“Can I take a look?” she asks.
I remove my leather jacket and toss it on a chair. Her eyes widen at the sight of my tattooed arms, or maybe it’s just the typical reaction to my giant biceps. Peeling off my T-shirt, I throw it on the jacket. She inhales audibly when she sees me shirtless.
“Jesus, you’re huge,” she mutters in a throaty whisper that sounds almost sexual. Raven’s eyes roam over my body, checking the work of at least a dozen other artists. I don’t have a lot of vacant space left between my neck and my waist. She touches the bloody dagger on my right bicep and says, “Nice work on this one,” but I can’t help but think she just wanted to touch me. My theory proves correct as she circles behind me, her hand never leaving my skin, instead stopping on various tattoos while she asks questions.
I decide to play with her. When she comes around my side I begin to undo my belt.
“I’ve also got these,” I say, unzipping my pants.
“You don’t have to do—”
I slide my jeans to my knees.
“—that… well, okay then.”
I’m wearing gray boxer briefs that are probably a size too small. It’s hard to find the right size when you’re this big.
Now she has no choice but to look, so she inspects the tattoos I have on both thighs. The work on most of my body is black line-work with gray shading, and the thighs are no exception.
“I was thinking about something right here on my inner thigh,” I say, touching myself there to demonstrate. “Or maybe right here where there’s still a little space left.”
I tug the front of my boxer briefs down to just above my cock. There’s a small area there that has no ink on it. Raven politely looks, then turns away when she realizes my trimmed pubic hair is peeking out over my underwear. She glances at her staff, then begins blushing all over again. I look behind me to see the ginger dude and the neon redhead staring right at me, their mouths agape.
I pull my pants back up as Raven gathers her wits again.
“I will work on whatever area you want,” she says, then quickly appends, “within reason.”
“Fair enough.” I close my pants and slip back into the T-shirt.
“What kind of design were you thinking of?” Raven asks.
I respond with a question of my own. “Can I see pictures of your work?”
She produces a thick photo album and I browse through it. I wasn’t expecting her to be bad, because the owner of a shop usually knows what they’re doing, but I’m stunned by what I see. This chick is a fucking artist. I flip page after page and don’t see a single design that’s not inspired and beautifully executed.
“This is amazing stuff,” I say, mesmerized by the pictures.
“Thanks.”
I finally get to the last page and close the album.
“You decide,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows raise.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I like your taste,” I say. “You can tell what styles I like by what I’ve got on me now. Draw me up a custom design. If I like it, which I expect to, we’ll go with that.”
Raven smiles. I’ve flattered her.
“So, should we do the thigh or the belly then?” she asks.
“Again, your call,” I say.
She glances at my lower belly. Her brow furrows slightly and she looks embarrassed all over again. “Well, we have more room to work on the thigh, obviously. But inner thigh tattoos are extremely painful.”
Raven looks up at me and smiles. It’s a great smile she has, warm and friendly and yet still somehow sexy.
“Hmm… you don’t look like someone who’s afraid of a little pain. Let’s go with the thigh.”
She mulls it over.
“Lincoln, do you mind—”
“Link.”
“What?”
“My name. Link.”
She nods. “Link, could I possibly take a couple of pictures of the tattoos already on your thigh? I want to make sure all the new piece works with the others.”
I can tell she’s a little uncomfortable making the request.
Me, on the other hand—I don’t give a shit. I undo my pants and drop them again.
Raven grabs her phone and takes a couple of pictures my huge thigh. She’s fascinated by one tattoo in particular, a Japanese-style carp. She squats down and looks closely, running her hands along the lines. I feel a tingling in my cock and know if she doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to get a boner. Just as I’m about to reach down and grab her wrist to stop her, she removes her hand and takes a couple more pictures, then stands.
“Thanks,” she says.
As I pull my pants up, I see that my cock has plumped up slightly. I don’t think she noticed, though, because she was studying the tattoo.
“Let me see what I can come up with. If you want to come by in a day or two, I’ll show you what I’ve got.”
Another awkward pause.
“The design,” she adds quickly. “If you like it, we can schedule a session to do the work.” She hands me a pen and two business cards.
“Keep one and put your number on the other so I can let you know when I’m ready.”
I do as she says, then put on my shirt and pick up my jacket.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Aja,” I say. When she starts to object, I smile slightly and amend it. “Raven.”
I casually pick up the tablet from the leather table and flip it over. The tattooed man is now fucking the woman, taking her from behind with his hands on her hips and his cock plunging in and out of her.
“Sorry to interrupt your research,” I say.
Then I turn and walk to the door, ignoring the other two employees. I can feel Raven’s eyes on my ass the entire way.
After mounting my Harley, I pull her out into Melrose traffic and drive past Chaos Ink. As I do, I side-glance at the glass door to see all three of their faces plastered against it.
8
Raven
“What the fuck was that?” Theo says, apparently unwilling to believe what his eyes have just told him.
He and Renee and I have gathered at the door of the shop to watch Lincoln Ramirez, who has just driven away on a big black Harley, because of course he would. What else would that man be driving except the baddest bike on the planet?
