Laura Kaye - Hard As It Gets

“Do you think that’s necessary?” she asked.

“What?” he said, turning. She gestured to his back. “Probably not. Have a seat for a few.”

“Okay.” She dropped her purse and the stack of papers onto one of the round tables and settled into the couch. The puppy loped over to her and hopped her front paws onto Becca’s lap.

Grabbing his sketch from the desk in the office, Nick made for the reception area.

“Awwwww, you’re in troubllllle,” Jess said in a gratingly annoying voice when he passed her room.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m aware.”

She snickered. Typical Jess. Good thing he liked her. Mostly. When she wasn’t busting his balls. Then again, when was that?

Sitting on the big green couch, his client was a man probably in his mid-thirties, dark hair, tall by the length of the legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Nick approached and extended his hand. “Really sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Nick Rixey.” For the next ten minutes, he talked to Alek about the tattoo, its placement, and his past experience getting inked, and he got permission for Becca to watch.

Nick grabbed his stencil from the office and leaned around the corner where Becca sat. “We’re a go if you’re still interested.”

Becca smiled up at him. “Really? Yeah.”

“You sure you wouldn’t rather go up and have some grub? Lunch was a long time ago.” If he hadn’t had to do this tat, he’d have been three slices into some leftover pizza himself.

“I’ll eat with you after.”

He crossed to the fridge in the corner and grabbed two bottles of water. “Well, at least have something to drink. Come on.” He led them into the rectangular tattoo room and gestured to the visitor chair often inhabited by a client’s friend.

She sat and watched him as he prepared his workspace and tools. “How did you first learn to do this, anyway?”

He scrubbed his hands and forearms at the sink. “Jeremy. He got an apprenticeship his freshman year at the College of Art here in town, and by his junior year he was working almost full-time for the guy and doing some fantastic work. Along the way he taught me what he’d learned. I enjoyed it enough that Jer bought me a basic set of my own machines for Christmas one year, and I practiced a lot because at that point I was trying to decide what the hell I wanted to do with myself. I was in college but felt restless as hell. I figured, why not.”

“How do you practice tattooing?”

Rixey chuckled. “Not on real people. They have this rubber practice skin you can use to get familiar with the tattoo machine, and some people practice on fruit and pig skin. Anyway, Jeremy wanted to drop out of college, but my parents had a shit fit.”

“So he didn’t?” she asked.

“No, he graduated. I was the one who dropped out.”

Her eyes went wide. “Why?”

“September eleventh. I finally knew what I was supposed to be doing. Was like a light switch flipped. Six weeks into my senior year, I took a leave of absence and enlisted in the Army. Never looked back.”

He cleaned his table and collected his ink, tools, and supplies.

“When I came home last year, I was still laid up with recovery for a few months, so Jer suggested I apprentice with him for real since I had the time to practice again. Once I was on my feet, I got the process service job to pay the bills, but I brushed up on my skills and then started doing clients in my off hours. Small pieces, mostly.”

She was watching him like she didn’t want to miss a step of what he was doing, and it made him slow down and remember the enjoyment he found in this art. “You okay?”

Becca grinned. “Yeah, this is fun.”

“If you say so. I’ll go get Alek.” Rixey made for the lobby. Within another fifteen minutes, he was ready to tattoo. “Keep your arm positioned on the armrest like that and just relax,” Rixey said, sliding on a mask and some eye protection.

Two hits of ink with the needle, he held the skin taut and outlined the bottom of the image first, the vibration of the machine familiar in his hand. He’d do a long line, then wipe away the excess ink the skin pushed back out. And repeat. “Doing okay, Alek?”

“Yup.”

“Becca?” He finished a line and spared her a glance, and she appeared absolutely rapt.

She nodded. “Great.”

“So you don’t have any tattoos, Becca?” Alek asked.

“No. I like them, but I’d never thought seriously about it. Until recently.”

Those last two words pinged around inside Rixey’s skull for a few minutes.

“What would you get?” he asked. Nick was grateful Alek was asking the questions. Truth be told, he was damned curious, but it wasn’t like he could focus on a conversation with her when he needed to pay attention to what he was doing.

“I’m not sure. I’d definitely want something with meaning. Maybe something to remember my older brother who died. His favorite thing in the world was playing the . . .” She gasped.

Forcing himself to finish out the line, Rixey resisted looking at what had caused her reaction. He pulled the machine away from Alek’s skin and glanced at her. “You okay?” he asked, concern curling into his gut.

Her wide eyes cut to him. “The guitar. His favorite thing was playing the guitar. I could . . . maybe . . .” She looked to him with a small shrug, like that revelation hadn’t just been the big fucking deal Rixey knew it was. A blush filled her cheeks. “I had his guitar, but it got broken.”

“Definitely sounds meaningful, then,” the guy said.

Rixey bored his gaze into her, wishing like hell they were alone so he could hold her and comfort her and paint a picture on her skin. Man, this woman had the ability to tie him up in knots like no one he’d ever known, and it was crystal fucking clear why. He was falling for her. Hard. Part of the reason he’d been so pissed at himself this morning was that he’d known being with her hadn’t just been about the physical.

Damn, he hated that this stranger was in the room with them when she shared that idea for a first tattoo. It was too personal, too sentimental, and the thought that Alek might be sitting there imagining her naked with the dark lines of a fretboard running up her spine had the blood nearly boiling in his veins.

