Permanent Ink

by Avon Gale

  I nodded slowly. “Except I can stop and do it over if I don’t like the way a piece is going. It’s not exactly the same.”

  “And that’s why it’ll be a while before I approve of you practicing on your friends.” Jericho dropped onto his stool, spreading his thighs as he stretched his arms above his head. “Fuck, it’s been a long day.”

  My gaze automatically dropped to the worn denim material at Jericho’s groin. I wasn’t subtle about it as I sat there and eyed his impressive bulge. He was packing, I could tell that much, and it made my mouth water to imagine tasting him. I wanted to reach out and touch. I wanted to fall to my knees, undo his zipper, and tease him through his boxers until he forced his cock into my throat and ordered me to suck it.

  I’d had that fantasy a lot since Callum—that smiley, tatted-up blond—had kissed Jericho on the mouth the other week. That, and his flirty “Call me if you want to come over and see how it’s healing” had both intrigued me and set off a low, jealous, totally un-fucking-welcome simmer in my belly.

  Knowing Jericho had to be queer was hot. The idea of him and Callum together was hotter. But a part of me, the petty little green-eyed monster that had absolutely no claims or right to say shit, really didn’t want Jericho to take Callum up on that invitation.

  If anyone was going to be blowing Jericho or taking his dick, I wanted it to be me.

  Of course, I had to get him to stop calling me kid first.

  Maybe.

  I could get into him calling me boy or kid if he didn’t mind me saying, Thank you, Daddy, after he tanned my ass raw and fed me his come.

  Yeah, I loved it when older men called me their boy. I loved it so much that when Jericho said kid in a certain tone, I got half-hard and sometimes snuck into the washroom to jerk off.

  I licked my lips, tonguing at the hoop on the lower right side, and the sound of a clearing throat made me lift my gaze from Jericho’s bulge to his face.

  Busted. Not that I cared. I returned Jericho’s stare until a light flush bloomed on his cheeks and disappeared beneath his trimmed beard.

  Jericho cleared his throat again and looked away. “How about a beer? You deserve it after practicing all day. Clean up your kit. I’ll go make sure everything is copacetic out front.”

  I did as he instructed, all the while wondering if there was anything behind the offer of a beer. Once I had my stuff packed away, and broke down and cleaned up Jericho’s tools, I went to find him. It was after nine o’clock, later than I’d thought, and the rest of the shop was deserted. On most weekdays, we were technically only open until eight, though the artists regularly stayed after if they were finishing up with a client.

  I found Jericho in the break room. He handed me an open bottle of cold beer—one of the precious, off-limits supply he kept in the bottom drawer of the fridge for really stressful days. His own bottle was already half-empty.

  “Thanks.” I took a swig and watched him as he watched me.

  “Once you get good enough, you can invite some of your friends to come in,” he said. “Hell, maybe Landon will let you practice on him.”

  I grinned at the idea of tattooing my father. If I had my way, I’d put the smiling poop emoji right in the center of his forehead. I laughed aloud at the mental image. It’d be hilarious for all of five seconds before he strangled my ass.

  Jericho raised his brows. “What?”

  I shook my head, still chuckling softly. “Nothing. You just tell me when, and I’ll get some people in here. My personal guinea pigs.”

  “It’s not a joke,” Jericho said, his hazel eyes intense. “That’s how you’ll build your portfolio, how you’ll prove you’re not a total hack when you’re ready to take paying clients.”

  “I know. Trust me, I’m taking this seriously.”

  “You’re going to be good. I have a feeling about you. But you have to be dedicated. Getting your license is going to take a lot of hours and a lot of hard work.” Jericho finished the rest of his beer in a few long swallows. He tossed the bottle in the recycle bin and turned back to me. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to deal with some arrogant shmuck who thought being a halfway decent artist meant he could start tattooing for easy cash. It doesn’t work like that—not if you take pride in your craft.”

  I bobbed my head. “I understand.” And I did. Graffiti was the same way. If you wanted to make a name for yourself, to get up, you put your blood, sweat, and tears into it. You paid your dues. Fame, recognition, respect—those had to be earned.

