by Lindsey Hart
Stay calm. If you freak out before she even starts she’ll never agree to do this.
The cool spray of disinfectant hit his overheated skin. After that came the gentle suction of the stencil, glued to his back and lifted. The rasp of paper towel followed and the smudge of petroleum jelly… it was all- clinical. Professional. I can handle this.
Jack thought he could get through it, at least until the pain set in. He would concentrate on the pain, use it to ground himself. The human body could only feel one sensation at a time… he thought he’d read that somewhere. Focus on the pain so he didn’t feel Luna’s touch.
It was a good plan except that her touch came first. Her fingertips, gentle, light as a whisper of air, brushed over his upper back, right by his spine. The buzz of that tattoo gun started up, loud, filling his head, drowning out the roar that invaded his ears.
His breath came fast and hard. Raw, rasping pants that were anything but normal, made harder by the fact that he was on his stomach and couldn’t expand his diaphragm. Where was a damn paper bag when you needed it?
Jack slammed his lids closed as he struggled to block out the images. His foster father, the man who was by law supposed to protect Jack, belt raised in hand, eyes rolling, pupils large. The nameless, faceless women that he’d been with, his sad attempt at a connection. The cars he’d stolen, the night he was busted, slammed down onto the pavement.
Breathe. It was such a simple command. So completely impossible. He tried one more time.
And lost his shit completely.
CHAPTER 5
Luna had never really seen a grown man have a full out breakdown. Not like what was happening at the moment. And she hadn’t even started the tattoo. Not one single mark. Her gun buzzed uselessly in her hand and she shut it off and set it aside.
She stepped back and moved around the table so she could stare into the man’s face. The man with no name.
“Hey… are you okay?” She’d made a few guys cry in her time. Not that she had a heavy hand but some spots hurt. They hurt a lot. Some clients sat for ten hours at a time. Not only was it hell on her back and wrists, she knew for a fact that it hurt like a bitch to be on the other receiving end of that.
She reached out but she stopped when the panicked breathing grew worse. Her hand fell back uselessly to her side. The man’s eyes were strange, wild. The pupils were so large they nearly swallowed the blue iris. Sharp breaths, rapid and shallow, a brow soaked in sweat, eyes wild… it all looked like a classic panic attack.
“Here. Sit up. I’ll get you some juice or a sucker or something.”
The man actually obeyed. He sprung up into a sitting position faster than she would have thought possible, legs so far over the edge they grazed the floor.
Luna rummaged in the cupboard by her little desk where she kept bottles of water, juice crystals and suckers. She reserved the sugar stash for clients who went low while she was tattooing. There was nothing worse than a sobbing client or someone on the verge of passing out.
She grabbed a red sucker and mixed up some peach juice. Her gloves were still on and it made taking the cap off the water bottle nothing short of hell. She finally had everything ready and spun, completely unnerved.
The guy’s breathing wasn’t so shallow or rapid but his face still had the cagey, wild look, a look that wasn’t quite human.
“Here.” Luna extended the sucker. She knew she was utterly ridiculous. It was the last thing the guy needed.
Surprisingly, he reached out and took it. The water bottle too. He made short work of the cap, tipped the bottle back and drained the peach juice in one long gulp. He threw the bottle beside him, onto the table and unwrapped the sucker.
“Okay…” Luna whispered. “Are you going to make it? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
The guy talked around the sucker, which made his words slightly slurred and strangely adorable. There was nothing like seeing a man who was so large he seemed to fill up the entire room. She was captivated by those lips. Lips that were fuller than any man should have the right to. Pink. A little chapped because he didn’t look like he gave a shit about dry skin, but still full and utterly kissable. Would they taste like the sugar from the juice or that sucker?
Fuck. Luna gave herself a mental shake. The guy was trouble. She knew that. She knew all about his kind and the last thing in the world she needed was a guy like him coming into her life like a wrecking ball and tearing down everything she’d worked so hard to build.
