She’d had sex with him last night. She still couldn’t quite get her head around it. She’d finally experienced the ultimate intimacy with him, had him inside her body. Twelve years too late to mean anything to anyone. Certainly not to her.
She finished Lady Smurf then started inking in the color on a full-back tattoo for a regular client.
By lunchtime she’d regained her equilibrium. Jake was talking to her again and she bought him lunch at the local pizza place by way of a suck-up.
Then Liam walked in the door late in the afternoon and her stomach bottomed out. He was carrying a bunch of flowers—lilies and roses and some purple flower she didn’t recognize. Jake smirked when he saw them. Zoe frowned.
“No,” she said before he could open his mouth.
“You don’t know what I’m here for,” Liam said.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to sleep with you again, I don’t like flowers, and I don’t want to talk to you. Unless you were planning on just standing there and breathing, I think you’re all out of options.”
“I want a tattoo,” he said.
She stared at him. There was no way he’d come in here looking for a tattoo, she’d bet a month’s pay on it.
“Marking yourself for life is a pretty serious decision, not an impulse purchase,” she said.
Liam turned his back and grasped the waistband of his T-shirt, lifting it up to display his back.
She tore her gaze from his broad shoulders and impressive lats long enough to note he had three tattoos already—some kind of motorcycle gang insignia high on his left shoulder, three lines of gothic writing in latin on his right, and a dragon low on his tailbone. She stepped closer to check them out.
“Dragon’s nice. This insignia’s a bit ropey, though. You’ve got color missing, bleeding lines.”
Standing this close, she could smell the fresh sunshiny scent of whatever detergent he washed his clothes in.
She stepped back and he turned to face her.
“Can you fit me in?”
“No,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
Jake cleared his throat behind her.
“Dock my pay,” she said without turning around.
“What’s wrong, Zoe? Scared I might talk you into something you don’t want to do?” Liam asked.
“How old do you think I am? You really think a dare’s going to make me change my mind?”
He slid the tips of his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans and let his weight rock back on his heels, waiting.
“You don’t know me,” she said, stabbing a finger at him.
“I know that.”
“You’re not going to talk me into anything.”
“Whatever you say.”
She glared at him, then swiveled on her boot heel.
“You’d better not be one of those wimpy guys who gets all sooky at the first bite of the needle,”
she said as she strode through to the workroom.
“Hallelujah,” Jake said.
Liam followed her through and watched while she set up her workstation.
“What do you want and where do you want it?” she asked as she banged the autoclave shut.
He lifted his T-shirt and tapped his lower belly.
“Think you could copy my company logo?” he asked, pulling a business card from his back pocket.
She studied the card, flicking it with her thumbnail. Masters Mechanics in blocky graffiti text.
Glossy black card stock. Impressive. He must be doing well.
“I can do this. Pretty sensitive area, though.”
“You’ve got a tat on your belly.”
“I’m tougher than you.”
He smiled. “Sure you are.”
She tore the plastic off a fresh set of ink cups.
“You want it in color?”
“What do you think would look best?”
She considered for a minute. It was tempting to punish him by branding him with an ugly tattoo, but she had her professional pride.
“Blackwork, lots of shading. It’ll jump,” she said.
“Good. Where do you want me?”
She adjusted the client chair, tilting it back so he’d be reclined in front of her.
“On your back, shirt off. You can take your jeans off or just pull them down. Your choice.”
She’d seen hundreds of guys strip for tattoos. She’d tattooed asses, groins, thighs, chests. She’d seen it all.
But she hadn’t seen Liam Masters without his shirt on for a very long time. She forced herself not to stare as he pulled his T-shirt over his head. He had big, defined pec muscles, the kind that came from manual labor, not the gym. His abdominal muscles rippled beneath his skin as he climbed into the chair.
She looked away when he undid the stud on his jeans, fiddling with her gun and needles. When she looked back, he had his jeans unzipped and spread wide, the top of his boxer-briefs rolled down, his lower belly fully exposed. She stared at the crisp dark curls arrowing down his flat, hard belly, then darted a quick glance at the thicker hair growing at the top of his pelvic bone.
