The Predator. In. The. Flesh. Up close and personal.
“Hey,” he says, meeting my gaze.
“Hey.” I try not to melt into a puddle on the wharf.
His gaze flicks to Tag and he raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “You alright, Fuzz?”
Fuzz.
Despite the tension thick around us, laughter bubbles in my chest. My poor brother has the worst ring name ever, given to him by his teammates to put him in his place because he is such a hard-ass when he teaches his classes. Soft and fuzzy Tag is not.
Tag’s jaw tightens. “We’re fine here.”
The Predator doesn’t move. “Man hears a woman yelling ‘stop,’ he’s gotta investigate.” His gaze drops to me. “You do something to get yourself arrested?”
I give an exaggerated sigh. “I didn’t listen to my brother.”
“You’re Fuzz’s sister?”
“Unfortunately.”
The Predator studies me for so long I drop my gaze and twist my Claddagh ring around my finger, hoping he doesn’t recognize me from the fights. Jess gave me the ring the first day we met as a sign of friendship, and I’ve never taken it off.
“You got a name?”
“Sia.”
“I’m Ray.”
Before I can stop myself, I blurt out in a soft voice, “I know.”
Tag makes a choked sound, halfway between outrage and disbelief, and I cringe, knowing he has just figured out the real reason I’ve been coming to the fights. Sometimes having a close, overprotective sibling can really suck.
“Seen you before,” Ray says.
My cheeks burn. How could he have noticed me in the crowd, especially when I made a point of keeping to the shadows at the very back? “Yeah. I…get inspiration for my art at the fights.”
“Tattoos aren’t real art.” Tag recovers quickly so he can launch into one of his favorite speeches. “And the people who get tatted up are not the kind of people you should be hanging around.”
Teeth gritted, I glare. We’ve had this argument a million times. Tattoo parlors rank on Tag’s “Sia no-go” list, along with fight clubs, bars, parties, raves, racetracks, and restaurants where people have come down with food poisoning. And although I make an effort to play to his overprotective streak, I had to draw the line with my ink. Art has always been my outlet, and when my painting muse deserted me, I would have succumbed to the darkness if not for Jess’s suggestion that I turn my talent to tattooing.
Ray gives me a measured look. “You got a shop? I’ve been looking for someone…”
My throat constricts. Ray has awesome tats; on the left, a half sleeve of a black, stylized, twisted lightning design that spreads over his shoulder, and an orange design on his right arm that I’ve never been close enough to see. Alone in my bed at night, I have imagined inking my own design into Ray’s skin, marking him as mine.
“Maybe one day, when I have more experience. For now I work with Slim at Rabid Ink.”
Ray nods. “I know Slim. He does good work.”
Unable to help myself, I brush my finger over the lightning bolt wrapped around his left bicep. His skin is warm despite the cool breeze, and stretched tight over hard muscle. “Who did your ink?”
His jaw tightens. “Got it done overseas. Long time ago. Been thinking it’s time for a cover. Get something new.”
“What kind of cover?” My business brain kicks in. Despite the fact that I am having an almost uncontrollable physical reaction to Ray’s presence—weak knees, racing pulse, damp panties, nipples so hard I’m amazed they don’t pierce my jacket—he is a potential client and I’m desperate for cash. Mom lost her job at the florist a few weeks ago, and Tag and I are helping with the mortgage, so our parents don’t lose their house.
A smile tugs at his lips. “Might need some professional advice on that.”
“Oh.” I am mesmerized by his smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile before. Nor have I ever seen his eyes so warm. He looks beautiful to me—so beautiful I want to capture that expression in ink.
“You got a card?” His fingers brush my cheek as he reaches to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear.
Oh God. He’s touching me. Heat sizzles through my veins, numbing my brain and robbing me of the ability to move. Paralyzed with pleasure, all I can manage is, “Jacket.”
With an affected sigh, Tag reaches into my jacket pocket and then hands Ray one of my cards. “You don’t really need the card. She’s inked half the guys at Redemption. If you want to see her work, just ask around.”
Ray studies the card, then winks at me and places it carefully in his pocket.
“The things I do for you,” Tag mutters under his breath.
“Ray!”
Ray turns at the sound of his name and waves to a woman in the distance. “Gotta go. Shayla’s waitin’ for a ride.”
Ah yes. Ray and Shayla, a.k.a. Shilla the Killa. I’ve seen them together before. My heart sinks as he heads down the road. Well, of course he would be with someone like Shayla. She’s one of the top-ranked female MMA fighters in the amateur league. Hard where I’m soft. Strong where I’m weak. She’s smart, ambitious, successful, and has almost no body fat. If I didn’t have a potato chip addiction, I could look like her. I’m sure of it.
