Page 40 of No Apologies
Chapter Eight
His hands were shaking. They were actually fucking shaking. It was a terrible thing for a tattoo artist to have shaky hands and he silently cursed himself as he wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.
Was it the alcohol? He’d woken with one hell of a hangover. He always did when he drank which was why it was his last resort. When all else failed to quiet the demons, he got shitfaced drunk and last night even that hadn’t stopped the voices.
After his run in with Skylar, he’d gone home feeling edgy and out of sorts. He’d never apologized to her before but he’d known that she deserved the words after the bullshit he’d hit her with at the shop. He’d hated hurting her and he’d been so worried about losing her for good that he’d done the only thing he could think of and given her the tattoo he’d drawn for her months ago.
He’d had it all along, ever since their discussion about it, but he hadn’t convinced himself to give it to her until yesterday. Before yesterday, he’d looked at it and imagined another man seeing it on her body. The very idea had made him impossibly angry and jealous and he’d all but refused to ink it on her. Today, he still hated the idea of that boyfriend of hers getting to enjoy the beautiful mark he would put on her flawless skin but it was the only thing he’d been able to think of that would show her he meant the words.
Then he’d run into her, hugged her, let her closer than he’d ever let her before and that thorn under his skin had scratched at his heart again. He wanted her. He wanted every part of her. He wanted the right to hold her and talk to her and just be with her.
But he wasn’t good enough for her and the longer he’d sat alone in his apartment, the louder the voices had gotten in his head.
No, not voices. It was just the one. Decker’s voice. It haunted him. It always had. Even when he tried to shut him out, he was always there, wreaking havoc and threatening to destroy him. Every time Decker had told him that he was useless, worthless and a mistake had risen up to drown him in the flood of godawful memories.
So he’d gotten drunk. He’d tried to numb the self-pity and the self-hatred that came with his past. But none of it had helped last night, nothing had, not until he’d heard Skylar’s sweet voice on the other end of the phone.
He’d been sober enough to know that letting her come over would be a bad idea. He hadn’t been in control. It wouldn’t have been safe. He’d have let her comfort him, basked in her sweet, forgiving, good nature and he’d have let it go too far. He’d have blown their entire relationship to hell just to have her in his arms, just to taste her one time.
All day, he’d tried to convince himself that he was more in control than he had been last night. He was sober. He was focused. He knew better. He could handle himself and not be the fuckup that his father thought he was. But as the time for Skylar’s appointment grew closer, his hands had started to shake and he didn’t think it had a thing to do with alcohol.
He was nervous. Like a teenage boy with a chance to see the head cheerleader, he was antsy as hell. He’d cleaned the shop over and over just to keep himself busy. When Remy had teased him about it, he’d sent his brother out to run errands to get him out of the shop. He’d tried not to think about it, about her, but the moment the bell over the door dinged to announce her entrance, he knew that it was completely useless.
He was screwed.
Skylar was here, in his shop, to get a tattoo. She was going to crawl into his chair and expect him to do his job. Only she wasn’t just a client, she was the one woman in the world that he wanted and couldn’t have and to make it worse, she was the one woman that reacted to his needles as if the mix of pleasure and pain could make her climax.
No, he wasn’t screwed. He turned to look at her and barely contained a possessive growl. He was fucked.
Her shiny blonde hair was down around her shoulders in loose waves. Her suntanned skin and big blue eyes already gave her a beautiful summer girl appearance but her outfit was what caught his attention. She wasn’t in her skin-tight blue jeans and heels today. Instead she was wearing a simple white sundress that left an obscene amount of skin on display. So much skin and so many tattoos, all of them put there on her pretty, flawless skin by him.
The flowing white dress should have made her look like the angel he’d always seen her as but it didn’t. It was too short for that. There was nothing innocent about the skimpy dress that left her shoulders all but bare and ended well above her knees. The nearly sheer material made his eyes latch to her breasts, to the vee of her legs, made him wonder distinctly unangelic things like whether or not she was wearing panties. That dress was a goddamned invitation and pissed him off royally.
It was completely inappropriate. The tattoo he was inking would wrap around her upper thigh. She could have worn shorts and given him plenty of access but no, she hadn’t gone that route.
Instead she’d decided to wear a short, flimsy skirt that he would have to push up out of the way and pretend that he hadn’t imagined sliding his hands beneath her skirts a hundred times. He would have to kneel between her spread legs knowing that if he moved his hand just right he could find out exactly what was, or wasn’t, beneath that dress. He would be inches from heaven knowing full well every time she squirmed or moaned or `bit her lip that she was getting wet from the pain his needles inflicted.
It would drive him mad. Drive him out of his mind. It would be torture, plain and simple, and for the first time in their friendship, he contemplated throwing in the towel. Calling it quits. Admitting that being near her and not being able to touch her was downright masochistic and that his good intentions were destined to fail. He should send her away for good and put them both out of their misery.
“Hey.” Skylar grinned as she moved towards him and he fought the urge to snap at her, instead choosing to remain quiet as he attempted to pull himself back together.
He bit his tongue to keep from snarling at her. He wanted to ask her what the hell she was thinking coming into his shop dressed like that. She should know better. But the fact that shedidknow better stopped him, because despite most of his blood supply leaving his brain he processed enough to realize that she was playing with him.
She knew he wanted her. She’d put it together and she was baiting him. Just like last night with those pictures that she never should have taken let alone sent. It only made him angrier. She had no right. She had a boyfriend. It didn’t matter what he wanted. He couldn’t have her. Whatever she was up to, whatever game she was playing, it had to stop.
“Oh---kay.” She drawled the word when he didn’t say anything, “You playing the quiet game or something? Cat got your tongue? Taken a vow of silence I should know about?”
Despite himself, his lips twitched and she grinned. She always had that effect on him. She might piss him off but she also made him smile.
No, he wasn’t going to send her away. He knew he wasn’t. He’d spent weeks without her when she was giving him the cold shoulder and he’d hated every second of it. He could deal with his conflicting needs to protect her from letting him hurt her in any way and spanking her ass for leading him on.
He cleared his throat and tried to remember what he would say if he wasn’t thinking about getting her naked, “You’re late.”
“Uh, yeah… I’m Skylar. We’ve met right? You like to say I’ll be late to my own funeral. I figured you told me to be here a half hour early just so I’d show on time.”
She was in a good mood. He tried and failed to keep his scowl in place. Skylar in a good mood was contagious. She practically floated through the shop, all blonde hair and big blue eyes. Her lips were painted pink today, cotton candy pink. It might have seemed innocent on another woman. On her, it just made him want to take a big, juicy bite.
“Your appointment started ten minutes ago.” He turned away from her, straightening his already perfectly straight row of ink. “Get in the chair so we can get started.”
