Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

I was usually the first one in anyway. Raven and Neil usually came in around nine most days, sometimes as late as ten. It all really depended on what appointments they had scheduled.
    After unlocking and flicking on the lights, I made a pot of shitty coffee and slugged some down, bracing myself for her appearance. My gut lurched when I heard the bells at the front, but the heavy steps indicated it was Neil, not Raven. His slow and steady stride echoed through the hall until he reached the doorway of the back room.
    “I was wondering if you’d be in today,” he said uncertainly. A little cautious, but that was sorta to be expected since the last time he’d seen me, I’d been losing my mind over Maggie.
    “Gotta earn a living,” I replied.
    All dude-talk for “you okay, man?” and “I’m wrecked, but whatcha gonna do?”
    He nodded in agreement and relief, and that was that.
    While I looked through the appointments to see what was on tap for the day, he fired up the sound system. Eighties rock on Spotify began to filter through the shop, maybe a bit loud for my nagging headache, but the pain helped me ignore the shitstorm my life had suddenly become.
    At about ten to nine, I was on the phone setting up an appointment when Raven walked through the front door. Dressed in black from head to toe. A tight pinstriped skirt that hugged her curves to just above her knees, and shiny black heels that reminded me of a forties pin-up. Her blousy black shirt fell down off her shoulders, and over the top of it a pinstriped vest accented her slender waist. The bare skin proved a tempting invitation, a reminder how it felt to touch and taste her creamy skin, to skim my tongue along the ink on her collarbone. She set the look off with silver bangles and chains on her wrists and an intricate bracelet around her ankle.
    In a flash, my mind had her naked except for the jewelry. The bracelets jangling against my skin. The anklet jingling up by my ear as I spread her legs wide and took her deep.
    Fuck.
    Stop… must stop thinking that way.
    With an unreadable gaze, she tossed a nod my way and headed to the office to dump her purse and the jacket she carried in her hand. Raven never wore a coat in the mornings, even in the dead of winter. She said she woke up hot and needed some time to cool down before the air outside became too chilly for her.
    She was fucking hot, alright.
    She always had been, but Maggie had me so well-trained. Under her thumb to the point that I didn’t dare look at another girl, unless she picked the girl. Now that Maggie was gone, leaving a deep cut in her wake, it almost helped to take note of Raven.
    Except it was like Raven took no note of me. Like whatever had happened the night before hadn’t happened at all. Like it was all an erotic dream. Or a porno. A really, really fucking hot porno. The employee getting fucked hard at work by her boss. Oh, Mr. Massey… yes, right there…
    If it wasn’t for the ink on my arm, I’d wonder if it was all just a figment of my imagination.
    I hung up the phone and ducked back down the hall. She’d left her things in the office and had moved to the break room where she stood splashing a heavy dose of cream in her coffee. She looked up at me and, for the quickest second, there was a tremulous vulnerability in her eyes, so fleeting I thought I could have imagined it.
    “Hey, boss,” she said in a low voice.
    Boss.
    Sorta like Mr. Massey . Porno-like.
    Fuck hot.
    She even was sorta dressed like a slutty secretary or something in her pinstripe suit. At least she didn’t say Drew like before, whispered breathlessly in my ear as I plunged into her.
    Fuck.
    Stop… stop that shit. Not the way I should be thinking at all.
    “Hey,” I replied, feeling incredibly awkward. She wasn’t my first one-night stand, but she was my first one-on-one in a long, long time. And she was the first I actually had to face the next day. The first one that worked for me.
    I stepped into the