Page 17

SEVENTEEN

UNWANTED VISITOR

Theo

“It’s perfect!” my final client of the night screeched. She was newly eighteen and wanted a tattoo in remembrance of her mother.

It wasn’t the first tattoo I’d done for someone’s mom, and I didn’t necessarily avoid them, but they always stirred up feelings and a tightness in my chest that I preferred never to experience. While people came to me to ink something permanent on their skin to remember their mothers, I tried every day to forget about mine.

The petite girl leaped toward me with her arms spread wide, and I caught her in an awkward hug as she continued to thank me over and over again. I chuckled at her enthusiasm and led her and her friend up front.

She was the last appointment of the night, which meant I was less than an hour away from seeing Natalie. Leaving her squirming and wanting on her desk earlier that morning was just as hard on me as it was for her. It took all of my restraint to keep from bending her over her desk, pushing up her skirt, and fucking her right then and there.

Coworkers and anyone else that might have heard be damned.

But that was how it’d been since I moved in. Since I touched her for the first time, I couldn’t get enough. I’d never been so constantly hard up. Not even when I was a young, pubescent teenager. All I wanted to do was spend every free second with her, inside of her, or with my head between her thighs.

“Are you fucking smiling?” Robbie appeared beside me, nudging my shoulder and drawing me from my thoughts.

I grunted and started cleaning up the reception area after a long, busy day.

“That’s fine, you don’t have to tell me. You haven’t stopped fucking smiling for like two months now. It’s actually creepy at this point,” he added, walking around the room and straightening the pillows on the small leather couch and emptying the trash behind the counter.

“It’s creepy that you’re paying that close attention to me.”

“It’s kind of part of my job,” he said.

“As my boss? I don’t think that’s part of the job description.”

“No, but you will be taking over this place sooner rather than later, so I do have reason to worry.”

I chuckled and closed the register, handing him the extra cash. “No reason to worry.”

He watched me for a moment, likely contemplating if I was really telling the truth until his attention moved over my shoulder and the bell above the door chimed. “Now I’m fucking worried,” Robbie muttered under his breath.

And before I could turn around, a voice from behind me greeted us, “Well, hello, boys.”

Every one of my muscles locked up, and every hair on my body stood on end at the sound of her voice. I closed my eyes and forced a calming breath through my nose, but it did little to help.

Slowly, I turned.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I snarled through clenched teeth. My hands fisted at my sides, and Robbie’s hand was at my shoulder, squeezing softly and silently warning me not to lose my cool.

“You know you aren’t welcome in here, Kim,” Robbie warned while my mom strode farther into the studio and closer to the counter we both stood behind.

The smug grin on her face was proof enough that she knew she’d been barred from Haven City. Her curly, brown hair—that was unfortunately too similar to mine—was pushed back from her face, showing off the dark circles under her eyes and her other too-thin features.

“Well, I didn’t have much of a choice. My son wouldn’t answer my calls and hung up on me the one time I did finally get him to answer.”

I scoffed and braced my hands on the counter. “And you somehow still didn’t get the hint that I don’t want to talk to you?”

She shrugged, and my anger climbed higher the longer she stood there with her unbothered smile.

“I just wanted to check on you. After you suddenly moved out of your house?—”

“Because you ransacked it. You stole everything ,” I seethed, and she had the audacity to look shocked.

“You’re overstating it, Theo. I told you, I had collectors on my ass. I had to do something, and when you turned me away?—”

“No,” I interrupted her with a sharpness in my voice I never imagined I’d use on her. “You will not blame this on me.”

There was no reasoning with her. I’d learned that a long time ago, yet it was always startling that the woman who was supposed to love me no matter what and who at one point seemed like she did, cared about almost anything else besides me. Especially the money. Enough that she broke into my apartment and stole anything she could sell.

“We had a deal, Mom. You leave me alone and I don’t go to the cops,” I said, still doing a poor job of reining in the anger simmering through my veins. “I don’t know what you want from me anymore. I don’t have any money! You made sure of that last time.”

