She turned and quickly made her way out the front door. Well, she supposed that answered her question about what tonight had been about and if this was only a one-time hookup.
9
It had been two days since he had given Stella her tattoo, but he hadn’t spoken to her. He tried calling her the day after she left his shop, realizing he had not even told her the aftercare instructions for her ink. His mind had been pretty chaotic after he finally had her. His cock, although semi-hard right after he had come, had been like steel once more when he had gone to bed that night.
But she hadn’t called him back after he left a message, and he wasn’t about to stalk her ass like some kind of psychopath. Yet there was no denying he wanted her. And for whatever reason, he wanted Stella like he had never wanted another woman before. He thought maybe it was because she was off-limits, in a sense, and maybe that had been the initial reason.
Cadeon was used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted, but with Stella, it was more complicated. He couldn’t explain why he felt this need to be with her, but after he finally had her, he felt this deep, proprietary desire for her. He wanted to protect her, take care of her, and make sure no assholes messed with her or he’d break their bones.
“Yo, Cadeon,” Naggie called out.
He lifted his head from the stack of papers in front of him. She had a pair of black gloves on and was getting ready to do some nipple piercings. “What?” He leaned back in his chair, and the leather creaked.
“I asked if you could order some more twelve-gauge needles.” The girl behind her looked like Naggie’s twin with her pixie cut, slender frame, and numerous piercings.
“Yeah, I’ll put a requisition in.”
She nodded, but he didn’t miss the strange expression that covered her face. He lifted a brow and tipped his chin toward her client. She pursed her lips and turned around. Cadeon knew he had been acting weird the last couple days, but he hadn’t been able to help it. All he had thought about was Stella and that he wanted to see her again.
Of course he wanted to fuck her again, but it was more than that. He wanted to get to know everything about her and wanted to learn things that casual conversation between them hadn’t revealed in the last few years. But Cadeon had never chased after a female, and the fact that she hadn’t returned his call made it seem like he would be doing just that if he pursued her more.
“Creep” by Radiohead played overhead, and it somehow matched his mood today. He glanced at his phone that was beside him on the counter and felt like some kind of hormonal teenage needing his next Stella fix. But he didn’t reach for it and instead focused on his paperwork again, trying to push her out of his thoughts.
He wanted her like no one else. But he wasn’t about to go sniffing around her if she didn’t want him to. That was the reasonable action to take, but Cadeon had never been a reasonable man.
The sound of the bell above the front door dinging as it was opened had Cadeon lifting his head. A silent groan left him when he saw Tally walk in. She wore a micro-mini skirt and a halter top that hardly covered her breasts. It had first started off with her coming in for some tattoos over the last year with some heavy fucking flirting coming from her. He’d always been polite, but apparently she’d thought it had been more than friendly conversation.
Because after that, she thought there was something going on between them, some kind of exclusivity. It didn’t matter how often he told her that there wasn’t anything there, she was persistent.
Of course, at first, he hadn’t been so coarse or bastard-like when he had said that, but after the fourth time of her trying to have him fuck her, he had just come out and told her that he didn’t want her. But Tally was one of those females who thought her pussy was the tightest fucking thing and God’s gift to men and clearly couldn’t understand he didn’t want any part of that.
She looked over at him, and her red-painted lips stretched wide over her too white teeth. “Hey, Cadeon.” She walked over to him, and the sound of her six-inch stilettos clicking on the tiled floor seemed to drown out the music. She leaned on the counter, and her tits nearly burst free from the too tight material of her shirt. “Can you squeeze me in a little ink?” She leaned back and lifted her shirt nearly all the way to the underside of her breasts. “I want a little heart and rose right here.” She ran the pad of her finger around her belly button.
“You make an appointment?” Tally might get on his fucking nerves, but she was still a customer. Yet that didn’t mean he had to be the one to give it to her. The last time he had given her a tattoo, he had known she got all fucking aroused by it.
She was a needle junkie, and although there wasn’t anything wrong with that, there was something wrong with the fact that she had been moaning the whole damn time he gave her the ink. No more would he be the one to mark her up.
She leaned on the counter once more and gave him what he knew was supposed to be this seductive grin. Instead, it just looked downright uncomfortable, and that was exactly how he felt around her. She was not much older than Stella, but where his girl had this innocence about her,