“I’m going to have to shave you,” she said.
He shrugged. She grabbed the old-fashioned boar’s bristle shaving brush she preferred and lathered him up. His skin was firm and resilient beneath her hands as she shaved the left side of his belly from navel to just above his groin.
He lay back with one arm crooked behind his head the whole time, watching her.
“So, how’s Tom? What’s he up to these days?” he asked as she dried him off.
She gave him a look. “We’re not talking about my family.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to. Because it’s my life and you’re not a part of it.”
He was silent as she prepared a spirit master transfer of his company logo.
“I don’t think you should go any bigger than this,” she said when she displayed the finished image.
The design she was proposing was approximately three inches across and would sit snugly between the midline of his belly and his hip bone.
“I trust you,” he said.
She snorted. “There’s your first mistake. Never trust anyone, Liam. You should know that by now.”
She pulled on fresh gloves, poured ink and prepped his belly with alcohol before applying the spirit transfer to his skin. Clear purple lines were left behind when she peeled off the transfer.
She smoothed Vaseline over the top to keep his skin lubricated while she worked. Then she reached for her tattoo gun.
Her hand was shaking. Her hands never shook when she worked. Ever. She could feel Liam watching her. She met his eyes.
“Now’s the time to back out,” she said.
“I trust you,” he said again.
She shook her head and pressed the foot pedal to turn the machine on. Then she placed a hand on his warm, firm belly and held his skin taut while she pressed the needle into his body.
He didn’t tense or flinch like some people. He simply lay there, utterly relaxed, watching her. He waited until she had completed the initial outline before speaking again.
“What can we talk about, then?” he asked. “Tell me what’s not out of bounds.”
She kept her eyes on her work. She was acutely aware of him, more so than she’d ever been with any other client. The warm soapy smell of him, the muscles beneath his skin, the occasional brush of his pubic hair against her forearm as she shifted around.
“The weather. Football. The state of the economy. Pick a topic,” she said.
“What about your work? Can we talk about that?”
She shrugged and kept working.
“Are you any good?” he asked.
“Fine time to ask me that,” she scoffed. She lifted the needle from his skin as his belly flexed with laughter.
“I already know you’re good. You never did anything by halves,” he said. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
She used some paper towel to wipe ink away and took a moment to scan the design. It was coming along well.
“You think I have an ego problem?” she asked. “You think I need some positive reinforcement, is that it?”
She glanced up at him and got caught for a moment in his deep brown eyes.
“I don’t think your ego is the problem, but something is.”
She smiled as she sat back and stretched out her lower back.
“There’s Dudley Do-Right. I was wondering when he’d rear his ugly head. Give it up, Liam. I don’t need to be fixed.”
“You’re not happy,” he said.
Her hand clenched around the tattoo machine.
“And you are?”
He shrugged. “This isn’t about me.”
“I see. You can dish it but you can’t take it.”
“Sorry to interrupt the love-in,” Jake said from the doorway. She looked up to see him standing with his jacket in hand. “I’ve locked up the front. See you tomorrow. On time, okay?”
She rolled her eyes. He waved to Liam, then he was gone.
Leaving them alone.
Instantly the tension that had been humming quietly between them took on new life.
“I’m just going to change needles. You need to use the bathroom or anything?”
“I’m good.”
She watched out of the corner of her eye as he shifted his hips. She flushed hot as a memory hit her from last night—the bone-jarring strength of him as he thrust into her, over and over.
She dropped the needle pack she’d just opened and swore.
“Problem?”
“No,” she said.
She grabbed another sterile needle pack and loaded up a five mag to shade his tattoo. She sprayed him down with alcohol again, put on fresh gloves and met his eyes for the first time in five minutes.
“Ready to go again?”
“Whenever you are.”
