She looked like she wanted to say something else and I could have sworn she was going to reach out and grab my arm but I didn’t have time to chitchat with her anymore. When the light changed I bolted across the street and hustled to the shop.

It took Poppy telling me no to get me to the point where I could leave. It took what I had always thought was a shattered heart to make me finally admit that what I wanted for myself was something different from the path I had been on all along. I needed Poppy to get me to Phil and I needed Phil to get me to Denver and the family I had always wanted but had never had. All the bad things had led to all the great things including the raven-haired goddess that was glaring at me with baleful eyes as I scooted into work almost fifteen minutes late. If she had never left there was a good chance I never would have latched on to her sister in the first place. All of it was a chain reaction getting me to the here and now and to the fact that all that first love I was so convinced was everything was really turning out to be nothing.

“Don’t look at me like that. I got waylaid by a pretty lawyer on the corner. I would’ve been on time if she hadn’t stopped to talk to me.”

Salem’s eyebrows shot up and her bloodred lips quirked up at the edges. “The same one that came in here? Sayer? She’s the one I spilled coffee on the other day. She’s very nice.”

I nodded and leaned on the counter, way more interested in talking about us than the lawyer. “Wanna hang out tonight?” I wiggled my eyebrows at her, which made her laugh.

“Sure. I have something I want to show you anyway. I can come over to your place later.”

My mind immediately detoured into the gutter while I thought of all the dirtiest, sexiest things she could possibly have to show me.

“Cool.” I rapped my knuckles on the counter and told her suggestively, “Bring the puppy. I don’t think I’ll be sending you back to your own place.”

She rolled her dark eyes and flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “Pretty sure of yourself, Rowdy.”

My client was watching me from my station, and I had kept the poor girl waiting long enough. I pushed off the counter and didn’t bother to answer Salem. She knew as well as I did that the two of us alone in a private place was going to end up in nakedness and sexiness, so there was no use in trying to deny it.

My client wanted a massive Claddagh heart and entwined hands on her back with a bunch of intricate roses all along the bottom. It was a huge piece that was going to take multiple sessions. It was a neat design that I was pretty proud of. I just hoped the girl was tough enough to sit through the entire outline, which was bound to take at least four hours.

Since the design covered most of her back, she had to get topless. A situation that could be awkward and a little weird if the client was an exhibitionist or angling for more than just ink from an artist. Luckily this girl was a pro and put her hoodie on backward and settled into the chair like a champ. I told her I appreciated her attitude and the fact she wasn’t trying to flash me.

The girl laughed and told me if she was going to be flashing anyone in the hopes of getting a number, it would be Salem, which had me laughing so hard I had to take a second to collect myself before putting any ink to her waiting skin. Salem turned around from the desk to give us a questioning look, which had me rolling all over again. I winked at her and she scowled at me before she turned back to the client she was talking appointments and designs with.

“She’s really something.” The girl sounded wistful and it made me smile.

“She is.”

“I liked the other one, too. The mouthy blonde, but the new girl seems a little easier to handle.”

I grunted and held my breath as I traced a particularly long line along her ribs. I knew it had to hurt but the girl didn’t even flinch.

“Easier is relative. I think they were kind of hatched from the same egg.”

“She doesn’t happen to like girls, does she?”

God, I hoped not. “Not that I’m aware of.”

The girl hissed out a sharp sound as I put the ink on her spine right at the base of her neck.

“That’s a bummer. She probably likes you. Am I right?”

I paused in what I was doing for a second and looked up to see that Salem was watching me. I grinned at her and saw a hot red flush rush into her cheeks. Busted. At least I wasn’t the only one daydreaming about what it was like when we got na**d and tangled up together.

“We go way back.”

“You look like you belong together.”

We did? I didn’t know anything about that, but I didn’t hate the idea and we had always sort of been a matched set, so I just murmured my nonreply and settled in to do some serious tattoo work.

I WAS IN THE MIDDLE of trying to pick my place up and make it look less like a bachelor crash pad when I heard a knock on the door and Jimbo yip from the other side. Not having empty beer cans and fast-food containers littering every surface was going to have to pass as clean.

My place was pretty basic guy fare. Big leather couch, bigger flat-screen TV, and a fridge that was stocked with Coors Light and that was about it. It would never be considered homey, but most of my overnight guests I didn’t want to stick around for too long anyways, so it worked for me.

I pulled the door open and the little dog lunged at me. I wasn’t ready for him, so his fuzzy body hit the floor with a thud that made Salem gasp. I was going to pick him up and check him over to make sure he was all right when he scrambled to all fours and took off to explore the new place with his nose to the ground.

Salem shook her head at him and handed me the dog bowls and bag of dog food she had carted over. A little thrill raced across my skin that she had heeded my warning about not letting her go back to her place. She had brought enough stuff to keep Jimbo comfortable for the night.

“You can’t get mad if he pees on any of your stuff. He isn’t housebroken all the way yet.”

She waltzed past me with a flip of her hair and my eyes zeroed in on the fact she had a very short denim skirt on. It wasn’t what she had worn to work. Thank God. I could barely concentrate on my job as it was with her dressed in the formfitting outfits that she typically wore.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine. I don’t really have much for him to get into.”

As I said it, her gaze wandered around the sparsely furnished space. She looked back at me with a frown.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Five years.” I’d moved in shortly after settling into Denver permanently, right after my apprenticeship with Phil was over and I was working full-time at the shop.