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  “It can’t possibly hurt worse than when I got the scar in the first place.” Lucy’s voice was so quiet, Dalton barely heard the words.

  Not able to stand the closed door between them any longer, he raised his knuckles and rapped softly on the cool wood. He needed to be close to Lucy, to offer her his strength and support, even if he didn’t fully understand the need to do so.

  The door opened a crack and Abigail’s dark eyes peered out at him. “Oh, Dalton.” She pulled the door open. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked over Abigail’s shoulder and spotted Lucy perched on the adjustable, leather tattooing table. Her blue-gray eyes widened and her pink lips made a little “O” of surprise. “I came to see Lucy.” He shrugged and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Just thought I’d stop by and see how things are going.”

  Abigail raised one perfectly arched brow. “Riiiight. Well, I’ll just go sketch out the design I have in mind.” She turned toward Lucy. “Take your time, give me about thirty minutes to draw and color the design, then we’ll get you tattooed.”

  The scent of antiseptic, Tattoo Goo and ink worked to calm Dalton’s nerves as he stepped inside the room. Since he’d gotten his first tattoo years ago, the scent of a tattoo parlor had been one of his favorites.

  He waited until Abigail had disappeared through the doorway then moved closer to Lucy until his hips pressed against her knees where they hung over the edge of the table. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth snapped shut, chasing away her surprised expression and replacing it with hard resolve.

  “Does your girlfriend know you’re here?”

  Dalton placed his hands on the black leather surface of the table on either side of her hips, caging her in. A tiny, delicate gasp caught in Lucy’s throat and he tried like hell not to be affected. The last thing this confrontation needed in the middle of it was a rock-hard erection. “I told you, she isn’t my girlfriend. Brad just likes to cause trouble.”

  “I’m not sure what to believe after…after what I saw at your house. It doesn’t matter, though. We can’t continue this.” She waved a hand between them. “Can’t continue.”

  “You didn’t have a problem with this before Brad showed up and started being the asshole he always is.”

  Her plump lips twitched as if she were fighting a smile. “I plead temporary insanity for any and all ravishing that took place last night.”

  Dalton loved how Lucy surprised him with her sharp wit, finding humor in the most tense situations. He shifted his hips, nudging her knees apart until he could fit his hips between them and press his rising erection to the cold metal frame of the table. Maybe the chill would help him get his dick under control. “Honey, you think that was ravishing? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  She leaned close, squeezing his hips with her knees. Her soft curls brushed over his cheek as her mouth neared his ear. Lucy’s small hands landed on his shoulders and he fought the need to pull her against him, slide his hands under her perfectly plump ass, lift her and grind into her heat against the wall. Her citrus-and-sunshine scent swamped him, invading his pores and seeping into his soul.

  “I wouldn’t say I’ve seen nothing, Dalton. In fact, I think I’ve seen way more than enough.” Her whispered words snapped his fantasy like a twig under a heavy boot. He tried to ignore the sensual brush of her lips against his earlobe. “You’ll stay away from me, if you know what’s good for you.”

  She leaned away and pushed against his shoulders until he stepped back. Dalton felt bereft at the loss of her heat and softness. “What if I don’t want to stay away from you?”

  Lucy’s expressive eyes filled with pain and anger as she held his gaze. “You don’t understand. If you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I want you safe, Dalton. And safe means being far, far away from me.”

  His jaw hardened. The crazy woman was trying to protect him. “I’m not the one who needs looking after, Lucy. I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk away while you’re being stalked by your fuckhead ex.” Dalton reached forward and ran a finger down the line of a long scar on her thigh bared by her shorts. “I won’t be able to live with myself if I walk away and you end up with more of these, or worse. That’s what you don’t understand.”

  Lucy sucked in a breath and started to speak when the sound of Abigail’s footfalls echoed in the hallway. She batted Dalton’s hand from her thigh and straightened her spine.

  Abigail entered the room and held a drawing out to Lucy. “I think this will be perfect. The design has several meanings and they apply to you. I did something in a similar style on my fiancé a few months back.” She cast a glance in Dalton’s direction. “Are you staying or going?”