“Yah. Just start. I’ll be fine once you start.”
Great. Wasn’t that reassuring? She stammered out a response to cover the massive discomfort squeezing her own insides. “What’s the issue? Something is going on. I don’t like tattooing under pressure like that. It makes me worried… I… it’s going to hurt. The back isn’t exactly gentle. You know that right? I promise we can get through it though-”
“It’s not that,” the stranger said on a long, shaky inhale. “I’ll lay back down and just start. I’ll… deal. You don’t have to be worried about hurting me.”
Okay so how fucked up is this? Luna realized her hands were shaking. She stripped off her soiled gloves and threw them in the trash. While the guy settled himself back on the table she donned another pair of black gloves.
She settled back in as well, onto her rolling chair. She felt normal again when she picked up her tattoo gun. The buzzing settled her own nerves. Barely. Something is so not right about this. I don’t even know his name. She realized she could do something about that. Just ask. Even if he lied to her, it would be better than nothing.
Luna’s hand settled on heated skin, so hot it burned through the thickness of her gloves. She took a deep breath while he held his and started in on the first line. He didn’t move. Still didn’t breathe. Didn’t react. Whatever had been going on seemed to have passed.
She stared, for a second, at that broad back, the back she had found so damn sexy the day before. She’d spent a restless night unable to erase those images from her mind. She’d thought she was crazy, that she was making something out of nothing. She was wrong. Those improbably broad shoulders, rippling muscles and bronzed skin affected her the same way it had the day before.
What does he feel like? Better yet, what does he taste like? The urge to lower her face to his back and inhale his strong masculine scent was so great she barely managed to remain sitting upright. Fuck. Get a hold of yourself.
“So… what’s your name?” Luna asked shakily, because she needed to say something in order to stop herself from doing something completely unprofessional. She waited. Silence. She laid down a line before she paused to dip the gun in the little pot of black ink sitting on her side table.
The guy hesitated. She couldn’t see his face of course but there was a quick little indrawn breath, a gentle rasp barely audible over the buzz of the gun. She touched him as little as possible as she started in on another line.
“Jack.” The quietly uttered word echoed through the room.
“Jack.” Luna chewed on that. Yah. It seemed right. She believed him though she was surprised he’d been honest with her. “Well, Jack. How does that feel? Alright?”
“Yah,” he ground out. “I’ll live.”
So. A sense of humour. His voice was gruff but Luna didn’t miss the attempt at sarcasm that was supposed to be funny.
“Well, you just tell me if you need a break. I really want to put this outline on but we’re going to be here for a while. Probably half the night. If you need me to stop, just let me know and I’ll figure something out. Mark the stencil or something.”
“I won’t tell you to stop. Just do what you need to do.”
Luna nodded. He couldn’t see her but he would probably take her silence for assent. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who used many words.
She settled in for a long night, a backbreaking night after a full day of clients already. If she wasn’t getting paid triple for this, she wouldn’t have done it.
She kept telling herself that. She clung to that because she needed to. Because any other reason didn’t deserve consideration. Because the fact that she might just have done the work for free, just to see him again, was absolutely not worth dwelling on.
CHAPTER 6
Jack was nearly at his limit and the woman above him sensed it. Her breathing changed, perhaps also because she had to be exhausted. She’d been hunched over him for nearly eight hours. He imagined Luna’s back had to be screaming. He’d seen her shake her hands out a couple of times when he’d cranked his head around. Her brow had been dabbled with tiny sweat beads which were oddly… hot.
Attraction was like that for Jack. He did find certain women beautiful, attractive sexually even. He just… couldn’t stand the thought of actually being touched by one of them, no matter how alluring they were. Sure he could grind his gloved up flesh against theirs, dig his hands into lush hips but he was too far gone at that point to really think about what he was doing. He never let them touch him. Never. The sexual act wasn’t about intimacy for him. It never had been. Which was why he usually refrained. He knew he wasn’t normal. He was all kinds of fucked up. The wise ones stayed away, but there always was that rare, foolish brand that thought they could save him. When he was through, they knew he was beyond redemption.
