by Naomi West
Brandy bounced out the door. Blue watched as she got behind the wheel of a little red sports car that her dad had probably bought her.
There was a mess waiting to be cleaned up in her booth, but it would have to wait. She had to face Torque and get it over with. After knocking on the doorway near the curtain, she stepped inside Spencer’s booth. The space was more narrow, and it didn’t have the benefit of windows running along one side of the room. Still, that meant Spencer had more wall space for artwork, and he had taken the liberty of filling it up. Numerous drawings, paintings, photographs, and magazine covers filled every square inch. He had even put a few of them on the ceiling, something that benefitted his customers who had to lie on their backs for their ink.
Torque, however, was lying on his stomach on the table. His shirt was draped over a nearby chair, leaving the long, lean muscles of his back exposed. Spencer had been adding to the solid black gallery on his skin by creating a massive black dragon on his back. Its wings were spread, its fangs exposed. The biker turned slightly as she came in, though he couldn’t quite see her. His shoulders rippled with the movement. “Is he doing a good job? Or do I need to smash a bottle in his face?”
She smiled in spite of herself. Blue had resolved to remain unmoved by this man, and yet he had a way of breaking that resolve with very little effort. It was irritating. “It looks good,” was all she could really say.
“I’ve done the outline and some of the shading, but I think Torque and I both need a break. All you’d have to do is fill it in. I know you’re more than capable of that.” Spencer watched her with his chocolate eyes, practically begging her to do this for him. Torque had suddenly become an integral part of his shop, of his practice, and he needed her.
How could Blue refuse? Spencer had given her the chance she had needed as a young artist, and he had never been anything but kind. Even when he was high, he had always been patient and respectful of her. She couldn’t claim to be unable to do the work; it was a straightforward process and her boss had trained her well. Even the idea of being alone with Torque was a poor excuse. That was something that happened all the time in tattoo shops. She was too tough to worry about it.
“Yeah, not a problem. Just let me know what time to put on my calendar.”
“I’ve already filled it in for you,” Spencer said with a grin. “It’ll be at the end of the day, your last appointment before you close up the shop.” He put a fresh pair of gloves on to give the fresh tat one last wipe-down before he bandaged it. “I’ve already warned him that it might hurt a little, with the sessions being back-to-back like that. I told him he can’t flinch for you.”
“I’m sure she could handle it if I did.” Torque pushed himself up easily from the table and reached for his shirt, turning his eyes to Blue as he did so.
There was something in his look that unsettled Blue at her very core, like he was melting her with only a look. No, that was ridiculous. He wasn’t Superman, and he didn’t have laser vision. “See you tomorrow.” She practically ran back to her own booth, cursing herself for acting like such a little girl around him. If Torque didn’t know what he did to her, then he was blind. She had a feeling, though, that he knew exactly what he was doing.
There would be another client coming to the shop in less than half an hour, which gave her just enough time to clean and disinfect everything. Blue set to work.
Chapter Five
Torque
Torque grinned to himself as he pulled up in front of Spencer’s Shop. The night air was thick and hot, leaving his hair damp as he stepped off his bike. He slicked it back with one hand and then straightened his leather vest. He could see Blue through the window of her booth. She hadn’t drawn the curtains, displaying herself like a figure on a stage as she finished up with a customer and cleaned her area. He watched as he slowly walked up to the building, studying the way she moved her arms, the way she carried herself, the way she tucked a strand of her powder blue hair behind her ear after she removed her gloves. She was graceful and beautiful. If it hadn’t been for her hair dye, her piercings, and her tattoos, she would have looked very out of place in there.
Still, she made an intriguing picture, and he had finally managed to get in her tattoo chair. Blue was in high demand, but he would have her to himself for the evening. Sure, it was because of Spencer, but he would take what he could get.
As he came in the door, he held it for a woman on her way out. In her mid-forties, she had her cell phone pressed to the side of her head. “I’m telling you, Leslie, this girl is good! I never thought I’d get a tattoo in my life, and now I don’t know that I want to stop! My artist and I have already started talking about my next one. She’s going to draw up something to go across my shoulders.”
The curtain to Blue’s booth was open, but she had her back to him. Torque was content to stand there and watch her work for a moment. Her movements were swift, fluid, efficient. She bent down to get something out of a cabinet, her firm ass in the air, and it was all he could do not to grab her up as he had done back at her place. It was easy to imagine what might happen if he let his instincts take over. In his mind, he grabbed her by the hips and shoved his crotch against her. Blue was surprised, but she didn’t stop him as she cast a sexy look over her shoulder. She turned around, pressing her breasts against him as she unzipped his pants …
But he wouldn’t do that here. That’s what he tried to tell himself, but he knew it would be difficult. The two of them would be completely alone for at least a couple of hours.