Ray’s gaze falls on me, focused, intent, as if no one exists in the world but us. “Later.”
Later? Yes! My heart does a happy dance, but I play it cool. “Later.”
Tag and I watch him go, and then I brace myself for the storm. But it doesn’t come.
“Ray’s not the right guy for you,” he says as we watch Ray and Shayla walk away. “He works freelance as a private investigator, and you know what PIs are like: they’ve got an edge to them. Always walking the line, thinking they’re above the law, and getting involved with the wrong people. He’s a hard man, and he’s got a lot of anger in him. He hides it well, but it comes out in the ring.”
“He’s thrilling to watch.” What Tag sees as anger, I see as passion, fierce and barely controlled, an irresistible aura of danger. He fights as if he’s trying to exorcise a demon, or maybe his past. And,
oh
God
, those broad shoulders. Those narrow hips. That perfect, tight ass. And the lickable six-pack he’s got going on…
yum
.
Tag ruffles my hair. “He’s dangerous. Especially for you. I even heard a rumor he was with the CIA. Men like him easily lose control. I just want you to be safe, and that means staying away from guys like him.”
“Sure.” Yes, I want to be safe, but more than that, I want to be normal. I want to be able to look at a man like Ray and fantasize about taking him to bed with the hope that one day my fantasy could come true. Instead, I get panic attacks and flashbacks that reduce men to mush or scare them away.
“You can’t protect me from everything.” The unspoken words hang between us. A promise he made in a hospital waiting room seven years ago.
“I can try.”
It’s all about prestige
“Got some good news for you.” Slim Jones, manager of Rabid Ink, perches on the reception desk while I hang up my coat. Our receptionist, Rose, a tall redhead with a diamanté nose ring and two full-color tat sleeves depicting birds of paradise, is already on the phone and gives me a wave.
“It’s eight thirty on a Saturday morning. Unless you’ve got a triple shot latte and a chocolate croissant hidden behind your back, there is no good news.”
He dismisses my grouchiness with an absent wave. A fedora-wearing hippie, tall and rangy, Slim took a chance on me years ago when I responded to his ad for a new tattoo artist. I had a portfolio full of drawings and watercolors from high school art class, and not one tattoo.
Although initially put off by his cavalier attitude, I soon discovered he was a very thorough and patient teacher. When I finally obtained my license, he gave me a full-time job, my own chair, and as many clients as I could handle. But only stencil work. The freehand jobs I dream of doing, he always keeps for himself.
“You’re getting a promotion. Jay got himself in trouble with some street gang and had to go into hiding, so his chair is free. You’re moving up to middle chair.”
I glance over at Jay’s untidy workstation, and his worn, red leather client chair, a cross between a lounger and a massage table. A giant print of a blue skull wearing a turban hangs on the exposed brick wall behind his scratched work cart, and his childhood collection of Hot Wheels lines the ledge beneath. His cart is a mess of cartridges, Kleenex, and assorted odds and ends—a huge contrast to my impeccably neat and tidy station.
“We’ll clean it up,” Slim says, following my gaze. “I doubt he’ll be coming back.”
Still on the phone, Rose draws a line across her throat mafia-style and then mouths the word
dead
, as if I might not understand her throat-slitting gesture. Rose is all crass and no class. She calls things the way she sees them, and apparently she sees Jay as having already checked out of Hotel Life.
Goose bumps prickle on my skin, and I regret my decision to wear my usual low-cut tank top to show off my tats. Pebbled ink is not a good look. But Slim seems unaffected by the fact that his employee has been marked or possibly killed by a street gang. Maybe because Jay was only here for a few months and we never got a chance to get to know him that well. Or maybe because he genuinely doesn’t care. With Slim, it’s always hard to tell.
“You don’t seem happy,” he says.
“I’m still in shock and stuck on the part about the gang and Jay going into hiding or, as Rose suggested, possibly being dead. These things happen in movies and not real life. How do you know all this?”
Slim shrugs. “He left a message.”
“A message?” My eyes widen in incredulity. ‘Hello. This is Jay. I’m being chased by a street gang. If I’m killed, please give my chair to Sia.’ That kind of message?”
“Actually, he asked if I’d hold his chair until it all blew over. As if.”
“As if the street gang would be forgiving?” My voice rises in pitch at the thought of poor Jay being pursued by a vicious, cutthroat gang. Although I didn’t know him well, he was always friendly, if a little distant.
Slim taps his fingers against his leg. “As if I’d hold the chair. I’m running a business here. He wants to get in bed with unsavory characters, he pays the price.”