  “Staying.”

  “Going.”

  Dalton and Lucy spoke at the same time.

  “I’m staying.” He crossed his arms over his chest and gave both women a look warning his decision was not up for debate. “This is her first tattoo and she might need a hand to hold.”

  Chapter Six

  Lucy hissed in a breath and squeezed her eyes shut until she thought there might be lash imprints on her cheeks. She may have been a bit cocky when she’d dismissed the pain of having her skin tattooed as trivial.

  “Just breathe.” Dalton’s breath was warm on the shell of her ear.

  She’d had her fingers clenched around his hand for last two and a half hours, grounding herself with his strength and compassion in an effort to keep from flinching as the needle struck again and again. During the first thirty minutes, she’d been able to grit her teeth and drift to the special spot in her mind she’d built years ago, where nothing could reach her. As the pain persisted, she’d had no choice but to accept Dalton’s calming touch. Still, she remained more than a little annoyed at Dalton for barging into the room, refusing to run away from her like any smart man would and being right about her needing a hand to hold.

  Lucy couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hand to hold for any reason.

  “Almost done.” The hint of cheeriness in Abigail’s voice made Lucy want to explode off the table and throttle her landlord’s pretty little neck. How the hell could the woman sound so chipper after torturing someone for three hours?

  Dalton gave Lucy’s hand a squeeze, causing her to glance at his face for the first time since he’d dragged a chair over to the table where she was spread out like a sacrifice. At first she took the small lines around his eyes as amusement, but as she studied him, the brightness of his eyes and the tight line of his lips told her Dalton wasn’t amused at her plight, he was concerned. Concerned because she was in pain.

  She forced her mouth to form a token smile, hoping to calm him, unsettled by his concern for her and her responding need to comfort him. What was it about this man? This man with a tattoo on his neck and close-shaved hair black as midnight? This man she’d caught in a debauched in flagrante delicto—the likes of which she’d previously only read about—with a woman he claimed was not his girlfriend?

  Before she could contemplate the problem named Dalton further, the snap of a rubber glove being removed forced Lucy’s attention back to Abigail.

  “All finished.” Abigail’s face was flush, as though she’d enjoyed her work and was anxious to find out if her client, too, enjoyed the result of her labors. “I think it suits you. The moth, because you’re too tough to be the kind of woman with a butterfly tattoo, and the gears, because of your graphic design background…but also because the kind of changes you’ve made and are still making aren’t the organic kind. You’re forcing a change that’s needed, no matter how difficult it is.”

  Lucy didn’t know if she agreed that she was tough. She’d certainly never thought of herself as such. She had thought of herself as weak, terrified, terrorized…but never tough or strong. Whatever the reason, she did love the tattoo, as much as it hurt to receive. Steampunk wasn’t a culture she subscribed to, but the palm-sized steampunk moth design in browns, pinks and blues on her skin was
spot-on with her feelings and her life. Abigail had done an amazing job using the design to disguise the jagged scar on the inside of Lucy’s right thigh.

  Lucy swallowed, pushing her thoughts away from how she had received this particular scar. Abigail bounced around the room, arranging her equipment for cleaning, discarding what needed tossed and creating enough racket to keep Lucy from being lost in a maze of memories. Memories which were closer to nightmares than reality should allow. “I love it. It’s exactly what I wanted,” she told Abigail, adding levity into her voice that she didn’t feel.

  She felt Dalton’s gaze on her, heating her and inciting a small shiver at the same time.

  “It’s beautiful.” Dalton’s words were husky, quiet.

  Lucy felt her nipples tighten, drawing into hard buds against the soft cotton of her bra. She cast an apprehensive glance at Dalton, peering up at him from beneath her lashes. He hadn’t relinquished her hand once the tattoo was finished, and she hadn’t tried to retrieve it. His lips looked soft, inviting. She drew in a shaky breath, only to be overwhelmed with the delicious scent of him. The scent of the tattoo parlor, of ink and metal and antiseptic, lingered in the background as Dalton’s masculine scent took center stage.

