AUTHOR'S NOTE:

We're half way through the fluffy fun now! This here will be the most drama you'll see in this story, and TBH there isn't much at all. This fic is all about Emmett's somewhat-silly personal journey to finding true love, and Rosalie just might not be what he or any of you were expecting her to be! ;)

Love to Mel Cee for giving this chapter an extra once over for me, XO!

CHAPTER 4

Monday goes down as the slowest fucking day to ever drag its ass from sunup to sundown. Tuesday doesn't move much faster, but the nervous anticipation in my gut keeps me from hating every second of it as the clock ticks its way into afternoon.

Since I've apparently gone full stalker now, I went ahead and googled both her name and place of business as soon as I got home on Sunday. The shop she owns looks pretty damn cool and there were plenty of photos of tattoos and designs, but none of the staff or anyone else. I tried looking her up on Facebook, Twitter, and yes, even Tinder, but if she uses any of those sites, it's not as Ro, or Rosalie, Hale.

I still don't know if I'm meeting my girl tonight or not.

Aro is still on vacation, and as Site Supervisor I'm next in command, so there's no one to bust my balls when four o'clock hits and I take off an hour early. The guys will all be glad to see me gone anyway, as my nervous energy means I've been working us at full-tilt since the minute we all arrived, so they can take it down a notch and finish out the day in peace while I'm gone.

I head straight home and hop in the shower, cleansing myself from head to toe and then quickly rubbing one out as a preventative measure. I haven't beat my meat this much since I was in middle school, but between this week's emotional rollercoaster and my own refusal to hook up with anyone else, it's the only thing keeping me sane.

Or sane-ish.

There's nothing reasonable about what I'm heading into tonight. In fact, it's probably pretty fucking stupid, if I'm being honest. Hey girl, remember me? I'm the smart-mouthed asshole you flashed your tits to last week. Wanna go somewhere and talk? Yeah, that's sure to go over swell.

After my shower, I shave, lotion, and style my short dark-brown hair. Dressed in my favorite light-blue jeans and a navy short-sleeved button-up, I slip into some comfortable sneakers and head down to my truck. The drive to her shop doesn't take too long, and before I know it I'm standing on the street outside, looking in through the steel and glass door. I check my watch—it's a few minutes before seven. The website said they're open until ten, so she should be in there.

I inhale a deep breath, solidifying my resolve, and march inside before sense overtakes me and I change my mind like I should. An alarm beeps as the door shuts behind me, and a woman walks out from a partition behind the front desk. She's tall, dark, and beautiful, with a head full of long black braids and three thin silver rings on one side of her bottom lip.

"Can I help you?" she asks in a husky tone.

"I, uh . . ." Holy shit, I'm clamming up. What the fuck. Get it together, Emmett. I clear my throat and just fucking say it. "I'm looking for Rosalie."

The woman's gaze rakes over me once, and I get the sense I'm being sized up for trouble. Tall and thin as she is, this bronze beauty has a wild, almost feral look about her, to the point that I don't doubt she could tear me apart with her bare hands if she wanted to. She must decide the same, because she smirks and turns her head slightly to shout behind herself. "Ro! Some hunk's out here looking for you."

My lungs feel deflated, starved for oxygen, as I wait for the call to be answered. A soft clomp of boots grows nearer, then a figure appears from around the wall.

And holy fucking actual shit—it's her. Loose blonde curls bouncing with her steps, big blue eyes set in a soft round face, full pink lips, a svelte body with killer curves, and a full gallery of ink to compliment it all.

I'm dazed. Standing ten feet away from me, her features now graced with a pleasant, questioning expression, she looks like an angel made in my own personal heaven.

"Hi," she says, looking me straight in the eye. There's no hint of recognition when she sees me, but I'm not all that surprised. In my hardhat and vest with dirt and sweat streaking my face, I'm a far cry from the man standing before her now. It's also possible our encounter didn't mean the same to her as it did to me, and she simply didn't register me at all, which leaves me feeling a strange combination of disappointment and relief. "What can I do for you?"

Her voice is soft and sweet, a delicious juxtaposition to her hard outer shell. Basking here in her presence, her name makes so much sense to me. A flower representing beauty, delicate loveliness but with strength in its thorns.

"I want a tattoo," I blurt without thinking. I point to my chest, where my heart is thumping wildly. "A rose, right here."

She quirks an eyebrow at me, her eyes traveling from my face to my feet and back up again, and then she nods. "Okay. Do you have an appointment?"

