Because You Are Mine (Because You Are Mine #1)(19)

“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 brakes 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, ’Cesca?” Justin called from the backseat. “Your 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 f*ck 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 lay, 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.