The Harder He Falls: 2 (So Inked) Read online

  His skin crawled at the sensation of the blades stripping off hair. “You can’t do it all in one day?”

  Her expression was serene. He couldn’t get a lot off her except earlier she’d been testy. He liked her better like this. “I could, but everyone has a different threshold of pain. If you can handle it, we can get a lot done today, but if not, there are options.”

  He was getting the distinct feeling she didn’t believe he could take the pain. This wasn’t his first tattoo, and hell yeah they hurt, but he wasn’t a pansy. He smiled and winked. “Give it to me, doll.”

  Kellie quirked a brow. He could hear her deadpan voice saying “Really?” in his head and it was all he could do to keep from laughing at her. Instead, she rolled her eyes and picked up the translucent paper.

  The tattoo design was better than he’d expected. The samurai bordered on realistic as it brought a sword up in a guard position. He’d asked her to add bandages to the hands to mimic the way he’d taped his when he’d fought competitively. He didn’t know what she had in mind for the background or the colors, but he was pleased regardless.

  “Go take a look at it and see if you like it.” She peeled the transfer paper off his arm and sat back in her chair, watching him.

  He did as she requested and went to a mirror hanging at the back of the shop. Besides the image she’d transferred to his skin, Kellie had drawn lines around the samurai. Background maybe? It was a bigger piece than he’d anticipated, but he had told her to knock herself out designing it.

  “That is badass,” he said after twisting his arm this way and that. “What’s all this other stuff around him?”

  Kellie came to stand next to the mirror. She folded her arms under her breasts, which only drew more attention to them. At least until he glanced at her right arm. A gnarly Japanese foo dog’s mouth was open, frozen in a roar. “He’s going to be stepping off the pages of a scroll. He’ll look almost real, and the rest of it will look more like a watercolor image. I’ll border it with an aged parchment texture. Do you like it, or do you want to change it?”

  “No, it’s going to be awesome.”

  One side of her mouth kicked up and the hard-ass exterior cracked a little. “Come over here and take a seat.”

  She turned and preceded him to her station. He’d never been jealous of clothing before, but her jeans were to be envied. The way they molded and hugged her ass was more than distracting. He sank back into the chair. It was clear he wasn’t one of her favorite people but he was going to win her over. She might not be his thief, but he wouldn’t mind her stealing some of his time.

  Kellie turned to face him and the tattoo machine revved to life. “This is your last chance to back out.”

  The clatter of the machine was familiar and a little intimidating. “Do your best, doll.”

  She pursed her lips and inwardly he chuckled. He’d have to remember to keep calling her that.

  Kellie bent over his arm and the machine settled into a steady hum. He watched the needle descend and sucked in a breath at the first prick. Black ink welled up on his skin in the wake of the machine. She traced a little ways, wiped the excess pigment away and kept going.

  For several minutes he watched her make the longest uninterrupted lines he’d ever seen. He’d had enough work done on his right arm to know she had talent.

  He eased back into the chair and leaned his head against the padded support. Now to kill a few hours. Originally he’d planned to go to Penny’s and try to smooth things over there, but she wasn’t speaking to him. Instead he’d talked to Chad, who had suggested he give her space and try back later in the week.

  “So how long have you been doing this?” he asked.

  “About ten years.” Her tone was distracted, speaking as if by rote.

  “Ten years?” He eyed Kellie. “When did you start tattooing? When you were ten?”

  She lifted the needle and chuckled. She swiped at his skin, cleaning up the portion she was working on. “I started when I was…” One eye squeezed shut and her lips screwed up. “I was twenty-one or twenty-two when I started my apprenticeship.” She swirled the needle in the reservoir of ink before turning back to him and getting to work.

  “How do you get started tattooing? Do you just get a tattoo gun and set up shop?”

