“Yeah.” She stood up and pulled at the lower hem of her short shorts. My eyes moved from her lean, tanned thighs to her crotch and my cock woke up.
“Ah, let’s go,” I said, looking away. Obviously, it had been too far and few between since I’d gotten laid. Even worse, I was going to have to remain professional when she removed the shorts.
Devon looked up from the magazine she was reading and winked at me. “Have fun,” she said with a smirk.
Ignoring her, I led Candi to my station and then draped a long curtain around us, for privacy.
“So, you’re still interested in my dragon?” I said, setting my phone down on the counter.
I heard a snicker from Devon.
“Does it shoot fire?” Gigi called out, laughing. “We might all be interested in seeing that.”
Smiling, I rolled my eyes. “Sorry. Their minds are always in the gutter.”
“Says the choir boy,” Gigi said loudly.
Devon laughed. “No shit.”
“I swear, they’re worse than the guys in the clubhouse. Hell, I’d put in a complaint to HR, but Devon’s in charge of that, too” I joked.
All three women laughed.
“Anyway,” I sat down on my stool and opened up the notepad. “I finished it up. I hope you like it.”
I’d added colors to the drawing, which really made it pop. I was excited to see how it looked on Candi after I was finished. It would take several hours to complete, but in the end, I thought we’d both be satisfied with it.
“Wow, it’s stunning,” she said, her eyes widening. “I was impressed yesterday, and now… I can’t even describe how cool this is.”
“Okay, I have to see it,” Devon said from outside the curtain. “Can I take a peek?”
“Me, too,” Gigi said.
“No. You’re gonna have to wait and see the finished product,” I replied, winking at Candi with a smile.
“But, you’ll be here all night,” pouted Gigi. “I have to leave at seven. I’m going to miss it.”
“We might not finish tonight,” I replied, knowing that the tat was going to take, at the very least, six hours and that was if Candi could handle the pain. Most first-time clients couldn’t go too much longer in the first sitting. Although, she was a woman and their threshold was usually pretty impressive.
“Really?” Candi said, frowning. “I was hoping to do this in one session.”
As I explained the process and my concerns, I had to admit I was disheartened that she wanted to get it over with. I wanted to take my time and do it right. Plus, I didn’t know if afterward, we’d see each other again. Especially if she was just passing through town.
“Okay. I guess we should get started and see what happens,” she replied. “What should I do?”
“I’ll need you to fill out some paperwork,” I answered, opening up the file cabinet under the counter.
“Release forms so I don’t sue you if I get an infection?” she asked with a smirk.
“That, and we need your medical history. I should probably take a look at your ID, too. Make sure you’re over eighteen,” I joked.
Her face turned pale. “I’m twenty-seven. I would hope you wouldn’t need to card me.”
Her response was a little odd, considering that I’d meant it more as a compliment. Not that she needed one. Candi was all woman and definitely didn’t look like a teenager.
“Legally, I’m supposed to take a copy of it but… we’ll worry about that later,” I replied, grabbing a pen. I handed her a clipboard with the form she needed to fill out. “For the record, you look younger than twenty-seven.”
She relaxed. “How old?”
“Twenty-six,” I joked.
Candi swatted me playfully and I laughed.
“How old are you?” she asked me.
“Twenty-eight. Going on forty,” I replied.
She looked down at the form and began writing. “I hear you. I feel like I’ve already passed by my thirties,” she said dryly.
“We should do something about it.”
She looked up at me with a little smile. “Really? What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. Hit up an amusement park one of these days together? You like rollercoasters?”
She tilted her head. “You asking me out?”
“I’m just asking if you want to go and have some fun together.”
“What if amusement parks aren’t my idea of fun?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
“What about zoos? Or taking a ride on the back of a motorcycle?”
“Devon, I don’t know about you but his voice is dripping with desperation. Don’t you think?” Gigi said loudly.
“No shit. I also haven’t seen him smile so much. Hell, if I was Candi, I’d wait until after the tattoo to give him an answer. Guys are more attentive when they have to work for it,” she replied. “The harder it is for them, the better it is for us.”
“Quite literally,” quipped Gigi.
Both women laughed.
“Speaking of work, don’t the two of you have something better to do than listen in to our conversation?” I hollered.
“Actually, I was thinking about grabbing something from Panera. You want to join me, Gigi?” Devon asked.
“Yeah. Let’s do it,” she replied.
“Looks like you two will have the place to yourselves,” Devon said loudly. “Behave, Hollywood.”
“Only if she wants me to,” I replied.
Chapter 24
Ava
I’D MOSTLY BEEN ignoring the banter between Jayce and the others, but I definitely heard his response. I looked up and our eyes met as the two women left the shop.
He grinned. “Just seeing if you were paying attention.”
“I was, and yes. You’d better behave. Especially holding a needle,” I teased.
“Don’t worry. The moment I start inking, I’m all business and no play,” he said in a low voice. “Even if you begged me to be bad, I just couldn’t do it.”