My eyes widen and I shoot an incredulous look at Rose. Sometimes I wonder how I wound up at Rabid Ink with people whose sense of ethics is so diametrically opposed to mine. She hangs up the phone and laughs.
“I think your callous disregard for Jay’s life has shocked our innocent Sia.” Rose peers around Slim from her seat at the reception desk. “I, on the other hand, was expecting this from day one. He had trouble written all over him. Not something you artist types would notice. But I always pick up on things, like the scar across his throat that looked like a knife slash, cut marks on his arms, or the fact that he only had gang members as clients.”
Rose wanted to be a tattoo artist, but after three months as Slim’s apprentice, she realized her strength lay in her people skills, and she took on the reception job instead. Over beer one night after work, Slim told me he’d been incredibly relieved. He liked Rose and didn’t know how to tell her that she couldn’t draw for crap.
Slim scowls at Rose, and then turns to me. “You’re not dealing are you? Owe anyone money? Pissed off the wrong people? In a gang? Hooked up with the wrong kind of guy? I didn’t screen him well enough, and it’s made me rethink my hiring process.”
“Uh…no.”
Rose snorts a laugh. “Her brother wouldn’t even let her walk in the wrong end of town, much less associate with evildoers like litterbugs or jaywalkers or street gangs. He’s got her so wrapped up in cotton, I’m still amazed he let her work here. He came in once when you were away to check out the safety of the building. He didn’t like all those exposed beams and pipes in the ceiling. Thought they were dangerous. I told him decorating with natural elements is the in thing, but he wasn’t buying the modern vibe.”
So true. If only she knew what I had to go through after Tag found out I’d taken a job at Rabid Ink in San Francisco’s Lower Haight district. At one point he threatened to lock me in my apartment. But after I brought him to meet Rose and Slim and the crew, he mellowed. Especially when Slim assured him I would never be alone in the studio.
A shiver runs down my spine when I glance over at Jay’s workstation. He’s been gone for what…two days? The memory of him inking a drunken frat boy on Thursday night is still crystal clear in my head. I give Slim a weak smile. “Maybe I’ll just stick with my chair.”
“You’ll be fine.” Slim pats my shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. If he comes back, he can take your old chair. You’re a better artist anyway.”
“Sure.” I shoot Rose a quizzical glance. She puts two hands to her throat and makes a choking gesture, then closes her eyes and drops her head to her shoulder, limp. I guess she doesn’t think Jay is coming back.
I follow Slim past the small, carpeted lounge area with its two worn, brown suede couches, flash racks displaying our portfolios, and permanently unfilled watercooler, and drop my bag on Jay’s chair.
“Moving up a chair is considered a promotion,” Slim says as he clears away Jay’s works, tossing the needles and equipment into a cardboard box. “But we still operate on an eat-what-you-kill basis. I still take twenty percent off the top to cover expenses, insurance, and maintaining the autoclave. You’re responsible for your own equipment and medical supplies. New clients are still fair game. Freehand work is mine.”
My brow wrinkles in a frown. “Did I miss the part where there’s a financial benefit to being middle chair instead of back chair?”
Slim laughs. “There isn’t any. It’s all about prestige.”
“Prestige. Right.” Rabid Ink doesn’t scream
prestige
. Cheap artwork and faded band posters line the crumbling, exposed-brick walls. The windows are cracked and the hardwood floor, grayed over time, is decidedly uneven. Although he keeps the studio impeccably clean and brightly lit, Slim hasn’t been big on maintenance or upkeep, and everything is tired and worn, from the chipped counters to the scratched workstations and ancient chairs. When I daydream about running my own shop, I always imagine clean, bright, and modern, with the newest hi-tech equipment, polished hardwood floors, art on the walls, and spacious private rooms for intimate ink.
The door opens and Christos walks in, tossing his bag on the first chair from the door. Our half-Greek, half-Italian piercing expert has shaved his hair into a bright-green Mohawk, and matching green snake tattoos adorn his muscular arms. When he’s not at the studio, he’s kicking it up with his thrash band, Cerebral Slaughter. He nods to Slim and Rose and then gives me a warm smile that somehow accentuates the prominent piercings in his eyebrows and lower lip.
“Sia’s taking Jay’s chair,” Slim calls out as Christos heads for the coffeepot.
Christos’s smile fades. “So that’s the end of Jay then?”
“Yup. D-E-D,” Rose says.
“Street gang got him?”
