Under His Skin

Under His Skin

Sidney Bristol

A woman who doesn’t believe she deserves love…

Toe-curling kisses and enough sex to fill a weekend were all Pandora wanted from a fling with her teenage crush. She’s never forgotten how he played the knight in shining armor to her damsel in distress. She’s ready to say thank you in several naughty ways, so long as she can walk away when it’s over with her heart intact.

A man moving on from tragedy…

Brian has no intention of allowing the feisty tattoo artist to leave after one taste. He hasn’t had enough of her inked curves. The packaging might have changed, but Pandy is the woman he hasn’t been able to excise from his memory. He’s ready to put together a new life, one that includes her.

But Brian isn’t the only one vying for Pandora’s attention. Someone else wants her, dead or alive.

Under His Skin

Sidney Bristol

Dedication

It’s Kelli’s fault. Every last word.

This book wouldn’t have happened without some serious hand-holding by Team Awesome. Ally, Carolyn, Jodie, Jessica, Linda, Rebekah and Suzan, thank you for being there with me through it all.

And my editor Jillian, who shows infinite patience with me. I’m learning.

Chapter One

Tattoo: A mark on the body created by inserting pigment under the skin. The name originates from the sound the sticks and needle made during tattooing with traditional materials.

The smell hit her first. That unique aroma of ointment, grease, green soap and the human element. Pandora’s nerves settled at last. Nirvana was close at hand.

She clenched the strap slung over her shoulder and pushed the heavy oak door open. The hotel was a riot of people, music and cries of pain. The hum of tattoo machines beat a steady background to the general din of the attendees.

Flashing her exhibitor badge at the doorman, she strode through the booths, ignoring the imported organic jewelry she’d drooled over yesterday and several legends set up and already doing tattoos at their stations. The booth she shared with her three coworkers was all the way at the end of the row, a prime spot across from the stage, where stations were being set up for the contestants to do tattoos later. Her gaze skittered away from the activity.

For the tenth time that morning, she reached up and adjusted the neck strap on her white halter top, the one with the So Inked logo emblazoned across her chest. She’d worn it to remind herself that she was part of something now, and competing at the Yellow Rose of Texas Tattoo Convention wasn’t about her. It was about all of the girls in the shop.

“Hey.” Her coworker Autumn peeled away from watching a man getting his skull tattooed with thick, tribal lines and fell in step with her. As usual, Autumn was dressed to the nines in a flirty pleated skirt and So Inked tank top. She looked more like an advertising model than a tattooer, but that was Autumn. It didn’t help that the industry was dominated by men.

“How ya feeling?” She popped her gum and twirled her obscenely long platinum-blonde hair around a finger.

“How do you think I’m feeling?” Mentally she scrabbled for a bit of calmness, but it evaporated.

“Dude, you’re about to go balls to the wall with some freaky talented dudes. I’d be shitting my pants.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” she muttered. “Your hair’s not orange.”

Autumn laughed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “No, thank god, I thought it was going to be. Remind me to never dye it black again, okay?”

“Deal.” She dug her phone out of her pocket, looking for a missed call, a text, anything. But the notification bar mocked her. “You haven’t seen my dad, have you?”

“No. Is he coming? It would be cool to meet him. See how far the apple fell from the old tree and all that.”

“I invited him and my stepmom, but I don’t know if they’re coming.” Pandora swallowed and looked anywhere but at Autumn. Her dad wouldn’t come, but even as a grown-ass woman, it didn’t stop her from wishing he’d pretend he cared.

She paused outside their booth. A hand-painted banner displayed the shop logo, a classic pin-up astride a tattoo machine. There was enough room inside the partitioned-off space for two stations. Currently Mary and Kellie were tag teaming a client. Mary worked the outline and the darker shading while Kellie came behind her with color. There could be only one person they’d work on together. A regular client by the name of Jerry.

The co-owners of the shop glanced up as one and nodded. She couldn’t even fake an interest in the back piece they were doing. Again she wondered why she’d entered.

“How much time do you have?” Autumn leaned over Kellie’s shoulder to get a glimpse of the vivid mural coming to life under their fingertips.

“Back off.” Kellie elbowed Autumn in the hip playfully. She glanced toward Pandora and grinned. “Organizer came by asking for you. I told him you were in the bathroom throwing up.”

“Ugh, you’re a bitch, Kellie,” she said without any feeling. Her palms were sweaty and she had been feeling nauseous. She rubbed her hands on her jeans and tried to clear her mind. This was her time to shine. To show everyone she could tattoo.

She reached up and twirled her Monroe piercing out of habit. The new stud was tighter than her others, and the black faceted gem on the end skated over her skin.

Kellie flashed her a gorgeous smile, the one men fell all over themselves trying to earn. At least before they learned about her mixed martial arts habits. “And you like it.” She winked and bent back to work. A wisp of her dark hair had escaped the chopsticks holding the rest of it in place. Kellie liked to play on her exotic Korean-American looks. And it wasn’t uncommon for a man to court her by first sitting in her chair and feeling the kiss of her needles.

Pandora was the plain one in comparison to her coworkers. Kellie had her Asian roots and porn star figure. Mary looked as if she’d stepped out of a Grease musical half the time, her rockabilly style mixed with her Latina heritage. And Autumn was a chameleon, always changing the packaging with her hair color and clothes, but never the product. She exuded sensuality and rainbows.

Sometimes Pandora wondered how she fit in, besides the common factor that they were all heavily tattooed and working hard to make a place for themselves. Maybe that was the deep-down reason she’d entered the contest. She wanted to show people she was good at something. That she deserved her machines. Again she smoothed her hands down her thighs while she watched Mary shade in part of the tattoo.

