Authors: Cherrie Lynn
Ross 02 Rock Me (2 page)
Candace laughed and held up her hands. “Oh, no. Nothing like that.” Now,
where
she wanted it was another matter.
“What did you have in mind?”
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Cherrie Lynn
“I have an idea, but can I look through some of your designs?” She tilted her head toward the poster displays.
“Yeah. There’s plenty of flash here, too, especially smaller stuff like you’re probably looking for.” He leaned down behind the counter and produced a couple of black, bursting-at-the-seams photo albums, sliding them toward her. “But don’t just settle for anything. If you don’t see something here that grabs you, I can draw up anything you want. You might not be able to get it tonight, since I don’t have a lot of time, but it would be worth it in the end.”
“Now you’re making me feel I’m being way too hasty,” she said, flipping open one of the books. To her amazement, Macy leaned over to study the pictures, as well. Some of them were color drawings, but others were live shots of fresh tattoos, the bearer’s skin still reddened. Candace’s stomach flipped over on itself.
Please God, don’t let me faint when this all goes down
.
“Some people are too hasty about it,” Brian said, and she could practically feel the warmth of his scrutiny on the top of her head, like some freakish kind of osmosis. Or maybe she was imagining it. Her thoughts tended to run rampant when she was near him, all sorts of crazy images flashing through her head.
“I can’t see wanting something that bad,” Macy interjected. “On my body. Forever.” Candace fought the urge to elbow her in the ribs.
“No?” Brian asked.
“Absolutely not.”
Candace glanced up as he moved away from them and pushed open the half-door at the end of the counter. “Come here and let me show you what I’ve been working on. It’ll just take a second.”
He led them through the door he’d exited earlier, down a short hallway and into a sparse room with ample lighting and little else except a slanted drawing board. She found it hard to pull her gaze away from his dark-clad figure in front of her, the way the breadth of his shoulders stretched the fabric of his shirt, the way his black cargo pants hugged the curves of his butt. It was one she could imagine sinking her fingernails into. No question about it, he was magnificent eye candy. Why was she surprised to be so vividly reminded of that fact?
“Check this out,” he said, and her gaze followed his to the drawing he’d been laboring over. Next to it was tacked a picture of a beautiful little girl, dark-haired and smiling with her chin resting on her small fists. He’d transferred it to paper perfectly, only he’d managed to make her look somehow ethereal, like an angel. On a banner beneath her likeness, in beautiful, flowing script, were the words “Too Beautiful for Earth”.
“Oh,” Candace breathed. There was nothing else to say—and she feared she would burst into tears if she tried to conjure words.
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Rock Me
“Doing this on a guy’s back next week. Starting it, anyway. It’ll take several sessions. She’s his fiveyear-old daughter who died in a car accident.” Brian’s eyes were intense as he scrutinized his work. “I think it’s coming along pretty well. I hope he likes how I’ve done it.”
“It’s…amazing,” Macy said softly. Candace cut a glance at her and saw her friend was transfixed by the graceful lines and angelic beauty of the drawing. She couldn’t suppress a grin. Brian’s talent could astound the most hardened critic.
“Thanks.” He actually looked sheepish, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted to show you how it’s possible to want something on your body forever. How could he ever regret this, even when he’s eighty years old?”
“That’s the big argument, isn’t it?” Macy asked. “People always say ‘You’ll be sorry you did that when you’re old and wrinkled and it looks like crap’.”
“I hear it all the time. But I’d rather look back and regret something I did when I was young and crazy, than look back and regret something I never had the courage to do, and realize it’s too late.”
“Excellent point,” Candace murmured, and if her mind hadn’t been completely made up before, it was now. She wanted to get started. “But I don’t want to make you late, Brian. Are you sure we have time?”
“Absolutely.” He reached over and rumpled her hair, and she wanted to groan. It was such a you’relike-my-kid-sister thing to do. “Let’s go find you something.”
The books were still out on the counter and there were more people in the waiting area when they emerged from the back. Candace resumed her search for the perfect tattoo as Brian surveyed the shop, which had every chair filled. “We’ll have to go in one of the back rooms,” he said.
