A hookup in a studio apartment is hell on an insomniac.

Baz could never sleep in a bed with a stranger. No matter how pretty, or sweet, or intelligent, or reasonable, or amazing the stranger was. Nella seemed all those things, but the last girl he'd loved made sure he had trust issues.

So Baz lay as still as possible, with his artist's eye roving his surroundings. Browns, purples, and golds wove through all the fabrics, furniture, and decor, making Nella's white-walled loft homey yet dramatic.

However, he was most interested in the pictures on the walls. Opposite him was a large photograph of a sparsely forested mountain peak in grayscale. Struggling evergreens rose through thick fog in peril of being vanquished by the rising white sun. A stark landscape, but one not without optimism.

Why had Nella chosen that piece? And what about the black and white photos of tree slices above her television? Someone had counted the rings and written the age of the trees on their glass frames. Had Nella done that? What did she see when she examined the three Rorschach images on the opposite wall?

Needing to know the answers to these questions was why he couldn't leave. He'd never had a hook-up like this. The kind that left him hungrier afterward. He couldn't slip out and leave this sweet-sleeping girl with the balefire heart that had trusted him in her bed.

He watched her sleeping, face planted in her pillow, rich chestnut hair sprawling, bare back lovely in the sunlight. Within him, a sense of pleasure in her slumber warred with envy. The resentment of her effortless sleep faded as he studied the lines of her shoulder blades and the curve of her spine.

Creamy virgin skin. Not a single tattoo.

She had asked him what kind of tattoo he would design for her, and now that he felt like he knew her a little, he longed to make her a unique piece of art. One she would love. One that was worthy of her. Honest ink she would let him plant beneath her skin. At the same time, he loathed the idea of changing her beautiful blank canvas.

Nella should not be permanently marked by a guy like him. A guy that could offer her nothing except complications and dubious connections.

He shouldn't be messing around with a girl like this. A girl who trusted so easily. He saw the light in her the moment she walked into his shop. Within five minutes she had him acting out of character. He never turned down easy money from a client with a simple tattoo request, unless they were underage or obviously drunk. Nella had been neither when she slammed into his shop, asking for hastily conceived ink in an overexcited voice.

What was he thinking? He should have given her the tat and sent her on her way. She might have regretted it, but she might end up regretting him even more.

Yet watching her sleep now, he couldn't muster any regret. Only a slight anxiety. What would happen between them in the light of day? In his experience, fast love either sped away or crashed and burned. However, now was not the time for philosophizing, because Nella was waking.

She burrowed in her pillow, her body tensing, then relaxing into wakefulness. Her glossy dark hair covered all of her face, but he thought her eyes were still closed. Baz fought the urge to brush back her hair and kiss her cheek. Instead, he stroked her spine with two fingers and murmured, "Hey."

She freaked like a cat thrown into water, scrambling and springing in the same motion.

Well, maybe not exactly like a cat.

Unlike a cat, Nella didn't land on her feet.

She tumbled off her side of the bed and yelled, "Fuck!"

She shot up to sitting, clutching the comforter to her chest and clawing hair out of her face. Wide hazel eyes stared at him.

Stared at all of him, because he was naked, and she had taken all the covers with her to the floor.

Nella gaped at him like she had never seen a natural male specimen. He had a sudden urge to joke with her.

Maybe stop staring at my penis in horror, okay?

He didn't joke. He didn't think humor would be well-received at the moment. An image popped in his head of Nella morphing into one of her dragons and charring him for breakfast. Moving slowly, as if in the presence of a feral creature, Baz reached for the pile of throw pillows beside the bed and chose a small round one with which to cover himself.

The pillow stopped her rubbernecking of his privates. Her look of shock softened into recognition as her gaze raked up his tats and met his eyes.

Those bee-sting lips. Baz's heart sank as they all but disappeared, Nella biting them back in an expression of extreme regret.

"Hi... Baz."

Well, at least she remembered his name.

"Good morning, Nella."

She swallowed, winced, and put one hand atop her head. Baz, being no stranger to a hangover, knew exactly what she was feeling. He smiled in sympathy, but she looked so embarrassed that he averted his eyes and examined the Rorschach inkblots on the opposite wall.