“Did he really just pull his pants down in front of you?” Renee asks, equally stunned.
I still feel flushed from my interaction with that huge hunk and I’m certain my two employees can tell.
“He was showing me his tattoos!” I protest. “And the place he wants his first free one, on his thigh.”
The door swings open again, startling us.
“What’s up?” says Elena, my other female artist.
I look at the clock and see it’s already two.
“The Oscars hero just stopped by,” Theo says.
Elena’s eyes widen. “No shit? He saw the thing on TV?”
I start to reply when Renee jumps in.
“And he pulled his pants down and showed Raven his dick.”
“He did not!” I say, then feel the need to explain to Elena that yes, the guy had pulled his pants down before I could stop him, but just to show me his tattoos, and that he’d kept his underwear on the entire time. Since he had his back to Theo and Renee at the time, they couldn’t possibly have seen the tell-tale bulge that I saw.
We all have a laugh about it, then Renee asks with awe, “Did you hear that voice? My god.”
Theo says, “Yes! Deep and manly, like a more macho Vin Diesel.”
I can see in Renee’s eyes that she was intrigued by Ramirez. Hell, I’m intrigued, too. How can any woman not be a little smitten with a man that big who seemingly has no fat whatsoever? And she’s right, his voice alone is enough to make you wet.
They ask if he’s going to take me up on the tattoo offer.
“Yeah,” I say. “At least once. I guess if he thinks it sucks, then he won’t come back.”
Elena rolls her eyes.
“Your tattoos never suck and you know it.”
Theo’s two o’clock appointment walks in and we all go back to work. I return to my station to find the porn video still going on my iPad. I turn it off, still mortified that this Ramirez guy totally busted me when I was watching. My friend Delia in New York sent me the link, saying that she’d watched it with her boyfriend and she thought I might like it because of all the tattoos on the guy. Truth is, I was watching it for the hot sex more than the tattoo artistry, which wasn’t that great. But how embarrassing to have a total stranger walk in and find me looking at porn.
I flash back to half an hour earlier, when Ramirez first removed his jacket, then his shirt. I have never in my life seen a man so fucking huge, and it was a hundred percent muscle, with not an ounce of fat anywhere. That fucker must live in the gym. I think about the ink I saw on him and remember feeling compelled to touch him, to test the hardness of his amazing body. It was like running my hand over the surface of a statue. More than that, even, because there I got a thrill inside when my fingers made contact. I just wanted to continue, to put my hands all over him and soak in the surreal feeling of touching a man that big and muscular.
Taking a seat in my chair, I go back over our conversation. Ramirez is handsome in an old-school way, with his square jaw, flat nose and rough complexion. His head is shaved, but from what I could tell from his stubbled hairline, that’s by choice. His isn’t a face that would make you look twice on the street, but it’s dead-on perfect for that incredible physique. You wouldn’t want a pretty-boy metrosexual look on a body like that.
Ramirez has a hardness about him, a look that says he doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything.
Basically, he’s totally hot, and I would definitely fuck him.
Only he barely acknowledged me. I’m pretty sure he didn’t look at me for more than a few seconds in the twenty minutes he was at my station. For a moment, I could have sworn I felt a sexual tension between us, but brushed it off as a figment of my wild imagination. And why the fuck would someone pull down their pants in your place of business without you asking them to? I understand that this is a tattoo shop and that I had asked to see his tattoos, but goddamn, give a girl a warning before exposing yourself, dude.
I shake my head and laugh to myself. If I hadn’t been so intimidated by his mere presence, I wouldn’t have batted an eye at his dropping his jeans like that. It’s not the first time it’s happened around here; some guys are just like that, they just don’t care.
My next appointment isn’t due for another ten minutes, so I think about what tattoo design I might want to do for Ramirez. Remembering that I have pics of his thigh work on my phone, I take a look. That is one absurdly muscular thigh, with his perfectly defined quadriceps muscle bulging out. Luckily, the area where he wants this piece is on his upper thigh, from the front center to the inner thigh. There’s enough room there, and the hardest part of that quad muscle won’t be involved. I click through the half-dozen pics I took, thinking about what kind of design might work for him.
I turn off my phone off, then immediately, something I’d just seen pops into my brain and compels me to turn it back on. I find the last image that I’d looked at and sure enough, in the top left of the frame I can see the outline of Ramirez’s cock. I glance around the room to make sure nobody’s coming my way, then enlarge the image. Yeah, that’s one thick cock. I remember seeing it out of the corner of my eye when I was studying the spot where he wants his new tattoo, but I tried to be professional and ignore it.
When I see my three o’clock walk through the door, I turn my phone off again and try to get my brain to focus on something other than Lincoln Ramirez and his mind-boggling body.
Easier said than done.
9
Link
The calendar app on my phone says I have an appointment with my therapist today. I do the same thing I do when that same appointment rolls around every other week and ignore it. I’ve seen the guy exactly once in the last three months, and I honestly think my money is better spent paying for the missed appointment than showing up and answering his stupid questions.
“How do you feel about that, Link? Might this have a connection with your mother?”