My excitement deflates like a popped balloon. No, I don't have a fucking appointment; I wasn't smart enough to think that far ahead. "Uh, no," I admit. "Can you fit me in?"

Ro—or Rosalie—I'm not sure what to think of her as of yet—turns toward the first woman who greeted me. "What's on the books, Zaf?"

"Alec at eight thirty for touchups," Zaf replies without looking away from me. "You're free now, if you can get this done before then."

Rosalie glances over to a clock on the wall and then nods. "I should think so." She turns back to me. "Do you have a design?"

Fuck, I'm really failing here. I shake my head no, hoping I can save this. "I heard you're a master with flowers. So maybe you can just, uh, do what you do best? I'm a blank canvas."

"Well now there's an offer I can't refuse," she says, a sly smirk twisting her lips. "Let's get started."

I'm directed to the front desk, where I give Zaf my information and sign a couple of forms and waivers, and then Rosalie leads me into the back. We pass the closed doors of two other rooms as we walk down a short hallway, where I can hear quiet music and the electric buzz of tattoo machines at work.

"Just in here . . ." Rosalie turns into the last door at the end of the hall and I follow her outstretched arm to the chair. I sit, feeling awkward and nervous, because my brain is now catching up with my mouth, and seriously—what the fuck am I doing?

"Okay," Rosalie says, clasping her hands in front of herself and looking at me expectantly. "Let's see what we have to work with here."

"Oh, uh . . . right." I unbutton my shirt, letting it hang open to expose my bare chest. Her eyes scan my skin, moving back and forth between my pecs before lingering on the space between them. I'm watching her face carefully, and I don't miss when her gaze travels downward, taking in what else my well-toned physique has to offer. The smallest of smiles twitches on her lips, but when she looks back up to me, her expression is all business.

"Where exactly are we putting this thing?" she asks.

"Wherever you think looks best," I tell her. "This is all new to me, so I'll just trust your expertise."

Rosalie nods and scrutinizes my chest some more. "Okay, were you wanting just the bloom, or the stem as well?"

I'm kind of shocking myself with my eloquence tonight, but something about her just has my brain working in the strangest way. "It wouldn't be a rose without its thorns."

A smirk twists one side of her mouth. "How true. Well, I have an idea. Give me about five minutes to do up a quick sketch, and then we'll get to work."

She leaves me sitting alone in her room, and I use the opportunity to take a couple of deep cleansing breaths. My mind is a mess; I barely know what I'm doing here. What to say, what to do. Being so caught up in all the excitement and what ifs, I hadn't really stopped myself to seriously consider what if ?

Now I'm here, getting a fucking tattoo—which I'm not actually against, to be honest—but it's all happening super fast and I still haven't even figured out what the fuck I'm going to say to her. What is my goal in all this, anyway?

Rosalie returns before I can contemplate any further. "Okay, this is mostly just an outline—I'll do all the detail work on your skin—but is the overall size and shape what you had in mind?"

She shows me her basic idea and it looks fine to me, so she has me remove my shirt fully and lay down on the chair while she pulls out all her supplies. "I'm going to have to shave your chest," she tells me with an apologetic grin. "I'm not sure if you were prepared for that."

I wasn't, but I'm not a super hairy guy so it's not a huge deal. I just hope it doesn't grow back a full rug, like I've heard can happen. "It's fine," I tell her, wincing slightly when she slathers cold shaving cream down the center of my pecs. She shaves me quickly and carefully, wiping it all clean with a wet paper towel when she's done.

Next she sterilizes the area with some alcohol, and then applies a transfer of her design. "There's a mirror on the back of the door if you'd like to check the placement," she offers, but I decline. Like I said before, I trust her judgement more than my own when it comes to this, so I'll let her expertise be my guide.

"Okay, then," she says, rolling over a tray-table filled with tools and supplies. She perches onto a stool beside me and picks up her tattoo gun. "Are you ready?" I nod, bracing myself as she dips the tip of the machine in a little cap of ink, and then she sets to work.

After the initial shock to my skin, I have to admit the process doesn't actually feel anything like I thought it would. It's strange and uncomfortable, but it doesn't really hurt. In a weird way, I kind of like it. I can see now why so many people keep coming back for more.

"How are you doing?" Rosalie asks after a few strokes, pausing to look up at me.

"All good," I reply. She smiles and resumes.

