First Ink (Wicked Ink Chronicles) Page 3

  “Meet someone at the convention, brother?” Cory asks me as he unfolds from the chair.

  “Just an old friend,” I tell him.

  “Doesn’t sound old,” he says as I walk him out the door.

  First thing we both see is Addison in the waiting area. She’s sitting on the black leather couch, the brick wall at her back, flipping through my book. It’s nuts how hard it makes me just watching her look at my artwork. She’s changed her clothes. No more garden party downstairs, no more pillowcase up top. Instead she has on a white wifebeater tank and a pair of pretty tight-fitting faded jeans. She looks casual and sexy, and I can see why Vincent was ready to give up his Saturday night for a few hours of working on her skin.

  She looks up from the book then, and her eyes find mine and lock into place. They’re worried, they’re hungry, and they make me deliriously happy by not even flickering in Cory’s direction. The dude is a movie star, for chrissakes.

  “Doesn’t sound old,” Cory says again, this time under his breath as he shakes my hand. “And definitely doesn’t look like a friend.”

  “Nice to see you again, man.” I knock my chin at the glass door leading to the parking lot. “Good luck on the film.”

  Cory gets the hint loud and clear, and with a wry grin, and a quick look at Addison, he takes a hike.

  Once we’re alone in the waiting room, aka the rec room, I give her a nod. “Hey there.”

  “Sorry I’m early.” She shrugs, her sexy, tanned shoulders lifting and lowering. “I’m happy to hang out for a while if you’re not ready.”

  “I’m ready,” I say too damn quickly. “Come on in.”

  She follows me into my den. When I built this place, I wanted to make sure there were private rooms as well as open ones, and it was a good thing too, because several of our more famous clients really appreciate it.

  As she takes in the space, I close the door and lock it without thinking. Or, fuck me, maybe I am thinking. Maybe I’m thinking that I don’t want V or Janie interrupting us.

  “This is so you.”

  Her words, and the familiar warmth she coats them in, bring my head around. She’s checking out my home away from home, her back to me, offering up one hella spectacular view of her long legs, tight ass, sexy shoulders and thick, straight hair.

  “Brick and leather,” she muses. “Concrete floors.”

  She walks over to the one wall that isn’t brick. The wall that used to be just plain white plaster but as time went by has been taken over by my busy hand. She reaches out and runs her fingers over my shit; the paintings, the sketches, even the tags. It’s like she’s running her hands over me when she does it, and I actually need to focus on breathing right.

  “You did these,” she says, her fingers tracing a large portrait of a man and his kid, both with skull faces. It’s not a question.

  I come up behind her. She smells way too good to be in a locked room with me. “Every tat I create’s got to go up on the wall first.”

  She turns around, her back brushing up against the wall. I think about easing off her, telling her to get in my chair and let’s get this show on the road. Fuck, let’s get this show over and done.

  But do I move?

  Hell, no.

  “Every tat?” she asks. “Even mine?”

  A piece of her hair’s escaped its pack, and I reach out to rescue it. My fingers brush her cheek and she breaths in, all quick and affected.

  “No,” I say. “Not yours.”

  Her eyes, those nutty, amazing eyes that I always begged her to keep on mine when we kissed or fucked, or hell, just shared a gallon of flat-assed coke after school at my house, flashed with gloom.

  “Well, it’s amazing, Rush,” she says in a soft voice. “What you’ve done here. You should be really proud of yourself.”

  What I should be is naked, her in my arms, my mouth going to work on all those pretty parts I know make her wild. But that’s off limits unless I want to suffer for all eternity.

  “Come on,” I say instead, backing up, feeling the heat of her roll off my body and die away. “Let’s get started.”

  Like a moron—like the guy who just wants that heat back again—I reach for her hand and lead her over to my chair. “So, how’s it feeling? Any irritation?”

  She shakes her head. “Not bad. Frankly, my curiosity is irritating me more.”

  I laugh softly. “Let’s have a look.” I gesture to the chair.