  “Oh hell no. There are people who do that, but don’t go to them. I was living in Chicago at the time and got to be friends with this really cool chick. Her husband was a tattoo artist and she saw my designs and suggested we work together. He was having a hard time creatively and we collaborated on a few tattoos. I thought it looked cool and I wasn’t doing anything with myself, so I figured why not? I moved in with them, apprenticed and paid rent by babysitting their kids. Worked there four years before I moved back here.”

  “Why would you move from Chicago to here?” Texas was an okay place to live cheap in comparison to other places he’d called home, but not his first pick by far.

  “It wasn’t my choice. My mom got remarried and was moving. Grandma didn’t want to leave, so I came back so she wouldn’t be alone, and here I am. It’s not so bad.” She lifted a shoulder.

  “What is there to do around here? I haven’t lived in the area long.”

  “Depends on what you’re into.”

  “Would you have time to show me around a little?”

  Kellie glanced up from the tattoo. “Probably not. It’s nothing personal, but I’m busy and don’t go out much.”

  “All the more reason for you to get out a little, doll.” He grinned when she glared. Taunting the devil had always been his favorite pastime.

  Kellie was five seconds from pulling a Pandora and stabbing the tattoo needle through his eye. It wasn’t his fault she was crabby, but she didn’t want to do this song and dance tonight. She managed to get out a simple, “Um, no,” instead.

  As if her day couldn’t get more complicated, the front door swung open and a girl wearing faux vintage sauntered in.

  Kellie leaned back, straightening her spine and stretching. “Hey, can I help you with something?”

  “Yeah, is Autumn here?” She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head. “I was supposed to come in and talk to her about a tattoo.”

  Inwardly Kellie groaned. Autumn owed her for this crap.

  “She isn’t here. I think she’s sick. Did you have an appointment with her?”

  “Yeah. Is she not coming in at all today?”

  Kellie hated lying to a client, but it was better than admitting the truth. “No, she’s really sick. It’s only me here or I would offer to have someone else do it.” She stood, stripped off her gloves and headed for the desk. “Let me get your name and number. When Autumn gets back in I’ll have her give you a call.”

  She grabbed pen and paper for the client and pushed it toward her. She waited for the girl to scrawl her information down and stuck it in the drawer. At this rate she was going to get a headache. Massaging her temples, she returned to her chair and pulled out a new pair of gloves.

  “Why do I get the feeling Autumn isn’t sick?” her obnoxious client asked.

  She sighed. It wasn’t his fault the truth was easy to see. She didn’t like lying. “Because she’s not sick. As far as I know she’s playing hooky.”

  “So you lied to that girl?”

  The familiar weight of the tattoo machine helped ground her. She had a job to do, and complicated moral situations could wait until she could examine them through the bottom of a bottle. “Yeah. Autumn’s going to pay for that.”

  “Being the boss is tough work.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I would have done the same thing.”

  She glanced at him. Maybe he wasn’t such a douchenugget after all. She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the thought.

  Before she could even set the needle to his skin, the shop phone rang to life. She groaned and rolled her chair back as the bell over the front door chimed. Glancing at the newcomer, she sighed in relief. It was time something went right
today.

  “Hey, Mary, can you get that?” she called out.

  “Got it.” Mary leaned over the receptionist desk and grabbed the phone.

  “Okay, let’s knock this outline out.”

  Not looking at him was the best thing to do. He might not be of the good-guy mold, but she had been hard on him. He had yet to squirm or complain while she worked, and besides his annoying habit of calling her doll, he was an average guy. If average guys were hot, buff and knew it. She even bet he was the rough sex type—hard and fast, just the way she liked it.

  As much as she’d like to entertain the idea of a man in her life, she couldn’t. Between the shop, people drama, tattooing and Grandma, she didn’t have time for herself. There wasn’t enough of her to go around.

  They lapsed into blessed silence for the last twenty minutes it took for her to use the lining needle to draw thin, black lines on his tanned arm. She connected the last of the outline and sat back to examine the bare bones of the tattoo. The muscles in her back ached and she was beginning to regret her decision not to look at him. She could feel his gaze caressing her, a constant reminder of his interest, and she couldn’t reciprocate. It wasn’t fair, but that was how it was.

