Payton wanted to push you out of your comfort zone? That maybe the list was as much about Honor as it was about her friend. "Nothing. Let's do this. How about you go first? That way you don't have to worry about it for too long."

"Can you just strap me to the chair and do it?"

"I can definitely do that, but not anyone else." He nudged her earlobe with his nose and breathed her in. She smelled all sorts of good.

The corner of her mouth lifted. "Maybe if you talk dirty to me, I won't think about the needle digging into my skin."

"Sweetheart, I'll do whatever you need."

"You would, wouldn't you?" She squeezed his hand a little tighter. The tiny gesture of thanks was one more reason he couldn't stay away from her.

"Every time." He'd stepped this deep into the waters and apparently he didn't know when to stop. Or if he could. He hated the thought of any other man taking care of her needs. Stupid, since the main purpose here was to help her follow through with her promise to Payton, not bond over getting inked. If anything, she seemed determined to keep an emotional distance from him, too. Just as Payton had done when she dumped him without a word.

Honor let go of his hand and pushed open the door to the tattoo parlor. "This time works."

"This time?"

"I helped you get a gift for your mom. You're helping me cross something off Payton's list. After this I say we're even and there's no reason to keep seeing each other."

Bryce flinched. At least Honor gave him some warning.

Chapter Seven.

Honor's entire body trembled. And it had almost nothing to do with the needle about to puncture her skin.

"The inside of your wrist is a great place to do this," Ryder, the tattoo artist said, holding her hand, palm up. "I don't go very deep into the skin-about 1/16 of an inch-so you'll hardly know you're being touched. The process is more irritating than anything else, like a hot vibrating sensation."

She squeezed her lips together to keep from giggling like a nervous teenager. Ryder could no doubt feel her shaking, but it was the hot vibrating sensation in her other hand giving her the most trouble. Bryce's fingers were laced with hers and his thumb kept rubbing across her other wrist.

"Remember it's all in the mind," Bryce said. "Think about how bad you want this."

Sitting in a black leather chair that unfortunately did not include any restraining devices, she held her head to the side, her cheek pressed into the chair back, chin tucked close to her shoulder, eyes on Bryce, and did just that.

She also tried not to think about how bad she wanted him.

"Everyone has a different threshold for pain," Ryder continued, his throaty voice a perfect match to his muscled, tattooed body. "Feeling apprehensive is normal. Even guys my size with multiple tats get nervous. It's the body's natural defense and endorphins kick in. The first minute is usually the worst and then you'll realize it's not that bad and relax."

Honor nodded. "Let's do it."

"Here goes," Ryder said.

Bryce didn't flinch when she squeezed his hand tighter than she'd ever squeezed anything before in her life. Since the moment she'd sat in the chair, his eyes had been on hers. He'd kept her with him, kept her right there like it was just the two of them. His eyes said even more than his words. They said you've got this. They said you've got me.

She couldn't compare his attention to any relationship she'd had before. Guys didn't stay. They played and left. That's how she worked it, wanted it. If she never committed, she'd never let anyone down. No one would get hurt. Living up to the kind of love her parents had was something she'd never accomplish.

But Bryce seemed intent on getting to know her, not forgetting her.

It scared her to think about letting his friendship go. If he weren't holding her hand and staring into her eyes with care and warmth, she would not be sitting in a tattoo parlor right now following through on one of Payton's wishes.

It freaked her out more to think about keeping him around. Despite her best efforts, her heart had gone and gotten involved. Would Payton approve? Did Honor deserve to feel something good for a little while?

Tiny beads of sweat rolled down her sides. The tattoo gun made a high-pitched buzzing sound, like an electric razor, and she tried to tune it out. She pressed her feet into the footrest on the chair. Instead of thinking a needle punctured her skin, she pictured a tiny pin pushing down and dragging across her skin.

"You're doing great," Bryce said. "Tell me why Faith?"

Since reading Pay's list, she'd given a lot of thought to the kind of tattoo she wanted and it always came back to Faith-the simple, yet meaningful word tattooed in a thin, handwriting font.