  “Should I take off…” She touches the bottom of her tank.

  “Yeah.” I grind the words out. My jaw’s getting as hard as my dick now.

  I watch her when I should be setting up. She pulls the tank over her head to reveal a cream-colored bra, and I fucking stare like a middle schooler getting his first look at a girl’s naked skin. She hasn’t changed much. Long, lean limbs, but serious, deadly curves. Her ass and tits have always turned my brain to cheese, and my dick to stone, and I swear to god, it’s no different tonight. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get through this tat without touching her.

  She straddles my chair, her thighs flaring out. My mind starts ripping out images of all the ways I could use that chair to pleasure her. And it’s not the first time I’ve gone there. More than a few nights over the years, staring at that empty chair, picturing her in it, picturing me on my knees…

  I frown. Thinking, fantasizing…they say it’s healthy. I say it’s bullshit.

  I come up behind her, my skin vibrating with the need to touch her. The bandage lies directly above her bra strap, but I like a clear workspace, so I unclasp her, then grin when she inhales sharply.

  “Should I take it off?” she asks me, and her voice is so breathy my cock knocks against my zipper.

  “Only if it makes you more comfortable,” I say, peeling off the tape holding the bandage to her skin.

  “Just trying to make things easier for you, that’s all.”

  “Real thoughtful,” I say tightly. And maybe a little asshole-esque.

  She sighs. “Rush…”

  My fingers are moving too slow pulling up the tape. “Yeah, baby?”

  “You don’t have be a total prick for me to get how much you hate me.”

  Christ, her skin’s soft. And warm.

  I’m so pissed off at myself and at her, and how her body’s calling for me to round first and keep going, like a goddamn third base coach, that I pull off the rest of the tape a little too hard. She sucks air through her teeth, and I turn away and drop the bandage in the trash.

  I wish hating on her was the reason why I’m being such a prick. And not because my hands are fucking aching to be on her again, to steal around her waist and grope the shit out of her.

  I’m silent as I set up, get the works in order. I’m kind of out of my mind with the tat I’m putting on her, but it’s too late now. It’s going to be sick, and permanent, and she’ll have me on her for life. Maybe as payment for ruining mine once upon a time.

  She has her bra off when I turn back, gloves on, tat machine in hand. My iron—that's what we call it, even though it's all about the needle, not getting the wrinkles out of your shirts and shit—is a total extension of me, was from the first day we met. And I can’t wait to get Addison under it again. Especially looking like that.

  Fuuuuck.

  The slip of cream silk is hanging over the chair along with her shirt, like an invitation. My fucking mouth waters like I haven’t eaten in days. Her back is just endless inches of smooth, tanned playground.

  “How’s it look?” she asks.

  My jaw goes tight and I can only laugh at her question. It’s just so damn on the nose. “Looks pretty good. Your skin takes ink really well. Pain too, seems like.”

  She relaxes forward, dropping her chin. “I’m surprised by that actually. But maybe I’ve developed tougher skin these past five years.”

  I know she’s speaking metaphorically, but I have this irresistible urge to lean in and run my tongue up her spine to check and see if it’s
true.

  I look over my colors again, make sure they’re lined up the way I like them. “Your skin will be sore,” I tell her. “I normally wouldn’t do this the same day, but if you can handle the pain—”

  “I can,” she insists.

  Damn, it’s like having the old Addison back when she talks that way. As I drop my head and get to it, I wonder if that’s a good thing or the worst thing ever.

  She hisses as the needle touches down, and I don’t bother to ask her if she’s all right. I want her to feel pain. Especially the kind that doesn’t come from my needle. The kind that lasts years and refuses to let go of your soul no matter how hard you try, no matter how many women you fuck.

  I work in relative silence for awhile, the sound of the machine and her steady breathing my only company. I’m falling in love with the design I’m putting on her. Even with all the turn-ons followed by the hard-ons, it could end up being one of my best pieces.

