by Eden Bradley
“An artist, then.” Tristan nodded. “What do you write?”
“Paranormal. Ghost stories, vampires. Dark stuff.”
“Ah, you’re in the perfect place, then, New Orleans.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve been going to the old cemeteries. They’re so beautiful.” She let out a nervous laugh. “That must sound strange to you.”
“Not at all.” He smiled, his teeth a strong flash of white that sent a warm chill down her spine. “A true artist can find beauty in anything. Everything. But some things are, by nature, more beautiful than others.”
He paused, his eyes locked on hers. What was he saying, implying? She was going hot all over.
He went on. “I’ve done a lot of sketches at the cemeteries myself, the Cities of the Dead, we call them. Some headstone tracings. Saint Roch is my favorite. I love the starkness there, the statuary, the gray-and-white stones. It’s a shadow place.”
“I haven’t been there yet. I’ve only been in New Orleans for a few months.”
“Ah, well, it’s not to be missed.”
Still hard to talk, with him looking at her like that, with her pulse racing at a thousand miles an hour. Why did his gaze on her feel like a caress? And that he understood her fascination with the graveyards! Was she imagining this sense of connection?
He glanced back at Crystal, lying quietly on the table still. “Are you ready to begin again?”
“Yep. Let’s finish it. I can’t wait to see how it looks.”
He dipped his tattoo gun in a small pot of ink, leaned over Crystal and began once more. The electric hum of the equipment seemed to resonate deep in Sophie’s body, in her breasts, between her thighs. She couldn’t look away as he moved over Crystal’s skin, the needle pushing the ink into her flesh.
She wanted to do it. She’d wanted to for as long as she could remember. And to have Tristan be the one to do this to her for the first time…the idea of it was too good. But could she really do it?
Hell, she was never going to be what her family wanted her to be. That had been perfectly clear for a long time. She hadn’t even talked to any of them in months. She’d gotten tired of the constant recriminations. Why did she still allow herself to be manipulated by them? This was her body, her life. They didn’t like that she was a common fiction writer either. Useless, they called her career. And her mother was convinced she’d been influenced by the devil, simply because of her subject matter.
Sophie knew it was ridiculous. So why did she let what they wanted hold her back from what she wanted for herself?
As she watched Tristan fill in the shading on the gorgeously drawn koi fish, she became more and more convinced that if she were ever going to do it, to get tattooed, he must be the one. And frankly, the idea of this man putting his hands on her was irresistible. Almost frightening how overwhelming her attraction to him was.
“Okay, you’re all done,” Tristan announced, giving Crystal’s skin one final wipe with his white cloth. “Go take a look in the mirror.”
He helped Crystal to sit up, steadied her with a hand on her arm as she stood. A gentleman, Sophie thought vaguely. Nice.
Crystal stood before the full-length mirror on one wall, looking over her shoulder. “Oh, I love it. It’s exactly what I wanted! Sophie, you really should get one.”
Tristan turned his penetrating gaze on her once more. Yes, exactly like smoke, those eyes. “Well? What do you think, Sophie? Are you ready?”
“What? Now?”
“I have an open schedule today. It could be now. Or another day. It’s up to you. But I’d be honored to work on you. To be your first.”
He grinned at her and she felt her cheeks go hot. The question was not whether she wanted to do this, but could she? She wanted to, with her entire being. All but that censorious voice in her head that was becoming more and more faint by the minute.
Crystal was still admiring her new tattoo in front of the mirror. “You should go for it, Sophie. You know you want to. And Tristan’s the best.”
Oh, she wanted to. Her heart skipped a beat as certainty washed through her, making her go weak all over. Yet strong on the inside somehow. There was strength in choosing her own path. She’d come to understand that in the last few years. Or, she’d thought she had. Maybe this was that last step she had to take before she was truly free?
She looked at Tristan, right into those impossibly dark eyes of his that seemed to see through her.