"I've been looking at these for hours. I like the middle one best. Um... I see... two gryphons." He thought they were kissing a sword between them, but he didn't say that part.

"I think... they're peryton," she murmured, then she stiffened. "Excuse me... a second..."

She leaped up and streaked for the bathroom, stumbling over her coverings, catching them in the door as she slammed it. She tried to yank the covers inside, but urgency required her to abandon the effort.

Baz's own stomach lurched at the sound of hers emptying its contents.

"Time to put on your big boy pants," he muttered, rising and retrieving his jeans.

#

As she lay flat-backed on her tiny bathroom floor, feet propped on the wall, Nella became grateful for the small things. Like the air freshener beside the toilet. And the hook on the bathroom door, holding her robe.

A soft knock made her cover her face, but immediately she forced her hands away.

She was being ridiculous. Childish. Stranger sex was nothing to cringe about. This was college life, right?

Except she wasn't a nineteen-year-old freshman. She was a twenty-four-year-old grad student who should hold her liquor and her dignity better than this.

"Nella?" he called through the closed door. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

That was a true statement. The sudden fright of realizing she wasn't alone and the motion of falling off the bed had been the causes of her stomach leaping up her throat, but she felt much better now. She lashed her robe around her, splashed water on her face, gagged through the world's fastest teeth-brushing, and cracked the door.

His good looks rocked her again, but without his leather and cocky grin, he was less intimidating. If she passed him on campus, she might assume he was an art student, living in one of the resident studios, getting a master of fine arts like her. Well, not like her; her program was creative writing. Maybe Baz was an art student who was also a tattoo artist, working for his family business, but something about the way he was so familiar with the motorcycle club guys in his shop last night made her think not. The tattoo shop had seemed like his kingdom. Those guys, his patrons.

He didn't seem kingly at the moment, however. Currently, he was bouncing on his toes.

"Uh, can I...?" He gestured toward the toilet.

"Oh! Sorry! All yours!" She flung open the door, and they squeezed past each other in the tight space. She tripped on the wadded bedclothes, and he kicked them urgently out of the way as he closed the door behind her.

Alone for the moment, Nella was confronted with an olfactory surprise. Baz had made coffee. She took the two steps from the hallway into her tiny kitchen, following the aroma. Less surprising than the coffee was the hurricane that had torn through the space. Eggshells littered the sink, milk soured on the counter, bowls dripped on the floor, and powdered sugar mixed with cinnamon coated everything like an apocalyptic ash.

Ah, yes. The snickerdoodles. She remembered that too, now. She'd baked. He'd read.

He'd read.

Oh god!

She'd shown him Rindlewinn. She must have been more drunk than she realized. She'd never shown anyone Rindlewinn.

But he'd liked it. A lot, he said.

Or maybe he just raved about it to get into her pants.

Even as she said that she rejected it. She remembered clearly that he was the one that kept trying to slow them. He stayed with her for hours, making sure she was sober before they went to bed together.

Except that she wasn't. In the light of day, with the night's events slightly disorganized in her mind, with the memories popping up like little individual scenes, and especially because of the knowledge that she'd shown him Rindlewinn, she knew she hadn't been completely sober. Still, she didn't regret sleeping with Baz. Maybe the alcohol had made it easier to bring him home, but she had wanted him.

She'd gotten him, too.

Three times.

Which explained her sore muscles. Tequila explained her aching head. Coffee would ease both.

She was drinking down the black blood of rejuvenation when he opened the bathroom door. She picked up the coffee pot and tried to behave like one-night stands were standard practice for her.

"How do you take it?"

"Black." He raked through his longish undercut as she handed him a mug. She avoided his gaze, darting stealth glances at him and flashing brief smiles that disappeared into her mug. They sipped in silence.

Finally, Nella felt compelled to say something. Anything.

"Sorry about... you know... freaking out and falling out of the bed. And puking," she winced.

Wrong thing, Nella. Freaking, falling, and puking are not the memory you want to leave with Sexy Tat Guy.

"You... remember last night, right?" he blurted.

"Oh, um, yeah. Sure I do. I baked, you read, and... I teased the dragon..."

