Good, Bad...Better

“No, I don’t order them from a catalog.” His expression was guarded as he took a step toward her. She could smell him now: leather and sandalwood soap and the sharp tang of ink. Exotic and masculine and definitely sexy. “Ever had a tat before?” he asked.

She shook her head, turning to study the designs on the walls once more. He hadn’t exactly answered her question, had he? “This is my first.” She winced at the words. They made her sound so innocent. And the whole point of this exercise was to declare to the world just how innocent she wasn’t.

He crossed his arms over his chest, giving her a too-close-for-comfort view of sharply defined muscles. Her knees felt wobbly. Honestly, she silently chided herself. You’d think you’d never been around a good-looking guy before. But it wasn’t the man’s looks that stirred her so much as his attitude. One look at him and you knew he wasn’t someone who let anyone push him around. Whereas, people saw her and just assumed she would be nice and go along with whatever they wanted. Because, obviously, she was a good girl.

She gritted her teeth and straightened her shoulders. Those days were behind her. From now on, she was going to do what she wanted, be her own woman. And this tattoo would be a kind of declaration of independence. “I want something right here.” She pointed to her left breast, to where the neckline of her tank top dipped down. No way would people miss it if she put it there.

His eyes zeroed in on the place she was pointing to. She felt her nipples contract in the heat of his gaze. “Why do you want one?”

“Because I like them?” Her voice rose at the end of the sentence, betraying her doubt.

He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Because I think it would look good?”

He stepped closer, and bent to look into her eyes, his face only inches from her own. “Have you been drinking?”

She shook her head. “N-no.”

“I don’t work on drunks. It’s stupid to make a decision about something permanent when you’re drunk. And besides, it messes up the tat.”

She leaned back, trying to stand straight though she felt like melting at this guy’s feet. “I don’t drink.”

He quirked one eyebrow. “Ever?”

She shook her head. “I don’t like the taste of beer or liquor, and wine gives me an asthma attack.” It was the truth, but it sounded so pathetic.

Thankfully, he didn’t make any snide comments. He just continued to watch her with those intense black eyes. “So what’s the real reason you’re here?”

The real reason? Talk about a question with no simple answer. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I really do like tattoos and I really have wanted one for a long time.”

He frowned. “So you just woke up this morning and decided today’s the day.”

She lifted her chin. “Something like that.” The argument she’d had last night with her father might have had a little to do with her decision. But, really, all that had done was make her see she’d been living the way others expected her to live—instead of doing what she really wanted—for too long. “You can’t change my mind, so don’t try.” She walked over to what looked like a red leather dentist’s chair and sat down.

He came and stood over her, his shadow falling across her face. “How old are you?”

She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Old enough to know what I want.”

For the first time since she’d entered the shop, the corners of his mouth angled up in a smile. “You probably knew that as soon as you could talk.”

He had a nice mouth, with full, sensuous lips…. She jerked her gaze away from him. What was going on with her today?

He sat on a low stool and rolled it toward her. “How old are you?” he asked again.

“I’m twenty-three.”

He nodded. “You still haven’t told me what you want for your tattoo.”

“Something feminine. How about a butterfly?”

He made a face. “Cliché. I don’t do cliché.”

“Then what do you do?” Up close, she could see his own tattoos better, the designs intricate and detailed, vivid against his pale skin.

“You saw the sign. Body art. What I do is art.”

So he was the artist. The passion with which he spoke intrigued her. “What do you suggest I do?”

He studied her a moment, his gaze surveying her body from the scuffed toes of her tennis shoes, up the length of her legs, over her loose terry shorts, across her stomach and breasts, coming to rest on her face once more. She forced herself to sit still, though she wanted to fidget or turn away. What did he see that interested him so?

He leaned back behind him and picked up a pad of paper and a pen from a worktable. With a few quick strokes, he sketched something, then turned the pad to face her. “Something like this.”

She recognized a stylized calla lily, the stem ending in a flourish. It was feminine and beautiful and unusual. Her eyes met his. “Why a calla lily?”

“It suits you. You have that look of innocence, but underneath, there’s a highly sensual quality.”

She swallowed hard. He saw all that when he looked at her? Was he psychic, or merely very perceptive? “I like it,” she said.

He turned back to the worktable. “All right. Let’s take care of the paperwork and we’ll get started.”

She completed the information form and signed the release, aware of his gaze fixed on her as she wrote. Did he subject all his clients to such scrutiny, or was there something about her in particular that drew his eye? She might have been flattered, except that he didn’t look too happy about whatever it was he saw in her.

She handed him the paperwork and pen. “What now?”

“Pull down your shirt and we’ll get started.”

She tugged her shirt lower, past the top of her bra. He turned around and began to clean the area. “You have pale skin, so the color will show up nicely, but you need to wear sunscreen over it to keep the color from fading.”

“Okay.” His arm brushed against her breast and her nipples went on red alert. She’d thought getting a tattoo would be a lot of things—exciting, frightening, painful—but erotic was not one of them.

He tucked a disposable towel over her shirt and bra, then laid another damp towel across the spot where the tattoo would go. He pulled a rolling, stainless-steel table closer and began laying out equipment—packets of needles, wipes and ointment. Then he set out a row of small plastic cups and began filling them from larger ink bottles.

She swallowed hard. “Will this hurt?”

He shrugged. “Everybody is different. People have compared it to being scratched by a cat or stung by ants. The needles move very fast, and your body gets used to it pretty quickly.”

He removed the damp towel he’d placed on her skin and sketched in the lily with a ballpoint pen. “How’s that?”

She looked down and studied the pale blue lines. The design looked as graceful on her as it had on paper. She nodded. “It looks good.”

“It’ll look even better when I’m done.” He picked up an instrument that looked like a cross between a small nail gun and a drill, and began wrapping it in clear plastic. When he attached the needle, she looked away.

“Are you ready?”

Was she ready for big changes in her life? Goodbye, compliant good girl—hello, woman in charge of her own future. Excitement fizzed through her at the thought. She nodded and took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

He leaned toward her, his head so close she could see the dark shadow of his beard beneath his skin. His arm rested against hers and the scent of him washed over her.