by L. L. Ash
“How long have you been doing this?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the impending pain.
“You don’t know who I am?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Should I?” I asked back.
He grinned.
“I’m the best in the city. And you just got really fucking lucky to walk in and I was available. Well, Freddie had the most to do with that… But I don’t have much time to tattoo these days. My waitlist is like Santa’s naughty list.”
I laughed.
“Ok, so I’m going to need you to hold real still. There’s a lot of straight edges and that demands stillness. If at any time it’s too painful or you need a break, just let me know and we’ll pause. We should be able to finish this in three, four hours max.”
“Ok, it’s a deal,” I nodded once and heard the machine buzz on.
Squinting my eyes closed, I felt his left hand touch my skin.
“Ready? Here’s the first little bit, so you can get used to the feeling.”
The first sting hit me when his right hand came down and drew the first tiny line.
“Oh, shit!” I gushed, feeling the sting through to my back.
He chuckled.
“You can do it. It’s not too big.”
I nodded emphatically, in too much pain to do much else.
It was relatively silent for a few minutes as I began to get used to the sharp sting.
“Why not?” I asked after another couple minutes.
“Why not what?” he asked back, head dipped in concentration.
“Why don’t you tattoo very much anymore?”
“'Cause someone has to run the shop and take care of the clients. I don’t have enough time to do both.”
“You run the place?” I asked, surprised.
“I own the place,” he countered, which surprised me even more.
“Why don’t you just get someone to do the stuff you don’t want to do?”
“Mostly because I want someone who knows what they’re doing to help me run it. Someone who’s qualified and wants to work in a tattoo parlor? Not an easy combo to come by.”
My chest heaved as a new pain shot through me.
“Sure,” I nodded. “Well, if you’re looking for someone for reception, you should talk to my friend Cambria. She’s such a straight shooter, but she’s a wiz with numbers and she’s good with people. Most of the time.”
He laughed.
“Sounds like she’d fit in here,” he sighed. “You should have her send in a resumé.”
Dipping his head even closer as he made a line with his tattoo gun, I clenched my teeth at the pain, gasping once.
“You ok? Need a break?” he asked me, catching the look on my face.
“No, keep going. Talk to me, distract me,” I breathed.
“Ok, well...what brought you here last week? You always wanted a VCH piercing?”
I laughed, feeling the needle lift off my skin with the motion of my ribs going up and down.
“Sorry,” I told him, trying to sit still again. “But no. My friends basically forced me to do it.”
“Yeah? Why’d they do that?”
“Oh, well...I’d just broken up with my fiancé. He’s a jerk, and I don’t know why I dated him so long. Anyway, we were engaged maybe three months when I found him in our living room, banging my frenemy. I threw my ring at his head and never looked back. Hopefully the stupid thing cut him.”
“Well shit. Sounds like a rough day.”
“Yeah. So they decided, being the great and noble friends that they are, that we’d get ice cream, then while we were eating, Josie came up with this bright idea that I needed to either get a piercing down there or get laid. The piercing seemed like the safer option.”
He laughed again.
“She the brunette? The loud one?”
I nodded vigorously, trying not to move my chest.
“With friends like those...” he started, that grin still on his face. “My friends are like that too. Can’t tell if they love me or if they’re just looking for entertainment.”
I burst into laughter and he sat up, moving the tattoo gun off me, stretching his back.
“If it weren’t so true it’d be even funnier.” I felt my face splitting with how big my grin was.
Not only was Roman super hot, respectful and talented, he was funny too.
Love at first tattoo? Is that a thing? Maybe he was using special love ink.
“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” he hummed, wiping my ribs down for the millionth time.
I watched him scrape, scrape the needle against my skin, wipe off the excess ink with a paper towel, then dip back in the little ink pot nearby.
Scrape, wipe, dip.
Scrape, wipe, dip.
“So did you always want to become an artist?” I asked him after a long stint of silence.
“Well, not really. I mean, I was always an artist at heart, but my dad expected me to do what he did. After college I just decided that I wanted to do this so I flipped the metaphorical bird and did what I wanted to do. I love creating art, and this kind of art is more loved than anything on a still canvas. This is my kind of beauty.”
Aw...he’s soft and romantic, too.
There had to be something wrong with him…
Scrape, wipe, dip.
“Why the butterfly? Does it have a significant meaning to you?” he asked now.
“Well, I just...they always remind me of freedom. Kind of like birds, but more majestic. Butterflies really have to fight for their freedom. They have to survive vulnerability in their little cocoon as they grow their wings, then they rebirth themselves as something greater, more beautiful.”
“Freedom mean a lot to you?”
“It’s the one thing I can never really seem to grasp.”
He paused, lifting the gun away from my skin before peeling his gloves partially down and making two fists in front of me.
LIVE FREE was written across his fingers, one letter on each right below the knuckle.
“Took me a while to figure it out, too,” was all he said, moving back to observe the tattoo he was working on.