  “I was surprised when I heard you were doing this,” she says after a solid fifteen minutes. “With all the early scholarships to art schools, I thought maybe you’d go in that direction.”

  “I did,” I say, shading my yellow. “After skipping town, I checked out one in New York. Stayed there about six months before I picked up an iron and fell in lust.”

  “In lust?” she says, a smile in her voice. “Not in love?”

  “No. Never in love.”

  She senses the bitterness in my tone and goes in for the kill. “Not with anything?”

  “No.”

  “Or anyone?”

  I drop back, pull the needle from her skin. “What are you doing? You trying to find out if I’ve fallen for anyone since you? If I’ve fucked anyone since you?”

  She stiffens. “Jesus, why are you so harsh? It’s like trying to talk to sandpaper.”

  “I’ve always been that way, Addison. It’s why we got together in the first place, and why you dumped my sorry ass. It’s why you lied to me and went out with that buttoned up scoop of vanilla. And with what I saw you wearing today, you’re still with him.”

  She’s quiet for a minute or two, and even though I’m glad I said it, got it out after all these years, I still feel like a dick.

  “What’s rolling around in there?” I ask her. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m remembering when we first met. I think I was twelve.”

  I get back in the game. “Sounds about right.”

  “It wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone smoking,” she says, a grin in her voice. “But it was the first time I’d seen a kid doing it.”

  I sniff. “You walked right up to me and took it out of my hands. I thought you were going to stamp it out on the sidewalk. Color me stunned when you slipped it between your lips and took a drag.”

  She laughs softly. “I thought I was such a badass.”

  “You were, Ads.” Fucking hell. You were.

  She tightens up again. I do too. It’s the first time I’ve used her nick in five years, and it’s kind of like a knee to the balls. Oh, shit. Why are we doing this? Why am I? I could’ve heard what she had to say today at the convention center, finished the tat and been done with the whole thing.

  But it was like once I had her in front of me, in my chair, in my eyeline, I couldn’t let her go. Not this time. Not when I could do something to stop her.

  “I don’t think I was a badass, Rush,” she says on a sigh. “A badass would’ve told the truth. A badass wouldn’t have met up with someone behind her boyfriend’s back. It’s just that, being tossed around from house to house, eating one meal a day if that, no one wanting my ass…”

  I wanted your ass, I almost say. But that would be suicide.

  “I couldn’t stay in that life.”

  My gut does that eating itself dance again. “And I was that life.”

  “I thought so.”

  “And vanilla ice cream was what? Happily ever after? China dishes and six bathrooms?”

  “He was nothing.”

  “Bullshit, Ads. Don’t do that. Not now.”

  She breathes, in and out, for a few seconds. “Okay. When he called that day and asked me to the dance—me, the other-side-of-the-boulevard girl—I felt—”

  “Special,” I interrupt.

  “No. Saved.”

  Just that word—that one goddamn word—kills me. My jaw tight, I start running color over sections of black. I know this has got to hurt her, but I’m hoping the pain forces her to stop talking.

  It doesn’t.

  “Rush, you came from the same thing,” she says. “You were trying to keep your head above water just like me.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think about swimming away from you to get it.”

  She releases a breath. “No, you didn’t. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I went to your house the very next day, why I called and wrote and tried to make appointments for the next freaking five years. That’s why I can’t seem to find joy in anything. Why I’m just…lost.”

  My entire body goes rigid. My eyes narrow on the piece I’m inking into her skin.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “You have no idea how sorry I am for that night.” She’s quiet for a moment, then drops a bomb. “I loved you so much.”

  My hand tightens around the iron. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  Then bomb number two. “I never stopped, Rush.”

  “Goddammit, Addison,” I practically growl. “No more. I’m trying not to fucking scar you.”

  “Then don’t try.”

  I’m concentrating so hard my head hurts.

  “Maybe the scar will do the trick,” she says softly.

  “What trick?” I grind out. “Be a constant reminder of your betrayal? Shit…that’s what the tat is for.”