“I hope this won’t be too boring for you.”
She jumped, turning to the doorway with flashing eyes. “Christ, you scared the shit out of me!” Blue’s fist curled, but she made no move to hit him. She looked away from again as she flattened the tattoo chair into a table. “Now, what are you talking about?”
He liked that it took so little to get her fired up. He had been with women who were as icy as the color of Blue’s hair, who didn’t let anything bother them. Torque knew guys who were into that because it meant they never had to deal with an emotional female. But Blue was different. She played it cool on the surface, but he liked making her react. “I mean the tattoo. From what I’ve seen of your work, you don’t do things in just one color.”
She gestured for him to get on the table while she put the right needle in her machine. “I’m sure it’ll be plenty boring, but I don’t always get to pick and choose what I want to do. Besides, Spencer said I get to keep the full price of this session without paying him a percentage.”
“I see. So it’s all about the money.” He took off his shirt, watching her as he did so.
Blue made a point not to look at him, scowling as she busied herself with her equipment. “No. But everyone has to make a living.”
“That’s true enough.” Torque laid on the table and relaxed his body. This wasn’t his first rodeo by a long shot, and he found that it was almost a soothing process at this point. “So what would you do if you didn’t tattoo?”
She took a long moment to answer, checking over the previous day’s work and wiping down his skin with a disinfectant. “I don’t know. I’m not sure there’s anything else I can do.”
“That can’t be true,” he argued. “You seem smart. You’re an artist, but there are other jobs. What about a graphic designer?”
“Do you want me to finish this tattoo or not?”
“I’m just making conversation.”
Blue rolled up next to him on her stool, her body so close to his but not touching. Her fingers were gentle as they pressed lightly on his skin. “I don’t think I could stand sitting behind a computer all day. And I don’t think I would exactly fit into the office scene.” Her voice was quiet, neutral.
Torque closed his eyes as the needles shuddered against his skin. He hadn’t minded having Spencer do the tattoo. The man was a good artist, and he didn’t try to run him hard just because he was a guy. But there was something far more intimate about having Blue
do it. He wanted to roll over and grab her, pull her on top of him, and have his way with her. In his fantasy, she was happy to oblige, but she was difficult to read. Blue hadn’t stopped him when he had kissed her, but she had clearly been startled and disoriented. She didn’t even seem very enthusiastic about doing the tattoo.
“What about you?” she murmured. “What would you do if you weren’t a biker?”
“Investment banker.”
Her laughter echoed through the booth, and he grinned. “Is that so amusing?”
She paused for more ink. “I’m not sure I could see you in a suit.”
“Why’s that?”
Blue tipped her head to the side as she thought about it. “You know how these wrestlers and body builders get huge muscles, and then when they have to wear a suit or a tuxedo to a fancy event they just look like dressed-up monkeys? It’s kind of like that.”
Torque laughed, trying to keep it quiet so he wouldn’t move too much. “So I’m just a monkey, huh?”
“You know what I mean. The leather, the denim, and the tattoos all go together. You throw something else into the mix and it’s just weird.”
“Is it better when I wear nothing at all?” he challenged.
“You’re going to have to knock that shit off if you want me to finish this. I won’t have any more openings for at least two months, and I doubt Spencer does either. Even the high and mighty Torque might not be able to get in.”
He kept his face buried in his shoulder so she wouldn’t see that he was still smiling. Blue’s voice had sounded calm and authoritative, but he had rattled her once again. It only made him want to keep going. Their banter had been fun, but he knew he couldn’t push her too far. He didn’t need her passing out again, especially not with a needle in her hand. “All right. I don’t really know what I would do if I wasn’t part of Satan Seed. I’ve never really had much of a chance to even think about it. I’m sure not interested in being an investment banker.”
“Really? You’ve never had dreams of doing anything else?”
Torque pressed his lips together. His muscles were tensing, and he forced them to relax. Was she shaking him up, too? “I grew up in that world. It’s always been a part of me. My mother was a club girl, and my father was a biker. I was riding on the back of a motorcycle by the time I was five. My parents never sat down with me and told me I could be anything I dreamed of being, because we all knew I would end up doing the exact same thing my dad did.”
Blue made a noise, something that could have been a grunt of disapproval or a murmur of surprise.
“I got into my first knife fight when I was just twelve,” Torque continued, easily remembering that hot summer day. His fist had been sweaty around his knife. It was just a small blade that his father had given him after he’d won it during a card game, but it was everything to him at that moment. The other boy had accused Torque of stealing his wallet, and he’d had him pressed up against the fence. Torque had known the other kids on the old playground weren’t going to jump in and help him, and there had been no adults around. He’d been on his own, just like he always was. He’d whipped the knife out and slashed, landing a lucky strike on the boy’s arm. It had turned out the other kid was only tough when nobody was challenging it. “I won, and after that, everyone just treated me like an adult. They knew I could hold my own, and I didn’t have much choice but to back it up.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a childhood.”