Silence.
The stinging burned me through my ribs.
“How much longer do you think?” I asked him.
“Oh, babe… at least another three hours. Why? You tapping out?”
“I don’t know if I can keep going… It really hurts.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t you go ahead and let me finish the outline. I’ve got the stencil so I’ll make another one and we’ll finish up another day.”
“Really? Is that ok? I know you’re busy...”
“It’ll have to be late at night for me to fit you in.”
“Sure. That’s ok. I’ll make it work. I just don’t think I’ll make it another three hours...”
“Don’t feel bad.” He chuckled. “Sometimes rib work has to be done in pieces.”
“Thanks, Roman,” I smiled at him.
“No worries.” He smiled back, then got back to the tattoo. “Alright, well this side is outlined already. Let’s turn you over and get the other side so you can take off.”
I obeyed, moving from my back onto my side so he could get to the other side of my ribs.
“Ok, so I’m going to just...”
His palm cupped my breast gently with the heel of his hand, and pushed up.
“I gotta get to the area underneath,” he said, meeting my eyes. “This ok?”
I nodded vigorously, not about to blurt that I never, ever wanted him to take his hand off my boob again.
So there he was, his gentle pressure pushing my boob out of the way while he tattooed between and around. When Roman was done, he just let go of it and settled that hand on my side, away from my boob.
I almost pouted at the loss of his touch.
After washing up the tattoo a bit and using a fresh paper towel, he rubbed on some kind of lotion or something before putting his hand out for me
to take.
“Ok, well, we’re done with the outline. I’ll fill in with the details and color next time. You wanna see it?”
I nodded and took his hand as he helped me stand.
Looking in the mirror, there was black ink all over my ribs, a feminine and edgy style to the piece that felt so much like me, but looked so unlike me.
“It’s awesome,” I said finally, grateful that I got to keep this little bit of him so close to my heart.
And boobs.
“When it’s done, it’ll be wicked.” He smiled, eyes trained right on the tattoo.
More sadness wore through me that he was so incredibly immune to my charms and body. Maybe he just didn’t find me attractive.
It was a definite possibility.
“Ok, so let me wrap this up, then I’ll send ya home. We’ll get the date for the rest, then we can work out a payment.”
“Ok,” I agreed.
I sat back in my chair and waited patiently while he put some plastic wrap over the tattoo and taped it on me.
“I’ll give you a minute to get dressed, then meet you at the front.”
Roman left me there in privacy as I peeled back the little pasties from my breasts and dipped down to pull on my bra, but I only managed to get the thing wrapped around my front before being unable to put my bra on completely. It must have been a full five or so minutes before there was a knock at the door and it opened a crack.
“You ok in there?” came Roman’s voice.
I'd only met him twice, and I already knew that velvety voice anywhere.
“I need help,” was all I said before he was opening the door completely. “I can’t get my arms back there...to hook my bra.”
He moved around, stopping behind me before I felt his bare fingers on my skin for the first time.
Electricity shot through my spine at his touch.
“There you go,” he said, having hooked my bra back on. “But only ‘til you get home. Leave it off for the next day or two.”
Nodding, I pulled my sweater on, shoving up on the underwire of my bra where it was already starting to chafe the tattoo.
“So, when you get home, give it an hour or two before removing the wrap. After that, wash it with warm water and antibacterial soap. Give it a couple more hours to breathe, then use some kind of unscented lotion to keep it moist. It’ll take about a week or so before it’s feeling like regular skin again, but sometimes it can take up to two or three. It really depends on the person. But repeat that. Wash, let it breathe, lotion. Just don’t put anything petroleum based on it like Neosporin.”
“Ok, got it,” I nodded, feeling discomfort, but not outright pain while I stood there.
“You good?”
“I’m good.”
“Ok, let’s get you rollin’!” He led the way back to the front of the building.
Freddie was still there at the front counter when I joined the guys there, and he grinned at me.
“How’d it go?” he asked me.
“Only did half.” I shrugged with a small smile. “Evidently I’m a pussy.”
Freddie just laughed and looked over Roman’s shoulder to the computer screen.
“So I want you to fully heal before we get you back in here to finish it off… Let’s count three weeks to be safe. Can you do three weeks? Friday the twenty-third?”
I nodded and pulled out my phone, getting my calendar app open.
“Let’s get you going at about ten.”
“Ok, it’s a date,” I grinned at him, hating my choice of words already.
I handed him my credit card and he plucked it from my fingers.
“Two hours, hundred an hour. That’s two hundred.”
I didn’t care how much it cost.
Maybe for normal people, that would have been their first question. Just not me.
But my parents didn’t need to know their abundant money was going toward body modifications.
“Ok, see you in three weeks,” Roman gave me a crooked smile and I put up a hand, waving again like an idiot and heading to my car.
Josie was going to freak out, and Cambria would be annoyed, but the guy didn’t fall for my boobs… What else was I supposed to do?
