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  “Pity,” she replied.

  God, would she please try to stop seducing me? I thought. This was going to be difficult. But then, I didn’t have to give in. As hard as it was, I didn’t have to give in to any of her advances. Of course, that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to. I would have loved to throw her against the wall, bend her over my counter, take her in the chair, anywhere.

  She was still so perfect, it made me sick. I refused to let the thoughts creep into my mind. What if we had gotten together? She was sixteen when she threw herself at me, begging for sex. If I had just stuck it out a couple more years, if I had just waited until she was eighteen-

  No. Fuck that. Cooper would have killed me no matter how old his daughter was. Hell, he would likely kill me if he knew we were having this conversation right now. I had never told him what happened with Erika. Why? Because in my mind, nothing happened.

  I found out that day she was attracted to me just as much – if not more so – than I was attracted to her. If that was even possible. But now, here she was: legal and still clearly wanting me.

  “So, did you come all the way back here just to tell me I made a mistake by not committing a crime?” Flipping the topic back to her would give me an edge.

  “It’s not like I would have told anyone,” she said.

  “That doesn’t matter. I’m not that guy, and I’m never going to be that guy,” I said with a smirk. I sat back on my chair and gave her an expectant look. I wanted her to leave my shop, but I didn’t want to tell her directly she had to go. There was a small part of me hoping that the client would show up at any second.

  But, there was another deeper, darker part of me that hoped the client wouldn’t show at all. Being around Erika was hard. She was everything I wanted and couldn’t have. And now, it was just a matter of deciding if I wanted to go against what her father would think, rather than what the law would think.

  “That was years ago,” she said. I knew if I pinned it back on her she’d change the subject. And God, I wanted to talk about anything but sex right now.

  “So?” I asked expectantly.

  She hesitated. It was clear she did want something, but she wasn’t quite sure how to say it. I was scared to death she was going to ask for a job in the shop. I couldn’t work with her, there was no way I’d ever be able to concentrate. But, if she was in school for an art major, who was to say she wasn’t a good artist?

  “Well, come on. You show up right when I’m about to lock up shop and just stand there. If you have nothing to say, then peace out,” I pressed. The truth was, the suspense was killing me.

  “I…” she said slowly. “Well, I maybe might need your help.”

  The words hung in the air as she stared at me, but I merely stared back. She shifted nervously from one foot to the other, and I could see in her expression she meant it. Finally, she broke down. “Please?”

  “Fuck,” I replied.

  2

  Erika

  The entire way to Santa Rosa, I had rehearsed what I was going to say when I saw Adam Itiro again. I was going to play it cool. I was going to be suave, sexy, and mature. I would have my shit together. I’d only be there because the shop was doing so well, and I wanted to see for myself what he’d done with the place.

  I’d play off my college experience as one of the best things I could have ever done with my life, and I was going to make it sound as though Boston had gotten boring, and New York City had lost its appeal to me.

  Anything that would hide the truth.

  I didn’t want him to think of me as the scared, sad girl running away with her tail tucked between her legs. I really didn’t want him to see me as the damsel in distress, the one who was coming to him to fix all her problems.

  Hell, if he spent five or six years in the military, then he had to have seen some shit himself. There was no doubt in my mind he’d had to work through some of his own trauma in life, and I doubted he wanted to have my shit thrown in on top of it.

  Then again, he had been out for a while, and if he was working at my father’s shop – well, his own shop now – then he probably had worked through a lot of that trauma and would be able to help me.

  At least, I really hoped that he’d be able to help. There was no one else in the world I could turn to. I never had been much of a social butterfly, and I didn’t trust men. I never had. It only got worse when I was in college and got myself into an abusive relationship…then another abusive relationship in a different form.

  The only two men on the planet I trusted were my father and this man standing in front of me. And, there were two reasons my father couldn’t help me. For starters, he was in Arizona. I wasn’t going to take this problem to him. Secondly, I knew he would kill me if he found out what I’d done.

  What I was running from.

  My father had always thought of me as his little girl. He divorced my drug-addicted mother when I was very young, and the two of us packed our bags and headed for California. To me, that had always been home, and Daddy had always been the one who was there for me.

  I was happy for him when he got married again, though I had to admit it was all very sudden. It was another reason I didn’t want to take my problems to him. He was finally happy again. He had a woman in his life who cared about him, and he could focus on her.

  Not that he wouldn’t want to help me, but I didn’t want to face the disappointment. Adam might be disappointed, but I knew he’d help. At least, I prayed to God as I passed mile after mile that Adam would help me.

  I knew I’d crossed a line with him years ago, and I also hoped that he didn’t hold it against me. It wasn’t any secret in my life why he had gone to the Army. He was trying to get away from me. I felt bad about that in a way, but in another way, I couldn’t help but find it flattering.

  I was hot enough that a man like Adam would have to leave town to get away. Now, however, I hoped he’d do anything but. I told myself I wasn’t going to flirt with him. I promised myself I would behave.