But Rixey couldn’t say any of that right now, could he? He didn’t have the time or the privacy to tell her how special he thought her idea was, how special he thought she was. Instead, he just said, “I think it sounds perfect, Becca.” He bottled the rest of that shit up, took two more hits of ink, and dove back into outlining, shutting their occasional chitchat out.

Seventy-five minutes later, he was done, and Alek’s soldier-fireman had come to life on the skin of the man’s arm. “See what you think,” Rixey said, pointing to the mirror. He leaned out of the doorway. “Hey, Jeremy? You out there?”

“Yo!” came his voice from the lounge. He appeared a moment later.

The guy examined it for a couple minutes. “Wow, man. It’s . . . frickin’ phenomenal.”

“Damn, Nick, he’s right,” Jeremy said, stepping into the room. “That’s some fine work. I knew this one was yours.”

The piece was good. Maybe his best. “Mind if I take a picture of it for my portfolio?”

“Sure. Actually, would you take a shot with my phone, too?”

Rixey took a few snaps with the office camera and a few on Alek’s smartphone. Jeremy clapped Nick on the back, then excused himself.

“What do you think?” Alek asked Becca, standing in front of her and flexing.

She smiled. “I think it’s pretty fantastic. Looks great on you,” she said, her gaze sliding to Nick. “Consider me impressed.”

Man, the way she was looking at him did all kinds of bad things to his body. Her gaze was appraising, appreciative, as if she was seeing him in a whole new—and approving—way. Heat and arousal licked down his spine and brought his cock to life. He arched an eyebrow, but he still had work to do. He put a dressing on Alek’s arm and secured it with a wrap, then gave the guy his aftercare instructions.

Finally, Nick walked him out, locked the door behind him, and killed the front lights. The shop had closed about an hour earlier. He’d heard Jeremy and Jess finish up with their clients, and Jess had left a while ago. When he returned to his room, he found Becca exactly where he’d left her, a faraway look in her eyes. The moment his gaze landed on her, she blushed. He stopped in his tracks. “What is that about?”

“What?” she said, playing it off.

“Horrible. Liar. Remember?” Crouching in front of her, he rested his hands on her thighs. “What’s the blush about?” He gently squeezed her quads.

Her gaze brushed over his face, lingered on his lips, and fell to his hands on her legs. “Just thinking.”

He tilted his head to catch her eye. “That sounds promising.”

Becca chuckled and shook her head. “I was just wondering what it felt like to get a tattoo.”

“It differs by placement, pain threshold, size, how much color,” he said, watching emotions run over her expression that had nothing to do with curiosity. She was turned on. He’d put money on it.

“And I was wondering . . . if I ever decided I wanted one, if you’d do it.” She looked at him from under her lashes.

He stroked his thumbs back and forth along the insides of her thighs and fought the urge to strip her down right here and now . . . for some ink and a whole lotta other things. Her muscles flinched and clenched under his touch, and the fact that he was maybe making her a little crazy turned his cock to steel. “In a heartbeat, sunshine. You just name the place and time.” What he didn’t say was that the thought of any other man putting his mark on Becca’s skin made him feel more than a little violent.

She licked her lips and squeezed her thighs together. And that simple flexing of muscles had him wanting to tear her jeans off and bury his face between her legs until she was panting and writhing and screaming his name. Like this morning.

Much as he’d told himself all the reasons to resist his attraction to her, facts were facts. He needed to be there for her—to protect, comfort, support. And he needed the redeeming light of her sunshine on his body, his heart, his soul. God, he just wanted her. Right or wrong.

Her fingers reached out and slowly dragged along his bottom lip. Masculine satisfaction roared through him at the desire in her eyes. He leaned in, wanting to taste her again.

Knock, knock, sounded against the doorjamb.

Rixey turned and found Jeremy standing in the doorway with some papers in his hands. Frowning, he turned the sheets around in his fingers and held them up. The sketch artist’s drawings from this morning and Louis’s sketches of the Church tats. “Someone want to explain why and how you have pictures of these gang tattoos? And what, if anything, they have to do with the obviously unhappy reunion of your team?”

Becca looked from Jeremy to Nick, unsure what to say. A small sense of Oh shit slithered through her belly, because Jer’s questions made it clear Nick hadn’t filled him in on what was going on. Whatever his approach to this, though, it wasn’t for her to say. “Maybe I should—”

“Stay,” they both said.

She lowered back into her seat. “Oookay.”

Nick quickly cleaned up his table and supplies. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “You know about as much as you should probably know. Becca thinks she might’ve seen a tattoo like one of those on the guy who grabbed her.” He washed and dried his hands.

Jer scoffed. “Nick, these are gang tats. And not just any gang. The Church is about as bad as they get. Drugs, guns, prostitutes, you name it. What the hell?”

“How do you know so much about them?” Nick’s eyebrows slashed down.

“There are dozens of gangs in this city. They all use tattoos for identification. Most of them have guys do it in-house, others find tattoo parlors and sorta claim them for their gang. I never knowingly do a gang tattoo, but that means I have to be familiar with what they look like and who they represent.”

Damn, his brother was smart. Nick nodded, leaned against the counter, and crossed his arms. “Interesting, but I want to keep you out of this, Jeremy. You hear what I’m saying?”

“I think you’re the one who’s got a problem with his hearing. Whatever this is”—he held up the papers again—“you need to stay way clear of it.”

Lips pressed in a tight line, Nick landed his pale green gaze on her, and she hated that her situation might cause tension between them. Bad enough Jeremy was already mad at Nick for being late.