She looked like she was going to continue playing the concerned mother card, attempting to manipulate me and go on about how she just wanted to check in, but her mask dropped just as quickly. “I know that’s not true, Theo. I’m your mother. I raised you. I just need a little bit more help before?—”

“Kim,” Robbie said from behind me, stepping around the counter and pointing to the door behind her. “Leave now, or I’m calling the cops. I’m not going to say it again.”

“Fine, fine,” she muttered, throwing her hands up in mock surrender and backing toward the door. “But just so you’re both aware, threatening me with calling the cops isn’t going to work anymore.”

On that ominous note, her smug smile was back in place. “I’ll see you soon, Theo,” she said, voice laced with promise but dripping in threat.

Robbie paced across the space and locked the door the moment it closed behind her and turned to me. I kept my eyes locked on the image of her receding form, impatiently waiting for her to start her car and leave.

“I’m going to follow her,” Robbie said matter-of-factly.

“You don’t?—”

But he waved his hand, cutting off any argument.

“We both know if she figures out where you’re staying, she’s never going to fucking leave you alone. She showed up here because she doesn’t know where else to find you. And if she sees Natalie? It’ll be a million times worse. I’m going to follow and make sure she goes straight home. Just give me a few minutes head start. I’ll let you know if there’s any reason you should make the block.”

All I managed was a shallow nod, the words of gratitude lodged in my throat. Robbie left out the back in the next second. It was only a few moments later that he came revving around the corner of the building on his bike. My mom finally put her little beat-up car in gear.

Just as he said he would, Robbie followed her out onto the street. Both of them were out of sight quickly, but the anger and annoyance, the overwhelming frustration, didn’t dissipate.

Robbie was right. If my mom figured out where I was living, it would become Natalie’s problem, too. And the thought of Natalie being caught up in my shit…any anger I’d felt before couldn’t compare to the rage that coursed through me. It blistered across my skin, and my temperature rose.

I stared blankly at the front door and out into the dark night beyond the glass. It was only the incessant vibrating of my phone against the counter that pulled me from my murderous, spiraling thoughts.

Seeing Natalie’s name scroll across the screen instantly calmed me. Like she knew I needed to hear from her at that moment. But whatever I thought she’d send—like a desperate plea for me to hurry—wasn’t what I received. Instead of a regular text, in its place was a voice note that was approximately thirty seconds long.

I turned the lights out at the front of the studio and pressed play without thinking as I headed back toward my room. Only I stopped in the middle of the hallway at the first sound that erupted from the small phone speaker. Like a fucking siren song, Natalie’s breathy and hypnotizing moans echoed through the silent space.

Instinctually, I looked around, hoping no one else heard what was reserved only for my ears before I remembered I was alone. At that same moment, her sounds grew louder. She mumbled a curse under her breath, and then she was quiet long enough to hear something that sounded like…vibrating.

A devious smile split my face while my cock thickened. The last ten seconds of the message were filled with sounds I knew all too well. Her orgasm must have rocked her for how loudly she moaned. Otherwise she was putting on quite a show.

My pretty little slut…she couldn’t even wait a full twelve hours without getting herself off. Ideas that bordered that sweet, thin line of tortuous and pleasurable flashed through my mind as I began to type out a response.

Me: Dirty girl, you couldn’t even wait a full twelve hours until I got home.

Her response was almost instant.

Natalie: What else was I supposed to do?

Me: You better be ready when I get home.

Natalie: Ready for what? I’ve already gotten off.

Me: Broken rules require punishment.

When the little dots didn’t immediately appear, I knew my words had hit their mark.

Me: Why did you do it?

Natalie: To show you I can do the job, too. No begging required.

I let my head drop back and groaned loudly. Then I finished closing up quicker than I ever had before.

All day, the need to get to her had been nearly unbearable. And I was eternally thankful that when I got into my truck, my phone buzzed with a text from Robbie giving me the all-clear.

I threw my truck into reverse, whipped out of the spot, and sped back to her house, eager to forget everything else and get lost in her.