I can't stop watching her face as she works. If it bothers her she doesn't show it, or maybe she's just too focused on her task to register my stare. Either way, I can't just sit here all mesmerized in her presence. I came to meet her, to find out who she is, which means I need to talk to her. I clear my throat and hope nothing too stupid comes out.

"So, um . . . what was your first tattoo?"

Rosalie smirks without looking up from her task. "A rose, actually."

Oh, well this is perfect. I chuckle at the strange coincidence. "Really? Where is yours?"

"On my ankle. It's not a very good one, but it served its purpose and I'll always be fond of it for that reason alone."

"What purpose was that?" I ask automatically. She finally glances up at me, and I realize too late that it might have been a rude question. "Shit, I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that if it's too personal."

Rosalie looks at me for a long moment, her machine paused over my skin. She's staring me right in the eye, that same boldness I first saw in her once again blazing in her gaze, but it's not anger I see—it's a question. I feel like she's looking for something in me, considering whether I'm worth sharing her secrets with, and the truth is maybe I'm not, though I want to be more than I've ever wanted anything in the world before. I can't think of what to do but stare back at her openly.

I'm rewarded when a slight grin grazes her lips and she presses the buzzing needle into my flesh again. "It's fine," she says as her focus moves back to her work. I feel a bit like the wind has been knocked out of me when she looks away. "I got it to free myself."

I have no idea what that means, but I don't want to be a prying asshole either, so I keep my reply short. "Oh."

Rosalie smiles again, but this time there's a rueful twist to her mouth that makes my stomach clench. "I was a child beauty pageant contestant, from age five to fourteen. I wanted out, but my mom refused, and so I took matters into my own hands."

What the fuck? Okay, that is not in any way what I was expecting her to say. I'm even more at a loss for words now than I was just a second ago. "Jeez, that's uh . . . that's messed up."

She chuckles humorlessly and nods. "It is."

Fuck, I am so out of my element here. In all my experience with women—which I am now realizing is a really fucking loose term for what I had going on—I've never really tried to get to know any of them. I didn't exactly try not to, either, but it just never really mattered. But this . . . this fucking matters.

I need to know that she's okay now.

"But you did get out?"

Rosalie nods again, a sardonic smirk twisting one side of her mouth. "Eventually."

"Oh. Well . . . that's good."

She nods, glancing up at me thoughtfully before her eyes dart back down. I'm watching her, my pulse thrumming stronger than normal as I wait and wonder what she might say next. If she might offer me more of her, anything at all. I'm starving for any morsel she's willing to throw my way.

"It wasn't so bad at first," she says after a few beats of silence, and my heart thumps even harder. "It was fun, even. Getting primped and pampered and prancing around on stage. I felt special out there, and my mom treated me like a princess for days after I won, so I never questioned what I was doing or why."

Rosalie pauses, examining what she's done so far on my skin, and she then rolls her stool slightly to the side to get a different angle.

"Did you win a lot?" I probe when she doesn't say any more, hoping I'm not going too far.

She concentrates on her work for a few seconds but then stops to dip her machine into the ink. There's a slight twist to her mouth again, not quite a grin but like she finds some kind of dark humor in it all. Her glance back up at me says the same. "Every time," she answers.

Well damn. "I can't say I'm surprised," I offer. "I mean . . . you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Holy shit, did I really just say that, in a conversation about how her beauty was used against her will? Even if it's true, my timing sucks. I'm mortified by my own big mouth, but Rosalie doesn't react at all, and we descend into a not-quite-awkward silence as she returns her focus to my chest.

I watch her face as she carries on quietly, her expression relaxed, content even, seemingly unbothered by anything I've said or done so far. She's just . . . chill. Completely her own person in her own world, someone who doesn't care who I am or what I think of her. And she shouldn't, except that I care so much about who I am to her now that it almost hurts.

"All right, we're all done here," she says, giving the finished tattoo a final wipe with a wet paper towel. "Would you like to have a look before I wrap it up?"

"Yeah," I reply, sitting up and wincing just slightly at the stinging tightness on my pec. Rosalie waits while I stand before directing me to a mirror on the wall behind the door.

I stand silently before my reflection, breathing deep and even while staring at the colorful ink within my flesh. The mark of an exquisite woman, her beauty in the dark-pink petals, her strength and courage in its single, pointed thorn. My lip aches where I'm chewing it in my uncertainty, not sure what to say or do from here. All I know is from this moment I can't imagine life without her, but she deserves so much better than a mouthy asshole like me.

"Are you happy with it?" Rosalie asks from behind my shoulder, and I turn, attempting to hide the turmoil boiling in both my head and my heart.

