Surrender of a Tattooist: Obsessive Dark Romance Alpha Bad Boy (Tattooist Series Book 2) (4 page)

Her inner thighs shook and she clenched her backside, trying to get closer to his touch. She wanted more, faster and higher. She moaned louder as tantalizing sensations spiked and jolted through her body, begging to bring her to climax. She knew her cries were loud, but she couldn’t help it. Her body shook as his tongue continued to push against her clit, stroking it and circling it while his fingers moved in and out of her body in slow, hard strokes.

She knew she would come if he didn’t stop. She wanted to come, badly, but she wanted to come while he was inside her, all the way inside her soaked and aching flesh. The thought drove her mad.

His hands continued to torment her, as did his tongue. The heat of his body, pressed against her inner thighs, was a heady aphrodisiac.

She finally managed to wriggle away from him. She got one leg over his waist and flipped herself and him neatly over. He stared up at her. His face was coated with her juices, and his cock stuck up in a hard point. Somehow he’d removed his boxers and she hadn’t even noticed.

She crawled down his body, her hands and tongue and teeth wandering across his beautifully inked flesh.

She took his staff in hand and held it for a moment, her thumb running up along the silky flesh. A small drop of salty fluid spilled from the tip of his cock and she rubbed it into the helmet, circling the flesh with her thumb as she rubbed the thick oil into his skin.

Her mouth found his flesh. He hissed in a long breath, and his hips jerked forward and up. Pixie dipped her head and then she sucked his thick cock down her throat, letting her tongue wander across and around the swollen purple flesh of his head. His fingers wrapped around the back of her head and he tugged her closer, his breath a gasping moan.

She opened her mouth slightly wider, letting him fill her mouth and throat. The salty taste of his fluid filled the back of her throat and the masculine scent of his body drifted to her nose as she used her hand to cup his balls and stroke them gently.

Cliff wriggled and his ass lifted, causing his throbbing enormous cock to push even deeper into her mouth. Excited and eager, she pulled her mouth away long enough to say, “Condom…”

Cliff grunted, “In the bathroom. I’ll go.”

He got up and took her by the hand. They passed a bathroom and he grabbed a condom from a box on a shelf then took her into the bedroom.

It smelled like his flesh, and the walls were covered in flash art. Pixie saw it but didn’t register it because she was too busy letting her hands roam over his body.

He pushed her onto the mattress. She went down awkwardly and had to do some twisting to get fully on the bed. The mattress sagged as he joined her, and her impatience to feel him magnified as she watched him roll the latex sheath over his dick.

He positioned himself between her legs. His fingers moved over her concave belly and back to her clit, stroking and rubbing it until she was gasping and writhing madly across the covers, her legs spreading wider with every stroke and caress.

Cliff pinned her legs up so that her knees were almost in her chest. His penetration was immediate and deep. The feel of him parting her wet inner folds was incredible, and more juices spilled from her shuddering core as he withdrew only to thrust again.

They locked into a rhythm. Her hands clenched his shoulders then wandered down to his ass. The powerful clench and flex of his muscles moving below his skin was intoxicating, and it drove her right over the edge and headlong into an orgasm.

Cliff’s breath washed over her shoulder as friction and heat combined and her walls opened and closed on his hardened cock. Her oils spilled over his latex-encased prick, making fresh sensation soar through her body.

His body drove into hers, making her breath whoosh in and out of her lungs. His scent filled her nose, and she closed her eyes and held on tightly as his body went rigid and shuddered several times before regaining control and finding his rhythm again.

She could feel him coming. His cock throbbed and pulsed inside her snug sheath and his breath, hot and fast, met her neck and ear. The thought sent her reeling, and she came hard and fast suddenly, her walls tight and trembling as her body arched from his touch inside of her. Her coming sent him over the edge and he came, groaning and pressing close against her, moaning her name as pleasure shook through him.

