Because I Could Not Resist (Because You Are Mine Part 2) (3 page)

“I’d like you to pay me when the painting is done. Not before,” she said, her voice quaking with barely contained anger.

He nodded thoughtfully, as if considering her request. “You don’t have to spend the money until then, if you prefer. But the full commission has already been transferred to your bank account.”

Her mouth dropped open. “How did you know my account number?”

He didn’t reply, just raised his eyebrows slightly, his expression bland.

She barely stopped the scorching curse from springing out of her throat. Since she couldn’t cuss out her benefactor for his arrogance—or his generosity—there was nothing else she could think to say to him. Fury had short-circuited her brain. She turned and started to walk out of the room.

“Oh, and Francesca?” he called calmly from behind her.

“Yes?” she asked, looking back.

“Don’t expect to work here Saturday night. I’m entertaining. I’d like privacy.”

Something seemed to drop in her gut like a lead ball. He was telling her he was having a woman there this weekend. Somehow, she just knew it.

“Not a problem. I was planning on going out on Saturday night and letting off some steam with the guys. Things have gotten a bit stifling around here.”

Something flashed in his eyes before she turned around, but his expression remained unreadable.

As usual.

* * *

Davie drove Justin’s car surely through the bustling Saturday-night Wicker Park traffic. Justin was a little tipsy after listening to the Run Around Band at McGill’s for two hours. So were Caden and Francesca, for that matter.

Thus their insane errand.

“Come on, Cesca,” Caden Joyner goaded from the backseat. “We’re all going to get one.”

“Even you, Davie?” Francesca asked from where she sat in the passenger seat.

Davie shrugged. “I’ve always wanted a tattoo on my biceps—one of those old-fashioned ones, like an anchor or something,” he said, flashing her a grin as he turned down North Avenue.

“He thinks it’ll get him a pirate,” Justin joked.

“Well, I’m not going to get one until I have time to draw the design myself,” she said resolutely.

“Spoilsport,” Justin accused loudly. “Where’s the fun in
planning
for a tattoo? You’re supposed to wake up with a truly atrocious, super-sleazy one in the morning and not have a clue how you got it the night before.”

“Are you talking about a tattoo or the women you bring home?” Caden asked.

Francesca broke into laughter. She barely heard her cell phone ringing in her purse, thanks to her friends’ boisterous teasing and bickering. She peered at her cell phone, not recognizing the number.

“Hello?” she answered, forcing herself to cease laughing.

“Francesca?”

The mirth melted off her mouth.

“
Ian?
” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

Justin said something loudly from the backseat, and Caden roared with laughter. “Am I interrupting something?” Ian asked, his stiff, British-accented voice a stark contrast to her friends’ rowdy banter.

“No. I’m just out with my friends. Why are you calling?” she asked, amazement making her tone more blunt than she’d intended.

Caden cracked up, and Davie joined him. “You guys . . . hold it down,” Francesca hissed and was summarily ignored.

“I’ve been thinking about something—” Ian began.

“No! Turn left,” Justin shouted loudly. “Bart’s Dragon Signs is on North Paulina.”

She gasped when Davie slammed on the breaks and she heaved against the seat belt.

“What were you saying?” Francesca asked into the phone, more disoriented by the fact that Ian had called her than the fact that her brain had just been jostled around her skull by Davie’s abrupt change of direction. There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“Francesca, are you drunk?”

“No,” she said coolly. Who was he to take that judgmental tone?

“You’re not driving, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Davie is. And he’s not drunk, either.”

“Who is that, Ces?” Justin called from the backseat. “You’re father?”

Laughter burst out of her throat. She couldn’t help it. Justin’s question had been right on target, given Ian’s holier-than-thou tone.

“Don’t tell him you’re about to get a tattoo on that gorgeous ass of yours!” Caden bellowed.

She winced. Her chuckle was a good deal weaker this time. Embarrassment flooded her at the thought of Ian overhearing her friends’ joking. She was proving that she was just as immature and gauche as he thought.

“You’re not getting a tattoo,” Ian said.

Her grin faded. It’d sounded like a decree more than a clarification.

“Yes, I
am
getting a tattoo as a matter of fact,” she replied fiercely. “And by the way, I wasn’t aware that you had the right to dictate my life. I agreed to do a painting for you, not become your slave.”

Caden, Davie, and Justin suddenly went dead silent.

“You’ve been drinking. You’ll regret doing something so impulsive tomorrow,” Ian said, a hint of anger ringing in his otherwise calm voice.

“How do you know?” she demanded.

“I know.”

She blinked at his taut, quiet response. For a split second, she’d been convinced he was absolutely right. Irritation spiked through her. She’d been trying to forget about him all evening—trying to make the memory of him saying he wanted to fuck her vanish from her brain—and now he had to go and ruin everything by calling her and acting so infuriating.

“Did you call for a reason? Because if you didn’t, I’m going to get a tattoo of a
pirate
on my ass,” she said, randomly grabbing a detail from her friends’ earlier banter.

“Francesca, don’t—”

She tapped her finger on the screen.

“Cesca, you didn’t just—”

“She
did
,” Caden interrupted, sounding stunned and a little impressed. “She just told off Ian Noble and hung up on him.”

* * *

“Are you
sure
you want to do this, Cesca?” Davie asked, after she’d chosen a tattoo of a paintbrush.

“I . . . I think so,” she mumbled, her bright burst of defiance in the face of Ian’s arrogance flickering weakly.

“Of course she wants to do it. Here, have another drink for courage,” Justin suggested wisely, handing her his etched silver flask.

“Ces—” Davie said worriedly, but she took the flask. She winced at the feeling of the whiskey sliding down her throat. She hated hard liquor.