“Work ethics?” I asked with a smirk.
“Of course,” he replied with a glint in his eyes. “No compromises either. So, if you’re even thinking about coming on to me, don’t bother. My mind will be on one thing… and one thing only. Your body… art.”
“Good. Maybe we’ll get this tattoo done tonight then,” I said in a serious voice.
His smile faltered.
“And then afterward, we’ll talk about amusement parks and zoos,” I added. “Because the truth is, I’m kind of an adrenaline junkie.”
Jayce looked impressed. “Oh yeah?”
“I love fast cars and fast motorcycles. I especially love being behind the wheel.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You ride?”
I nodded. “I used to, at least,” I said, not wanting to give him too much information.
“What kind of bike?”
I told him that I once owned a Kawasaki Ninja, H2R. Which I still did.
“Those just came out a couple of years ago. You sold it already?”
I lied and said that I’d lost my job and had to sell it.
He started asking me more questions.
“Shouldn’t we start the tattoo?” I cut in quickly.
“Yeah. Of course. Why don’t you take off your shoes and shorts while I grab a clean razor?” He opened up a drawer and began rummaging around.
I kicked off my tennis shoes. “Wait a second? A razor? Why?”
He explained that he needed to make sure there wasn’t any hair on the area he was going to ink.
“Uh, okay,” I replied, unbuttoning my shorts. “I don’t have much there, though.”
“Even a little can get in the way,” he said, pulling out a disposable razor.
“I understand,” I said, letting my shorts drop to the ground. I bent down and picked them up. “So, should I pay you before we start?”
“No. We’ll work it out later,” he said in a weird voice.
I looked over at Jayce. “Y
ou sure?”
Chapter 25
Jayce
SEEING CANDI STANDING there in the lacy black G-string gave me an instant boner. Especially when she turned to the side and I saw the curve of her round, firm-looking ass. I imagined what it would feel like under my palms, and my cock practically lurched out of my jeans.
Fuck.
“No. We’ll figure out payment later,” I said, looking away.
“Okay. What now?”
I had her sit in the lounge chair and then began cleaning her skin with rubbing alcohol.
“Should I remove my panties?” she asked in a low voice.
Absofuckinglutely.
“We’ll move it down when we need to. There’s not much to it anyway,” I replied casually. There was barely more than a couple of strings holding it over her hips. Normally, nudity wasn’t a distraction for me. But with this girl, I knew I was in trouble.
“Okay,” she replied.
“I’m going to turn on some music,” I said. “It helps me concentrate.”
“Go for it.”
I turned on the radio; the Stone Temple Pilots were playing. “Too loud?”
“Not at all.”
I began preparing the thermal fax which would create a stencil from the drawing I’d made. Afterward, I applied the stencil to her hip and prepared the tattoo machine. After the ink caps were filled and the needles were prepared, I put some ointment over the transfer design, while she sat there quietly.
“You doing okay?” I asked, excited to get started.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “Yeah, this isn’t so bad.”
I bit back a smile. I hadn’t even touched her with a needle yet.
“Would you like something to drink before I begin with the line-work?”
“I’m good.”
“Good. Now, remember, one thing, okay?”
“What’s that?”
“There’s beauty in pain.”
“Right,” she said.
Smiling, I leaned forward and began.
Chapter 26
Ava
ALTHOUGH IT WAS uncomfortable, the needle didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. Or Jayce touching me. He did wear gloves, however, so it made it feel less intimate. Regardless, the pain was bearable and within a couple of minutes, I felt totally at ease with him touching me. I wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, but I had to admit, there were a couple of times I found myself enjoying his touch more than I’d ever care to admit. Maybe it was because he wasn’t doing it in a sexual manner.
As the minutes ticked by into hours, I began learning more about Jayce, and despite my reason for being there, I genuinely started liking the guy. Especially after he began telling me about his younger half-sister, Emily, who was slightly autistic. She’d just turned ten and I could tell from the way he talked about her, that Emily was very special to him.
“She loves to draw and paint,” he told me with a smile in his voice. “She’s damn talented, too.”
“Like her older brother, obviously,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Thanks. She actually drew one of my tattoos,” he said. “Devon inked it.”
I re-opened my eyes. “Really? Can I see it?”
“Sure.” He got up and walked around to stand in front of me. He raised his T-shirt and showed me the tattoo, which was of a smiling frog wearing a crown of jewels. It was actually very cute. I noticed that he had several other tattoos too, most of them depicting something from medieval times. He looked down at the frog, which was near his heart, and smiled fondly. “I just wish I could spend more time with Emily,” he said. “My mother and Gus, her old man, moved to Chicago recently.”
“So, it’s just you out here?”
“I have an older sister, Jackie. She lives in Maplewood with her boyfriend.”
So, he had two sisters. “Why did your mom and Gus move to Iowa?”
“His father died, leaving him a pawn shop. So, they’re out there running it now.”
“So, you hardly ever see her?”
