The sharp look Vic threw at him made him grin. ::Oh yeah, easy for you to say.::
Puckering his lips together, Matt blew his lover a kiss and amended, ::When we get home, I’ll thank you properly.::
A distracting image rose unbidden in Matt’s head—himself on the floor of their living room, Vic in front of him. Both naked. He sent the thought to his lover, then played the scene out between them like a movie. In their minds, Matt stretched his legs out between Vic’s. His long feet glistened with lotion, and they left slick trails along Vic’s legs as they rubbed over his knees and up his lover’s inner thighs.
Inside their heads, Vic watched Matt plant one foot against his shaved balls, fitting the sac perfectly into the arch of his sole. His toes wiggled, exciting Vic’s dick, the nails skimming over his skin with a dry sound. The other foot curled down the length of Vic’s dick.
Spreading his legs wider, Vic slouched down to allow Matt full access to his genitalia. Matt’s large feet rubbed over his balls and dick, squeezing him, kneading him, playing with him as they both grew more aroused by the moment. Steepling his long toes over Vic’s erection, Matt stroked the hard length with only the soles of his feet. Then he caught Vic’s shaft between two toes and strummed from tip to base in one smooth stroke. His toes massaged Vic’s hairless crotch, pressing into him when his hips rose off the ground. With one heel against his balls, Matt fondled his lover with both feet, toes tickling his cockhead and curving delicately around his shaft...
A sudden silence spawned around them—it took a moment for Matt to realize the tattoo machine had been turned off. He opened his eyes to find Big Man wiping the new tattoo on his arm with a paper towel but there was no blood, nothing to wipe away. “Wow.” With a squeeze of Vic’s hand, Matt turned his arm to show his lover the tattoo. “Check this out, hon.”
Vic stared, jaws slack, eyes hooded with lust. The front of his jeans strained beneath an erection roused by Matt’s sexy, sinful thoughts. He had a foot fetish, Matt knew, and apparently the thought of a foot-job seemed to incapacitate him. “Vic?”
Vic cleared his throat, shook his head, ran a hand over the top of his bald scalp and frowned at the tattoo as he struggled to move from the realm of emotion back to the land of the living. “Looks good,” he grumbled, his voice like thunder in the small room. “Real good, Matty. You like it?”
Before Matt could respond, Vic surged to his feet, already digging out his wallet. “How much we owe you?” Pulling out a hundred dollar bill, he folded it into Big Man’s fist. “This should cover it. Two medium tats are what, forty each? Plus tax, keep the change. Real good job, man. Thanks a lot.”
Vic grabbed Matt’s arm and hauled him to his feet. As he led the way from the room, Matt laughed. “Vic, wait...”
His lover’s mind opened to his, a whirl of blinding lust and red-hot passion sizzling in him. ::Can’t wait. I need you. Now.::
Matt’s laughter chased them from the tattoo parlor as the rest of the afternoon stretched out ahead like a promise.
THE END
Mojo’s Mojo
Wednesday evening, my last client runs a little late. Tattoo 804 closes at eight o’clock, but I’m doing the final fill work on a pin-up style cowgirl riding a large spermatozoon as if it were a bucking bronco. I’m not one to judge—I’ll ink anything on anyone if they’re old enough and can pay me to do it. I like my work, and while drawing cowgirls riding giant sperm isn’t exactly my idea of fine art, it pays the rent. A large job like this sets the customer back a cool three hundred, and the way this parlor operates, almost of it goes straight into my pocket.
It doesn’t matter what the tattoo is of, really—I take pride in crisp lines and smooth fades, and clean blends where the colors meet. When I’m satisfied with the quality of my work, I wipe the tattoo clean with antiseptic soap and snap a quick picture of it on my iPhone. This one’s definitely going on my Facebook page. As I start covering it with clear plastic wrap, a shadow crosses behind me and I glance back at Mojo, who owns the booth next to mine. “That shit’s tight, man,” he tells me.
I nod to acknowledge the complement. The customer half-turns—the tattoo’s on her back so she can’t really see it—and asks Mojo, “So it looks all right?”
“Gorgeous,” he says, leaning past me to take a closer look.