They lay there for a long time, Pixie sated for the moment and close to drowsing. Finally, Cliff moved. He’d gone flaccid, and he pulled out of her carefully then went to the bathroom to ditch the condom. He came back with a soft warmed washcloth and gently cleaned her, something that nobody had ever done before. It was so kind and thoughtful, and such a small thing. How could every man not know to do that?

The warm water soothed her aching flesh, and when he was finished he wrapped his arms tightly around her. Darkening sunlight drifted into the room through the curtains and she glanced at the clock on the bedside table. How could it be getting dark?

“Oh crap,” she sat up, her eyes widening. “I have a shift tonight.”

Cliff asked, “Are you still waitressing?”

She shook her head. “No, not at all. I’m working the door at a club. Fuck. I have to get home and change and stuff. I’m sorry.”

He stretched, a long loose thing that made all of his muscles snap and then slide away under his skin.

She let her hand go to the ink on his upper thighs. She asked, “What is this?”

He looked down. “My leg.”

Pixie laughed and gave him a playful swat. “No, the ink. What is it?”

“It’s Romani.”

She blinked. “You mean like the gypsy?”

“Gypsy’s pretty derogatory,” he said softly, without heat.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Duly noted. So, are you Romani?”

“My dad is. My grandmother on his side still clings to the old ways, and one of the things she always says is that every man, woman, and a child needs protection from the spirits. So I wear mine all the time. It makes her happy and I love it too, so everyone wins.”

Protection. She could see that.

She looked at the clock again and sighed. She could have stayed there and talked to Cliff all night. He was fascinating, and crazy cool. He got her, as much as she hated to admit it; he actually seemed to understand her and accept her just the way that she was.

And that was a unique thing.

Stunningly rare.

He sat up and rubbed his hands together. “I’ll take you back, but I’m not going to let you forget you promised me a second date.” He looked so hopeful.

Happiness crashed through her. She’d been holding her breath without even knowing it. She’d been sure, deep down, that now that she’d slept with him he would forget all about taking her out again.

She got out of the bed and they padded naked into the living room. Her petticoat lay crumpled on the floor, tangled with his jeans, and it took them a few hilarious moments to sort out their clothes and get dressed again.

The sun had nearly set on the horizon when they finally pulled out of his driveway and headed across the canyons toward the shop, and she asked, “It’s a long way to commute, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m about two months from the end of my lease so I can handle it for now, but I definitely need to get a place closer. I lived out here because this was where I was working and it’s really cheap, by L.A. standards, but now I’m making better money and I need to be closer so I can afford to shell out a few extra hundred bucks a month.”

“I moved out of Joy’s a few times but I always seem to wind back up there. Thank goodness she loves me. I really need to get a steady job and settle into something.”

It was the first time she had said that out loud to another human being. “I know most people don’t think of me as practical, and the truth is I haven’t been for a very long time, but I want to be. Now anyway. It’s like I’m getting older and all of a sudden I realized that who I am today may not be who I am tomorrow, and maybe the person I’ll be won’t be too happy if the person I am today wrecks all of our chances.” It sounded like some kind of limerick but it was how she felt, in her own style of words.

Cliff smiled kindly. “I get that. When I first started working the only thing I could think of was getting out of my parents’ house. I got a place and got a bunch of roommates, and then a girlfriend, and for a long time I didn’t even really think about bills and stuff. Then I came home one day and everybody had moved out but me and her, and the electricity was off and there was an eviction notice on the door. I guess it hit me right then that I had to do a little better.”

“Your girlfriend lived with you?”

His face went smooth and blank. She’d hit a nerve somehow and was instantly sorry. “Yeah, but she left about five years ago. I never wanted to live with another woman after that.”

She studied his face. There was hurt there, written deep in his expression. What had happened? And why? She didn’t want to pry so she just said, “It never worked out for me either. I mean living with someone. I lived with my ex, James, for about four months and …well, it wasn’t a good situation.”

Not at all. James was maybe the biggest mistake of her life.

She’d grown up with parents who did love her, but who criticized her constantly. She had never seen how deeply hurtful their words were until long after.