Baz looked a little relieved, nodding as he gulped coffee. "And then..."

"And then," Nella agreed quickly. "Yeah, I remember. All good."

His brows furrowed and Nella found herself breaking her gaze from those piercing blue eyes searching hers. He cleared his throat, took a sip, took a breath, said casually, "Just good, huh?"

"Oh. No! I mean..." she lowered her voice to a bare whisper. "It was more than good. When I said all good, I meant... no worries, Baz. I remember you asking if I was sure, and I remember saying yes and all that."

"I thought you had sobered up," he said regretfully.

"Me, too," she agreed. "But we were on the same page, even if was a boozy page. All good, Baz. Really."

His lips drew back in a painful smile. "Yeah, okay. All good."

Nella poured the spoiled milk down the sink. As it glugged, she tried to think of a way to restore the ease they shared last night. She couldn't find the right words, with the smells of sex and vomit and air freshener hanging in the air. So instead, she waved at the empty cookie sheets.

"How were they?"

He blinked. "What?"

"The snickerdoodles. How were they? I only ask because drunk baking is like... my thing." She gestured around her tiny kitchen, "I used to have a YouTube channel and everything. I mean, not that I was YouTube famous... and not that drunk, either...most of the time..." she sped up her explanation. "It was a college thing... I took the channel down my senior year... I didn't overcook them, did I? Sometimes it's a fail..."

She stopped, aware that she was rambling. Maybe the ease she thought they'd had last night wasn't real? Maybe she'd rambled like this at Draper's? Or in bed?

"Anyway, did I do a good job?"

Baz didn't seem to mind her nervous chatter. He gave her a sexy grin. "Good job? Girl. Best I ever had. Tender. Sweet. Surprisingly spicy."

"That's the cinnamon."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. The spiciness. It's the cinnamon."

"Huh. Here, I thought maybe it was the tequila," he smirked.

A burst of surprised laughter erupted from her, and she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.

Baz had inched his way into the kitchen as they talked. Now, he was rinsing his cup, putting it into the dishwasher. The kitchen seemed even smaller than normal to Nella. She stared at his cup turned upside down on the top rack.

This is his thing, she thought. Part of his charm. He goes home with a girl. The next morning, he makes coffee; he flatters her; he leaves. He probably makes coffee in strange apartments several times a week.

Her nervous mouth went on autopilot again. "So! This was fun. You know...you're lucky I'm a decent person. I have this friend... he went home with a girl he'd just met, and she roofied him and took his wallet and rolled him out onto the porch. When he woke up, he banged on the door to get his wallet back, and her beefcake boyfriend answered. It was like their regular scam, I guess..."

Baz cocked his head, a wary expression on his face. "You don't have a regular scam, do you?"

"What?" She laughed. "No. Of course not."

Why would he ask that?

Because you're acting like a lunatic, Nella, that's why.

He was toeing the ground now, looking at his feet. "How about a beefcake boyfriend?"

"No, no!" she held up her hands. Her laugh had pitched up from nervousness and was now bordering on batshit crazy. "No boyfriend. Beefcake or otherwise."

Her college boyfriend flashed in her mind, and she quickly squeezed her eyes shut, as if the gesture could expel him from her mind's eye. She opened them just as quickly, but Baz was staring at her now, with a crooked grin and a confused expression, his head slightly cocked.

Great Nella. Now he thinks you have a facial twitch.

"No boyfriend," she repeated. "Just an ex. From undergrad, back in Boston. But we've been over for a long time, and this isn't any of his business, and anyway, he's not as beefy as you, so... I don't even know why I'm telling you this... just... never mind?"

Baz nodded. After an excruciating pause, he scratched his beard.

"I... uh... I'm not exactly sure how to... um..." he sighed. "Damn. I gotta tell ya, Nella... I've never had a thing turn this..."

"Awkward?"

"Yep, that's the word."

"Well, look on the bright side. It could be way worse."

His mouth twitched. "How's that?"

"At least we used condoms, right!?!?" Nella aimed for cheerful but overshot again into hysteria.

The painful movement of his mouth could no longer be called a grin. Now it was a grimace. "Yep. All three times."

