Chapter 4
CLARISSA
I’m at the front desk with the intake forms when Carmine comes out of his office and leans on the counter next to me.
His forearm lands six inches from mine. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, but the sleeves are rolled up above his elbows, and once again I’m teased with a tattoo that I’ve never seen in full.
When I’m in bed at night, I touch myself and fantasize about seeing Carmine naked, examining his tattoos and listening to him tell me the stories behind them, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that there is always a story behind a tattoo.
He’s looking at my arm, where it’s resting on the desk. I’m wearing a sleeveless blouse, and I feel naked under his gaze.
“You’d take ink well,” his voice is low, like what he’s saying is for me alone. “Good tone. It’d hold clean lines.”
His hand comes up. He picks up my forearm—just lifts it, easy, like it’s already his—and turns it palm-up in his grip. His fingers wrap around my wrist. The pad of his thumb presses on the inside, right over the vein, and holds.
I hold my breath.
He slowly drags his thumb up from the vein line.
The callus on the pad catches my skin in tiny pulls, and the goosebumps break out ahead of him, chasing up my forearm faster than his thumb is moving.
My fingers curl in his grip. I can’t stop them.
My nails press into my palm, and I feel that too, sharp and small, and my thighs are pressing together under the desk and my heart has moved into my throat and is beating there so hard I’m sure he can see it.
My brain is telling me to pull back, say something professional, put a stop to this—and the rest of me is aching to climb onto his lap and ride him.
“Right here.” His thumb stops at the soft inside of my elbow. He taps the spot lightly, and his fingers tighten just slightly around my wrist. “Whatever you wanted. It’d sit perfect.”
I look at his hand on my arm. At the ink on his fingers against my bare skin. My mouth goes dry as I look at his inked fingers resting gently at the crease of my elbow.
He looks up, and his dark eyes meet mine. My heart is pounding inside my chest, and there’s no way he doesn’t feel the frantic, wild pace of my pulse under his fingertips.
His thumb traces back down—slower this time, barely moving, and my skin is on fire under the path he’s drawing.
“Virgin skin,” he says, and his voice has dropped into something that isn’t professional anymore. “No ink. No scars.” His thumb reaches my wrist and circles the bone there, one slow pass. “Be a shame to waste it.”
“Well, just a virgin, period,” I say, instantly regretting it. How the heck did I just blurt that out? One moment it feels like he’s seducing me, and the next I’m telling him the most personal thing about me. And now that he knows, why on earth would he want someone inexperienced like me?
His hand is still on my arm. His mouth has closed and his eyes are on mine and every part of him has gone still.
“I meant—” My voice squeaks, and I know my face is burning with a blush that I feel spreading down my neck and onto my chest. “Obviously. I meant—”
I need to stop talking, but all I manage is to pull my arm back. His fingers open, and my skin goes cold where his hand was, the air filling the space where his hand was.
I stand up from the desk. “I’m going to get an iced coffee.”
I grab my purse and rush through the door onto the sidewalk.
My forearm is still tingling from wrist to elbow, the ghost of his thumb’s path lit up along the skin like a line he drew there, and my brain is playing just a virgin, period on a loop like it’s trying to make sure I never sleep again.
“How’s the new job going?”
It’s Sunday dinner. I thought my father would drop the job conversation since I went to church this morning. I wanted to sleep in, but I also didn’t want my father yelling at me again.
“It’s good.” I take a bite of chicken. “I’m getting the hang of it.”
“And what exactly are you getting the hang of?”
“Scheduling. Intake forms. Client management.” All true, though I keep it vague enough that I could be working in a spa or a doctor’s office.
He sets his fork down, lines it up parallel to his knife. “You said front desk.”
“It is a front-desk job.”
“Front desk where, Clarissa?” I can tell my father is getting impatient, but I’m not going to back down.
“A small business downtown. The owner needed help organizing the front end.”
“What’s it called?”
I put my fork down loudly. “Dad, it’s a job. I go in, I work, I come home.”
“And you can’t tell me the name.”
“I’m telling you, it’s fine.”
“What kind of business is it?”
“Does it really matter? It’s a service business.” I’m running out of ways to describe a tattoo shop without saying tattoo shop.
He picks up his water glass and takes a sip. “I spoke with Richard Holt again after service on Sunday. He still has that position open at the firm—front desk, reception, professional hours. He said to let you know the offer stands.”
“I have a job, Dad.”
“You have a job you won’t tell your parents about over dinner.” He straightens his napkin beside his plate, tugging the corner until the fold is crisp. “That concerns me.”
“It shouldn’t. The work is interesting and I’m good at it. Can’t that be enough?”
“No.” He sets his fork on the plate, handle aligned to the edge. “It can’t. You should take the job I mentioned. It will be good for your résumé. Richard Holt has been in this town for twenty years. People respect him, and a reference from his office means something.”
A reference from a tattoo shop means nothing. That’s what he’d say. He’d have a fit over King Ink, which is why I haven’t told him.
“I’m an adult, Dad. I don’t have to tell you about my job.”
His eyes come up, filled with anger. “You are living under my roof. People in this town know your name. They know whose daughter you are. What you do reflects on this family, whether you want it to or not.”
“I know whose daughter I am.”
I don’t say that’s the problem. I don’t say that’s why I can’t tell you.
“I’ll call Richard tomorrow morning. Set something up.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Because I don’t want Richard Holt’s job. Because I have a job I love. Because for the first time in my life, I am somewhere that fits, and I can’t explain that to the man sitting across from me without losing everything at this table.
“Because I already have a job.”
He looks at me for a long time. Then he picks up his knife, lines it up next to his fork. “Think about it.”
“Sure.”