by Avon Gale
“Why?”
Jericho’s mouth slanted into a grin. “I want to redo your tattoo.”
“Really?” The start of a smile pulled at my lips. “Now?” I’d asked him to do it when I deserved it.
“Yes. Right now.”
Laughing, I kissed him. Jericho went to dispose of the condom and wash his hands while I gathered my clothes and shoes from the floor. I deposited them in Jericho’s studio space before switching places with him in the restroom.
By the time I came back out, Jericho had gloves on and was setting up his workstation. He nodded toward the massage table. The synthetic leather felt cool against my bare ass.
I looked over to the inks Jericho was setting up. “What are you going to do?”
He paused to meet my gaze. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
He smiled. “Then it’ll be a surprise.”
I bit my lower lip, gnawing on the ring for a brief moment. “Okay.”
Jericho turned back to his work. After completing the setup, he stripped the gloves off to start some music before pulling on a fresh pair. Returning to the stool, he dropped onto it and wheeled closer. A disposable razor took care of any of the fine hair that might be on my skin, but when he touched the green-soap-soaked paper towel to my hip, I jumped and yelped. “Fuck, that’s cold!”
His smirk said he didn’t give a crap. “Eyes on the ceiling, boy. No peeking.”
I obeyed because I really did trust him. I didn’t budge while he applied the stencil, but it made my chest ache with happiness. A stencil meant he’d had this planned. It meant he truly believed I’d earned it.
For hours, we didn’t speak. The only sounds were the songs pouring softly from his laptop and the steady buzz of the tattoo machine.
The skin around my hip bone was super sensitive, and it hurt more and more the longer it went on, but I was too busy floating on cloud nine to care. It was easy to ignore the pain when I couldn’t stop smiling.
Finally, the buzzing halted. I kept my eyes on the ceiling tiles as Jericho set the machine aside. He wiped the tattoo and stood to help me off the table.
Once I was standing, he grabbed my chin. With a quick, hard kiss and a slap on my ass, he pushed me in the direction of the mirror. “Go take a look.” Somehow he sounded both confident and nervous at the same time.
Even as I approached the mirror, I could see what he’d done. In place of the distorted blob I’d had before, there was a raven perched on a skull—the logo I often drew beneath my name when I tagged. The bird looked fierce, its visible eye glinting with a hidden secret, and so real I almost expected it to come alive and fly free of my skin.
I wanted to touch it, but the whole area was red and burning mildly. I settled for touching its reflection in the mirror.
“Do you like it?” Jericho came up behind me.
I turned to face him. “I love it! It’s fucking amazing.”
“Good.” Jericho rested his hand on my waist. “I wasn’t sure if I should do a raven after Landon asked you for one, but . . . well, I feel like it holds important symbolism for both of you. He wanted a raven to express his pride in you. I redesigned your original tattoo because you’ll always be Raven, the street artist. But it also signifies the start of a new path.”
It was difficult to hug him without touching my fresh tattoo to his clothes, but I managed it. And I snuck in a kiss too. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
Jericho pressed his lips to my forehead. “You’re welcome.”
“I love you, you know.” My delivery probably could’ve been a bit more romantic. Despite that, the words were true.
“I know.” Jericho chuckled against my skin. “I love you too.”
“You’ve claimed me, so now you’ve gotta keep me around,” I told him. “There’s no escape. Maybe art’s not permanent, but we are.”
Jericho pulled back to grin at me. “Yeah. We are.”
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Avon Gale and Piper Vaughn’s Permanent Ink!
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We’d like to thank all our first readers, especially Annie and Steph, who were so enthusiastic about our characters, and Santino, whose thoughtful suggestions helped us strengthen this story. We’d also like to thank Natasha Snow for the gorgeous cover, our agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, our editor, May, and everyone at Riptide for giving this book a home.
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Off the Ice, with Avon Gale
Avon Gale was once the mayor on Foursquare of Jazzercise and Lollicup, which should tell you all you need to know about her as a person. She likes road trips, rock concerts, drinking Kentucky bourbon and yelling at hockey. She’s a displaced Southerner living in a liberal Midwestern college town, and she never gets tired of people and their stories—either real or the ones she makes up in her head.
Avon is represented by Courtney Miller-Callihan at Handspun Literary Agency.
Connect with Avon:
Twitter: twitter.com/avongalewrites
Facebook: facebook.com/avongalewrites
Newsletter: eepurl.com/bGLSrD
Instagram: instagram.com/avongale
Website: avongalewrites.com
Piper Vaughn wrote her first love story at eleven and never looked back. Since then, she’s known that writing in some form was exactly what she wanted to do. A reader at the core, Piper loves nothing more than getting lost in a great book—fantasy, young adult, romance, sci-fi, she loves them all (and has a three-thousand-book library to prove it!).
As a bisexual and Latinx person, Piper takes great pride in her heritage. She grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and strives to put faces and characters of every ethnicity in her stories, so her fictional worlds are as colorful as the real one. Above all, she believes that everyone needs a little true love in their life . . . even if it’s only in a book.
Connect with Piper:
Website:
pipervaughn.com
Blog: pipervaughn.wordpress.com
Facebook: facebook.com/pipervaughn
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