“I was going to ask if we could, anyway.” She tried to keep her voice even and nonchalant as she said it, but she saw his gaze dart toward her out of the corner of her eye. Her heart kicked up to a frantic pace. It was finally out there.
“Yeah? Why?”
“Because of, um…where I want it.”
She sensed his grin rather than saw it. “Where is that?”
“I’ll show you when we get there.”
“I could have one of the girls do it if you’d rather—”
“No. You.” She struggled to keep her hands steady as she flipped a page. Macy, thumbing through the other book, took that moment to let out a startled yelp. Candace looked over to see that she’d stumbled upon the pictures of body piercings. Of the genital variety, to be more exact. Oh, hell. Macy was flushing crimson to her hair roots. On the page beneath her stricken face was the
male
genital piercing section. Candace choked on an embarrassed laugh, feeling her own blood pool hotly in her cheeks. Brian snickered.
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Cherrie Lynn
“Okay, I can’t deal with that,” Macy was babbling. “That’s too much for me. Why anyone would want to—”
“It enhances sex,” he said, as if the answer should be obvious.
“The sex I’ve had was just fine; I don’t see the need to torture oneself to make it better.”
“That sounds like a problem,” Brian told her, and Candace felt like she was watching a tennis match as the two went back and forth.
Macy’s eyebrows were in her hair. “What problem?”
“The sex you’ve had was just ‘fine’. Sounds like a problem to me.” He sent Candace a slow wink that turned her knees to mush.
“What, are you saying you’ve got a…doohickey like that in your…?”
Brian’s smile was long suffering. “That ‘doohickey’ is a Prince Albert. I only started out with one of those. Eventually I went to an apadravya. Gotta think of the ladies.” He tapped the page, his grin as wicked as sin on Sunday. “In fact, you never know, one of them might be me.”
Macy pushed away from the counter, having reached the limits of mortification she was willing to endure. Candace tried not to glance down at any of the pictures in question but couldn’t help herself. She had to sneak a peek. Some of them were…well, really impressive, and she wondered if—
“So are we gonna do this, honey?” he asked, and she looked up into his eyes. They were a beautiful, mysterious shade of dark blue she didn’t think she’d ever seen before. He must wear contacts. Her breath seared through her lungs.
“I’ve decided. Let’s do it.”
12
Chapter Two
“I have to apologize for my friend.” Candace settled herself on the padded table in one of the small back rooms. “I love her dearly, but not the giant stick up her ass.”
Brian laughed. “Sorry if I embarrassed you, but I couldn’t resist squicking her out.”
“So…you were joking, then?” Inquiring minds had to know.
“About the apa or about putting it on display out there?”
“Both, I guess.”
“I’ll never tell.” He winked at her before going back to fiddling with his equipment. She hadn’t a clue what any of it was, but it looked scary, and she admired the confidence and efficiency with which he handled it. He’d already gone over all their sanitation techniques as if she were any other customer and he’d selected the colors he would need, which were only red and black. The inks sat in two tiny cups on a table beside her.
She’d chosen a small blood-red heart design with black tribal art extending out from both sides. Brian had already transferred the purplish outline to her skin…so low on her belly that even the flimsiest bikini bottoms in existence would probably cover most of it up. She often went swimming in her parents’ pool and there was
no freaking way
they could ever see it, so unless she wanted it smack on her butt or her boob—which she didn’t—it was the only place she could think of. Shedding her jeans to mid-thigh and pulling her underwear down until it only covered her most private area had almost been the deal-breaker. When she’d planned out her act of rebellion, she hadn’t really let herself think that far ahead. If she had, she might never have gotten through the front door. He’d made her stand while he got down on his knees and rubbed the transfer onto her skin. Thank God she’d waxed. She could only hope he hadn’t noticed how her legs quaked and her nipples beaded at the feel of his fingertips gently smoothing the stencil on. He hadn’t so much as blinked at her dishabille, and she had to keep in mind that he’d probably had hundreds of girls drop their pants in here to get him to do far more risqué body mod than her little tattoo.
Now, lying on the table with her design perfectly centered and ready to be inked, she stared at the ceiling and tried to concentrate on keeping her breathing steady.
