Heather
“So. Third time’s a charm?”
Her fiancé, as tall as a mountain and as broad a damn freight train, slid onto the rid vinyl bench. He stripped off his black t-shirt and leaned forward, hardly daring to touch the paper protective layer on the chair. She knew the real reason Rone was on edge. He hated needles. He’d nearly passed out the first time he’d come for an appointment. She remembered coaxing him into it, persuading him to finally confide in her and explaining the painful process. Back then she’d been the shop’s receptionist. Now, after years of apprenticing, she was a real artist.
She’d been not so subtly hinting that Rone needed to let her tattoo him. She’d freed up her schedule several times, but he’d always found reasons to cancel. He could be utterly romantic and entirely too convincing. All it took was a single heated look and she forgot all about what she had planned.
“I can’t believe that you love art so much that you poke it into people for a living.”
“That sounds just wrong.” Heather started pouring out ink. “So you’re actually going to let me do full color on you?” Rone’s other tattoo was black and gray. Done by one of the guys who owned the shop, it was beautiful, the ink soft. It had healed well, despite what Rone thought about the whole process.
“No it doesn’t. Sound wrong, I mean.”
“Yes, it does.” She poured out a few more inks and set the bottles aside. “I’m going to get down to business soon. You have approximately five minutes to put your shirt back on and take off like the hounds of hell are at your ankles.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“And we both know you ate. And you have your bottle of juice.” She glanced at the OJ in Rone’s hand. “So we should be good. No passing out on me?”
“Not unless you have a heavy hand. I’ve read about that, you know.”
“In this case, I think a little less research was probably best. Mike and Kian taught me and they’re the best. I don’t have a heavy hand. I’m not going to carve it into you. I promise you’ll survive.”
“I hope so. It would be embarrassing to die at the hands of my fiancé. Although, I think it would be pretty romantic, really. I would have died for love, seeing as I’m doing this for love.”
“You are not. You’re doing this because I pestered you to the point of distraction and after months you couldn’t refuse me. I made this design just for you.” She held up the ship and compass stencil. “Just like you asked. Because I’m your direction and your anchor.”
“I asked for a ship, not an anchor.” Rone rolled his eyes, but his voice was tender, giving him away.
Heather laughed softly. “You’re a dork. I was trying to be metaphorical. Because, you know, ships have anchors.”
“They also have wood and mermaids and jewels and treasure and pirates.”
“And planks to walk with sharks circling below.” Heather put on a fresh set of gloves, ready to get the show on the road. She fit the stencil to Rone’s bicep. “I think we’ve lost the original analogy here. Or at least, I hope we did. I hope I’m not a plank or the sharks circling below for me.”
“Not unless they’re really sexy sharks.”
She raised a brow. “Maybe they are sexy sharks. I have been known to bite.”
Rone groaned. “Don’t remind me of that right now as I’m about to get tortured by you. It’s actually really hot and if you distract me, there is no way we’re even going to start.”
Heather leaned over Rone’s massive form. She gripped his arm to put the stencil on, but instead leaned over further and graced his neck with her lips. He jumped at the contact then went rigid. A feral noise was dragged from his throat.
“Seriously. You must really want to distract me here. You better get that stencil on before I get up and lock the door.”
“Alright, alright. We could take breaks,” she said suggestively.
“That’s hardly professional.”
“We’re here after hours. No one will know. I couldn’t book you in during the day because I can’t just give free tattoos away, but after hours, what I do is my business.”
The silence of the shop pressed down around them, tempting her to put her equipment away. She’d been with Rone for long enough that she shouldn’t still feel this way. She did, though. After a lifetime spent loving him in secret, it was like finally being allowed to love him had unlocked whatever she’d held trapped inside for so long. Now that she was actually allowed to love him, she knew she’d never stop.
“Well, then. Put that stencil away and get over here.”
Heather laughed softly. “I just remembered that there are cameras all over the shop. I’m sure it would provide quite a show for Mike and Kian though, when they check everything in the morning.”
“Why didn’t you say that before?” Rone asked, exasperated. His voice turned to a low growl and when his soft velvet eyes touched on her, she recognized the feral glow in their depths. “I’m not going to give anyone a free show. If we’re making a sex tape, I plan on getting rich.”
“Oh really? And do I get a say in this sex tape?”
“Of course. You can pick the genre. What’s it going to be? Bondage? Hot wax? Spankings?”
“I think that’s all the same genre.”
She averted her eyes from Rone’s broad chest, rippling with muscle. God, it wasn’t any wonder she loved him. Who on earth wouldn’t be attracted to a man who resembled a bronzed statue? She’d fought her brother for him. Not literally. Rone had done that. Or rather, he’d taken a beating for her and not fought Jay. She’d refused to give him up and eventually her brother came around. It seemed almost unbelievable that they were going to be married in just over a month. She’d dreamed about it since she was a little girl.
“Sorry I’m not well versed in adult movie categories. I could start learning though, if you wanted me to.”
“Seems like something fun to do on a Saturday night seeing as we’re old as fuck and we don’t go out anymore.”
“That’s not because we’re old. It’s because we’re too smart for that. I was never into it anyway.”
“Neither was I.”
Rone’s strong lips arched upwards in one of those soft smiles he reserved just for her. “Then I guess we’re not old. Just perfectly matched.”
“You know we are. We always were.” She leaned in again and slanted her lips over Rone’s. He was perfect. He tasted raw and masculine, sweetly primal with a hint of wild cherry mints he’d eaten while they drove back to the shop. He could never suck them. He always had to crunch them right away. He tasted like the man she loved, the man she knew intimately, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. “Now, can I put this stencil on you or are you going to make me re-book this for another night?”
“I’ve already worked up my courage for it. I can’t cancel again. The anxiety will kill me.”
“I promise I won’t torture you. Well, maybe just a little.” Heather smiled wickedly. “You know, I think that whole genre we were talking about maybe does suit me. Except I like to be the one handing out the pain.”
“I can’t believe people pay you for hours of torture.”
“And you, my love, are special enough to get it for free.”