He wanted to shrug, but he stopped himself. “It’s just the way it was. I think it’s interesting, though, when I hear about people who lived with their parents until they were twenty-one and then still didn’t know how to take care of themselves.”
She gave a small snort of laughter. “Tell me about it. Some of the kids who come in here have just turned eighteen, and they think they’re adults. They can’t do their own laundry or cook a simple meal, and they think the world owes them a debt of gratitude just for gracing the face of the Earth. They still have a lot of growing up to do.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You strike me as the kind of girl who probably had things pretty stable.” He had wondered about that ever since he had first seen her. Blue seemed too innocent to be working in a tattoo shop. Her parents had probably hoped she would become a doctor or a lawyer and been very disappointed. With her gentle hands, she could easily have been a surgeon.
There was another long moment of silence. Blue could claim she was concentrating on her work, but Torque doubted it. He almost asked her if she had heard him.
“Do you really think I would be working odd hours in a small shop on the wrong side of town if I had a stable childhood?” she finally asked.
“You tell me.”
Blue sighed. “My life hasn’t been much different than yours. My mom was a club girl, but the only thing I know about my father was that he was a biker who left before I was born. I was on my own at about the same age you were, when my mom took off with yet another biker. This is where I ended up.”
“Oh.” Torque hadn’t realized what a scab he was picking at.
Her eyebrow twitched. “’Oh’ is right. So I’m sure you’ll understand why I try to keep my distance from men like you. My experience has led me to believe that bikers are nothing more than useless wanderers. They’ve kept my life from being anything but steady, and they’re only good for getting tattoos and lining my pockets. Honestly, I think being an artist here is the most stable thing I’ve ever had in my life.”
That brought up a question that had been burning inside him for two days, ever since he had seen the way Spencer treated her. “Is it Spencer? Are the two of you an item?”
She made an odd sound and pulled her hands from his back. He moved his head to look at her, figuring he had stepped too far over the line and she was no longer going to work on him. But Blue was holding her gloved hands out in the air and laughing silently. “You’re kidding me, right?” she finally squeaked.
For once, Blue had the advantage on him. “No. It doesn’t seem so far-fetched. The two of you work together, and he was very upset when you passed out. The way he talked about you, and the way you reacted to my kiss … It just added up.” When was the last time a woman had laughed in his face? There were no incidents that he could remember. Perhaps she could make him just as uncomfortable as he could make her.
“Lie back down and let me finish. Spencer and I just aren’t like that. For one thing, he’s married. His wife worked here until she had a baby, and that’s when I came on full-time. Even if he wasn’t in a relationship, we just aren’t like that with each other. He’s more like a big brother or a cousin. We’re close, but just as friends.” Blue paused for a moment. “Why? Did he make you jealous?”
“I don’t get jealous,” Torque growled. He smirked to himself, his face turned away from her once again. She was good; he had to give her credit for that. If he was honest with himself, he had been a little bit jealous of Spencer, even though he knew a man like that couldn’t compete with him.
A companionable silence settled over them, and Torque let himself enjoy the work of the needle and the close proximity of a beautiful woman. There didn’t need to be any more to it than that, but after a while he heard himself say, “Are you feeling all right? After the other night?”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry you had to see me like that. It’s not like blood really gets to me. It can’t; not in this profession. I think, maybe, it was just the whole situation. I’m ready for things to return to normal.”
Torque wondered just what normal meant for her. He wasn’t even sure what it meant for him anymore. He had been at Spencer’s Shop three days in a row, and he felt that this wouldn’t be his last time. Still, he would need to let his back heal before he had any more work done. There wouldn’t be any reason for him to come back. It didn’t seem like Spencer would mind if he hung out, but Torque wasn’t sure Blue would be too happy.
“You’re a
ll done.” There was something about the finality in her voice that disturbed him. Their time together hadn’t lasted long enough, even though he hadn’t expected anything out of it beyond the tattoo. “I’m sure you know by now how to take care of these things. Let me just clean you up a little and I’ll take you at the counter.”
He knew perfectly well what she meant, but he grinned. “Ah, so you’ll be taking me? Funny, I always figured it would be the other way around.”
Blue ignored his remark as she wiped his skin off with a cool disinfectant that felt like a clean river running through a dry desert. “Let’s go.”
She was quick and efficient, just like she was with everything else, while she recorded his session in her logbook and took his payment. Blue’s azure eyes never looked at him for more than a fraction of a second during the process. “Oh, here. You gave me forty dollars too much.” She peeled two bills off the stack he had given her and tried to hand them back.