  I took another pull from my beer, letting my tongue linger on the lip of the bottle.

  Jericho’s eyes darkened. He stared for a second before making a noticeable effort to tear his attention away. His gaze slid to the side, and his brows knitted together. I wouldn’t let him ignore me, though. I stepped closer, invading his personal space, and he met my stare again.

  “That means a lot coming from you. I know how good you are.” I meant the words, even if my motivation for saying them wasn’t entirely pure. I smiled at him, peering up through the dark fall of my hair, letting my interest show.

  His lips quirked.

  This close, I could feel his heat through the thin material of his navy T-shirt. This close, I could see the green striations in his hazel irises. This close, I could smell soap and musk and the faint scent of beer on his breath.

  I wanted to touch him so bad it was as if my hands had turned to iron and his skin had suddenly been magnetized. It felt like a fucking compulsion.

  Without thinking, I kissed him.

  Jericho froze at the contact. But I surged forward, crowding him back against the counter and licking at the seam of his lips, inviting his tongue out to play. Jericho gave in to me with a quiet sound, a muffled groan that made my cock stiffen.

  I got enough of his taste to make me crave more, enough time to think “hell yeah” and contemplate humping his hard thigh—before a loud, shattering noise broke the silence and made us jump apart.

  I realized I’d dropped the beer bottle, and a puddle of golden liquid was spreading across the linoleum at our feet. “Oh shit.”

  Jericho stared at me, his mouth still wet from mine. “Fuck.” His gaze went from me to the broken glass on the floor. “Fuck. That should not have happened.” He snatched the roll of paper towels from the holder on the counter and started spreading a few on the floor to sop up the beer.

  I watched him, trying to swallow past the sudden tightness in my throat. He was so focused on the mess it was obvious he didn’t want to look at me.

  “I’ll go get the cleaning stuff,” I announced.

  Jericho’s jerky nod was my only answer.

  I went to the small utility closet across the hall and briefly thudded my forehead against the wood.

  “Shit.”

  I hoped I hadn’t just fucked up my apprenticeship.

  I hoped I hadn’t made things super fucking awkward.

  And, more than that, in spite of knowing it was probably wrong to want him—he was my boss, my mentor, my dad’s best friend—I wished I hadn’t dropped that stupid bottle.

  Jericho

  Well, that was dumb.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that Poe had tried something. It wasn’t as if those looks he’d been giving me were subtle. And I had no trouble admitting that it was flattering as hell that Poe thought I was hot.

  Giving in to it would be a bad idea, but it was still flattering. Poe was certainly attractive, more so now that the lackadaisical attitude he’d shown toward work had pretty much vanished. It was clear that having something he enjoyed doing made all the difference when it came to keeping him motivated. I practically had to drag him away from those practice skins, and I was nearly ready to let him tattoo an actual, living human being.

  And then he’d kissed me, and I’d done the stupidest thing imaginable and kissed him back.

  Not for very long, and thank God I’d had the presence of mind to stop things before they went any further.
Or, all right, the presence of mind to stop when that bottle fell and hit the floor. But remembering how he’d looked, wide-eyed and flushed, his mouth wet and parted, his cock obviously hard against me—

  Fuck, no. This was not happening. It almost made me wish Poe would go back to being insufferable, because I hadn’t found him nearly as attractive when he was pissing me off. Granted, I’d still thought about grabbing him by that too-long hair and giving him a lecture about doing what I said. Now I wanted him on his knees with my hand in his hair, and the lecture to be about the best way to suck my dick. I had no doubt that if I hadn’t come to my senses, Poe would have been into it.

  I was into it—at least, that night when I got home, I was into it. When I could pretend Poe was a hot, twentysomething guy who wanted my dick for a night of sweaty, no-strings-attached fun. Even if that wasn’t really my MO, it sure didn’t hurt to think about while I jerked off. Twice.

  I told myself the next day that it was fine to have fantasies about people, but that I needed to cut that shit out when it came to my employees. I didn’t have a rule about employee dating, but I’d seen it go bad at the shops I’d worked at before opening my own. Not that I had any thought that Poe’s interest went beyond sex, but still. Not happening.