I can faintly smell the lingering remnants of his aftershave, something musky that makes me feel warm inside. I love that scent—most of the time I catch whiffs of it throughout the day as he works beside me. It does wicked things to my scrotum.
Clapping a hand on my back, Mojo tells my client, “Wray’s one of the best in Richmond. He did a kick-ass job on you.”
As I tape the plastic wrap into place, I joke, “He’s only saying that because he wants something.”
The hand resting heavily on my shoulder takes a swipe at my head. I duck and grin up at him. Mojo’s not really what you’d call sexy to look at—he’s a little on the large side, with broad shoulders and hips that must’ve made him the one to beat on the football field back in high school. That was easily fifteen years ago, and the once firm muscles have begun to get a soft look about them. He has a fierce grip, though, and can arm wrestle anyone under the table, though he has the lightest touch of any tattoo artist I know. You’d never guess it looking at him, but his tattoos rarely bruise or crust up like some people’s I could mention, and his filigree work is so damn delicate. Ladies love to book appointments with him—he does killer tramp stamps and intricate lettering, and flirts with everyone.
Literally, everyone.
When I began working at the 804, I thought he was coming onto me and by the end of my first night, I was half in love with the guy. Then I found out he has a girlfriend, and any lustful notions I might’ve harbored about the two of us getting freaky in my car after work disappeared.
Mojo’s charm is in his personality. He has an easy laugh I’ve started to hear in my sleep and a way of smiling with his whole face that makes his warm hazel eyes crinkle into half-moons when he’s pleased. God, I’d do anything to see them crinkle my way. I joke and kid with Mojo constantly, trying to one-up myself to keep him interested in me. Girlfriend or not, the guy does flirt with me along with everyone else. I keep telling myself it’s just a matter of time before he looks at me and wonders, hmm…
My client slips me a twenty dollar bill as a tip and checks out the tattoo in the mirror beside my booth before pulling down the back of her shirt. “Thanks, guys,” she says, as if Mojo somehow helped out.
He watches the sway of her hips as she pushes through the front door, and I watch him. When I first started here, I would’ve laughed if someone suggested I might one day find a guy like him attractive. Too butch for me, too bearish. I usually go for tall, lanky guys like myself, with buzzed hair or shaved heads covered in tattoos, piercings all over the place. Mojo has the tattoos, all right—he’s been in the business since graduating high school all those years ago, and his arms and legs are covered with ink. He has a few piercings, too, but nothing too outlandish—a few rings in his ears, one in his eyebrow, a stud in the center of his lower lip. But he’s a little hairy for me, and bulky…nothing I’d ever thought I’d fall for before I met him.
Now he’s all I think about, the guy I compare everyone else to, my ideal lover.
Why the hell does he have to be straight?
“Damn,” he says softly. “If I wasn’t with Darcy…”
“You’d what?” I want to know. “Admit it, you’d hook up with me?”
Mojo throws me an exasperated glance—he thinks I’m only kidding with him about us getting together, but the truth is, I’d do it if he asked. Hell, who wouldn’t?
Only half-teasing, I tell him, “So try telling me you weren’t digging my latest ink in the hopes I’d sleep with you. Say it enough times and you just might start to believe it.”
“You’re the best artist here,” he admits. “Besides me.”
Despite the pride swelling my ches
t, I scoff as I clean up my booth. “Here it comes. What do you want?”
Mojo climbs up onto the tattooist chair in front of me and fixes me with a cavalier smile. I know he’s working himself up to ask me something he thinks I won’t like, so he’s turning on the charm. He doesn’t have to try too hard to get me interested. “How’d you like to earn some extra cash this weekend?” he asks.
As I’m putting away my ink bottles, I glance at him from the corner of my eye. He’s sprawled in the chair, one leg thrown over the armrest so I get a good look at the bulge in his crotch. A big guy like him must have a big-ass dick, or so I’ve always thought. I’d love to find out.
With the tip of his toe, he nudges my leg. “Come on, say yes.”
“I’ve told you before,” I remind him, hedging for time to think things through, “the first time’s free. With Darcy knocked up, I know you’re hurting for a little something something. I’ll let you sample the wares and then we can work out the price.”