"It's Payton's middle name." And maybe, just maybe, having the word inked on her skin would renew her trust and confidence in herself. "It's not a bad word to live by either."

"No, it's not. I'm a pretty bada.s.s wordsmith, and I like it."

Honor squinted. "You're telling me you have a way with words?" He did. He so did. But she'd get a second tattoo before she confessed that.

His lips curled into an irresistible challenge. "Let's play a game. I'll give you a word and you tell me the definition. We'll take turns until one of us doesn't know the meaning."

"Okay." Her dad had drilled new words into her every night for months before the SAT. Not to mention she'd won the poetry slam in college.

"Ladies first."

"Collywobbles." She relaxed her hold on his hand, Ryder's pinp.r.i.c.ks not so bad anymore.

"Stomach pain or queasiness." He scooted back into his director's chair in an obvious attempt to show her he could do this all night. "b.u.mbershoot."

She lifted her cheek from the chair and angled her head sideways. "An umbrella. Wabbit."

"That's not your Elmer Fudd impression is it?"

"No smarta.s.s, it isn't." The muscles in her legs loosened as her feet eased up on the footrest.

Ryder cleared his throat. "That's good. You need to take this guy down, Honor."

Bryce let out a fat-chance huff. "Wabbit means exhausted or worn out. Unless you're in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Then it means rabbit." He smirked. "Hootenanny."

"A country or folk music get together." Honor let out an untroubled breath. "Bishop, you're making this too easy." She ran her thumb back and forth over his, their fingers still entwined. "Fard."

"Repeat the word please."

Honor chuckled. "This isn't a spelling bee, but you look really cute all serious, so I'll give this to you as your one free pa.s.s. Fard." She pictured Bryce as a young boy dressed in a collared shirt and vest, listening to his English lessons in earnest.

"I won the spelling bee."

She laughed harder. "Of course you did."

He glared, but she felt it like the sun peeking between clouds. If he only knew how much his brains turned her on. "Face paint." She opened her mouth to protest, but he rushed to add, "Or make-up."

"Right," she said.

"Ecdysiast," he tossed out.

c.r.a.p. Was that even a real word? How was it spelled? She wouldn't put it past him to mess with her. He didn't like losing. But she didn't want to ask for clarification and see a smug look cross his gorgeous face. She closed her eyes, breaking eye contact for the first time since she'd sat down and racked her brain for an answer.

"Need a hint?" he goaded.

When pigs flew. She repeated the word to herself. Think, Honor. Given the suffix, the word referred to some kind of person. That left only a few hundred choices. Maybe thousands.

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. She opened her eyes to find him waggling his eyebrows. Well? his expression said.

"Snollygoster," she mumbled.

Bryce laughed. "Oh, I can be trusted on this. You think I'd try and cheat my way to winning? No way. Give up?"

"I actually know this one," Ryder said.

Honor swung her head to look at him. She'd been staring at Bryce and paying zero attention to her tattoo artist for so long her neck kinked. "Ow." She rubbed her nape. Her gaze dropped from Ryder's face to her wrist. He'd just finished the tattoo.

Faith "All done," Ryder said. He wiped the tattoo with some kind of soap, and then applied a thin coat of anti-bacterial ointment.

"I'm done," she quietly gushed.

Bryce stood and cupped the back of her neck, pushing her fingers aside to ma.s.sage the painful spot. "Congratulations. You did it."

She stared up at him and emotion clogged the back of her throat. "Thank you," she whispered.

"The only thing I did was take your mind off it."

She reached up and took his hand, pressed her lips to his warm skin. "You win."

"I think we'll call this one a draw," he said, nodding toward her new tattoo.

Ryder wrapped her wrist in a plastic wrap bandage and fixed it in place with medical tape. "You can remove this in four to six hours," he said. "Now to ecdysiast."

"Okay, lay it on me," Honor said.

The two men exchanged a quick glance. "Stripper," they said in unison. Ryder put up his fist for a tap before wheeling his stool away.