Which was why the tingling, burning, tight feeling in his chest was all the more shocking. Jack was given to many vices, but generally didn’t understand what temptation felt like. At least not where a woman was concerned. He felt it now. The strange, prickling under his skin. The hardening of his cock, which was damn uncomfortable considering he was laying on the thing, crushing it. The pull in his balls. I want to touch her. The urge to sit up, reach out, and run a thumb over those silky looking pink lips was so great it was hard to keep himself in check.
Jack waited. He waited and waited, until eventually, as he thought it would, the physical pain above him, around him, below him, drowned out the strange physical urge to reach out to another person.
His back burned. It had gone through all the typical tattoo phases. Not that he really knew since the only time he’d been tattooed he was unconscious. He’d read about it though. The painful needling feel, the numbness, the burn and finally, the raw meat feeling. Someone on an online blog had literally termed it that way and it couldn’t be more accurate.
“How are you doing?” Luna’s voice was thin, a sure sign of exhaustion.
For the second time that night, Jack nearly smiled. He didn’t move. His arm had long since gone numb and his chin rested on it. “I should ask you the same thing. You’re the one slaving over me.”
“Oh.” She seemed surprised, as though anyone would bother or care that she was actually human on the other end of that tattoo gun. As though she wasn’t just an extension of that machine. “I’m alright. Tired I guess, but I’ll live.”
Her voice was dry, humorous. She seemed like the kind of woman who didn’t take herself too seriously, at least not at the moment. That told Jack that she’d endured a hell of a lot. People didn’t have that gift naturally. They learned it. Through flames and fire, trial and hardship.
“Where do you work? And don’t think of lying. I’m harmless, so you don’t have to. And I would know. I have a good bullshit meter.”
He was tempted to try that out, just to get his mind off his raw, ripped up flesh. He decided, for the first time in a very long time, to just tell the truth. To just let himself… be. He expected hesitation, a herculean effort, a dry mouth and sweating palms.
Nothing. He felt none of that.
I want to tell her the truth. Why was that exactly? Jack shut his mind down and refused to give any of his jarring thoughts any real estate in his brain. “I own a club.” Silence. The buzz of the gun. More ripped up flesh. She didn’t like that, Jack figured.
“The seedy kind?” Luna finally asked. The gun changed rhythm as she dipped it into the ink for a refill.
He no longer knew where they were at or what part of the outline she was working on. Was she beyond it? Into colour? Shading? He didn’t even know. He’d done his research and understood the process, he just didn’t know what stage they’d progressed into.
Oddly enough, the more pain Luna caused him physically, the more he relaxed mentally. Jack got exactly why some people said tattoos were like therapy. All that pain was like being cleansed. Washed in some kind of physical purgatory that made you new and clean. He hadn’t felt either of those things in a very, very long time.
Luna’s touch, which had at first panicked him, now brought him a semblance of comfort. He could hardly feel her hand, other than the way it made his skin burn or guided the bite of the machine. What he did feel was the rubber of her glove. Her touch no longer burned him.
“What other kind is there? Clubs I mean?” Luna laughed softly. It was a beautiful, lyrical, magical sound. A sound Jack desperately wanted to hear more of. “You should come some time. If you could lower yourself to appear there I mean.”
“Oh?” The machine never stilled. She was used to conversing while working. “Is it that bad?”
“Not really. It’s just the typical bar scene. Drinking, dancing, dark corners.”
“The three D. That’s what you should have called it.”
Jack uttered a small grunt, which for him, was as close to a laugh as he’d come in years. It hit him then, like a lightning bolt to the chest. I want to know her. Like a normal person knows another person. Except there was nothing normal about him. And Luna deserved much, much better.