“What? You’re crazy, man.” Mojo grins and kicks me playfully, which isn’t exactly no, is it? “I’m not renting you out for the weekend, no way. I don’t have to pay for sex.”
I give him a saucy wink. “One taste and you’d want me 24/7. You’d go broke if I charged you each time.”
Mojo rolls his eyes. “You wish. If Darcy heard you talking like this, she’d—”
“What?” I interrupt. “Want to watch?”
Darcy’s in her late twenties, with dyed black hair, colorful tattoos on most of her body, and a fetish for microdermal anchor piercings. Whenever she wants more work done, she works as a receptionist at the 804, scheduling appointments and handling customers in exchange for free tats or anchors. Mojo’s been dating her for years, but to hear him tell it, in June the condom finally broke. Three months later, Darcy’s usually too nauseous to come into the parlor for long. The last time I saw her, she was starting to show—she wore a cropped concert T-shirt to show off the baby bump and cornered me under the pretense of asking if the tattoos around her navel would stretch out of shape. Before I could give her my opinion, she lowered her voice and pinned me with her fierce, crystal blue eyes. “I’m counting on you to keep Moe in line while I’m knocked up,” she said. “If any woman comes in here with designs on my man, you tell me.”
With an awkward laugh, I asked, “What about my designs on him?”
I don’t know if she knows how I feel about Mojo or not, but if she pressed, I would’ve played it off as a joke, nothing more. Since I started at the parlor, Mojo gets all his tattoos done by me. So technically, my designs are on him. In more ways than one.
But the way Darcy smiled at me said she knew exactly what I meant. “I don’t want him fooling around with any other girl, simple as that.”
Was she giving me permission to move in on him? I didn’t know at the time and still don’t. I don’t think so, and because Mojo’s never done more than parry my advances, I haven’t bothered to find out.
Now Mojo leans forward in the chair, the leather creaking under his weight. “Listen to me,” he says, as if maybe I haven’t been paying attention all this time. “All kidding aside. I got asked to ink at a convention in DC this weekend and said yes.”
I frown as I think about what I have planned. Oh, right, nothing. “I didn’t know there was a show in DC.”
Mojo waves my words away with his hand. “It isn’t a show. It’s some sort of fan con, I don’t really understand exactly what for. It runs Friday through Sunday, and the woman in charge of the dealers found me online. She wants a tattoo artist set up for the weekend. The hotel room is comped. Dinner each night, continental breakfast in the morning, lunch on our own.”
It sounds too good to be true. I’d been to a few conventions in my youth, mostly comic book cons or sci-fi geek-fests. They’re a bit more mellow than a tattoo show, which always has a ton of artists jammed into a large ballroom at some hotel, hawking their designs and haggling with customers to give them the best—and cheapest—price on custom ink. “You’re the only artist who’s going to be there?” I ask, just to be sure.
“Me, myself, and I,” Mojo brags. Then he claps a hand on my shoulder and leaves it there, the heat from his touch searing through my thin T-shirt. “And you, if you’re in.”
Now it’s definitely too good to be true. The two of us sharing a tiny hotel room for the weekend, working side by side throughout the day and lying inches apart at night…I have to shift on my stool to alleviate the sudden pressure on my balls as my cock stiffens at the thought. “What’s it going to cost me?”
“Nothing!” Mojo rocks back in the chair, which squeals in protest. “That’s the best part. The lady said she’d comp our room and feed us two meals a day, and even waive the dealer’s table fee. She wants a good, quick artist at the con, and hell, you’re better than me. With two of us going, we’ll earn twice as much money. We set the prices we want to charge, we collect cash, we make out like bandits. It’s a bit more intense than working here for three days from noon to eight but it’ll definitely be worth it, don’t you think?”
I hesitate. Yes, it will be intense, hands and arms cramping after three days of nonstop tattooing. With Mojo, I remind myself. Don’t forget he’ll be there, just the two of you alone in a strange hotel…
“What about Darcy?” I ask. “Is she going?”