“Pandora Hatley?”

She turned, eyeing the man sporting a Staff shirt and clipboard. Her blood pressure had to be through the roof by now. “Yeah?”

“We’re getting everyone together in the green room.” He motioned over his shoulder. “Come with me?”

Inside she panicked. She had an hour before they set up their machines on the stage. An hour and a half before they selected their clients and did consultations. Two hours before they were supposed to begin drawing and inking the tattoos. She still had an hour to back out.

“Going to drop out, Pandora?”

That voice made her spine straighten, and not in a pleasant fashion.

Slowly she turned to face Robert Howe. He looked down at her with a sneer on his face. His tiny, beady eyes raked over her. She put a hand on her hip, fighting not to shudder and step away from him. “Now, Rob, why would I do that? It’s not every day I get to show you up.”

Behind her, the two tattoo machines stilled. Autumn sat frozen on their front display table, her skirt hiked up enough to show off the top of her stockings.

“Show me up?” Robert laughed and slapped his thigh. “That’s a good one, little girl. Do yourself a favor and come back to being my shop girl. Maybe I’ll let you climb my ladder.” He leered at her, and it was all she could do not to flinch away from the imagined caress.

She didn’t know if she wanted to throw something at him or run away and hide. “Fuck you, Rob.”

“You already did.” He winked at her and strode off through the crowd.

Taking a deep breath, she released her death grip on Kellie’s chair, not sure when she’d grabbed it in the first place. She would never go back to being Robert’s shop bitch, and she would die before she took his engagement ring back. It was a promise she’d made herself.

How had she endured being engaged to him? The memories alone had a cold sweat breaking out along her hairline and down her spine. She rubbed her fingers over the scars on her left palm. She’d been weak once. Never again.

“Dude, you’ve got balls.” Kellie’s voice brought her out of the dark memories.

“Clang, clang.” Mary saluted her with her tattoo machine, but her gaze seemed to pierce Pandora’s soul.

She couldn’t back out now. Not so much because of Robert, but for her pride. Going to work for Mary and Kellie had saved her life after what she’d been put through with Robert of the pierced-many-times-over penis. She shuddered at the memories of her younger, more idealistic self. She wasn’t that girl anymore, and she reminded herself of that every day.

“Dude, you’re not quitting, are you?” Kellie peered up at her, brows drawn down into a line that paralleled her geisha bangs.

“I thought about it, but I can’t.” She rubbed her temples, wishing she hadn’t allowed Autumn to do her hair up into a rendition of Rosie the Riveter’s trademark curls and bandanna.

Kellie turned back to their client, who hadn’t moved a muscle. “Get your ass in gear and go kick Robert in the balls while you’re at it.”

Autumn gave her a bright smile and a thumbs-up.

Dropping her bag, she pushed it under the front table and rolled her shoulders. She would have liked another moment to collect her thoughts, but if she couldn’t do a measly tattoo in one day, she wasn’t worth her ink.

Mary leaned to the side and caught her wrist. “
Estas bien,
mija?
”

“I’m good. See you guys in a bit.” She smiled at Mary, feeling bits of the new her click into place. She had a spine and she was a damn good artist. Mary nodded and released her hold on her arm.

“We won’t go far,” Mary said and turned back to her client.

Pandora exited the booth, casting one last glance over her shoulder at the three women who had grown to become family. Her birth mother had passed away, leaving her with a father and stepmother who treated her like an unwanted Cinderella. She’d like to believe a real family would be much like her tattoo family now. Supportive, meddling and an all-around nuisance she never wanted to live without. Being around them, soaking up their confidence, made her a better person.

With her spine back in place, she headed for the orientation meeting. It was tempting to stop and watch the dance of needle over skin, to lose herself in the methodic, beautiful process of tattooing. Entering the contest had taken a few bottles of liquid courage and some prodding. It had seemed like a great idea in the comfort of their shop, but here, presented with the competition and the prevailing attitude that because she was in possession of a vagina she didn’t belong, her confidence wavered.

Slinking into the green room, she found a bit of unoccupied space against the wall and didn’t meet the curious gazes. As the only female, she stuck out like a vegan at a barbeque. There were times when she wished she could go back in time and tell a younger her to go to college and not to get that first tattoo. Her life would be easier. But for all her mistakes, tattooing was what she loved.

A burly man sporting a pompadour, a tight white shirt and cuffed jeans over biker boots took the center of the room. “Quiet down, everyone. I’m Butch, and I’m the organizer for this little inaugural contest. We’re pushing up the timetable for today. Your clients have already been assigned and your stations are being prepped. In about fifteen minutes, I’ll let you guys out to finish setting up and start your client consults. You’ve already read the rules and signed off on them. Are there any questions?”

“Hey, man, did you give me the hot chick?” Robert laughed and the men standing on either side of him pounded his back.

Heat crawled up her neck. If she were as ballsy as she wanted to be, she’d say something. Instead, she prayed for the questions to be over before she tapped out.

* * * * *

Brian pushed the curtain aside and glanced down the row of stations to the sole woman in the competition. She looked vaguely familiar, but then again everyone did. He’d met more people, shaken more hands and thrown an arm around more shoulders than he could count. Chances were the hot woman with the cherry-red lips was a likeness to someone he’d met on the road.

A crowd had gathered to listen to a rockabilly man give the introduction to the contest but Brian wasn’t listening. The organizer turned to the door he was hiding behind with fourteen other willing victims and waved them onto the stage.