"It's great," I say and she smiles, the light in her eyes igniting a path of longing through my veins.

"Okay, awesome," she continues, seemingly unaware of my inner strife. I'm glad, because the last thing I want is to cause her any stress or discomfort. "If you'll just sit back down for a second, I'll get it covered and then you're good to go."

My feet follow her request without me telling them to, lost as I am in my churning thoughts. I don't know what to do, what to say, if there's any way I can or should fulfill my goal in coming here, or if it would be better for me—for her—if I were just to walk away.

Rosalie finishes covering the fresh tattoo, removing her gloves and then giving it a final smooth over with her bare hand. Her skin is soft and warm against mine, a slight twist to one side of her mouth as her eyes linger on my chest. A shock burns through me. I know that look, that touch, the way she bites her lip just slightly as her soft blue gaze lifts up to mine.

Oh shit. It's clear now that she doesn't know; she doesn't recognize me from our encounter. To her I'm just some good-looking guy who came in here for a tat, and now she likes what she sees and she has no idea just who she's talking to. I can't let this be. If I'm going to have any chance with her at all, she needs to know who I really am.

"It was me," I blurt out, and she drops her hand, startled. I take a deep breath, calming myself and steeling my nerves, hoping I can get what comes out of my mouth to match what's in my heart. "It was me, on Union the other day; you walked past my site."

She looks confused, taking a step back, her stare holding mine with a question in their depths.

"You walked past," I repeat, running my fingers over my short brown hair, trying to find the right words to explain. "The guys and me, we were taking a break, watching the street, the women walking by. Then you came along. You were—you are—beautiful. The most beautiful woman I've ever fucking seen. I called out to you, just being a typical asshole, and I asked you to 'show me your tats.'"

Rosalie's eyes go wide at my confession, but I ramble on before she can respond.

"It was a total dick thing to do, and I know it, but I thought it was funny at the time. I honestly didn't expect anything more than for you to flip me off, which you rightfully did, but then . . ." I trail off. She knows the rest, but not how I'm feeling about all of it, about her now, so I force myself to eat my pride and press on.

"I am so, so fucking sorry," I tell her, the conviction in my voice startling even me, but I mean it. I mean it more than I've ever meant anything in my entire life, and I need her to know why. "You are . . . amazing. On the outside, for damn sure, but I see it even more now on the inside. It was your fire that day that got me, the way you gave no shits about me and my loud fucking mouth, showing me your tits—and your tats—were nothing more than just skin. Incredible skin, skin that you've made your own in every way possible, but still . . .

"I've never been so curious about a woman before you. Never wanted to know more about them, who they are, and why. But you . . . I want to know you. I needed to find you and the fire inside you. And now I have, and you've shown me just the smallest details about who you are, and it's just . . . amazing. You're amazing," I repeat. I've said that three times now, but I was never the smartest guy in the class and I'm running out of words to express just how highly I hold her in my regard. "Again, I'm sorry. I don't expect you to accept, or to say anything at all, but I just needed to let you know." I let my babbling cease at this point, not sure if I've said too much or too little, but I felt it all in a place I didn't even know existed in me before now, so I can only hope that counts for something as I wait fearfully for her response.

Rosalie's face has remained stoic as I laid my deepest feelings out before us, her gaze glued to mine but revealing nothing about her thoughts. My pulse pounds as I watch her expression slowly start to change, one delicate eyebrow rising as a smirk twists one side of her plush pink mouth.

"So you tracked me down, came in here, and got a tattoo, just to apologize?"

I nod, feeling stupider than ever as she breaks my behavior down into its simplest, most ridiculous form, but it is what it is, and all I can do now is own it.

"That has to be the craziest thing I've ever heard," she tells me, shaking her head as her features grow even more amused. "And yet somehow, it's also kinda charming. I don't know whether to slap you, or kiss you."

A relief so staggering I think I could die right here and now hits me at her response, and I let out a heavy breath, a smile turning up my mouth as well. "Honestly, I'd take either," I say truthfully, and Rosalie throws back her head and laughs.

Her levity is breathtaking, eyes closed, nose scrunched, her cheeks glowing pink and her full lips parted around a perfect white smile. I'm warmed by her reaction, heated further by what appears to be her acceptance, and I'm rewarded when she finally stills and looks back at me with a sly grin.

"How about dinner?" she asks, and I immediately agree.

Thanks for reading!

Please review!

XO