The Start of Us: Book 1 in the No Regrets series Read online

  The Start of Us

  Book 1 in the No Regrets series

  Lauren Blakely

  Little Dog Press

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  Author’s Note

  The Start of Us

  1. Harley

  2. Trey

  3. Harley

  4. Trey

  5. Harley

  6. Trey

  7. Harley

  8. Trey

  9. Harley

  Chapter 10

  11. Trey

  12. Harley

  Chapter 13

  14. Harley

  15. Trey

  16. Harley

  Chapter 17

  18. Harley

  19. Cam

  20. Trey

  Chapter 21

  22. Harley

  23. Trey

  24. Harley

  25. Cam

  26. Harley

  Chapter 27

  28. Trey

  29. Harley

  30. Harley

  Chapter 31

  32. Trey

  33. Harley

  34. Cam

  35. Harley

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Blakely

  Cover Design by Helen Williams.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  The Gift Series

  The Engagement Gift

  The Virgin Gift

  The Decadent Gift

  The Heartbreakers Series

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  Boyfriend Material

  Asking For a Friend

  Sex and Other Shiny Objects

  One Night Stand-In

  Lucky In Love Series

  Best Laid Plans

  The Feel Good Factor

  Nobody Does It Better

  Unzipped

  Always Satisfied Series

  Satisfaction Guaranteed

  Instant Gratification

  Overnight Service

  Never Have I Ever

  Special Delivery

  The Sexy Suit Series

  Lucky Suit

  Birthday Suit

  From Paris With Love

  Wanderlust

  Part-Time Lover

  One Love Series

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Come As You Are

  Sports Romance

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Most Likely to Score

  Standalones

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  The Break-Up Album

  21 Stolen Kisses

  Out of Bounds

  The Caught Up in Love Series:

  The Swoony New Reboot of the Contemporary Romance Series

  The Pretending Plot (previously called Pretending He’s Mine)

  The Dating Proposal

  The Second Chance Plan (previously called Caught Up In Us)

  The Private Rehearsal (previously called Playing With Her Heart)

  Stars In Their Eyes Duet

  My Charming Rival

  My Sexy Rival

  The No Regrets Series

  The Start of Us

  The Thrill of It

  Every Second With You

  The Seductive Nights Series

  First Night (Julia and Clay, prequel novella)

  Night After Night (Julia and Clay, book one)

  After This Night (Julia and Clay, book two)

  One More Night (Julia and Clay, book three)

  A Wildly Seductive Night (Julia and Clay novella, book 3.5)

  The Joy Delivered Duet

  Nights With Him (A standalone novel about Michelle and Jack)

  Forbidden Nights (A standalone novel about Nate and Casey)

  The Sinful Nights Series

  Sweet Sinful Nights

  Sinful Desire

  Sinful Longing

  Sinful Love

  The Fighting Fire Series

  Burn For Me (Smith and Jamie)

  Melt for Him (Megan and Becker)

  Consumed By You (Travis and Cara)

  The Jewel Series

  A two-book sexy contemporary romance series

  The Sapphire Affair

  The Sapphire Heist

  About

  From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Blakely comes a sexy, emotional and deliciously addictive trilogy.

  Let me tell you everything I know about love…

  Love is a lie, a game, a chase. And most of all – it’s a battle every man and woman must fight for themselves.

  I don’t trust love for a second.

  Until I meet Trey.

  He’s just like me – dangerous, scarred, and keeping secrets that might be darker than mine.

  And I can’t seem to stay away from him even though I’ve promised to.

  How can this be the start of something when tomorrow it has to end?

  The Start of Us is the first novel in the No Regrets Trilogy.

  Author’s Note

  I first released the No Regrets trilogy in 2013, and I have since revamped, revised and restructured the trilogy to tighten the storyline, enhance characterization and update elements. The heart of the love story and the main characters remains the same. Enjoy!

  The Start of Us

  By Lauren Blakely

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  1

  Harley

  No Regrets.

  The neon-blue sign is both an invitation and a warning.

  It is also the reason I chose this shop for my first tattoo.