“Yah. I should have. Maybe I’ll change the name. It could use a facelift anyway. I’ve been thinking about some renovations for over a year.” Why tell her this? She’s probably bored to tears.
“Cool.” She dipped her gun again, an endless rhythm of refilling and inking, refilling, lines, refilling, pain. “I haven’t gone out in years. I don’t exactly have fun anymore. I think I’m too old for it, you know?”
He knew exactly what she was talking about. She couldn’t be older than her mid twenties but she seemed like an old soul. Like she’d seen too much of life already. Like someone dealt her a shitty hand or hurt her.
I’ll kill them. Whoa. Jack put the brakes hard on the sudden rush of anger that clogged his throat. He had no fucking business whatsoever thinking thoughts like that. He didn’t protect others. He kept to himself because he was the only person he could truly rely on.
“Well, I’m just about done here. You sat through the whole outline and I put some shading in, just to give us a head start for next time.”
The gun made a strange noise, a different kind of buzz, as Luna dipped it in water and set it aside. The cool spray of water was a welcome relief to the horrible wildfire that was his back. Unfortunately it was followed up with a good dousing of antiseptic that nearly made him let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Jack clenched his jaw shut. Hard. He was not going to utter a sound. He sat up and waited, while she played a huge pad like thing on his back and taped it down. He felt like it took up his entire back, which it pretty much did. His first tattoo, that horrible thing he needed covered, hadn’t been so large, but he wanted something that took up his whole back. Might as well cover it all.
“There.” Luna stepped back and Jack could literally see the tired lines etched between her brows and at the corners of her mouth, the dark circles under her eyes. God, she was beautiful. Even like this. She was the kind of woman that would always be beautiful, even under the worst of circumstances.
“When do you want me to come back.” Besides never.
“You need to let that heal. Probably at least two weeks.”
Way too long to wait. “Can you do it sooner?”
Luna swallowed hard. Her eyes darted away for a second before they flew back to Jack’s face. Beautiful eyes. A deep green, far beyond emerald, like the cross between a tropical sea and the lushest grass.
Moron. You live in Detroit. There is no fucking grass. Deep leaves then. Leaves g
rown on a rare flower. Fucking stop. Pathetic.
“You would have to come before this starts healing if you want to come sooner. I don’t want to tattoo over a bunch of half healed, peeling skin. It’s just really hard.”
“Tomorrow then.”
“Do you have any idea how raw you would be? If you thought this was painful tonight, which, perhaps you didn’t, but that would be insanity. I’ve had a couple clients who came from out of town get tattooed back to back. I’ve seen grown men, men who are almost completely tattooed, cry. It would hurt. Terribly.”
“I’ll be here. Same time?”
Luna swallowed hard, her throat actually bobbing with the effort. Those amazing eyes narrowed. “I guess so. If you want torture, I can give it to you. As much as you can take. Just don’t numb yourself. I mean, internally.”
“I’m not into that.” He knew what she meant. “Never have been.” He’d never touched drugs in his life. Not the prescription kind, not the street kind. There had been times he’d stitched himself up with a needle and thread. No hospitals. He didn’t have the money before and now he was far too distrustful. Even though he owned a club and had access to anything he wanted, drugs, drink, women, Jack didn’t partake.
He’d been drunk a few times before. Who hadn’t? The liquor didn’t numb out the pain. It only magnified all the memories best forgotten.
“Yah, well. I guess so. Same time. Come to the back door again. I’m charging you triple.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. Although, perhaps I should pay you more than that, for the lack of sleep you’ll be getting tonight.”
Luna’s face paled. “What… what do you mean?” She stammered, clearly unnerved.
Something passed between them. Something silent, just a look. A feeling. Jack shivered but was flooded with warmth, that weird tightness in his chest. His cock hardened again and he cursed his strange reaction, a reaction that was purely visceral, filled with a need he would rather deny.