As a teen who didn’t fit in, she had somehow just assumed that her mother telling her that she needed to be pretty and her father telling her she would never catch a husband if she ran around looking like a slut was something every girl heard from their parents.

It hadn’t been until James had said many of the very same things to her that she realized just how deeply her soul had been crushed. And how easy it was for someone she loved to wound her with their unkind words.

James hadn’t just been emotionally abusive, though. It had started off as just emotional abuse and escalated into verbal abuse. He wore her soul down, and her confidence, and then he started cheating on her. When she found out, he said it was her fault for not being pretty enough. She’d gotten angry and that was when he had become physically abusive as well.

He’d broken her heart—and her nose. He only got to do that the once. She’d called the cops and Joy, and she had seen him arrested as she was packing her things. He might have worn down her spirit, but he had not totally broken it. That blow to her face had been a wake-up call, one she should have seen coming long before.

She was crazy in love with him, yes, but she wasn’t crazy enough to stay with a man who was willing to harm her.

She shifted in the seat and pointed. “There’s my car.”

He double-parked, and she grabbed the door handle then turned to say something, but before she could he kissed her. His mouth tasted of her, and wine. She forgot about the traffic whizzing past and the need to get home to change. His tongue teased hers and the world spun away as his hand slid up along her arm.

Car horns crashed into her senses and she pulled away, laughing breathlessly. Cliff said, “Hey, I need your number.”

She jumped out of the car and leaned back down to look at him. “Hawk has it. I have to go!”

The wind from the passing cars blew her thin petticoat up around her legs, and she laughed as she raced to her car and jumped in.

The cars behind Cliff forced him to move on and she waited until there was an opening in the traffic, and then she slid away from the curb with a goofy grin on her face and her heart leaping with joy.

Cliff stopped at a small Mexican restaurant with a sign on the door that warned people against taking pictures of the celebrities who frequented the place. He ordered a large dinner and a margarita. He’d wanted to take Pixie there, but since she had to bail and work, he stopped in anyway before heading home.

He spotted a few of the shop’s clients in amongst the heavy and carved booths and nodded as he passed. He took a seat and looked up as a voice said, “Hey, you mind if I join you?”

Cliff said, “Hey there, Mitch; sure.”

Mitch was a good guy, a country music singer-turned-actor who was living in L.A. while he shot a television series that had about run its course. He was in his early thirties and blessed with a rugged handsomeness that drove women wild. He was a man’s man, with craggy features and a reputation for being a little wild. Big Hollywood name that everyone loved.

He’d also just weathered a very nasty divorce, and as he sat, Cliff asked, “How’s it going?”

Mitch shrugged. “Same as always, I guess. How’re things at Hawk’s ink shop?”

Cliff raised his drink. “Good. Great, in fact.”

Mitch nodded. “Hawk did good hiring you, that’s for sure. By the way, did I thank you for that tattoo you did on my brother?”

Cliff said dryly, “You paid the bill and that’s thanks enough.”

Mitch chuckled. His eyes, a steely gray, swept over Cliff. “Yeah, there is that.” He ordered another round of margaritas. “I should really be thanking you for letting me vent to you that day you did my ink. That wasn’t cool. I apologize.”

Cliff knew Mitch hadn’t meant to do complain. Being under a needle, opening one’s self up to pain, sometimes caused the oddest reactions, and in Mitch’s case it had caused him to talk honestly about his ex.

It had been a bad match. Mitch was a guy from a small town in Alabama who had found fame first as a songwriter. He was a modest man, and a humble one too. He wasn’t comfortable in L.A., and he didn’t like fancy and huge houses with tiny yards either.

He liked wide open spaces and he liked pretty women. The last was what had seen him marrying a cocktail waitress he barely knew. She’d seemed, Mitch said, to really get him. She was from a small town, and struggling to make her dreams come true just like he had. Only, her dreams seemed to be wrapped around a lot of money and divorcing the man who sat across from Cliff.

Cliff had been able to commiserate. He’d had his own heart totally busted by a woman before too.