She nodded her head, beginning to shake inside with nerves and heat and yearning. “I’m ready.”
CHAPTER
Two
What was wrong with him? Tristan nodded to her, this ethereal creature, whose delicate features made him want to touch her face, just to lay his fingertips against her smooth skin.
Sophie.
He wanted to tattoo her. So badly he could hardly trust his own judgment.
Had he pushed her too hard? But no, he could tell by the flush on her skin, by the excited glimmer in her eyes, that she wanted to do this.
Such beautiful eyes. They were gold and green all at once. Innocent eyes, yet there was something of shadow in their depths. He was a man with shadows too. He could understand that hint of the dark in her.
You are too much the artist. Calm down. She’s just a pretty girl.
But he’d known the moment he laid eyes on her she was more than that.
He pulled in a deep breath and picked up a roll of paper towels, the spray bottle of alcohol, and began to wipe down his workstation.
“Why don’t we talk about the tattoo you want,” he suggested. Yes, talk business. Get his head straightened out. But it was his business to touch her skin, to mark her.
“Well, I’ve always thought it would look good on the back of my shoulder.”
He nodded. He couldn’t have done it if she’d wanted it on her belly, the small of her back, someplace more intimate. “And do you have any ideas about size? Color?”
“I’m not sure. Something small, but not too small. I want it to…to mean something, to have some significance. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes.” He did, he knew exactly. Nothing too small, nothing to be entirely hidden. That would defeat the purpose. He loved the way her mind worked. “And color?”
She shook her head, that silky dark hair swinging. Christ, it nearly reached her waist. What would she look like naked, with only that hair against her pale, translucent skin?
Get ahold of yourself, man.
“I don’t think I want any color in it,” she said. “What do you think?”
“I prefer to work in black and white, in grayscale. I like to use light and shadow, rather than color. There’s something more stark about it to me. More spiritual. More true.”
Her eyes met his. They were absolutely glittering. He knew she understood exactly what he was trying to say. “Yes, that’s just what I want.”
“Give me a minute to draw up the design, then.”
He turned to the light box behind him, pulled a piece of the opaque transfer paper they used at the shop to draw their designs on, and went to work. It took only a few moments. He cut the paper down and turned back to Sophie and Crystal. He’d nearly forgotten Crystal was there.
He really had to pull himself together.
He held the paper out to Sophie. “Here, what do you think?”
She smiled, nodded. “Yes. It’s perfect.”
“We’ll start, then.”
He stood and pulled a Japanese shoji screen around his work area for privacy, then turned to Sophie once more. “You’ll have to take your shirt off.”
Why did that feel dirty coming out of his mouth? He worked on half-nude women all the time. But there was definitely something sexual about it now, with her. He expected her to blush, to stammer, but she simply nodded and pulled her T-shirt over her head. Beneath was a white cotton bra. Nothing overtly sexy, nothing over the top, yet seeing the rounded swell of her breasts beneath the plain cotton went through him like a shock. Arousal, keen and raw
, vibrated in his veins.
Calm down.
“I need you to turn and sit sideways in the chair. Yes, that’s it. And lean forward a little. Good. Perfect.”
Yes, perfect, her naked back.
He sat on the stool, commanded his body to calm while he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and set up his tray: checked his tattoo gun, changed needles, filled the small ink pot with black ink.
He wiped her skin with alcohol, then laid the transfer paper on the right spot, at the top of her left shoulder blade, trying to ignore the fact that he was touching her. Skin like fucking silk. He pulled the paper off.
“Do you want to take a look before I begin?” he asked her.
“No. Just do it.”
There was a tremor in her voice, but it wasn’t fear, he could tell. She was excited. He could feel it coming off her in waves, like heat. Like scent. Like some chemical in the air.
He leaned in and held the needle over her skin. “I’m going to begin now.”
She could barely believe she was there, that she was about to get her first tattoo. That it was this man, Tristan, who was going to do it.
