Chapter Fifteen
Sweet Baby Jesus in a manger, why the fuck had she said yes?
She must have been light-headed. From standing up too fast. Or choking on Cash’s absurdly beautiful cock.
One of those. Bailey lay back against the huge leather chair where she’d been rather wonderfully ravished just a few days ago. Before she’d ruined it, that is.
Now her skin was tingling, her face was warm and her heart was pounding, but there was nothing wonderful about it. She was absolutely shitting herself.
Gem stood over her, looming like a fuchsia-haired ghost. She was chewing on some obnoxiously bright Hubba-Bubba, pausing every few minutes to blow an acid-green bubble.
“You nervous?” She asked, chomping away.
“No,” Bailey said. She heard Cash snort, and turned sharply to look at him--but he was bent over his tattoo gun, his face blank. Hm.
“She’s bricking it,” Jay chuckled from a few feet away, working on a client of his own. The client, a huge bald guy with a long, white beard, was having his bare belly tattooed, a concept which made Bailey’s own stomach tighten reflexively. That had to hurt.
But he was grinning merrily. “Don’t worry, m’love,” he said in a broad, local accent, the kind her grandmother had spoken in before she’d died years ago. “Y’ be alright.” He gave her a wink.
She smiled weakly back at him. “Thanks.”
“Okay,” Cash said at last. He’d been fiddling at his little station for a good ten minutes now, and her anxiety had built with each second. “Take ‘em off.” He nodded down at her jeans.
She stared at him, aghast. “Oh my God, no.”
“Bailey,” he said patiently. “While I have many talents, I cannot tattoo you through denim.”
Of course he couldn’t. What was wrong with her? She’d been so worked up over the pain, and whether she was about to cry like a little girl and embarrass herself—the practicalities had completely slipped her mind.
“I—I just… I forgot you’d have to… Oh, God.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “It’s alright. We’ll draw the curtain.”
“Do you want my hoodie?” Gem asked brightly. “To go over your—“
“Yes! Please!”
“Alright.” Gem gave Cash a look. “Bugger off, then. Let us get ready.”
“Must I?” He sighed dramatically. But he was already standing up. He drew the curtain around their little area, shutting himself and everyone else out. But Bailey could still hear the buzzing of Jay’s tattoo gun, and the subtle aggression of the sound had nerves coiling in her gut like a pile of worms.
“Come on then,” Gem said briskly, pulling off her hoodie.
“Oh, yeah.” Bailey stood and unbuttoned her jeans, beginning the rather awkward process of peeling the stretch-denim from her thighs. “Thanks so much, Gem.”
“No worries. But you won’t be able to put those on after, you know.”
“Oh, crap.”
“I’ll nip out to the shops and get you something.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” Bailey freed herself from the jeans and straightened up, folding them neatly. At least she was wearing decent underwear.
“What size are you?”
“Um…”
“I can look at your label,” Gem murmured, “if you don’t want to say.”
“No, no. It’s fine. Eighteen. On the bottom, anyway.”
“Cool.”
Bailey sat back against the huge seat, and Gem bustled around her, arranging the hoodie over her lap so that only one thigh was exposed.
“Alright,” she called after a few final tucks. “We’re decent!”
“Bailey might be,” Jay called back, “but you aren’t.”
“Hilarious.” Gem rolled her eyes as Cash stepped back through the curtain. “I’ll be off, then. Won’t be long.”
“Okay,” Bailey said. Her voice was unnaturally high and strained. She cleared her throat and offered Gem a tight smile. “See you in a bit.”
“See you!” In a flash of grey, plastic-y curtain, Gem was gone.
Cash sat beside her once more, his eyes tender. “You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah.”
“Nervous?”
“Maybe. A little bit.” She thought for a second. “Do you think we could open the curtain now? So I have something to distract me from… You know.”
“Of course,” he said softly. He stood up again and pushed the curtain back, bringing Jay and his bearded client into view again.
“This your first one, is it, love?” The man asked.
“Yeah,” Bailey said. Had breathing always been this hard?
“Bit nervous, are ye?”
She jumped as Cash pressed a piece of transfer paper to her outer thigh. “Um. A little bit.”
“Just got to get on with it, that’s all m’duck!”
Cash touched her forearm. “How’s that?” He asked, nodding towards at her lap.
She looked down and found the rose design she’d loved so much, blown up and covering her leg in dark blue ink. A slow smile spread across her face as she studied it, and her clamouring nerves quieted, just a touch.
“That’s great,” she said. “Perfect.”
“Good.” He picked up his tattoo gun and switched it on, and the menacing buzz sent her anxiety through the roof again. “I’m just going to do a little line, okay? So you know how it feels.”
“Okay,” she murmured.
“Don’t look,” Jay told her from across the room. “It’s better if you don't look. You might be a bleeder.”
Great.
Bailey stared up at the ceiling and focused on the music coming in from the entry room. It sounded like Ariana Grande, which meant Gem had got ahold of the sound system again. Not that Bailey was complaining. She loved Christmas and Chill.
She let the silky vocals rise above the buzzing tattoo gun in her mind, then took a deep breath. Which filled her nose with the comforting scent of Cash’s soap, or shampoo, or whatever it was that made him smell like summer linen.
And then he put the needle to her skin.
It… didn’t hurt that much. Actually, she wasn’t sure if it hurt at all.
He pulled away, looked up at her. “Alright?”
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “It’s… It’s not too bad.”
He grinned. “That’s my girl.” And then he bent his head over her thigh again and put the gun to her flesh.
She gazed up at the ceiling once more. Now that this was actually happening, she felt kind of silly. She could feel the needle, sure, but not enough to describe it as pain. It was like being prickled by a kitten: more shocking than agonising.
In fact, she’d been more disconcerted by the sight of Cash’s head so close to her—
“Done!” Jay said, his voice rising in satisfaction.
“Cheers mate. Cor, that’s somethin’, eh?”
Bailey looked over to find Jay grinning at his client’s round belly. Except, through abstract shapes and colours, it had been transformed into a… fishbowl? Bulbous goldfish chased translucent bubbles across the man’s swollen skin. Bailey stifled a giggle as Jay began to wrap clingfilm over the fresh ink.
“You’re so talented, Jay,” she said, unable to keep quiet. Cash, it seemed, had no such concern; he was singularly focused on his work, silent as a church. But hey; she should be glad he was concentrating so hard, right?”
“Thanks, Bailey,” Jay smiled. “You’re a sweetheart.”
“I wish I could have colours like that,” she mused. “But I’m probably too dark for it to—”
Abruptly, Cash raised his head, pulling the gun away. He glared at her, startlingly fierce.
“You’re not too anything,” he interrupted. “You’re the perfect natural canvas for all this heavy shit I design. It’s like you were made for…” He trailed off, cleared his throat. “For my work,” he finished. Then, just as suddenly, he bent back over her leg and went to work.
Bailey stared at the top of his head, copper highlights glinting out under the fluorescent light. Then she looked up to find Jay and his client staring too, with similarly stunned expressions.
“He never talks while he’s working,” Jay said finally. “I didn’t even know he… Processed words when he was working. It’s always like he’s in some kind of trance.”
“Aye,” the big man agreed, sliding his T-shirt on. “He is a silent bastard, ain’t he?”
“Usually,” Jay muttered. Then he shook his head slightly. “Anyway, Lee, let’s have you. Come on, mate.”
They left the room, the client—Lee—giving her a cheery wave as he went. And then Bailey was alone with the silent bastard.
She waited for him to speak. To say something that would explain the aberration that had apparently just occurred.
But he didn’t, of course.
God, where the hell was Gem?