  “How many people do you see in here with kanji that doesn’t mean what they think it does?”

  Kellie chuckled. “Considering I can’t read Japanese, fuck if I know. I’m not Japanese, I’m Korean.”

  “Oh shit, sorry.” He had the grace to appear abashed by the assumption.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “So uh, a Korean chick doing Japanese tattoos?”

  “How many people do you hear asking for a Korean tattoo?”

  He paused before shrugging as she got more ink on the needle. “None.”

  “Exactly. A lot of the Asian imagery is similar enough I can do something stylistic, but the Japanese style is where I earn my money. It’s all tattooing to me—Japanese, American, Chinese, Korean—who cares?” She’d never seen the point in turning her nose up at excelling at another culture’s art. Just because people wanted a Japanese dragon or geisha, she wasn’t going to turn them down. “Outline’s done. Do you want to look at it?” She squirted a sanitary liquid called green soap onto a rag and cleaned off his arm. The skin around the lines flared an angry red. He was tan enough she was going to have to get creative about her use of color to make the end result really pop, but she could do it.

  He twisted his arm this way and that, surveying her handiwork. Instead of getting up and going to the mirror, he relaxed back into the chair and gave her a wink. “Looking good, doll.”

  She gritted her teeth and mentally scrubbed away any thoughts of him being anything other than annoying. She dipped the needle in the ink and took a deep breath. Her grouchiness knew no bounds today.

  Before she could start shading the piece, Quin’s phone rang.

  “Hello?” His lips set into a hard line and a vein on his forehead slowly rose to prominence as he listened.

  Kellie rolled back and picked up a bottle of water she’d left on the counter. She needed to watch how she handled clients. Quin clearly had patience or else he’d have walked out of the shop. Her talent was worth only so much. She made the painful choice to knock a little off what she would charge him. He wasn’t a bad guy, hell, he’d even offered her support in the Autumn mess and he’d really only flirted with her. She should be flattered, not pissed off.

  Every few moments Quin grunted a “Huh,” or uttered, “All right.” After a few moments he hung up, a dark scowl pulling on his features. “I’m going to have to come back later. Something’s come up.”

  The quiet anger rolling off him was palpable. Quin was a man she never wanted to see angry. An intangible yet deadly quality cloaked him. If Kellie had met him on the street at night in this mood, she would get away from him in all haste.

  “Let me bandage you up.” She made quick work cleaning up the tattoo, slathering it with ointment and wrapping his entire arm in plastic wrap, then taped it in place with medical tape. “I have your number on the paperwork, and I’ll get you a business card on the way out so you can call and make an appointment when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks,” he said in a clipped voice.

  As suddenly as he’d swept into the shop, Quin left without a backward glance. She sat in her chair, watching him disappear through the glass window front, a strange feeling of loss settling in the pit of her stomach.

  “You get all the beefcake,” Mary said.

  Kellie wheeled around, a hand flying to her chest. “Fuck, warn a girl before you scare the shit out of her.” Mary quirked a brow at her and kicked her legs. How long she’d been sitting on the table behind her, Kellie didn’t know.

  “Sorry. Who’s your new boyfriend?”

  She would have glared at Mary, but her friend was impervious to such expressions. Mary had a teenager after all. “No one special.”

  “He looks like your type.”

  “Boneheaded idiots are my type?” she snapped with more venom than Quin’s teasing warranted. Mary continued to sit in silence as she typically did. She was like that, using her silence to wear you down until you told her everything. Kellie sighed and turned back to clean her station. “I’m cranky. I need a new gym but I don’t have time to go. I’m just frustrated.” And Quin had taken the brunt of that. Now who was the jerk?

  The wood table creaked as Mary pushed off the edge. Her patent-leather heels squeaked as she pivoted and stepped up behind Kellie, who flopped back in her chair and rolled her head forward. Mary answered the silent plea and began slowly kneading her shoulders and neck.

