. He took the step I’d been waiting for.

“I’m not a tattoo artist, buddy,” I said.

“Yeah? What are you then?”

“Your worst fucking nightmare.” I grabbed the camera by its lens and ripped it forward so hard the strap tore free from his sweaty neck. I whipped my arm back, then tossed it right into the street. It smashed and cracked. A car promptly rode over it.

I gripped the front of Trent’s shirt and drew in him, inhaling the stench of sour sweat and pure panic. His eyes rolled in his skull. “Whoa, man, whoa.”

“And do you know what you are?”

“Whoa, whoa!” He squirmed, slapped the backs of my hands.

“Cain!” Margot shrieked behind me.

He called her a good lay. He called her—

“You’re a dog,” I growled. “That’s what you are. Now, go fetch.” I tossed him backward and his back hit a lamppost. He groaned but scuffled to his feet and dashed off and disappeared around the corner.

“Cain!” Margot appeared at my side and tugged on my arm. “Jesus Christ, you just—the fuck—you—” She sucked in a breath. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t fucking think. “Why the fuck did you do that? Are you crazy?”

“I don’t know anymore,” I said. I still didn’t look at her. I stiffened under her touch, stared at the crushed camera out in the road. “Fuck it, I’m out.”

I turned my back on the chaos and walked off, sweat running down the center of my spine. This anger wasn’t right. I cared too much.

Margot’s voice rose behind me, shaking slightly. “Fine. That’s fine, Cain. But if you’re leaving, don’t come back. You’ve caused enough trouble for me as it is.”