Ada
“Don’t be nervous,” Grace tells me, squeezing my shoulder as we walk through the glass doors.
I roll my eyes. “They’re about to stab me with a needle a thousand times. Of course I’m nervous.”
“You’ve been talking about getting this tattoo for a year,” she reminds me. “We’re doing this.”
“You really don’t have to pay for it,” I try again for the dozenth time.
“Oh, shut up,” Grace says. “I want to.”
As far as bosses go, Grace Pullman is about as cool as they come.
She’s owned the gallery where I work, Canvas Collective, for the better part of a decade, and since she gave me my shot right out of college as curator—you could say that I owe her.
Which is why the idea of her buying me an actual tattoo has me feeling a little squirmy.
The lobby of Madden Ink is clean and professional-looking, with racks of merchandise resting near an ATM by the front counter.
I’ve passed by this place on many occasions over the last month or so since it opened, which isn’t hard to do given that it’s only a couple of blocks from the gallery—but in all that time I’ve never been able to make myself come inside.
I probably still wouldn’t have if Grace hadn’t forced my hand.
“Can’t believe I’ve never brought you in here before,” she tells me. “I should have introduced you to Levi when he opened the place.”
“Levi?”
My heart rate quickens, and I tell myself to calm, because it’s not like Levi isn’t a common name. It couldn’t possibly be—
“Oh, he’s—ah, there he is.”
I scent him before I see him—something like salt water and dark chocolate—and it has me inadvertently turning my nose up into the air to try to breathe in more of it, mainly because it’s familiar.
It prickles my awareness in a way that has me tensing up all over, because I’ve definitely scented it before.
I smelled it on my skin in the early hours of the morning while I did the walk of shame on the streets of New York.
I turn my head toward the direction it’s coming from, momentarily struck stupid by the sight of tall, dark, and tattooed stepping in from the other room.
He’s still just as massive as he was when we first met, at least six foot two or six foot three, with the same inky black hair that curls at his nape and eyes so blue they don’t seem real.
For a moment, I can’t do anything but stare.
There’s so much to take in—the tiny black hoop through his nose, the black and gray roses inked on his neck, the dark brows that are turned down in a way that makes him appear almost annoyed—an expression that morphs into utter surprise when he sees me standing next to Grace.
There are several seconds that seem to pass between us as my skin heats with memory and I recall his deep voice in my ear and his heavy body covering mine all those nights ago.
I feel frozen in place as I try to make sense of him being here, but no matter how I look at it, I just can’t put it together.
We’re all the way across the country from where I met Levi, and by all accounts, I thought I would never see him again.
Even if I’ve thought about him more than once in the six months since I last saw him.
Levi stares at me in shock for a few seconds more, but then he finally collects himself, shaking it off as his entire face lights up when he notices Grace, reaching out with his chiseled arms to pull her into a hug.
“You here for some new ink?”
At first, I feel a sting at his blatant brush-off, but then I remember the way I snuck out on him after what was arguably the best sexual experience of my life—and I reckon that maybe I deserve that. Even if it doesn’t feel great.
“I might grab something while I’m here,” Grace tells the man, “but we’re actually here for her.” She gestures to me. “Levi, this is Ada.”
He’s forced to look at me again then, and I wonder what he might say, what he’ll do in this moment—but he surprises me by holding out his hand for me to shake, his face the picture of nonchalance.
“Hey,” he greets me breezily, like he hasn’t made me come before.
After a moment of shock, I manage to hold out my hand and take his. “H-hey.”
“Levi is my nephew,” Grace supplies.
I look between them, seeing no resemblance except for the color of their hair. “Nephew?”
“By marriage. One of them, anyway,” she laughs.
This draws a smile out of me; Grace has been married four times since her twenties—at this point, I’m not even sure what her maiden name is.
My smile falters when I notice the way Levi is gazing at me now, those dark brows pulling down further as he looks me up and down and crosses his thick, tattooed arms over his simple black T-shirt.
“So you want a tattoo?”
“I do,” I answer with as much confidence as I can muster.
I’m hit with another blast of that salty chocolate scent, unable to help the way my nostrils flare as I try to take in more of it.
It’s as potent as it was the night I met him, still just as mouthwatering now as it was then.