  “No.” She laughs softly. “This tat is you. You on me always.”

  Inside my chest, my heart is slamming like a rock against my ribs, and down south, I’ve been hard for a solid thirty minutes. And as I near the finish line with her first ink, her virgin ink, I know this is just the beginning of me on her skin tonight.

  Addison

  I’ve been playing a game with myself for the past forty minutes. It’s called Name That Tat. And I pretty much suck at it. With my eyes closed, and my brain turned to the on position, I once again try to envision what Rush is doing back there, what piece of art he’s creating. I no longer think it’s something mean, gross or insulting. In fact, after seeing what he’s capable of on the wall to my right, I’m certain it’s going to be jaw-dropping. But I do think it has the shape of a star about it. And I’ve tried in vain to follow his line work as the side of his hand brushes against my untouched skin, and his warm breath blows rhythmically on my inked skin.

  It’s not easy, though. As time ticks by, I feel this strange pain/pleasure sensation that makes me incredibly antsy and oddly turned on. I wonder if this is normal, or if it’s all about Rush being behind me, seeing him after so long, after years of wondering and fantasizing. Just being this close to him makes my toes point inside my shoes, my breasts feel heavy, and my sex clench with a need so powerful that by the time he lifts the needle from my skin, my underwear is soaked.

  I haven’t been a pining nun in these past five years. I’m no sexual martyr. I’ve dated and had some good sex, and hoped that in time my need for Rush would dissipate. But it never did. Not for one moment. I don’t know if it’s because I lied to him and hurt him. I don’t know if my guilt rules my obsessive desire, but as his fingers move over my irritated skin, massaging in that healing ointment with such slow, sensual care, my insides flare with heat. Despite the pain between my shoulder blades, every muscle in my body is poised and ready, every inch of skin, every hair follicle, every wet fold inside my pussy waits for its turn to be touched, to be tended to.

  But will he? Does he even want to?

  “All done,” he says, placing what feels like plastic wrap over my skin.

  I don’t move. Not yet. “What do you thin
k?”

  “I think it’s beautiful.” His voice is dark, raw, pained. “I think the whole fucking thing is beautiful.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” I ask, though I think I know. I hope I know. I hope he’s feeling what I’m feeling and is just highly pissed off about it.

  He doesn’t say anything. Not right away. But I feel him, his nose, down near the left side of my waist. His breath brushes over my skin as he nuzzles me so damn gently I moan. My belly is clenching and my breasts are swelling against the leather chair, waiting, anticipating. Touch me, I silently beg. Wrap your arms around me and fill your palms with my aching tits. God, you used to love my tits.

  I feel his mouth, his lips drag across my ribs. They’re so soft and hungry. His tongue flickers out to taste me, dipping into the space between each bone. I gasp softly, my hands curling around the edge of the leather seat. My mouth is dry and hanging open as he moves higher, kissing each rib until he’s right beneath my arm. His hair tickles my skin. My nipples bead, and my pussy is so wet now I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m soaking the chair I straddle.

  And then he’s gone. His warmth, his skin, his mouth, his tongue. And I sit there, my brain screaming for his hands, his nose, his lips, to please come back, come back and touch me again before I die, before I explode. Before I come right here on this chair where you’ve punished me for an hour and half.

  “You can get up now, Addison,” he says. “There’s no more pain tonight.”

  His words slice through me, make me a little dizzy, make me think and worry. But I push off the chair and stand. It’s only when I turn around to face him that I remember I’m not wearing a bra. His eyes catch on my chest and hold, and I can see now that I’m not the only one who’s affected here. Still seated, Rush looks tense. His muscles and the veins in his neck are bulging. And his face, his expression…I swear I could come from that alone.

  His jaw hard, his lips forming a thin, stressed line, his green eyes flaring with hunger, he reaches out and grabs my hips and pulls me to him.

  “You want to see it, don’t you, Addison?” he says, his eyes dragging up to meet mine.