I bit my lip, starting my car and pulling up my conference call option.
Best to get it over with all at once…
Roman
“Holy shit! You weren’t exaggerating. She’s a fox!”
“Shut up, Freddie.” I frowned, watching her leave in her perfectly respectable sweater set, walking to her perfectly respectable car.
“And another date, huh? And you only charged her one hundred an hour? That’s like, a fifth of your usual rate!”
“Shut up, Freddie!” I ground out, looking back at the computer, hoping he’d leave me alone with my boner and my misery.
I’d just had my hands and eyes all over the sexiest pair of tits in the entire world that I’d, regrettably, never see outside the shop.
Engaged… She’d been engaged.
Poor girl.
Her fiancé was an idiot asshole. What pussy could be better than the one that just left my shop? I should know, my hands and head were all up in that a week ago.
“Shit man, you have it bad for her, don’t you?” Freddie sighed, sounding miserable along with me.
Like the true bro he was.
“Doesn’t matter.” I shrugged his hand of commiseration off my shoulder. “She’s not my type of girl.”
“She’s absolutely your type of girl! Looks like a politician's kid but has the hidden kink of a dominatrix.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave it alone.”
“Fine. Just saying though, that girl was all kinds of eye-fucking you. If you gave up on that little ‘relationships only’ rule, you’d probably get an awesome ride out of that one.”
“Freddie,” I growled now, threatening him with my narrowed eyes and snarl to get the fuck away from me and to shut his Goddamn mouth.
He danced off to his station and fussed over there instead of poking his little barbs into my side.
Fae’s friend Josie, the bad influence? That was Freddie for me. The guy didn’t look like it, but he was seriously a horny little bastard. His advice was always to go after the girl and bang them until they got bored. Which, of course, didn’t lead to relationships like I wanted.
So his advice went generally unheeded by me.
Looking out the window to where her car used to be parked, I sighed.
Maybe just this once. Maybe this once I’d see what happened. If I saw her again and still had such a crazy, uncontrollable connection with her, then I’d do it.
Maybe it didn’t even have to do with Fae, and I honestly just needed a good fuck. That was possible, seeing as it’d been months.
Biting the inside of my cheek again, I tuned out those perfect little breasts, tipped with delicate pink, rose-petal nipples. I stood there and pushed them from my mind the same way I had during her tattoo session, and I just got to work.
I’d allow myself to consider them just for a little while, later...in the shower.
“Hey Rome!” One of my artists called for me.
Time to work, not play. Always time to work.
Chapter Four
Roman
Three weeks passed both quickly, and excruciatingly slowly. My artists were generally being ok, albeit rowdy, minus Tanner.
I’d had another talk with him earlier in the day to tell him that being late and making clients wait wasn’t acceptable. The asshole just blew me off, as always.
Something had to change, but I didn’t want to do something stupid because I was a horny mess with constant blue balls.
That’s right, the images of Fae’s breasts never faded from my brain, nor did the memory of her glistening pussy seem to lessen.
I needed sex and if it happened, then it happened. I’d give myself a one-off because of how incredibly and stupidly attracted I was to Fae.
No other girl all week could even dampen my obsessive thoughts about Fae, and it was really pissing me off. I didn’t want to be thinking of a woman instead of work. I didn’t want to be pussywhipped by some chick I didn’t even really know.
Sure, we’d talked during the tattoo three weeks earlier, but I still didn’t really know her yet. Not her story or if she had siblings, parents…
I did give in that first night and dug through my receipts for the day to find out her last name.
Weston.
I felt like a fucking stalker, looking for her name like that, but I was obsessed, infatuated with this red haired girl with amazing tits and a vag to match. Wonder what everything else looked like…
Before I traveled down that dangerous path again, I tamped down my raging boner with going through receipts for the day.
I was the last person around, having sent Freddie home instead of letting him sit with me until closing like he usually did.
Nobody came in on Friday nights except drunks, who I refused to ink. So after Fae arrived, I would lock up so we wouldn’t be distracted.
Speak of the devil...she pulled up just as the clock flicked to ten, and she jogged to the front door in sexy skinny jeans and a black leather biker jacket.
Ugh….my weakness…
“Hey!” she chirped as she strolled in all out of breath and absolutely sexy as hell.
Three weeks ago, I’d been too surprised to appreciate her appearance in my shop, but now, I took every moment and breathed it in.
“Hey,” I said back, my voice lower and more seductive than I meant.
“It looks like a ghost town,” she observed, looking around.
“Everyone else went home. You’re the last appointment of the day.”
“Well lucky me,” she winked a smile at me, seeming more confident that she’d been last time.
It was like a fucking aphrodisiac.
“Well, since we’re the only ones here, we can use my regular station, or we can go back to that other room if you’d prefer.”
“Wherever is fine.” She just smiled. “And I came prepared this time!”
Huh?
I led her to my station that was set up just how I liked it before asking, “Prepared for what?”