It makes the memories of all the ways he’s touched me come up front and center.
And I notice he’s still staring at me, his intense blue eyes trained on my face. “What are you looking to get?”
“An easel,” I tell him.
He nods once. “That’s doable. Where?”
Without thinking, I raise my shirt just a fraction, exposing my hip bone and pointing. “Here.”
I don’t miss the way Levi’s throat bobs with a swallow as his eyes dip down to where I’m pointing. He gives another slow nod before his gaze is drawn back up to my face. “I can do that.”
“Oh, good,” Grace says. “Is Felicia here? I might go see her about a line of script I’ve been wanting.”
“She’s in the back,” Levi says, still looking at me. “She’s free right now.”
“Perfect.” Grace turns to me. “Levi will take good care of you, okay?”
I feel a glimmer of unease slide through me at the thought of being left alone with the man I let fuck me and then ran out on before breakfast. “You’re not staying with me?”
“You’ll be fine,” she assures me. “Just try not to cry.”
My lips purse. “I won’t cry.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Levi says, his deep voice seeming to reverberate through me.
I can’t help the slight flutter in my stomach at his words—I know it isn’t what he meant, but still, it’s been a long time since anyone took care of me in any capacity at all. Six months, in fact.
When we’re alone, it feels like my tongue is twisted; I’m unable to really come up with anything to say to the man whose scent still makes me a little dizzy.
Thankfully, he saves me the trouble. “You got your ID?”
“Oh yeah,” I tell him, reaching for my tiny purse I brought with me. “Right here.”
“Okay. You’ll have to sign some forms, and I’ll need a copy of that.”
“Sure thing.”
I watch him move behind the counter and mess with the laptop there, taking only a moment before some papers print beside him.
He gives them to me before holding out his hand for my ID, and when my fingers brush against his as I hand it over, I feel a little spark of electricity pass between us, making me jolt.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
His fingers grip my ID tightly. “It’s fine.”
I watch his back as he turns to make a copy, noting the width of his shoulders, the obvious muscle tone there that only adds to his all-around hugeness.
It’s something I noticed in the bar that night, how he seemed so imposing but came across as so gentle and sweet.
It’s what made me proposition him in the first place.
He continues to ignore me as he makes his copy, and the tension simmering between us threatens to eat me alive.
So much so that I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut.
“Are we going to keep pretending we don’t know each other?”
Levi grabs the printed copy of my ID then, swiveling back toward me and leaning across the counter. “I figured that’s what you wanted.”
His casual attitude stings just the same—his demeanor nothing like it was that night at the bar—but again, I figure I deserve that, given the way I left him.
But how would I even begin to explain? How do I unpack almost seven years of trauma for a man I barely know, regardless of how special he made me feel that night?
“I’m sorry,” I say, not knowing what else to offer him. “For leaving the way I did.”
“It’s fine,” he tells me, his piercing gaze trained on mine. “It was a long time ago now.”
I take my ID with trembling fingers, feeling completely unlike myself. I don’t get flustered around men. I rarely even give them the time of day. I blame my feelings on the memories between us, the recollection of his dirty words and his shaking body as it brought me to the brink of ecstasy.
“Still,” I answer quietly. “Sorry.”
His fingers curl on the edge of the counter, his head cocking slightly. “You want to tell me why you did it?”
My breath catches, his candor taking me off guard.
It isn’t like I haven’t thought about him since that night, because I most definitely have—it’s just that I genuinely thought I would never come across him again.
And sure, the idea of that has haunted me on more occasions than one, but it was for the better, I told myself.
There’s nothing real I could have offered him.
The fact that I’m still so torn up about it after seeing him now only speaks toward the pull that exists between our kind—a pull I have no use for.
One I learned my lesson about years ago.
“I don’t know if I can even begin to explain,” I tell him honestly.
Levi just stares at me, a glimmer of something like hurt in his eyes, one that leaves me feeling small. One that makes me feel even guiltier than I already do.
You barely know him, I remind myself. You didn’t owe him anything.
Not that telling myself that makes me feel any better.
“All right,” he says finally, seeming content to ignore the way I’m fidgeting. “You ready for your tattoo?”
I nod fervently, ready to get this over with now, unsure if I’m more nervous about the needle or the man wielding it. “I’m ready.”