  It was a nice day, so I drove my bike to the shop and concentrated on the road and the roar of the wind instead of the mental image of Poe looking up at me from his knees. I parked my bike and went to Perkatory, the coffee place that had opened about six months ago a few doors down from Permanent Ink. You would have thought it was an establishment giving out free money, the way all my employees went bananas. We had a coffee machine, of course, but Perkatory—besides having a truly badass name—had hot alt-baristas, played a lot of melodic covers of Misfits songs, and gave us a twenty percent discount as well as free advertising. I’d also covered up the worst tattoo of a person’s face I’d ever seen on the owner’s back, turning it into the winged demon that was Perkatory’s logo.

  The girl at the counter rang up my coffee, and she must have been new because not only did I not recognize her, she charged me full price. I pulled out my wallet without comment—I wasn’t a dick and besides, I wanted this place to stay in business—when the owner, Aeryn, stepped in and said quickly, “Mr. McAslan’s are always on the house.”

  I frowned at her. “Mr. McAslan is paying for his coffee.” Aeryn always tried to give me the one hundred percent discount because of the tattoo. I wasn’t kidding. It was really terrible. It’d looked like one of those caricatures you could have drawn of yourself at the beach, if your face was half-melted and you looked like a terrifying circus clown.

  Besides, I hadn’t given Aeryn a discount on her tattoo, save my usual fifteen percent for industry folks. Coffee was definitely a vital part of our industry.

  She glared at me, and I glared back. Aeryn was thirty-two and a business owner who could hold her own, but my glare was a lot meaner.

  Finally she threw her hands up and huffed, “You only win the staring contest because of the beard.”

  I smiled a little and sipped my coffee. “It’s all the practice being a mean bastard.”

  She rolled her eyes, the bright blue accented by the red shadow expertly applied on her lids and smudged artfully beneath. Roxanne had a huge crush on her. “You’re a softie, Jericho, don’t lie. And, Jemma, Jericho here does get a twenty percent discount. And no arguing,” she said firmly when I opened my mouth.

  I held my hands up and shook my head. “I know when I’m beat.” I turned to leave, and who should walk in the door but Landon Montgomery.

  The second I saw him, guilt ignited like a fire in my belly. I nearly dropped my coffee cup, as if he could take one look at me and know I’d spent the night thinking about fucking his son’s throat.

  “Hey.” Landon’s brows came together, and he stared at me, probably because I was rooted to the spot as if a neon sign had lit up over my head advertising the fact I’d kissed Poe. Which, really, was worse than the part where I’d fantasized about him. Goddamn it.

  “Hey, man.” I tried to keep my voice casual.

  If the secret to winning a staring contest was, as Aeryn suggested, having a beard—then Landon would win, hands down. He was also wearing his work clothes, covered in oil, and ran a tattooed hand through his hair. A smile quirked the edges of his mouth. “You gonna let me get some coffee, or you wanna deal with me severely undercaffeinated?”

  Right. I was blocking his way to the counter, and staring at him like a weirdo. I blinked, then forced myself to relax. I held up my coffee and stepped to the side. “You’re undercaffeinated and I’m uncaffeinated. Sorry, man. You’re here early.” Landon’s shop opened hours before mine, of course, to accommodate people who needed to drop their cars off before heading to work. But Landon, as the owner, generally didn’t work the morning shift.

  “Chuck quit,” he said, sighing. He looked tired, and I waited for him to place his order before turning back to me. “He said he thought the whole ‘two weeks’ notice’ thing was an urban legend.”

  Despite feeling awkward as fuck, I snorted. “Wow.”

  “Yeah. So, I’m pulling mornings until I get a replacement. Aeryn, you know any mechanics?” Landon finished lacing his usual black coffee with six thousand packets of sugar. I had no idea how he could drink that shit. Maybe it explained why Poe was so fond of those energy drinks of his.

  I wasn’t thinking about Poe.

  “I do,” the new girl, Jemma, piped up. “My cousin. He’s looking for a job too.”