  That, and the fact that it has great online reviews. Because, let’s be honest, if you’re going to stick a needle in your skin, you want to make sure you’re not going to a butcher.

  I peer through the window of the West Village tattoo parlor, scanning the walls for images of its art. They are everywhere, crammed frame to frame. Up, d
own, across. Tigers, dragons, butterflies, dolphins, hearts, flowers, and oodles of abstract illustrations that look like calligraphy. Some are comical, some are beautiful.

  Soon, one of these drawings will brand me. Remind me of who I am.

  I’m not the kind of girl who gets inked. My skin is virginal, untouched by needles and piercings. I’m jittery because this is permanent. I’ve only ever been temporary. I’ve never done anything that lasts before.

  I’ve never needed to.

  Now I do.

  My nerves race around the thoroughfares in my body like they’re mapping the route to chaos, and I need to calm down. I can do this—brand myself like cattle so I don’t slide back to the way I was.

  A gust of cool November air scurries by, making me shiver and reminding me to get out of the cold and just do it. This is a defining moment in my life—the line between the past I leave behind, and the new girl that somehow, someway, I have to become.

  I pull on the brass handle, open the door, and walk into a tattoo parlor for the first time ever. I’ve entered a zone of coolness, a land of hip artistry, where everyone is badass and bold. It’s eight in the evening on a Tuesday and the shop is open for another hour, so it’s packed inside. There’s a gal lazily blowing bubbles with her chewing gum as she kicks her foot back and forth while waiting on a leather couch in the entryway. Black ink snakes up the small path of exposed skin from her collarbone to her earlobe.

  Indistinct metal music plays overhead.

  Two artists are working in the back of the shop, set up in little chrome cubicle areas, like at a hair salon, each with their shelves and tools, marking up customers. A large man is spread out on his belly as a guy with dyed-black hair gives him a back tattoo. I wonder if the black-haired guy is Trey, the tattoo artist I scheduled with. The other artist is hunched over, working on an ankle of a pretty redhead.

  As I wait, I check out the portfolios on the counter, flicking through pages of designs. So many designs my eyes feel like they’re swimming in black-and-blue lines, birds, and butterflies. But I don’t need to be looking through the portfolios. I know what I want on my body. I’m just passing the time until Trey is ready.

  “Hey. Can I help you with anything?”

  I look up from the drawing and into the eyes of the black-haired guy. Swarms of dragons adorn his arms. With his sleeves, jet-black dye job, and pierced lip, he clearly belongs here. I don’t. From my Mary Janes to my short plaid skirt, it’s as if I have a blaring sign on my head: Never been inked.

  But then I remind myself I’ve been in plenty of unusual, weird, and potentially awkward situations, and have handled them all with finesse. I was paid top dollar to be confident, to be sweet, to be sophisticated. I channel all my skills into this moment.

  “I have an appointment. With Trey,” I say, chin up, voice strong. I am ready to be marked.

  “That’s him. Back there.” He nods toward the other guy who’s finishing the redhead, covering her ankle in a bandage. “I’m Hector. I’ll walk you through the paperwork,” the black-haired guy tells me.

  I show him my ID and then sign the papers. When I cap the pen, Hector’s no longer alone. A young guy in jeans, combat boots, and a T-shirt stands next to him. His jawline is stubbled, his body is toned, and his arms are covered in tattoos, his right bicep a canvas for an abstract swirl of ink that looks like three lines wrapped together. I fight the urge to smile stupidly at him, since he’s beautiful and probably the recipient of a lot of stupid smiles. With light-brown hair that’s thick and messy, green eyes that remind me of a grassy hillside after a summer rain, and a face that you might see on a magazine, he could almost have model-perfect looks. But there’s a scar running across his right cheek, and I’m drawn to the imperfection in him amid all that surface pretty.

  I wonder how he got that scar and what it says about him. You can’t have a scar on your cheek without it telling a story.

  “Hey. I’m Trey. You must be Harley.”

  “Yes, I’m Harley.”

  He holds out a hand to shake. His firm grip makes me glad I’m going to spend the next hour with his hand on my shoulder.

  “Nice to meet you. Come on back.”