“Well, I usually take a road trip out there once a month. She cries whenever I leave, though.” He sighed. “It breaks my heart every time.”
“I bet. The frog is adorable. How long ago did you get it?” I was impressed with the canvas under the tattoo as well. He was slim and muscular, with an impressive six-pack. Tanned from the sun, I imagined he spent a lot of time shirtless, and that vision was something I could even appreciate.
“Last year. She’s really into frogs and always loved fairy tales. In fact, when Emily was really little, I used to read her The Frog Prince all the time, which was her favorite.”
“That’s so sweet.”
He smiled sadly. “I try and bring her something related to frogs whenever I get out that way. Last time I brought her a pendant, and she refuses to take it off now.”
I touched my own necklace from Millie. I hardly ever took mine off either. “She sounds like a sweetheart.”
“She is.”
My eyes went to his arms, where there were more tats. I asked him about them. “You’re really into fantasy and medieval stuff, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Pretty obvious, huh?”
“I bet you’re a Game of Thrones fanatic?”
Jayce chuckled. “Yeah. I also loved The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Anything to do with middle-earth or the dark ages, too.”
“So, King Henry, wizards, and knights are your thing?”
He nodded. “I admit it. I’m a nerd at heart.”
I asked, “Do you read a lot?”
“I used to,” he said, sitting down on the stool behind me. “What about you?”
“No, I’m not much of a reader,” I admitted. “Although, I never really gave it much of a chance.”
“I love it. It takes me away for a while. Growing up, I used to wish that I could travel back in time to the middle-ages, although it was the made-up shit that I was intrigued with.”
“Yeah, you’d have been pretty disappointed to learn that there weren’t any dragons or wizards around, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“So, were you into D&D, too?”
“Dungeons and Dragons? Yeah. I really got hooked into online fantasy gaming though. I’d spend hours on my computer, going on quests with other gamers. My mother used to get so pissed off. I eventually stopped when I found something else I liked even more than that.”
“Motorcycle clubs?”
“Girls,” he replied, getting back to work on my hip. “That’s what brought me back into the real world.”
I winced a little, noting that I was beginning to get sore.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I was determined to get the tattoo finished during that session. Especially since I was beginning to really like Jayce, which wasn’t going to help my cause.
The rest of the evening flew by pretty quickly. We stopped only to eat when Jayce ordered a pizza from a place up the road, which turned out to be amazing. Afterward, he went back to work on the tattoo, a comfortable silence settling in around us.
At around eleven, Devon left, leaving us alone in the shop.
“How’s it looking?” I asked him several minutes later.
He cleared his throat. “Great. But I’m not going to be able to finish it up tonight.”
“Really?” I replied, disappointed. He’d warned me, though.
“Yeah, I really don’t want to rush it. In fact, I was going to suggest that we stop soon.”
“When do you think we should finish it?”
“That depends on you. We can try doing it tomorrow if you’re in a hurry. Otherwise, I’d wait a couple days.”
I sighed. Looked like I’d be in town longer than I’d been planning. “Tomorrow I’m busy. How about the day after?”
“Saturday? I might be going out of town. Club business,” he said, not looking happy about it. “What about Monday?”
I seriously didn’t want to wait un
til then, but it looked like I wouldn’t have a choice. Unless, I didn’t have him finish it.
“That’s fine,” I said. “So, just Monday and that’s it?”
“I hope that will be enough time to complete it. I’m sorry to make you come back in.”
“It’s okay,” I replied.
“Let’s get you cleaned and bandaged,” he said.
After cleaning the area, he put a warm towel on the tattoo, which felt soothing. After it cooled, he removed it and asked what I thought of the dragon.
Since I’d been lying down, I hadn’t been able to get a good look at it. Once I was standing and able to see what he’d been up to, I was left speechless.
“You like it?” he asked, studying my face.
“I’m overwhelmed,” I said, staring down at the design in awe. It was even better than the drawing, and as far as I could see, almost completely finished. The only thing missing was Andrew’s name on the sword and some of the color. Other than that, it was incredible.
“We’ll put some ointment on it and bandage it up.”
“Okay.”
He dressed the tattoo and then put on a bandage. As he was finishing up, he explained how to take care of it.
“You’ll want to leave the bandage on for a few hours. You should be able to remove it in the morning, before you take a shower. I recommend taking a quick, cool shower, because your skin will be extra sensitive to the heat. Also, your pores could open up and some of the ink may leak out if the water is too warm. Just be really careful with it.”
“What about soap?”
“Use something that is unscented and hypoallergenic. To dry it, pat your skin gently with a paper towel. I’m going to give you a small tube of moisturizer to apply after it’s completely dry. It’s also unscented and hypoallergenic and one that I like using myself.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll give you an instruction sheet,” he said. “So, you won’t forget any of this.”
“Thank you.”
“You can get dressed now,” he said, handing me my shorts.
“Thanks. So,” I leaned over to put them on, “I imagine you’re used to seeing half-naked women and men coming through here.”
Destroying the Biker Page 10