Slim and I share a glance, and Slim shakes his head. “How about next time everyone knows something about one of my employees, like he’s in bed with a gang, they mention it to me, so I can make sure I’m not putting everyone else at risk? What about Duncan? Anything I need to know about him? He’ll be in for the evening shift later tonight.”
Rose, Christos, and I share a glance and come up blank. Duncan is just about the nicest guy anyone could meet. Although he looks like he’s in a street gang, with his bald, tatted head; short, stocky body; and full-on swagger, he’s the kind of guy who’ll pick up a spider and carry it outside instead of stomping on it like everyone else. Although it is anathema to even think it, his art is wasted on skin. His designs should be hanging in museums or private collections, or traveling the world in exhibitions.
“Serial killer,” Rose says finally. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
“Speaking of quiet”—Slim raises an eyebrow at Rose—“I noticed we had nothing in the book for this morning. How about Sia and I finish up with your boobs?”
My nose wrinkles. “Actually, I’m not really keen on inking Rose’s boobs first thing Monday morning. I have a delicate stomach.”
Rose laughs. “You’re just jealous ’cause you got nothing worth inking up top.”
“Sure, she—”
“Don’t even go there.” I fold my arms across my chest and glare at Christos, who is staring at my breasts in an entirely assessing, nonsexual way. So, I’m not well endowed like Rose. Not something I need to be reminded about before I’ve even had my morning coffee.
“If Rose isn’t up for more work, I can finish up with you, Sia.” Slim traces a line across my throat. “Didn’t you want a collar connected to your sleeves?”
“I’m not ready for the collar yet.” I rub my hands up and down my arms, exquisitely inked by Slim with an intricate rose and thorn design, so realistic the pink petals glisten. Although I had wanted a rose and thorn collar inked around my neck, when it came time to do it, I called a halt. For some reason, it felt too final, as if an ink collar would bind me to this world of needles, leather, ink, and skin. And I wasn’t ready to be bound.
Christos agrees to work the reception desk while I assist Slim with Rose’s ink and learn a new airbrush technique he picked up from a scratcher friend down in San Diego. Some tattoo artists excel at line work or calligraphy, others have a knack for the rhythms of tribals, and still others are better at peonies than pirates. Slim is master of them all, and yet he is always open to learning new techniques.
By the time we’re done, Rose’s left breast is red and swollen, but the feathers Slim has inked around it are so real, I can almost imagine they ruffle when I sigh. Not that I have any desire to breathe on Rose’s breasts. She gets enough attention as it is.
Rose invites Christos to the back to admire her new piece and then hands him her phone to take a few pictures for her mom. I imagine getting my boobs inked and sending a picture to my mom, and almost collapse in hysterical laughter. The O’Donnells are
so
not a liberal family.
A steady stream of walk-in customers keeps us busy for the rest of the day. Rose maintains a good background music vibe with a mix of hip-hop, jazz, and house, and I relax into my work. Some clients bring their own music, but rarely does anyone complain about her choices. I ink a few college girls who have just finished exams, a Marine just about to ship out, and a bride and groom who want matching tats to mark their special day.
A few minutes before Duncan is due to arrive for the evening shift and relieve me for the day, I head to the back room to sterilize my equipment in the autoclave. Moments after I turn on the machine, Rose steps through the door.
“You’ve got a new client.” She self-adjusts, plumping her breasts and tugging down her already-low neckline, which tells me the guy must be on the scorching end of hot. “He’s drop-dead gorgeous, but in a rough, craggy kinda way.”
Hand to my mouth, I groan. “I need the work, but I’m supposed to be off in five minutes. Blind date tonight. Do you think Duncan would do the consult, and I’ll do the ink, and we can split the fee?” Not that I want to go on the date. They usually end with either an awkward peck on the cheek, if we make it through the evening, or an emergency text to Jess after five minutes begging her to come and save me. After a string of safe, vetted, but boring partners, I’m not looking for a relationship. Jess thinks I’m too picky, so every few weeks she fixes me up in the hopes I’ll get, at the very least, some missionary action between the sheets. Two months without sex is a dry spell Jess can’t handle. Twelve months, and she thinks I might as well just pack it in and give up on life.
Rose shakes her head. “He wants you and he’s not the kind of guy who takes ‘I’m off in five minutes’ for an answer.”
Shoulders slumping, I nod. “I’ll do it, but Jess won’t be pleased. She was pretty sure I’d like her blind date pick of the week. He’s a fireman.”
Rose perks up. “I’m free. I’ll tell him I’m you, but with a boob job, an extra couple of inches in height, and about fifty extra pounds.”
Laughing, she helps me collect my equipment, and we head back into the shop. But when I see who is in my chair, I freeze.
As all prey do when they catch sight of a predator.