I hate to tell the dork, but everything has a connection to my mother. She’s one hundred percent why I’m the man I am today. Since I never knew my dad, it would be easy to blame him for leaving when I was a toddler. Problem is, I knew my mom and can totally understand Dad’s thought process: “Fuck it, this situation is hopeless. I’m out.”
I never wanted to see a therapist in the first place. It’s a court-ordered thing, based on my “anger issue.” At least that’s what the judge called it. I call it my “got into a bar fight because some asshat was being a douche to a table full of women who were just trying to enjoy a happy hour.” I was the solution, not the problem. Until the asshat in question filed charges against me.
I know if I keep skipping appointments, I’m going to have to pay a big fine and do thirty days in jail.
So, what do I do? I skip the therapist and head to the gym. That’s my therapy.
It takes me about two hours to go through my weight routine, and I do it four days a week. I also do cardio on two days, and give myself one day of rest, though I often head to Venice beach on my rest day. There are always a bunch of muscleheads at Muscle Beach there, lifting weights, and I take special pride in making them feel inadequate.
Today, though, I’m at my usual gym, Hollywood Iron. Halfway through my set, my brain is finally beginning to relax. I’m in the middle of a set of reclining dumbbell curls, looking at my bulging biceps in the mirror in front of me, when my phone rings. I hate when that happens because the heavy metal I’m listening to in my earbuds suddenly goes quiet and it throws off my concentration. I don’t recognize the number, so I let the call go to voicemail.
For the rest of my workout, I wonder what kind of design that Raven chick is going to come up with for my new tattoo. I have no problem telling her if it sucks or if I just plain don’t want it, but after seeing her work, I suspect she’ll have something interesting. That leads my brain to the topic of Raven herself.
She’s a hot little thing, a nice mixture of goth, punk, and metal. She’s got great hair, black and thick with just a bit of curl, down past her shoulders. I have no idea what color eyes she has, because I was too busy checking out the rest of her. Nice ass, more-than-adequate tits, and plump red lips that looked perfect for sliding a dick in between. I might have to do that at some point. Those full sleeves of hers make me wonder what the rest of her body looks like. Even if I didn’t want to fuck her, I’d want to get her naked just to see her ink. But since I do want to fuck her, maybe I can kill two birds with one stone.
When I’m done with my workout, I check the voicemail and am surprised to hear Raven’s voice, telling me she’s finished with the design. I was in her shop just yesterday and thought it would take her longer than a day. She says to call her or just stop by, so I shower and head over to Chaos Ink.
Walking in, I get the same treatment as before, everyone looking at me in stunned silence for a second before the neon redhead turns to Raven’s station and says, “Raven, you’ve got company.”
I look over just in time to see Raven with her back to me again, before she turns around and sees me. Wow, I hadn’t realized just what a fucking beauty this chick is until a big smile comes across her face. I get the sense she’s honestly happy to see me, or maybe she’s just excited about showing me this design she came up with. Regardless, that smile is amazing.
I walk to her station and see she’s got a woman on the table, lying on her stomach topless. Raven is doing a black-and-white piece on her shoulder blade. She’s doing an outline of something that looks like a huge pair of dice dangling from a rear-view mirror. Weird, but whatever.
“Lincoln, hi!” Raven says. She touches the topless chick on the arm and says, “Give me just a minute, Sasha.�
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Sasha turns her head to see what’s going on and sees me standing there. She’s got her arms extended upwards on the table and I can see the side of her big tit pressing against the black leather. I don’t even try to pretend I’m not looking, and she stares at me for a second, then turns her head away again.
Raven rolls her stool over to a red mechanic’s toolbox and slides open a drawer, pulling out a sheet of paper. She rolls back to me and places the paper on Sasha’s jeans-clad ass.
“It’s a Greek tribal design,” she says proudly.
Holy shit, this is one cool tattoo design. It features elaborate line work around an octopus that’s stretching horizontally. There’s not a lot of dark black other than the lines, just some shading. It has an elegance to it that appeals to me, because God knows I’ve got enough clutter on my skin already.
“What do you think?” Raven asks, and I realize I’ve been staring at the design without giving her any indication as to whether I like it.
“It’s good,” I say. “Very good.” She breaks into that big smile again. Sure, I’d like to fuck that mouth, but it’s almost like her smile jumps off her and into me. I instantly feel… well, I feel good. There’s no other way to explain it but to say it momentarily lifts the dark cloud I carry around.
“It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker,” she says. “That’s a tender area, but if you’re up for it, we can set up an appointment.”
“How about today?”
She pulls her head back and looks at me.
“You just want to jump right in, don’tcha?” she asks, laughing.
“No need to wait.”
“Well, you’re going to have to. After I finish Sasha here, I’ve got two more appointments. I’ll be working until eight tonight.”
“I can come back then,” I say.
“Yeah, but the shop closes at eight.”
“Perfect. No interruptions.”
Raven laughs again. “Seriously? You want to do this tonight? Even without interruptions, it’ll take two or three hours.”
Hollywood Bad Boys Club, Book 4: Link Page 5