For the next hour she brought Liam’s tattoo to life, using various shades of black to shadow and enhance the design. He remained silent throughout, but she was aware of him watching her, studying her face, her hands, her body.
Finally she sat back and wiped his tattoo one last time.
“Done.”
“Can I look?”
She passed him a hand mirror and he inspected the tattoo.
“Yeah.” He nodded approvingly. “Like you said, the blackwork really makes it pop.”
Warmth filled her cheeks. Great, now she was flattered that he liked her work. Next she’d be whittling his name in a tree trunk.
“Okay, care and feeding of your new tattoo,” she said in a brisk, no-nonsense voice. “I’m going to put some antibiotic cream on it and bandage it, and I want you to keep it covered for tonight, then soak the bandage off tomorrow morning.”
She filled him in on the rest of the instructions for taking care of himself and handed over a leaflet that covered everything she’d said.
“Got it?”
“You’re very thorough. Think I just got slapped on the ass and sent home last time I had ink done.”
She shrugged. Like he’d said, she didn’t do things by half measures.
She reached for the antibiotic cream and squeezed some onto her fingertips. He flinched and grabbed her wrist when she applied it to his skin.
“That’s cold,” he said.
“Poor baby,” she said, mostly because she was suddenly very aware that the tattoo was finished and he was still half undressed and she was wholly turned-on.
She’d admitted it to herself last night, hadn’t she? Sex with Liam had felt like a beginning, not an ending.
She twisted her wrist in his grasp and he let go, sinking slowly back onto the chair. She smoothed the lotion onto his hot, hard belly, her movements slower than they strictly needed to be. He felt good.
She slid a look his way. He was watching her hand, his jaw doing the same tense thing that it had last night when she’d put her hand down her panties.
When she glanced back at his body, a significant bulge had developed in the crotch of his jeans.
She squeezed her thighs together, anticipating what was going to happen next.
She hadn’t wanted to see him again. She didn’t want to talk to him about old times or new times or anything to do with herself and her life. But she wanted him inside her again so much that a needful ache had started to throb between her thighs.
There were so many things she would never have in her life—a family, a husband, a home full of laughter and love. She figured she deserved whatever brief moments of satisfaction or pleasure she could grab along the way.
She reached for the self-adhesive bandage that she’d cut to size earlier and stuck it to his skin, smoothing the edges with her fingers. Only when he was protected did she allow her hand to slide into the gaping fly of his jeans and onto his erection. She’d barely wrapped her fingers around him before his hand was on her wrist again.
She smiled slightly. “Haven’t we played this game before? I can tell you who’ll win.”
She tried to stroke him but he pulled her hand free of his jeans.
“No,” he said.
She couldn’t understand why he was being coy. He wanted it, she wanted it. Even she could do the math.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You come here, you lie there for two hours with my face practically in your crotch, and now you’re not going to follow through?”
“I’m not going to sleep with you, Zoe. Last night was a mistake. I didn’t come here today looking for sex. I want to be your friend.”
She stared at him, then pointed a finger at his still-bulging groin.
“Bullshit.”
He shrugged, unabashed. “Yeah, I’m hard for you. You’re hot. Last night was hot. But that’s not why I’m here. I want you to trust me again. I want you to talk to me.”
His words were so confronting, so terrifying that she jerked back in her seat.
“I knew I shouldn’t have said yes to the tattoo,” she said.
She stood and started gathering up the discarded paper towel and used ink cups. She heard him dressing behind her, and a wave of old, old humiliation swept over her. It was just like before.
She’d thrown herself at him and he’d pushed her away.
She closed her eyes as she remembered last night, how she’d had to strip and touch herself before she had provoked him into taking action.
Liam didn’t want her.
He’d never really wanted her the way she wanted him.
But she’d always known that, hadn’t she? She’d known it the moment she woke up the day after her ill-fated vigil to find that he’d gone in the night without so much as a goodbye and good luck, let alone an explanation.
He didn’t want her. And she’d been so heartbroken over him that she’d thrown herself away and ruined her life in the process.