  I follow him several feet, and he gestures to a dentist-style chair. As I sit down, I notice his T-shirt. It’s black with a picture of a white-and-red sign on it. On the sign are the words I’m the tattoo artist your mother warned you about.

  I try to suppress a grin, but I have no such luck.

  “What’s so funny?” A smile plays on his lips too. Nice lips, full lips. I wonder what it would be like to kiss someone I wanted to kiss. I have no idea. Not that I want to kiss Trey.

  “Your shirt.”

  He glances at his chest as if he needs to jog his memory. “Yeah. This one usually gets some sort of reaction.”

  “My mom never warned me about tattoo artists,” I say. “That’s why it’s funny to me.”

  “Ah, well. Then you have no preconceived notions that we’re all trouble.”

  But everyone is trouble, I want to say. And everyone has preconceived notions. And the reason my mother never warned me about tattoo artists is that she never warned me about a thing.

  He pulls up a stool and straddles it. “So, are you ready to get your first tattoo, Harley?”

  I’m startled when he says my name. It’s not the name I’m used to hearing from men, and for a moment, a cold rush of worry sweeps my skin. But then I remind myself he’s allowed to know my name. He leans in closer and speaks again, his voice low and gentle. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. Some people come in for their first tat and change their minds when they sit down,” he says, his green eyes fixed on me, searching me, sensing my reticence. He’s trying to read me, to give me an out, and there’s something so sweet about his offer, even though he’s misread my silence.

  I shake my head. “I’m ready. Can you do a red ribbon? The one I emailed you when I made the appointment?”

  “Yeah. I can do whatever you want. It’s all ready for you. I sketched it last night. Let me show you.”

  He swivels around and reaches for the design on his shelf. His arms are strong, his muscles on display in his T-shirt, and I watch him, giving myself permission to stare while his back is to me. His T-shirt rides up as he grabs the transfer paper, revealing a sliver of his back.

  I never knew a back could be so sexy.

  When he turns around, he shows me the design. It’s a small red ribbon, like the photo I found online and sent to him. He’s drawn it brightly, as if it’s shining. I love the simplicity of it—that’s why I wanted it.

  I nod approvingly. “It’s perfect.”

  “Anything special about red ribbons?”

  “They’re special to me,” I say, and leave it at that. There’s nothing more I want to say about this ribbon. Nobody would understand why I want it, why I need it to remind me of my mother. Because when tomorrow comes and I have to begin my penance, I need to remember that I love her.

  “That’s as good a reason as any. If you’re doing something permanent to your body, it should be special. Special to you,” he says, repeating the words as he looks at me, his eyes locked with mine. Something passes between us, something unsaid in the silence. “Where do you want it?”

  I push up the sleeve on my T-shirt, bunching it up, then point to my right shoulder. But the sleeve falls down.

  “Let me help,” he says, rolling it up and cuffing it. “It’s better like this. It won’t fall down.”

  And then the strangest thing happens. My stomach flips the tiniest bit as he touches me for the first time, and I’m not sure if I should flinch or bat my eyelids at him because I don’t usually feel, so I don’t know how to respond to a real feeling in my body instead of a manufactured one. I’ve worked hard not to feel, so I tell myself this is a fleeting moment in time. Because he’s beautiful. Or really, smoking hot would be a more apt description for Trey the Tattoo Artist my mother never warned me about.

  A
nd maybe because this night is a divide in my life, because tomorrow marks the start of going on the wagon, I decide to simply let myself enjoy the view as he preps my skin.

  He pours rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and cleans my shoulder. “Just need to make sure it’s sterile,” he says as he tosses the cotton ball in a trash can. He grabs a disposable razor from a box on the shelf, holds it up to show me. “Now this might sound weird because it’s not like you have a hairy shoulder, but I need to shave it anyway.”

  “Shave away,” I say, and the words come out halfway inviting. Maybe I want to flirt. Maybe I want to feel. Maybe I could get away with one night of flirting with a boy my age. A boy I find attractive. Not an assignment. Not a job. He brings the razor to my skin, but before he shaves me, he places his hand on my shoulder. Holy shit. His skin is warm, and he feels good touching me. Not like the clammy octopus hands I’m used to.