couldn’t stop himself from thinking about that painting, about those shadows between her thighs, about the wealth of breast spilling over the top of her tank top even now as she leaned an elbow on the counter and sketched a design on a piece of paper. Her two potential clients were no doubt copping a decent eyeful. Probably thought all their Christmases had come at once. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white.
It was nearly eight when the two men exited the parlor. He watched them break into laughter the moment they were outside, slapping each other on the back. One of them looked back over his shoulder at Zoe, and Liam knew without a doubt that they were talking about her, about what they’d like to do to her if they were lucky enough to get her naked.
The car door was open before he could think twice. He crossed the road, hands curled into fists. At close quarters, he could see they were young, barely old enough to drive. He stopped in his tracks and let them walk away, still laughing. He forced his hands to relax.
He’d almost lost it there for a minute. What the hell was wrong with him?
He took a deep, rib-expanding breath, then let it out slowly. He prided himself on the fact that it had been many, many years since he’d thrown a punch in anger. For a bunch of other reasons, sure, but never because impulse urged him to. It was one of the abiding tenets of his life—never lose control. That, and his determination to remain single.
He turned his focus back to the tattoo parlor and strode to the front door. He frowned when the handle refused to give beneath his hand. Shit. She’d shut up for the night while he was wasting time on the sidewalk. His guess was confirmed as the lights were switched off.
Fine. He’d come back tomorrow. He made his way back to his car and was about to pull away from the curb when a seen-better-days Subaru WRX drove past, Zoe behind the wheel.
He fell in behind her automatically. He already knew she had an unlisted telephone number and address. At least if he followed her home, he’d know where she lived.
2
LIAM TRAILED ZOE through the night-dark city for twenty minutes until they were driving through the graffiti-covered streets of North Melbourne. He almost gave himself away by braking sharply when she pulled over to the curb without indicating. He pulled over when he found a parking spot half a block up. He twisted in his seat to watch as she exited her car.
She was carrying a gym bag and walking with purpose, her long legs eating up the sidewalk as she approached the front door to a nightclub.
Not going home, then. He watched the entrance for five minutes, but she didn’t come out. He shrugged and exited his car. He’d talk to her in there. The venue didn’t matter, what he had to say—and offer—did.
He locked the Mustang and walked toward the club. A big guy in a tight black T-shirt blocked the entrance, arms crossed over his chest. Liam glanced at the club name—Thrashed—before eyeing the bouncer in front of him. The guy eyed him back for a long beat before moving aside. Liam passed through into a small foyer. Loud music leaked out from the club proper and he paid a ten-dollar cover charge to the guy behind the counter.
He pushed through double swing doors to find himself in a dimly lit space dotted with tables and chairs, one wall all bar, the opposite wall a stage. It was early and there were only a handful of people at the tables. Zoe wasn’t one of them.
He scanned the bar, but she wasn’t there, either. Where the hell was she? He waited ten minutes to see if she’d gone to the bathroom, then walked outside to make sure her car was still in the street. It was.
He returned to the club and bought a beer. Over the next twenty minutes, the club slowly filled. And still Zoe hadn’t appeared. The loud music was getting on his nerves by then and he decided to call it quits and look Zoe up again tomorrow. After all, she’d survived twelve years without him. She’d survive one more night.
He was shouldering his way to the exit when the lights flashed and the audience began to clap and whistle. The room dimmed and the stage lights came up as a band sauntered onto the stage: a drummer with long stringy hair and too many piercings; a bass guitarist with big biceps and the crookedest nose Liam had ever seen; and a lead guitarist in tight leather with a bare chest. His guitar slung across his shoulder, the lead guitarist leaned in toward the mike stand.
“Yo! We’re Sugar Cane and you know what you got to do, people. Tell Vixen how much you want her!” he hollered.
The crowd went nuts. Screaming, whistling, stomping their feet. Liam turned toward the exit, glad to be leaving before his eardrums started bleeding.
“Relax, boys and girls. Vixen is more than ready to come out and play,” a sultry female voice said.
Liam turned to the stage, instinct telling him he wasn’t going to like what he was about to see. The crowd took it up a notch, screaming and stomping as a woman strutted onto the stage in black, four-inch stilettos. She wore black fishnet stockings with red satin garters and a pair of tiny black patent leather hot pants. A strip of belly and most of her breasts were bared by a tight black leather vest. Her face was painted white like a geisha and her eyes burned out at the audience from a band of black makeup that striped the upper part of her face like a mask. Her lips jumped out in brilliant red, a match for the single vibrant streak running through her rock-and-roll hair.
He stood stock-still, staring at Zoe as she slowly rotated her hips in a suggestive circle.
“Let’s hit it, lovers!” she howled into the mike, and loud, pumping thrash blew out at him from the speaker stack.
Zoe started to sing, her voice strong and sultry as she strutted across the small stage. She pumped her arm in the air, thrust her hips. She slid a hand over her crotch and threw her head back in feigned ecstasy as she sang about sex and desire and taking what she wanted when she wanted it.
He stood frozen at the exit for almost the entire first song. Finally he shouldered his way back through the crowd to take up a position against the bar, his arms folded across his chest as he watched Zoe perform.
He’d never seen anything like her. Without a doubt, every heterosexual man in the place was hard. Probably half the gay ones, too. She was every man’s darkest fantasy: pure, unbridled sex, strutting, shaking it, daring every man in the audience to want her, to try to satisfy her.
Halfway through the second song, she tugged at the studs on her vest and pulled it open to reveal a black lace bra and a second rose tattoo across her hip and half her belly. The crowd howled its approval. She slid a hand from one breast to the other then down her stomach, all the while singing about liking it hard and fast. She turned her back as she threw the vest to one side. He stared as the rest of her tattoo was revealed.
Etched into her skin in shades of black and gray, the tattoo curved around her hip to climb her spine, a thorny rambling rose that promised as much pleasure as it did pain. It disappeared beneath the tangle of her hair only to reappear again as it twined its way around her throat.
Movement near the front of the stage drew his attention. A bare-chested, burly skinhead was hauling himself over the lip of the stage. Liam started pushing his way through the crowd, seeing the inevitable in his mind’s eye—some drunken idiot pawing at Zoe, security rushing in, fists being thrown, broken faces and bones. He’d barely taken three steps before Zoe walked straight up to the interloper and placed the spike of her heel dead center of his chest. She didn’t drop a note as she pushed him off the stage.
Liam stopped, staring at her for a long moment.
He had no idea who she was, what had made her into the woman onstage whipping four-hundred-odd people into a sweaty, horny frenzy.
Slowly he returned to his station at the bar.
It was going to be a long night.
SWEAT TRICKLED DOWN Zoe’s spine as she worked the stage. For the first time all day, she felt like herself. Seeing Liam Masters again after so long had thrown her, dredged up some of the bad, old stuff