  Dalton’s scent was that of a real man. Of wood shavings and clean sweat and leather. It was intoxicating, and Lucy wanted to breathe him in until her memory was scoured of her ex-husband’s scent. Ross, who smelled of starch and gun oil, hatred and deceit.

  “You’re beautiful, Lucy. Whether you cover your scars or not, you’ll always be beautiful.”

  She snapped her focus from his lips to his eyes and found them filled with emotion and determination. No one had ever looked at Lucy like that. No one had ever called her pretty, let alone beautiful. Lucy was chubby and her hair, though she’d always liked the strawberry-blonde color, was unruly and disheveled most of the time. “I’m not beautiful,” she whispered, suddenly uncomfortable. “You don’t have to say that.”

  Dalton’s jaw clenched and he stood, releasing her hand in favor of fisting his hands and pressing them knuckles-down on the table at her hip. He leaned over her, bringing his nose close to hers. “Don’t accuse me of lying. Woman, I don’t spill bullshit just for the sake of it. You may not know it, maybe no one ever told you, but you are beautiful. Shit, I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you since the day you walked into this shop.”

  He paused to lightly run a finger over the temporary bandage now covering her newly inked tattoo. When had Abigail applied the bandage? And how the hell had Lucy been oblivious to her ministrations? She cast a quick look around the room, finding Abigail had left, abandoning Lucy with Dalton…in a small private room with the door closed.

  “I like this,” Dalton continued, now stroking a finger over the bare skin surrounding the bandage. “I like the tattoo, but I don’t like seeing you hurt. Watching you get this, sitting aside while someone hurt you… Christ, baby.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and when they opened they blazed, reminding her of blue flames at the base of a fire. She didn’t know what to say, what to feel. It was damn shocking to realize someone wanted to keep her from pain, rather than inflicting it. Then she remembered the bondage-loving blonde and the rough way Dalton had handled her, spoke to her. Lucy was pretty sure he’d been spanking the woman, none too gently, before Lucy had arrived at the back door.

  An odd mix of disappointment and relief swirled in her gut, realizing with Dalton’s sexual tastes as they were he must not be interested in her that way. After all, he’d been pretty damn aroused while hurting the blonde bondage queen, hadn’t he? Granted, the woman looked as though she enjoyed the rough treatment, but still.

  If Dalton had such an aversion to causing Lucy pain—which spankings surely would, wouldn’t they?—then how could she possibly satisfy him? Not that she planned to, or wanted to. Of course she didn’t, that would be crazy. The man got off on pain, right?

  Her brow furrowed, considering for the first time she didn’t know exactly what his preferences were and maybe they weren’t as bad as she imagined. She needed to do some research, find out the parameters of a Dom/sub relationship, and what exactly it meant. Could she push aside her fear and let him take charge? Could she set her past aside and allow him to restrain her? Maybe tie her hands behind her back and bend her over his sturdy oak table as he’d done to the other woman? The clenching of her sex at the thought said it was a possibility.

  “Babe, what are you thinking about?” He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear with gentle fingers. “You’re flushed. You okay?”

  Lucy raised her hand and laid her palm against Dalton’s slightly stubbled cheek. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t let him close. Couldn’t let anyone close to her if she wanted to keep him safe. Being close to her would only make him a target for Ross, and she wouldn’t do that to Dalton.

  She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his in a brief caress before drawing away. She swung her legs over the edge of the table, forcing Dalton to move back, then stood and faced him. “Thank you, for today. For everything.” She stared into his blue, blue eyes and tried to memorize them, the way they shone with whatever emotion he felt.

  When Dalton shifted like he was about to step toward her, she raised a hand to stop him. “We can’t see each other anymore, Dalton. I mean it, stay away from me.”

  “No way, babe. I—”

  “Stop,” she cut him off. “Please.” She squeezed her eyes shut and felt a tear slide down her cheek. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you because of me. Don’t ask me to, please. Ross is my nightmare, my problem, and I won’t drag you into it with me. I can’t.”