Her entire body was flooded with heat. With lust. There was no denying it. It had been hard to take her shirt off only because she wanted to take everything off, to lay naked on Tristan’s table, to have him use his tattoo gun all over her body. To have him touch her.
She was soaking wet, trembling with desire, and he hadn’t even begun yet.
When he started the gun, the tiny engine whirring to life, a stab of need went through her in a blazing rush. She closed her eyes, pulled in a deep breath.
She’d always known she would love this, being tattooed. But her imagination had never brought her here, to this level of exquisite anticipation as she waited for the first touch of the needle.
She had never dreamed of a man like Tristan Batiste.
She’d never bothered to wonder who would tattoo her; for her it was all about simply getting the tattoo. This was a thousand times better.
“It might hurt a little, but not too much.” His voice was deep, smooth, like the Southern Comfort Crystal had taught her to drink. That little bit of fragrant sweetness along with the edge.
She knew she would welcome the pain. But as he touched her skin with the tattoo gun for the first time, there was no pain. Rather, a heavy buzzing sensation that quivered into her skin, down through the layers. Deeper, and deeper still, invading her body. Goose bumps raised on her flesh, her nipples went hard beneath the soft cotton of her bra, and the sensation ended in an ache between her thighs. She almost moaned aloud.
The ache grew as the needle moved over her skin, and time faded away. She closed her eyes, breathed it in: the faint scent of ink in the air, the male scent of him. She breathed in the sensation itself.
“How are you, Sophie?” he asked after a few minutes. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Fine. I’m fine.”
“Hey, since you’re handling, Sophie, I’m just going out to get a Coke from the liquor store a few doors down,” Crystal said. “I’ll bring one for each of you, too. Be right back.”
Tristan really went to work then, the needle gliding over her flesh, every stroke spearing into her body, making her hotter and hotter. Her sex gave a squeeze, and she shifted forward just a little, so that the seam of her jeans rubbed against her mound. And had to bite back a moan once more. And at every moment she was keenly aware that it was him sitting only inches behind her, that he was doing this to her.
It took everything she had not to arch her back, to squirm, to pant. And when he laid a few fingertips against her skin as he worked, another jolt of pleasure rocketed through her.
“It might hurt now, as I fill it in and do the shading. I’ll need to trace over a few times in some areas. Okay?”
“Yes.” The word came out on a soft hiss.
She felt the needle bite a little deeper as her sensitized skin grew sore. But she loved it, loved the sensation. She drew in a deep breath, and could swear she smelled the heat of Tristan’s body behind her: dark, like New Orleans itself, and all male.
The gun buzzed on her flesh, pleasure washing over her skin, arrowing deep inside her. Her sex was on fire, aching with need. She shifted, the seam of her jeans pressing against her swollen clit. And each moment she grew wetter, hardly believing her own response. Desire rose in her, crested, as he traced the lines over and over, the ink pushing into her skin. Her sex throbbed, harder and harder.
“I’m almost done.”
No!
But he kept working. She could sense the heat of him, could almost feel that heat invade her body as the needle hummed through her. Her sex squeezed.
Yes, don’t stop now. Don’t stop.
“Nearly there,” he said, his voice deep, full of smoke.
Oh, yes. Nearly there…
His voice, the nearness of him, the buzzing thrum of the needle on her skin, it was all too good. Pleasure built, her sex filled, swelled, until she couldn’t hold back any longer. She came, hard jolts of pleasure shafting through her sex, through her body. Her fingers dug into the arm of the chair as she tried to control her shaking. She bit her lip, but a small sigh escaped her. And the warm wave of pleasure quivered deep inside. Finally, it eased, and she pulled in a steadying breath.
God, had he known what had just happened to her? Did she even know what had just happened to her?
“It’s finished.”
She could swear she heard the raw edge of desire in his voice. Or was it only her overheated imagination?