  But, as soon as I walked into the shop and saw him sitting behind the counter – his jacket on, his shoes up on the table, everything that I remembered him being – all that went out the window. I had to have him all over again.

  At least, I’d dream about having him.

  After I told him I needed help, his curse word hung in the air. I didn’t know if he was going to, or if he was going to tell me to get the fuck out of his shop and find someone else to help. He had always been there for me, though I had been in lust with him since the time I knew what a hormone was.

  I hoped he’d be there for me again.

  He sat back and stared at me for a moment, as though he was trying to gauge how serious I was. I didn’t know what else to say, and I didn’t want to break down. The fact of the matter was that I really was scared. I really was afraid someone was going to kill me, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  I wasn’t entirely innocent, that’s for sure, and that’s why I couldn’t go to the police. They would have locked me up in a heartbeat if they knew what I’d been doing, and I didn’t want that any more than I wanted to be found dead under a bridge somewhere.

  But the man who was after me was ruthless, and I knew he was coming. He’d stop at nothing until he got his revenge. It had become personal between him and I, and he was going to make sure I knew that I’d crossed the wrong person.

  But Adam, with his military experience and his muscular frame… Well, I knew he’d be able to help me. Not only did I trust him, but he had the experience I needed to get myself out of this mess.

  I just had to get him to agree to doing it.

  I was just about to tell him to forget it and leave when he suddenly rose from his chair. He walked around the counter out into the lobby to face me. With his jeans on, I couldn’t see anything unusual about him, but I did wonder about the slight limp.

  Perhaps he had injured himself in the Army. It would make sense, but now wasn’t the time to ask about it. Go
d, he was tall. He had always been tall, at least, to me. But damn, I didn’t remember him being this tall. It was hard to control myself when he stopped in front of me and crossed his arms.

  “What kind of help?” he asked.

  I huffed out air. I wasn’t sure how to explain it, but I was going to do my best.

  “Well, I might have gotten myself into some trouble back in Boston,” I admitted.

  Adam raised an eyebrow, looking at me with his sultry, hazel eyes. I wanted to reach up and smooth it back down, maybe brush my finger over his lips while I was at it. He had some facial hair. Not a full beard, but more than a five o’clock. I wanted to rub my cheek against it.

  God, if I was going to get through this, I had to get control of myself.

  He leaned forward slightly, and once again I felt the arousal deep inside me. “What kind of trouble? If you want my help, you’re going to have to tell me how I can help you.”

  A lump formed in my throat. I desperately wanted his help, but I didn’t know how to ask for it. I didn’t know what to say, how to explain that I’d gotten wrapped up into some serious shit. I’d always been a rather good girl when I was a kid. Never got into trouble at school, never did drugs, didn’t drink until I was old enough.

  No, my real only vice was the fact that I wanted to fuck my dad’s apprentice. But even then, I’d never gotten the chance to act on it, so now I could say that I’d grown up a really good kid.

  I took a deep breath, fighting the emotion welling up inside me. I knew the only real thing I could do would be to blurt it out and hope for the best, so that’s what I did.

  “Well, I might have needed a little extra cash when I was in college, and I might have decided to get involved with this person who is in the mob – well, several people who are in the mob – who were dealing art…” I waited for a reaction from him, expecting him to freak out when he heard the word “mob.”

  He continued to stare at me, so I decided to just continue. “And, I might have been trying hard to make money with these guys, and one of them might have told me that I had to be getting shit that I couldn’t really get. You know, like stuff out of museums and galleries?”

  I wished he’d say something. Anything. It was getting harder to get through the story with the way he was just staring. But, I was in deep enough that I had to keep going now. There was no turning back from where I was. I wrung my hands together. It was hard for me to even say out loud what I’d done, and damn, I was glad I’d come to Adam and hadn’t gone to my father with this.

  “Anyway, I might have told them that I could get it anyway. Since I was in art school, I thought that I could fool them,” I said.

  “You took art you painted to the mob? What did you think was going to happen? They’d just take it and not realize the difference?” he asked with a shake of his head. “That’s a lot of confidence in your own work.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to take it as a compliment, but I decided to ignore his remark and just continue with the story. He hadn’t seen my art. He didn’t know how good I was these days. I’d always been gifted, and there had been a time when I had thought I’d become a tattoo artist.

  But that was all in another life. Now, I was running for the life I had, and I needed to get the rest of my story out for him to help me. So after a short pause, I continued.

  “You see, that’s the problem. I was good enough that they didn’t know the difference. They paid me, as they always do, and I took the money and went on my way,” I said.

  “Damn,” he replied.

  “But then, my luck ran out. I should have known that it was only a matter of time before someone down the line caught on. And, they did. When the boss found out that I’d been giving them forgeries, he lost his shit, and you can imagine how that went down,” I said.

  “I’m surprised you’re not dead,” he replied.