  Lucy turned quickly and jerked the door open before Dalton had time to formulate a response. She ran to her office, not caring that she probably looked like a lunatic, crying and dashing through the hall. She swiped her keys off her desk, shoved her laptop into her shoulder bag and took off toward her apartment. Self-preservation called for space between her and Dalton. She’d never be able to push him away, save him from Ross, if he kept looking at her like he cared, like he wanted to save her.

  No, this was for the best. Being alone was a state Lucy had come to accept as safest for everyone. She was shoring up her resolve, convincing herself of this truth as she reached her apartment and slid the key into the lock. All the while, she wanted nothing more than to turn back toward the shop and run, run until she ran right into Dalton’s strong arms.

  As she took the first step into her apartment, a swift, blinding pain exploded behind her right ear, as if her skull were about to split wide. Then, as quickly as the pain came, a too-familiar darkness surrounded her, eclipsing all conscious thought.

  * * * * *

  Dalton stood beside the tattoo table where Lucy had been reclined only moments before, his booted feet rooted to the tile floor, watching as the cheap wooden door swung open and bounced off the wall before swinging shut once more. The sound of Lucy’s rushed footsteps echoed loudly in his mind, even through the closed door.

  “Fuck,” he groaned, placing his calloused hands, fingers linked, atop his head and looking to the ceiling as if it held the answers to the complicated woman intent on pushing him away.

  He wouldn’t go after her, not now. Time. Lucy needed time to deal and he’d give it to her. Not too much, her safety was at stake and a strange knot of worry twisted in his gut at the thought of her on her own, alone and scared.

  Dalton shook his head, trying and failing to break the hold Lucy had on him. He couldn’t explain why she’d captured his attention, held it and sparked a protective instinct within his core that’d make a caveman proud. As he opened the door and strode through the hall toward the exit, he tried to convince himself the concern he felt was nothing more than the concern any male would feel when a fragile female was threatened and unprotected.

  Lucy wasn’t Dalton’s type. She was curvy when Dalton had always sought out slim. She was skittish when he liked confident.
A redhead when he preferred blonde or brunette. Broken and healing when he’d always shunned those women in favor of someone uncomplicated. Lucy was a forever girl. Dalton only did casual. Even his longstanding arrangement with Rachel didn’t go any deeper than sex. He wasn’t proud of it, but didn’t worry over whether or not Rachel made it home okay after leaving his house. He didn’t call her to ask how her day was, he didn’t care.

  Dalton climbed in his truck and lowered the windows. Maybe the heat of a summer day sun would bake his brain back to normal. Doubtful, but worth a try. I’ll go back to the work site, find the most physically exerting job needing done and concentrate on sweating this shit out of my brain. At least until quitting time, then he’d track Lucy down and lay it out real simple for her. Whether she liked it or not, she had Dalton. On her ass—hopefully someday in her ass—and watching her back, Dalton would be there until that dickhead ex of Lucy’s was out of the picture for good.

  When he swung his truck into the lot next to the work site, a few of the men on his crew paused what they were doing to stare at him, brows raised as if they hadn’t expected him to be back. The surprise on their faces irritated the hell out of him and told him he hadn’t been around enough recently. Since Lucy rolled into town with her soft curves and wild red hair, Dalton realized he hadn’t been taking care of his business like he should.

  Right. He’d put a stop to that shit right freakin’ now. Lucy needed time to settle down and he needed to put in some solid work and stop acting like a lovesick teenager. He snagged his dented metal toolbox from the back of his truck and slapped a hardhat on his head. As he strode into the partially completed structure, he exchanged a few chin lifts and grunts in greeting with his men, then he got to work.

  * * * * *

  Lucy woke with a groan. She struggled to orient herself. After drawing in a shuddering breath, she opened her eyes and then quickly shut them again as the room spun. At least she knew she was still in her apartment. Fisting the worn-thin comforter covering her bed, she tried to remember.