He wiped down her skin with a wet cloth, and she pulled in a deep breath, smelled the sharp, acrid scent of rubbing alcohol. If only it was his bare hand on her flesh.
He stopped and she turned to him. His gray eyes were dark, hazy. His mouth was soft. Yes, desire on his face. He caught her gaze and held it, and there seemed to pass between them some silent communication. The message was simple, clear: I want you.
“Hey, are you all done?”
Crystal came back into the screened-off work area and handed Sophie a can of Coke, then set another on a table for Tristan. Sophie bent her head to open it, needing the time to cool down. “Thanks,” she murmured.
“Let’s see.” Crystal moved around behind her. “Wow, it looks awesome.”
Tristan put a small hand mirror in Sophie’s hand. “Here, go take a look.”
She moved to where a long mirror was mounted on the wall, held the smaller mirror up so she could see behind her.
“Oh.” Her breath came out of her in a rush. She was tingling all over. “It’s beautiful. Perfect.”
When she looked up Tristan had a smile on his face, a small, crooked smile. There was an unexpected dimple in his right cheek. She shivered inside, her legs weak.
“Yes. Beautiful.” He paused a moment, locking gazes with her once more, and again she felt that shocking jolt of chemistry, of connectedness.
Impossible.
Or was it? She was feeling these things, this intensity. Could he feel some of it too? But she was too shaken to know. All she knew was that she wanted to do it again. To see him again. But Tristan and the tattoo and the shocking orgasm were all jumbled together in her head. Desire and guilt, over the tattoo, over coming like that. Desire won.
Yes, see him again. Yes, yes.
“Come back in a week so I can check it and see how it’s healing. Both you girls.”
Sophie nodded. “I will. We will.” She glanced at Crystal, who cocked an eyebrow at her, before turning back to Tristan. “Thank you.”
If only he had any idea of the gratitude flooding her body, absolutely flooding her, like a warm tide. She almost wanted to sink to her knees, kiss his clever hands.
Oh, yes, on my knees…
That didn’t even begin to describe the things she wanted to do with this man. God, she’d better get out of there before she did something really foolish.
More foolish than quietly coming in the man’s chair
?
She started to shake her head, caught herself and stopped. She had to get a grip. Had to think.
“You ready to go, Sophie?” Crystal turned expectant blue eyes on her. They really were turquoise, like the Caribbean Ocean.
“Sure. Yeah.”
“You might want to put your T-shirt back on.” Crystal gave her a grin as she tossed Sophie’s shirt at her. Sophie pulled it over her head, smoothed her hair.
Tristan was already beginning to clean up his work area. But he’d never taken his eyes off her.
“Come back,” he said, his voice quiet.
“I will. In a week, as you said.”
He nodded. Crystal pulled on her arm. “Come on. I paid for both of us when I went to get our drinks, so we’re all done. And I got the instruction sheet so you’ll know how to take care of your tattoo while it’s healing.”
Sophie nodded once more. She knew she wasn’t yet capable of putting an entire sentence together. Luckily Crystal could usually keep up enough conversation for two.
“Bye.” She gave Tristan a small, ineffectual wave, let Crystal half drag her out of there.
Outside, the heat and the humidity curled around her skin like a caress. Lovely.
The door to the shop closed behind them with a small rattle. As soon as it did Crystal turned to her.
“Jesus, Sophie, what was that all about?”
“What was…what?”
“That was crazy in there! The way you two looked at each other. And when he was working on you…shit. I’ve seen Boone get a bunch of his tattoos. Other people. But I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Like what?”
She wasn’t just playing innocent. She really wanted to know. She’d been too much in her own head, her own body, to know what had really happened.
“It was like you two were in your own universe. When he was tattooing you, it was like he was…like he was making love to your skin. Jesus!”
Sophie smiled, turned her head a bit to hide it. She was quiet as they walked, back past the shops and cafés, the small galleries. The scent of New Orleans was all around her, that scent of decay and flowers, garlic and strong chicory coffee.