Cara Van Tear. The country’s hottest and most talented female tattoo artist and, if he was honest, simply one of the best tattoo artists in the country no matter her gender.

He didn’t want to think about her. He turned his attention back to Mitch. “Dude, we’ve all been there. I cried on a buddy’s couch like a baby, and then got so drunk I pissed my pants.”

Mitch swallowed air, tried not to laugh, and failed. He burst into loud laughter. “When you put it into that kind of perspective, it doesn’t seem so bad at all.”

Their next round of margaritas came and they toasted each other. Cliff took one of the chips out of the basket the server had placed on their table, dunked it into salsa, and asked, “So what’s your plan? You going back to Nashville?”

Mitch frowned. “In a few months. I got the show and a small part in a movie to wrap up, but I think that’s it for acting. My manager’s going to have a major fit, but I’m done with those contracts and my record label contract too. I’m thinking about just taking some time off. I want to write songs again, not just let someone else write them for me. I want to get back into being me.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. That finding himself wouldn’t be hard if he gave himself the chance. Cliff knew exactly how hard it could be, but he admired Mitch’s realization.

“You should come out to Nashville,” Mitch said. “You, Hawk, and anyone else. They got tattoo shops there too, you know. And it’s not nearly as crazy expensive or crowded as it is here.”

“Sorry, dude. I’m a California boy through and through.”

Mitch nodded. “Well, if you just ever get out that way, hit me up. We’ll hang out.”

He was a good guy. Mitch was a big Hollywood name, and he was offering a friendship to Cliff because he knew Cliff wasn’t his buddy because of his name. Cliff realized how insane his own life was right then. There he was, eating chips and drinking margaritas with one of the biggest stars in the world. He had a job at the best shop in the country. He had a lot to be grateful for. Even his date with Pixie was a good thing.

After dinner finished, he and Mitch said their goodbyes and Cliff headed home again. The darkness shrouded the hills and as he rounded hairpin turns he caught glimpses of L.A. below, the lights shining widely and brightly. He had deliberately taken the long way around the city so that he could see that view.

L.A. sitting in a small bowl of land below looked like a jewel blazing against the night, and the sight never failed to make him happy.

His neighborhood didn’t have that view, and while he knew many people aspired to have a home that did, Cliff was content to just see it from above and in passing.

Maybe that had been part of why he and Cara hadn’t worked out.

He didn’t want to think about her, but sometimes he couldn’t stop himself. So he tried to think about the beautiful woman he’d held in his arms earlier, the one who had let him between her gorgeous thighs. Pixie was the first woman who had ever made him feel the same things he had felt when he was with Cara. Since that fucking awful breakup, seeing Pixie in the shop… there was a way about her that made him feel like he was ready to start something real and lasting. It excited and terrified him.

What if he fucked it up like he’d fucked things up with Cara?

They’d known each other for years. Cara had come into his life when they were both teenagers. They had clicked so hard the sound of it had been audible. She was the daughter of a biker father and an absent mother, and she’d needed stability. His dad rode with hers, and their parents had looked on fondly as they fell headlong into love.

Cara had been just as determined to tattoo as he had been. They’d practice their art and show each other what they had done, with the heavy spirit of competition between them. Cara had always refused to practice on him or allow him to practice on her. She always said ink was forever and that the energy of the artist went into every tattoo, and stayed within the person who had gotten it.

He would argue that was even more reason to give each other tats.

He shook his head as he drove. That should have been his first clue that things between them weren’t as perfect as he had thought they were.

The hell of it was that he still didn’t know where it had all gone so wrong. He had no idea what it was he had done to send her flying out of his life. She had just left and not come back, never telling him why.

The only logical conclusion was that he had done something so awful that she could not bear it or him any longer. It tore him apart and left him wounded forever.

And as he picked up the pieces of his shattered heart, he swore he would never fall for another woman, never risk his heart again. He had not wanted a relationship until Pixie.

He really wanted something with her. Except he was terrified he would fuck it all up—without even knowing how he was fucking it all up.