“I wasn’t really looking for tattoos at the time.” She pushed against my side to get me to roll over so she could look at my back.
“Distracted?” I asked as I wiggled my eyebrows.
“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t even look down there.”
“Sure, you didn’t.” I chuckled as she rolled me back onto my back.
“Let’s go.” She climbed to her feet, and I just stared up at her.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to give you your first tattoo before you change your mind.”
I sat up on my elbows and looked at her like she was crazy. “You’ve been drinking. There is no way that I’m letting you give me a tattoo tonight.”
“Be serious.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and even though I tried my hardest not to, my eyes dropped to her breasts. “I haven’t had a drink in hours. Plus, you drove me here. Would you have done that if we had been drinking too much?”
“No,” I said hesitantly because she was right. I never would have driven her if I was at all impaired.
“Then let’s go.” She rubbed her hands together, clearly excited.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I stood up off the floor and followed her back through the house before looking down at my watch. “It’s two thirty in the morning.”
“Mason Connor, are you being a fuddy dud?” She arched a perfect black eyebrow at me, and even though I did think going to get a tattoo right now probably was a wild ass idea, I was craving her brand of wild.
“Don’t use my own words against me.”
She just smiled, and I clicked off the flashlight and followed her out the door.
She spun around in the yard, the only light that of the moon, and I laughed as she danced around in pure bliss.
“You are not going to regret this.” She pointed at me as she made her way around my truck and climbed into the passenger seat like she belonged there.
“I’ll remember you said that.” My truck thundered to a start and my hand grazed her shoulder as I turned to back out of the driveway.
“Don’t you trust me?” She batted her eyelashes at me playfully, and I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know because the girl in front of me was unlike anything I had ever met. She was different from every other woman.
She was wild, she was real, and even though I did want to fuck the shit out of her, I was genuinely having fun just being around her and that scared the shit out of me.
Staci
I pushed him back in the tattoo chair and stifled my laugh as he huffed.
“I swear it’s not going to be that bad.” My fingers slid into my black gloves, and he watched every move I made.
I poured ink. He watched every drop of every color.
I hooked up my gun, and his eyes jumped to my hands when it began buzzing.
“I swear to God if you tattoo a penis on me, I will murder you.”
The snort that left me was beyond unattractive and also beyond my control. “I hadn’t thought of that actually, but thank you for the idea.”
He rolled his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest.
“It’s bad enough that I’m letting you give me my first tattoo in the middle of the night in an abandoned tattoo shop, but letting you decide what to give me…” He shook his head. “This is a bad fucking idea.”
“Live a little, Mason. I had taken you for the adventurous, adrenaline junkie type.”
His eyes turned to meet mine. “There’s a difference between jumping out of a plane and getting something permanently marked on your body that you aren’t even seeing first.”
I just smiled at him because even though he looked scared to death that I might actually tattoo an appendage on him, I knew he was going to love the actual design.
“Take off your shirt.”
He groaned again but leaned forward and pulled his shirt over his head. I just stared. Because even though I had just seen him shirtless in the lake, Mason had a body that took your breath away no matter how many times you looked at it. And under the bright lights of the shop? Holy shit. It was really unfair how perfect every little line and ridge of his body was. He either worked out a ton, or he really worked his ass off when he was at work.
And I was going to put my artwork on his perfect, unmarred body.
Just the thought had a chill running down my spine.
“Okay. Don’t look.” I gripped the drawing that I had been working on for the last hour in my hands and slowly pressed it against his ribs where he said he wanted it. His eyes were focused on the ceiling, and I pressed the contact paper firmly against his skin before I slowly peeled it away.
I had him sit up and twist this way and that way before I decided it was in the perfect place. Then I dipped my gun into the blue ink and looked up at him.
“Are you sure you’re ready?”
He blew out a deep breath and looked back up at the ceiling.
“Yup,” he said the word so quickly. “Let’s do this shit.”
I touched the gun to his skin and made my first mark, and he didn’t move an inch. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
But I fell into a rhythm. My music echoed off the dark magenta walls of my space, and I sang the words in my head as I focused on my art.
It was typically so easy for me to get lost in it, to get lost in the one thing I loved more than anything else, but every time Mason moved slightly under my hands or made a noise, I was acutely aware of my hands on his body.
I wiped off the excess ink with a paper towel before I tossed it into the trashcan at my side.
“That’s a lot of blue.”
Mason’s words caused me to look up at him. “You don’t like blue?”
“I love blue.” He grinned but still didn’t look down at where I worked.
I had asked him on the ride over here what were three things that he loved. Three things that meant more to him than anything else. His answers were simple.
Family, his career, and the mountains.
And as soon as he said it, my mind took off.
I knew that I would do a mountain scene on him, but not just some boring old mountain scene. Mason was far from boring or ordinary and his tattoo had to match.
So, I bent over my drawing table and sketched the sharp lines of the mountains. I penciled in and erased the geometric triangular shape that encased it. Then I envisioned the shades of blues and purples I would use to make the wild watercolor night sky that bled down into the mountains.
The blues and purples bled together as I continued my work, and the colors looked so damn good against his tan skin. It was like the colors were mixed with him specifically in mind.
“Now purple, I’m not too sure about.” He chuckled as I tossed another paper towel in the trash.
“Shh.” I didn’t even look up at him. “You’re messing up my concentration.”
He was, but it wasn’t his words. It was the way his abs bunched as he slowly breathed in and out, it was the way his arm would tense slightly as I hit a particularly sensitive spot with my tattoo gun, and it was his scent that I had smelled all night. But not this close. When I was this close to him for this damn long, it was intoxicating.