  “You need to work out this tension. It’s not good for you.”

  Kellie sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

  A shrill phone she didn’t recognize rang, interrupting the impromptu massage. She glanced around and found the source of the ringing. Quin’s phone lay on the counter.

  * * * * *

  “Sorry I’m late, Kellie.” Natalie popped out of her Toyota, more than a little frazzled.

  “Hey, Nat. Festive scrubs.” Kellie met the nurse halfway between their vehicles and gave her a hug. Sometimes it felt as if Natalie were family. She spent about as much time in Kellie’s house as she did.

  Natalie glanced down at the reindeer print and laughed. “They were clean. I can’t wait for this move to be over and I know where all my stuff is. How’s she doing?”

  “Good. I gave her lunch and meds half an hour ago, so she should be pretty happy.”

  “Awesome. Do you need a hand?” She gestured at the back of Kellie’s Cube, full of soft drinks and a bulging garment bag.

  “No, this is the last of it. Remind me again how late you’re here for? Sorry, rough couple of days.” She scrubbed a hand over her forehead, swiping away the light sheen of sweat that had begun to gather along her hairline.

  “I’m here until three.” Natalie winked at her. “Don’t have too much fun.”

  Kellie chuckled and slammed the door shut. “I’ll try not to.”

  They said their goodbyes, and for the first time since the week prior, she left knowing Grandma was in good hands. She popped in a CD, slid the sunroof back and headed for So Inked.

  All too soon she took the exit for Greenville Avenue. The trendy street looked a little faded and sad in the searing afternoon heat, but then again it was hard to be upbeat when the thermometer was over the one hundred degree mark. The dog days of summer were gnawing her ankles.

  She turned down a side street and pulled the Cube into an alley. The old So Inked shop had burned to the ground, courtesy of a truly psychotic man who had stalked Pandora. Insurance and the best landlord they could’ve asked for allowed them to move the shop down the street to an unoccupied space in a different strip mall, putting them directly in the middle of some of the busiest foot traffic in the area.

  And today was their grand opening.

  She pulled in next to Mary’s refurbished classic De Ville and gath
ered her bag. She headed for the back door to the shop and pulled it open to a yipping dog and Mary’s rapid-fire Spanish. Kellie breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was nice to be home. They might be in a different building, and all of the equipment might have changed, but nothing could destroy the So Inked spirit, as long as her girls were working under one roof. Now if she only knew where Autumn was.

  The back emergency exit had a direct line of sight to the front doors. A single bulb floating inside a mason jar lit the hall. To her left were the office and a storage room. To her right were the bathroom and a private room to do piercings and more sensitive tattoos. The walls had been painted a dark crimson. Gaudy gold frames hung at intervals, each featuring paintings they’d done for the purpose of decorating the new shop.

  Their last attempt at decorating had been to use all of Pandora’s artwork, but Mary wanted to showcase their variety at the new location. It was a decision Kellie agreed with, at least until she’d had to sit down and paint something. She’d managed the final touches on her contributions Friday while stuck at home. Kellie adjusted one of the frames as she passed, ensuring it was hung just so.

  “What’s with all the racket?” she yelled as she stepped into the shop proper.

  She glared at the man cradling the Corgi in the middle of her shop. She loved the fur ball, but made a point of giving his owners a hard time whenever she got the chance. “Brian, what did we say about the dog?”

  He grinned and waved a doggie paw at her. “We’re on our way out.”

  Kellie dropped her bag next to the wall and crossed the floor to give Gibson a scratch behind his ears. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

  “Thanks, Kellie, didn’t know you cared.” Brian winked at her and hefted Gibson up in his arms. “Okay, I need to get back to work. Hey, Pandy, I’ll be back around six. Do you still want me to pick up the food?”

  Pandora turned from where she’d been arranging her new work station. “If you wouldn’t mind, please? And call Carly again? I think she’s tired of hearing from me.”

  “Sure thing. See you later, babe.” He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.