"The bed, the couch, the bed—"

"Yeah, listen... what you said last night? About having had plenty of hook-ups? That wasn't really true, was it? Cause you seem... a little freaked out right now."

Nella's face flamed, and she experienced an overwhelming urge to stick her head in the freezer. With the vodka. Maybe she could numb her mortification without him noticing.

"I've been with plenty of guys, Mister," she huffed. "If I seem a little strained, well, dammit, I'm exhausted. Sexing you was a workout, you know!!!" She slapped a hand over her mouth. She was doing it again—the batshit crazy laugh.

Baz looked over her shoulder, avoiding her eyes. No sound came from his throat, but he was biting back laughter. Nella glared at him. Hours ago, he'd murmured her name over and over in the most beautiful way, and now he doing his damndest not to laugh in her face.

She turned from him and slammed a plastic mixing bowl into the sink. "Just go, Tat Guy," she said with false cheer.

He came up behind her. "Hey." He stood some distance from her, extending his arm fully to lightly touch her shoulder. "Hey," he said again, and something in his voice pulled her around, though she didn't quite meet his eyes. "You got my heart pumping, too, girl. It's not anything I will forget any time soon. Listen... I don't have to go right this minute. I mean... do you need some help? Cleaning up?"

"God, no," she blurted out nervously. The last thing she wanted was another second of this awkwardness. "Let's just call it a night." She held out her hand for a good old-fashioned leave-taking. Elbow stiff, fingers spread wide.

Baz stared at her fingers that wiggled with nerves. "You're a little bit weird, aren't you?"

She supposed he was right. They'd been naked together and enjoyed it. A handshake was weird. She retracted her arm and raised her chin. "Little bit, yeah," she conceded. "But I prefer to think of myself as quirky."

His grin came again, tired, but still very sexy. "Quirky," he repeated. "Yeah, I could get behind that." He reached down, grabbed her hand, gave it one firm up and down, then a gentle squeeze, keeping contact, not letting go.

"So... we're good, then?" he probed, the grin dimming just slightly as he searched her face.

"Absolutely." She waved her other hand in an airy dismissal, even as he held on. "So good. Crazy good."

"Okay. Well, I should... um... get going. I gotta open the shop..."

"Yeah, me too. I mean... I have classes this afternoon. And a class to teach tonight. Oh!" Nella skipped to her couch and returned with his backpack. "Don't forget this." She put it on his shoulder and her hand lingered there, both of them watching it.

"So. I'll be seeing you," he murmured. "Soon. At Draper's, right?"

"Sure," she lied. Fat chance, buddy. She was never, ever again stepping inside the bar next to his tat shop. The last half-hour had been the most mortifying experience of her entire life.

Baz hesitated. For a moment, Nella thought he was on the verge of steering the conversation in a different direction. Instead, he moved in for a gentle hug. The kind you might give your senile grandmother. He tugged open the door and slipped away through it.

He was gone, and Nella was damn glad.

In the shower, she scrubbed hard at her temporary tattoo. The sooner she forgot Baz, their amazing night, and their painfully embarrassing morning, all the better.

She readied herself for class and jerked the bedclothes straight. The sheets still smelled like ink. Like Baz's tattoo shop. Like the ink that wafted from Rindlewinn.

Rindlewinn.

Rindlewinn

An alarming memory snippet from last night fell into place. Something forgotten until this moment.

A panic rose in her as she sank to her knees, hoping what she remembered wasn't real. She looked under the bed, beneath the mattress, behind the sofa cushions, on her desk, and in the trunk.

Dammit. Her worst nightmare wasn't a dream. It really happened.

Baz had taken Rindlewinn.

Or she had given it to him.

Or...no... he had taken it?

She sank onto the couch and let the memory replay.

Tangled with Baz in the sheets, just after their third round of sex. She lay boneless across his inked chest, and he stroked her naked, slippery back.

He kissed the top of her head. "I want more. More of your body, more of your time, and more of your story. What do you think about that?"

She blinked in surprise at his tender words, and the blue scales of his dragon tattoo, so close to where she lay her head, blurred in her sleepy vision. "Now is a terrible time to ask. I'd probably agree to anything."

"In that case..."