  “I think if I’d stayed, I would be,” I admitted. “But I knew I had people out here who could help me, so I waited for the right moment. It only got worse when I stole some of the art that I’d done back from the mob, along with more of the money that I hadn’t yet been paid. I skipped out of town and headed here as fast as I could.”

  There was silence in the room save for the ticking of the talk and the drone of the music in the background. Adam was staring at me as though I’d lost my mind, and I had a feeling he was going to tell me to get the fuck out of his shop.

  But to my surprise, he just ran his hand over his face and sighed. “Fuck me.”

  3

  Adam

  I didn’t know what to do. This story sounded so farfetched for a girl like Erika. I had practically watched her grow up. Hell, she’d always been the little girl around this side of town when I was a teenager, then when I became an apprentice to her father, she was an even bigger part of my life.

  I knew when she hit puberty, watching her transform from a kid into a young woman, and I left when it became too much for me to handle. I’d heard from Cooper when she went off to college, how proud he was of his little girl and all she was accomplishing in her life.

  He couldn’t have had any idea of her getting tied up with people like this. Hell, I had a hard time believing it myself.

  But, I’d never known Erika to be a liar. She had been many things as a child. Sassy, spunky, jump right in, but she never lied about what she did. I’d seen her more than once admit to her dad the crazy stuff she and her friends were doing.

  Bad? No, but stupid? Often. They were the group who were always trying to outdo each other. But, I never thought she would wind up doing something illegal.

  I looked her over from head to toe. She was clearly telling me the truth. She twisted one of her short locks of hair in her finger, she was wringing her hands, and she was twisting the toe of her shoe on the ground behind her. There were so many things pointing to the fact she was in trouble.

  And, she had come to me for help.

  “Fuck me,” I said again. This shit was real, and I couldn’t leave her out in the cold to deal with it on her own. There was no way I could live with myself if something happened to her.

  I’d always been a sucker for her. When she was younger, I;d thought of her as a little sister. I wanted to do anything for her. But as she grew, she became my crush. Now, she was coming to me and asking me to save her. How could I do anything but that? I was glad now that the client didn’t show, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to help her with her touchup on Tuesday, either.

  She’d just have to reschedule. There was now another woman in my life who needed me. I flicked off the lights and locked the door, motioning for her to follow.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’re not going to keep discussing this shit in here.”

  “Okay,” Erika replied. She followed me out the back door and across the street. There was a small house that had been divided into apartment units behind the tattoo shop, and I now lived there. There was a time, however, when the house had been Erika’s.

  She and her father had lived there when they first got to town. It was part of the reason he started the tattoo shop right across the street. But, when he moved and Erika was gone, the place was sold and turned into apartments. I was glad to take one, since it was so close to work.

  Though now, I wondered if it was weird for her to be there.

  “They really changed the place,” she said as we walked through the door. “I remember this being a lot different when I grew up.”

  “What? You and your dad didn’t live in a bunch of divided apartments?” I wasn’t exactly teasing her, but I did want to lighten the mood. Immediately, however, warnings went off in the back of my mind. I was already playing with fire having her over in the first place.

  Throwing flirting into the mix was bound to make this situation far harder for me to handle.

  “This used to be my room. Well, my room was up here,” she said as we walked up the stairs and I unlocked the door to my unit.

  “I’m sure you’re going
to love what I did with the place,” I replied. I pushed open the door and flicked on the light, and she looked around.

  “It doesn’t even look remotely the same,” she said. “It’s like the shell of the house is here, but the inside is completely different.”

  “That happens to the best of us,” I replied. She gave me a look, but I didn’t apologize. I wasn’t going to coddle her for coming to me for help. She should have known better. I didn’t judge her for the mistake that she made, but she did make it, and she was going to have to do her part in getting through this.

  Whether I was there for her or not, she was the one who got herself into this, she wasn’t innocent in the matter.

  “Want a beer?” I asked as I opened the fridge.

  “I’ll take ten,” she joked. I grabbed two out of the fridge and opened them, handing one to her and sitting down on the chair opposite the couch.

  “So, tell me again how you got wrapped up with the mob. I’m still finding that kind of hard to believe. How do you go off to go to college, then you end up coming home because you are being hunted down by the mob? This is the shit that you see in movies,” I said.

  She ran the beer bottle between the palms of her hands, not making eye contact with me. At first, I hoped she wasn’t actually lying and trying to get sympathy. But then, I figured she was having a tough time admitting even to herself how she let her life get so out of hand.

  She took a long drag off the bottle before she finally answered.

  “It was a group of other students. We were all having trouble with our student loans. You know Dad was never rich, and though he would send me money every now and then, he certainly wasn’t able to pay my way through school,” she said.

  I nodded. Cooper was a good man, and he would have given his right arm for his daughter, but he didn’t have the money to pay her way through school. Hell, he barely had the money to make ends meet at the shop and with his own place. It was part of the reason he was so willing to part with it and leave town.