  “Hmm.” Landon gave a gruff nod. “Have him call Montgomery Motors and ask for Landon.”

  “I will!” Jemma smiled. She glanced at Aeryn. “Does he get the discount too?”

  “He fixed the brakes on my Fiat for half of what the first mechanic told me they would charge,” Aeryn said. “So, yes. The only person in this shopping center who doesn’t get the discount is the dude who owns that H&R Block place. He leaves religious tracts on my car and has a Trump bumper sticker.”

  We all made a face, and I looked longingly at the door, wanting to escape. But it would look weird if I did, because at no point in the past had I ever left Landon in the coffee shop if we were in here together. So I waited, and we exited the shop into the bright sunlight and headed toward our respective businesses.

  “Poe still behaving?”

  If I’d’ve been sipping my coffee, I would have choked on it. And here I always thought that was hyperbole when people did that in movies and shit. He’s not behaving in the slightest. But I couldn’t say that, because other than that kiss, he was doing everything I wanted him to. That thought made my mouth dry, so I took a sip of coffee before answering. “Yeah. He is. Better as an apprentice than at the front desk.”

  Landon smiled. He and Poe looked vaguely alike, but I’d never once thought about sleeping with Landon. Even if he were gay, he wasn’t my type at all. “I’m glad. I hope he keeps it up.”

  “You sound doubtful,” I said, trying to keep a completely unfounded sense of irritation on Poe’s behalf from showing in my voice.

  “I know my kid.” Landon shrugged. “It’s the reason why he’s got a finished skate park in my basement, but can’t put his fucking laundry away. I’m glad he’s into this, and I can’t thank you enough for giving him a shot, but if he fucks this up, it’s the last goddamn straw.”

  I knew Landon loved Poe more than anything, and I also knew that it was completely fair of Landon to put boundaries and limits in place when it came to his son. Poe was old enough to be on his own and paying his own way. I was having a hard time reconciling Poe, my friend’s son, with Poe, my apprentice. My apprentice who I wanted to deep-throat my dick.

  No. Not the time. Ever.

  I waved at Landon and let myself into the shop. I was determined not to let sex fuck up Poe’s chance. It was my responsibility, as his mentor, to make sure shit like that didn’t happen again. If I had to sit Poe down and tell him that his apprenticeship wo
uld only continue if he cut it out with the suggestive looks, I would. But if I made it clear by my behavior that what happened between us was a one-time mistake, if I kept it professional and maintained the proper boundaries, then hopefully I wouldn’t have to.

  I did my best to keep a professional distance with Poe, which meant I spent a lot of time making him practice and staying out of his way. I was sure he knew what I was doing, and sometimes he’d give me this look, like he knew exactly why I wanted him to practice in the back room and not show me anything until he’d finished a detailed set of lettering. But, to his credit, he didn’t argue with me. I hadn’t lied to Landon; he really was a good apprentice.

  I still wanted to fuck him. When I complimented a particularly good set, he smiled with such pure satisfaction, I couldn’t help imagining him looking that satisfied after I’d gotten him off.

  A few times I considered mentioning this to Callum, but I didn’t. I maintained that the less I thought about and the more I ignored the obvious spark between us, the easier it would start to fade.

  I was working on a client late on a Thursday, and I was more than ready for him to be finished. He was nice enough, and I was pleased with the tattoo retouch—it’d been a poorly drawn black-and-white wolf howling at an overly large moon, and I was turning it into a blacksmith tattoo with an anvil and a hammer. But the guy was chatty and twitchy as fuck, and wanted to take a break approximately every sixteen minutes to have a cigarette. I’d had Poe working on fruit and practice skins all day, but at some point he must have finally covered them all up because he wandered in my room to see if I needed anything.

  Restraints for this motherfucker, a gag, and some nicotine gum. “We’re good,” I said, probably a little more gruffly than I’d intended. But I was thirsty, hungry, and damn tired of this guy’s monologue about the video game that had inspired him to change the wolf tattoo. Usually I liked hearing my client’s story about why they were getting their tattoo covered and turned into something else. And I had enjoyed this guy’s story. For the first hour.