“Nervous?” he asked, and she looked over to find his steady gaze on her. “You have a certain deer-inheadlights look I’m quite familiar with.”
“Yeah. Really no use in denying it.”
Cherrie Lynn
“It’ll be all right. Most people compare it to a bee sting.”
“Which isn’t very fun.”
“Not fun, but nothing you can’t take, right?”
“If you say so.”
He chuckled. “If you need a break, tell me, but I’m betting you won’t. Do you want me to do a dry pass so you can get an idea of what it’s like?”
Candace considered. “Better not. I might chicken out, but if you go ahead and start, I’m kind of stuck going through with it, right?” Her eyes widened as his black-Latex-covered hands tore open a package containing a needle. “Holy…”
“Now settle down. It’s not a shot at the doctor’s office. You just get the very tip.” He wheeled the stool he was sitting on closer to her. At that moment she
was
reminded of being in her doctor’s office, a dreaded event that always made her panic.
Oh, Jesus. There was no way. She couldn’t get through this. Closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate on the music filtering through the speaker system. It was Killswitch Engage, one of Brian’s favorite bands, if she remembered correctly. The singer had an incredible voice. She focused on that rather than the sounds of him getting his machine assembled—
machine
, he’d told her, not
gun
—and testing it out. But that whirring buzz whisked her straight from her doctor’s office to the dentist’s chair, and nothing on earth caused her more anxiety than that. Being helpless, immobile, at the mercy of someone wielding an instrument capable of causing her great, agonizing pain…
What in the hell had ever made her think she could do this?
“Have you ever had anyone start to get the tattoo, freak out and not be able to finish?”
“Don’t worry about that. Everyone’s experience is unique, and yours is the only one that matters.”
Great. A whimper escaped her lips before she could stop it even though he had yet to lay the first hand on her.
She must have caught his attention. “Breathe,” he said calmly, and only then did she realize she wasn’t doing so. “Slowly. In through your nose, out through your mouth.” She filled her lungs to capacity and exhaled as he instructed, but she was still too frightened to open her eyes and see how close she was to feeling that needle in her skin. “Keep it up. You’re gonna be fine.”
“I’m glad you’re so sure of that.”
“How old are you today, sunshine?”
She smiled, and suddenly wanted to cry. Yeah, that would be utterly cool of her. But he was trying to put her at ease, and maybe she was a fool of the worst sort, but it made her feel cherished somehow.
“Twenty-three.”
Daring a glance at his profile through her lashes, she saw one corner of his mouth tug up. “Twentythree,” he echoed wistfully. “That was a good year.”
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Rock Me
“Oh, yeah? What was so good about it?”
He paused before answering. “Hell, I couldn’t really tell you. Just the mere fact that I was younger than I am now, I guess.”
“You talk like twenty-seven is old.”
“Twenty-eight. My birthday was in January.”
“Oh, right. I haven’t seen you in so long. Happy belated birthday, since I didn’t get to tell you then.”
She studied him while she had the opportunity. He’d slapped a black baseball cap on his head and twisted it around backwards to keep his hair out of his eyes. Dressed all in black from head to toe now, down to the gloves he wore, he looked ready to pull off a burglary later tonight. His olive skin was maddeningly without blemish. Exquisite lips, full and defined, were framed by a goatee that looked so sleek and soft… How would it feel against her skin if he ever kissed her? Rough or silken? Would it tickle or scratch? She would never find out, but a girl could dream. Yeah, a dream some other lucky wench would probably experience for real tonight. What the hell was an apadra-whatever, anyway? She’d have to hit Google as soon as she got home just to figure out what he might have going on down there. She had a feeling he’d only been teasing about the picture, but with the piercing? She would bet good money he had it.
“Thanks.” He smiled at her. There was a hint of wickedness behind it, a wickedness she’d love to see fully unleashed. On her.
Maybe it had been a mistake coming here. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her birthday depressed and pining over something she didn’t need and would never have. For so long, Brian had been labeled Michelle’s Boyfriend, pretty to look at, but nothing else. She’d been unprepared for the intensified effect he would have on her now that he’d shaken off that relationship.