Mojo shakes his head and makes a funny face that tells me she’d never consent to go. “Please. She hates cons. Hell, with the baby on the way, she hates just about everything lately. Last night when I laid down beside her in bed, she told me to stop touching her. What the fuck, you know? It’s my bed, too. I can’t help if it’s a bit…cozy at times.”
Grinning, I ask, “You told her what the fuck?”
“Shit, no.” Mojo looks at me like I’m crazy. “I slept on the damn couch. Much more of this and I’m going to crash at your place until the baby’s born.”
“My bed’s big enough for two,” I say. “Though I doubt we’d get very much sleep…”
Mojo kicks at me but I scoot out of reach. “We’re getting separate beds in the hotel room,” he promises. “So, are you in?”
This is Mojo…how can I tell him no?
* * * *
He wants to leave Thursday night to avoid rush-hour traffic on the interstate the next morning, since the convention starts early on Friday. So I shove a handful of clothes into a backpack—we’re only going to be there a few days—and fill two rolling crates with my tattoo supplies. I take flash art for those customers who’ll want a generic design, a pad of carbon paper for those who’ll want something I draw up, every bottle of ink I can find, a whole stack of autoclaved needles, an unopened box of latex gloves, surgical soap, A & D ointment, plastic wrap, masking tape, paper towels, witch hazel…everything I think I might possibly need to create art away from my booth.
Mojo has just as much as me, maybe more. He brings along a laptop and printer/scanner combo for anyone who might want to print images off the internet for their tattoos. Somehow he even manages to sneak one of the poseable tattooist chairs out of the 804 on his lunch break, stowing it under a tarp in the back of his pickup. I reschedule the two clients I have down for appointments on Friday and I’m ready to go. The last thing I pack up before I leave work Thursday night is my tattoo machine.
With all our stuff tied down alongside the chair under the tarp, I climb into the pickup’s cab and we’re off. Mojo swings by a McDonald’s to grab a bite to eat before we hit the interstate, and as he’s digging out his wallet to pay, he mutters, “Shit.”
“What?” I ask, reaching for the wad of twenties crammed into the front pocket of my jeans. “I can get it if you want.”
Mojo waves away the offer. “Nah, man, my treat. But I packed my cell into my bag. If Darcy tries to call me, she’s going to be pissed when I don’t pick up.”
I laugh as I take the bag of hamburgers and fries from him. “What’s she going to think? That you’re fooling around on her?”
>
“She knows I’m with you.” Mojo reaches into the bag for a handful of fries and I’m all too aware of how close his fingers are to my crotch. Only my jeans and few burgers separate us. “The worst she’ll think is we ran off the road and lie bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere.”
“That’s a happy thought.” I shift in my seat, uncomfortable. His hand’s still digging in the bag, and the movements are doing wicked things to my budding erection. “What are you looking for in there? Dig any deeper and you’re going to be in my pants.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mojo finally extracts his hand, one of the hamburgers in his grip.
“Damn right,” I admit. I take another one of the burgers and unwrap it. The scent of greasy, grilled meat is tantalizing. “Darcy told me I had to keep the girls off you. She never said anything about me staying away.”
Silence fills the cab as Mojo navigates the Richmond streets, heading for the interstate. For a moment I wonder if I went too far—that was a pretty direct comment, even for me. But the longer I keep quiet, the harder it is to think up a way to apologize. If I said I was sorry and Mojo asked what for, I’d have to explain it…and if he didn’t get it in the first place, I don’t really want to spell it out. I finish one burger and start on another, wondering if we’re going to drive the whole way without saying a word. Then I realize this is Mojo, and I don’t think the guy’s ever been quiet for more than five minutes at a time, let alone two whole hours. He’d die.
Sure enough, as soon as we merge with traffic on the northbound lanes of I-95, Mojo exhales and settles back to finish his burger. “You know the real reason why I asked you to come along this weekend?”
Relief crashes through me like a tidal wave. “I’m thinking it has something to do with my dashing good looks,” I joke, glad he brushed off my previous comment the same way he always has.
Mojo answers, “I’ve been thinking about getting a new tattoo.”
Tattooed Love - Gay Erotic Romance Box Set (5 Books in 1 Collection) Page 9