She'd never heard a more enthusiastic declaration. Bryce bent his head down until his mouth brushed her ear. "How about you be my ecdysiast later tonight?"

Her pulse went into overdrive. "You have a pole?" she whispered back, making sure to skim her lips along the smooth skin of his jaw.

"You know how to use one?" He bit her ear lobe. The sting vibrated through her, settling at the tips of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"I'm very good at putting a rod between my legs."

He groaned and pulled back just enough for her to see an intense flare of heat in his eyes. "Think I'll skip my tattoo and take you home with me right now." He stepped away from her chair to talk to Ryder.

"There's no rush," she called once his announcement sank in. The flirting she could handle. Being alone with him at his place after the o.r.g.a.s.m he'd given her the other night was a whole other story.

She couldn't make up her mind what do with him.

That wasn't exactly true. It terrified her what she wanted to do-to be-with him. But he deserved better than a girl who had no implicit trust in relationships. Bryce was an all or nothing guy, and she only gave pieces of herself.

"Speak for yourself," he called back.

"We're already here. You should get inked while we're here." Brilliant response, Honor. Like he was clueless about his whereabouts.

He ignored her, spoke with and paid Ryder, and had a hand on her lower back to escort her out of the shop thirty seconds later. His hands were weapons. Weapons of ma.s.s persuasion. With every touch her body craved to comply with anything and everything he suggested.

The sun had long ago set and a sliver of moon hung in the dark sky. Bryce opened the car door for her before getting into his own seat.

"I'm really proud of you," he said.

"I owe you money," she answered because his praise did funny things to her stomach and... "Thank you," she amended because she didn't like that she'd sounded rude and ungrateful. "I am feeling pretty pleased with myself at the moment. I can't believe I was so worried about this. It hurt, but not that much." She twisted to face him. "Payton's forever in my heart, and now she's forever part of my outward expression too. I'm really happy you dragged me here."

"Dragged?"

"Okay, brought. And bought. I do want to pay you back."

He put the key in the ignition. "I'll send you my bill and acceptable payment methods."

A nervous laugh bubbled up inside her as she pictured some methods she'd like to offer. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Reaching for her seatbelt, she focused on the happiness inside her. "I want to bask in this feeling for a while. If Payton were here, she'd be really happy. We had this ritual when one of us did something memorable. Good, bad, somewhere in the middle, it didn't matter. If it made us stop and think we celebrated it."

Bryce pulled away from the curb. "She often wrote down inspirational or funny quotes and folded them up into small slips of paper I'd find in my pants pockets."

"Really?" Honor said with a smile.

His gaze remained out the windshield. "Yeah. She also liked to read Los Angeles magazine, but only on Sunday mornings, and pick somewhere new for us to grab breakfast."

"She hated to cook."

He nodded. "Tell me about your ritual."

Honor brought a knee up and hugged her shin. "We'd make a blanket fort in front of the TV, eat graham crackers with peanut b.u.t.ter, drink sparkling apple cider out of champagne gla.s.ses, and find the cheesiest movies to watch until we fell asleep." She let out a breath. "It was the best."

She laid her chin atop her knee and ran a finger over her bandaged wrist. "Now as my memories fade, I'll always have this." Thanks in no small part to him. "I know you had other ideas, but do you think you could take me home? I'd like to honor our tradition tonight."

"Sure," he said, disappointment, but mostly relief in his tone. She took in his profile, his firm grip on the steering wheel. They'd both just dodged a bullet.

Honor put her paint roller back in the white plastic pan and studied the wall in her antique shop. She could scratch Painter off her list of skills and may actually need to hire someone to paint since her brother had bailed on her for a skateboarding tournament. A tournament he stood poised to win by the number of exclamation points in his text earlier. She hated herself for wishing he'd lose a compet.i.tion so he'd rethink the agent thing. Put off going pro for a while longer. He'd liked the agent in LA. He liked Bryce. Whenever she thought about that, she disliked them both.