“I don’t like my clients to drink alcohol before they go under the needle. Increases the bleeding,” the bearded, shaggy-haired tattoo artist said gruffly as he entered the parlor where she stood with her three friends.

“Oh, well in that case—” Francesca hedged, seeing a possible out.

“Don’t be a wuss,” Justin insisted. “Bart isn’t going to send you away because you’ve had a drink or two, are you Bart? He has serious ethics, but he forgets about them pretty quick when cash is on the line.”

The tattoo artist glared at Justin, but Justin glared back.

“Lower your pants and get up on the table then,” Bart snapped.

Francesca began to unbutton her jeans. Davie, Justin, Caden, and Bart watched as she laid, belly down, on the table.

“Here, let me help with that!” Caden volunteered eagerly as she began to work her jeans and panties down over her right buttock. Davie grabbed his arm, halting him with a forbidding scowl. Caden just shrugged, grinning sheepishly.

“Right here?” Bart asked roughly a few seconds later, stepping forward. His touch on Francesca’s skin sent a shudder of revulsion through her.

“Yeah, you could make one of those gorgeous dimples above her ass a sort of paint pot for the dipping brush.”

Francesca started at the sound of Justin’s subdued tone. She peered sideways. Justin was regarding her partially bared ass with frank male interest.

“Maybe we should have a look at the other cheek just to get a clear picture of things,” Caden suggested.

“Shut up, you two,” she grated out. It made her uncomfortable to have Justin and Caden look at her that way. Maybe this was a stupid idea after all. Her thoughts scattered when Bart approached, a tube in his hand with a needle protruding out of it. She noticed that his fingernails were dirty. She feared needles. The whiskey seemed to boil in her stomach.

“Wait, you guys, I don’t know about this,” she mumbled, her eyes clamped shut as she tried to fight off a wave of dizziness.

“Come on, Cesca. Hey . . .
what the fuck
—”

Her head sprang up at the sound of Caden’s surprised exclamation, the abrupt gesture sending her hair flying in her face and temporarily blinding her. She felt Bart’s grip on her jerk as if someone had grabbed his arm.

“Let go of her this instant, or I swear I’ll make it so you never live or work in this town again.” Bart’s grip on her jeans slackened. “Francesca, get up.”

She followed Ian’s concise instructions without thinking twice. She clambered off the table and pulled up her jeans, gaping at Ian’s furious, rigid countenance in stark disbelief.

“What are you
doing
here?”

He didn’t reply, just continued to pin Bart with a lancing stare. After she’d fastened her button fly, he put out his hand and grabbed her forearm. She stumbled after him when he began to stalk out of the parlor. He paused in front of the dazed trio of Davie, Caden, and Justin. He seemed to loom over them like a dark, forbidding tower.

“You three are her friends?” Ian asked.

Davie nodded, his face looking pale.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

Justin seemed to come to himself. He stepped forward as if to argue, but Davie cut him off.

“No, Justin. He’s right,” Davie said soberly.

Justin’s face turned brick red, and he seemed prepared to argue, but Francesca stopped him this time. “It’s okay, you guys.
Really
,” she assured Justin tensely before she followed Ian out of the tattoo parlor, her hand firmly gripped in his.

She had trouble keeping up with his long-legged stride once they were walking along the dark, tree-lined street. She really didn’t think she was that drunk, so why had the world taken on the sheen of unreality ever since she’d heard Ian’s authoritative voice ordering Bart to let her go?

“Do you mind telling me what the hell you think you’re doing?” she asked breathlessly as she trotted next to him.

“You dropped your guard again, Francesca,” he said with tight-lipped fury.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

He came to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk, pulled her into his arms and swooped down, kissing her roughly. Sweetly. Why couldn’t she tell the difference when it came to Ian’s kisses?

She moaned into his mouth, her body going rigid before it molded against his long length. His taste and scent hit her like a tsunami of lust. Her nipples pinched tight, as if that sensitive flesh had learned to associate his taste with pleasure. He tore his mouth from hers way sooner than she’d expected—or wanted—given how hot and hard he felt.

God, how she wanted him.
The blazing, obvious truth hadn’t fully hit her until that moment. She’d never considered that a man like Ian would be interested in her sexually, so she hadn’t allowed herself to fully acknowledge her desire for him.

The distant streetlight made his eyes gleam in his otherwise shadowed face as he looked down at her. She felt anger and lust resonating off his body in equal measure.

“How
dare
you even consider letting that unlicensed scumbag put a needle to your skin? And what kind of a little fool bares her ass to a roomful of slavering men?” he bit out.

She gasped. “
Slavering men
 . . . those are my friends.” She blinked, absorbing the rest of what he’d said. “Bart doesn’t have a license? Wait . . . how did you even
know
where I was?”

“Your friend shouted the name of the tattoo parlor loud and clear while we were on the phone,” he said scathingly, stepping away from her and leaving her flesh vibrating in protest at his absence.

“Oh,” she said slowly. She watched as he lunged across the grass to the curb and whipped open the door to a dark, sleek, very expensive-looking sedan.

She looked at him warily. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“If you choose to get in, the penthouse,” he said succinctly.

Her heart started to play a drum solo in her ears. “Why?”

“Like I said, you let your guard down, Francesca. I told you what I was going to do to you the next time you did. Do you recall?”

Her world narrowed to the glint of his eyes in his darkened face and her heartbeat crashing against her eardrums.

Never leave yourself undefended, Francesca. Never. The next time you do, I will punish you.

Warm liquid rushed between her thighs. No . . . he
couldn’t
be serious. She experienced a wild thought that she should run back and participate in the silly, drunken antics of her friends.