I burst out laughing and started to pull off my winter coat, which I only just realized I was still wearing, and truth be told, had worn all day. I’d stayed bundled in my down coat of armor for hours.
“Leave it on,” Blane insisted. “We have to go.”
“Would you stop! Where the hell do you want to go?”
“Never mind, but you may want to change into something more comfortable first.”
“Stop, Blane. What the hell is going on? I can’t hang with you. I’m about to lose my feminist card, and I have to go fix this with Sonny.” I looked down at my jeans and sweatshirt. “And what’s wrong with my clothes?”
How dare Stanwick question my feminist tendencies? I was in the middle of telling a dude off for trying to tell me how to dress. Take that!
“We’re going to fix this Sonny thing. Look.”
Blane whipped off his shirt, and I would have been drooling over or licking his chiseled abs if my eyes weren’t squinting at the script tattoo under his right pec that read, Cate with a C.
“Oh my fucking God, are you nuts? Have you gone crazy?”
He grinned at me. “No, consider this me asking you on a date to go get a tattoo, and I consider my taking your arm your way of saying yes. Call Sonny, because winner, winner, chicken dinner, I won the tickets. It’s only fair you get a tattoo too, and now you can get The Stealer tattoo and get more tickets.”
“Did you not hear me? What’s wrong with you?” Not waiting for his answer, I sat down on Tess’s bed. “I think I’m going to faint.”
He sat next to me and ran his palm up and down my back. “Cate, it’s no big deal. It’s a tattoo. It’s a dare. Let’s go. We can have fun.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I breathed deeply. “Steele, I can’t get a tattoo with your nickname. Forget the fact that I don’t have any ink—”
“Why is that?”
Blane was still rubbing my back as he interrupted me. I felt myself melting with every gentle stroke along my spine.
“Look at my shoulder.” He bent lower to show me a tattoo of a big bird with its wings spread. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“No offense, but you have the kind of body that lends itself to removing your shirt.”
He tackled me to the bed, keeping me pinned in place as he spoke into my ear. “Now I’m issuing my own dare, my fair lady. We’re going for the tat, and before I was going to suggest you get it on your wrist, but now it’s your back. Your gorgeous back that I’ll get to see naked.”
I didn’t get a chance to answer because Tess and Shelby came stumbling through the door, “Let’s go, Catie! Tattoo time.”
My eyes flew open wide as I gaped at them. “Have you been listening all this time?”
“Damn right,” Tess said with an unapologetic grin. “The nun of Southern A is in my dorm with the Stealer, so I’m listening.”
Before I could utter a word about Sonny, or Stanwick and my degree being in jeopardy, I was shoved into a big hooded sweatshirt and escorted downstairs.
Catie
We tumbled through some random door on College Avenue, the chimes ringing weakly beneath the heavy metal thundering from the speakers. My head throbbed, but not nearly as hard as my heart pounded. My hand was in Blane’s, and we were on a date.
Not really.
In reality, it was a ridiculous dare—just a contest—but my naive heart didn’t know that. I was pulled tight to Blane, my body plastered against his, and in my mind, this was a date.
Which was why I’d permitted him to drag me all the way to a tattoo parlor and was about to permanently mark my body with his nickname. All of a sudden, I was a young girl trapped in a woman’s body, and he was a teen heartthrob.
A muscular dude covered in tats seemed delighted to see us. “Steele, great! You’re here. I’ve been telling girl after girl we’re closed. Couldn’t put off business that much longer.” Turning his grin toward Tess, Shelby, and me, he asked, “Which one of you is the woman of the hour?”
I stood there quietly, hoping Shelby would offer up her body. This guy looked like he knew what to do with it.
“This one.” Blane shocked me when he tossed me over his shoulder and carried me to the back.
“There are a million Italian women wagging their wooden spoons in your face right now. We don’t do cavemen,” I yelled, upside down and thrashing.
“Well, I do,” he shot back.
“Should we come?” Tess and Shelby’s combined voices carried down the hall.
“No!” Blane and I shouted at the same time. Finally, we were on the same page.
In the back room, Blane set me down on my feet, still grinning as I glared up at him.
Getting himself comfortable at the tattoo table, the big guy said, “I’m Colby. You can thank me later for turning all the other chicks down. Pick your poison.” He tossed a few CDs toward me.
“I guess you don’t have any Tori Amos?”
“No,” Colby said and went back to his tools.
A soft hum startled me.
“Don’t worry, I’m gonna be quick,” he added under his breath. “Don’t say that too much to the ladies.”