Ink Spots (9 page)

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He licked his lips and thrust his hips at her. “Every inch, baby.”

* * * * *

“You made all these?” Jaz called from the living room. He was flipping through a notebook full of pictures of jewelry.

“Yeah,” she said from the doorway of her bedroom.

She’d been searching for a while for something to wear that wouldn’t rub on the candle tattoo. She’d put her hair up in two little clips and she looked amazing. Except she was still topless.

Jaz pointed to her bare breasts. “You going like that?”

Mandi put her hands on her hips and pushed her shoulders back, thrusting her chest forward. Those tits stood out proudly, capped by the tightest, prettiest nipples.

She shot him a smug look, full of female power and feminine knowing. “I might.”

If his grin mirrored his thoughts… “I don’t think so. I don’t share.”
Damn, man.

Could you sound just a little more possessive?

“Oh well.” She shrugged and dropped her hands. “I don’t either.”

Not a problem with him. He didn’t want to be shared with anyone. He had a feeling Mandi was more than enough to wear his ass out. She disappeared back into her room and he could hear her muttering about nothing to wear.

“How about this?” she asked, stepping back into the living room.

“This” was a black top. It covered her back to just under her shoulder blades, tied around her neck from the front while leaving a deep plunging scoop neckline. It worked. His dick said so. Though her being naked worked too. However, where they were going and what they were going to be doing, naked was the last thing she needed to be.

“I like it. Gonna wear those sexy-ass boots I can’t stop thinking about?”

She laughed, and it sank deep beneath his skin. “Would you like me to leave you alone with my boots for a while?”

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“Not unless you’re in ’em.”

“Hadn’t planned on wearing those, no, but I do have another pair you might like just as much.”

“Honey, any boots on you, any heels at all, and I’m a happy man.”

She disappeared but returned quickly, carrying a pair of ankle boots, almost the mirror image of the knee-high ones he was so in lust with. Hot damn.

“You sure you don’t want me to leave you alone with my boots?”

“No.” Another laugh from her had him turning his back on her. He was ready to tackle her to the floor and feel those heels digging into his ass. Before the night was over, he was going to do just that. He went back to flipping through her notebook, trying to ignore the urge. “You do really nice work.”

“Thank you.”

“In all seriousness, you should consider making some things for the shop. I’d love to carry a display.”

“I’ll think about it. Especially after I take some of those classes I was telling you about. There’s so much I want to learn, to expand on, to perfect, you know?”

She’d come to stand at his shoulder and her breath on his skin… Dear god, around her he was a walking hard-on. Her body was so close that the clothes she wore brushed against him and there was only so much a man like him could take.

“Yeah…” She placed a kiss between his shoulder blades and his words died in his throat.

“Do your tattoos mean anything?”

She’d dropped her hands to the hem of his t-shirt and was sliding them up along his back, lifting the shirt as she went. He swallowed hard and snapped the notebook shut. “Everything. They mean everything.” Her tongue was licking in different places, and he couldn’t help the shudder that went through him. “Each…” He licked his lips 68

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and forced himself to keep his hands to himself, to let her explore his body as she wanted. “Each one tells a story.”

“The bars down the center of your back?” She traced the lines from top to bottom with both lips and fingertips.

“Jail.”

“Eagle on your shoulder?”

“Freedom.”

“Music note? Self-explanatory, I guess.” Her fingers moved to his side. “Is this…?”

Another breath shuddered through him. She was stroking the rainbow of intertwining colors. “Crayons. Yes. Love color. Tattoos.”

“I love it, Jaz. And the design at the base of your back that travels?”

“Tribal.” It did travel and she traced every inch she could reach without him turning around.

“Who did your ink?”

“The man who taught me. I met him when I was inside. He used to come with Jackie sometimes when she’d visit me. We talked quite a bit and he told me to look him up when I got out. I did. When I wasn’t working at Katz, I was here in the shop, learning. I could always draw, always create, and so it kind of gave me a way to focus that. He was in a motorcycle accident and died a few years back. He left me his part of the shop. His partner didn’t want to keep the business and I couldn’t afford to buy him out on my own, but Vin and Dallon and I were already friends and we went in together.”

“Good friends.”

“The best. The cross of skulls on my right arm is for him.”

She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his back. He covered her hands with his then slid them back and grabbed hold of her hips, pulling her as flush as he could get her. The feel of her warmth, her softness, her… Just her made him 69

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ache, made him hard, made him want to simultaneously curl her into him and nuzzle her with all kinds of affection it was probably not manly for him to feel.

But the woman brought out all the naughty lust along with all the need to care for.

“I like your tattoos.”

“Damn good thing ’cause they aren’t coming off.”

“Mmm. I really like the one that goes down your hip to your knee. The roller coaster. I’d like to lick that one.”

Jaz groaned. The pain between his legs was becoming unbearable. His balls were no doubt purple by now, and though she hadn’t meant to turn him on—or maybe she had.

Hell, it didn’t matter. He was hard and hurting and wanted to be so deep inside her…

“You ready to go?” How he managed to get those words to come out sounding normal, he’d never know.

“Yeah. Just gotta grab my purse. Where are we going? I hope what I’m wearing is okay.”

He looked over his shoulder and watched her move around the room, turning on a lamp, picking her purse up from the table beside the door, checking her makeup in the little mirror that hung there. What she wore was, “Perfect.”

She flashed him a smile so beautiful that more than his cock and balls were feeling the pain of torture.

“Okay then, let’s go. I’m starving.”

So was he.

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Mandi glanced around when Jaz pulled into the Katz parking lot. “What are we doing here? I don’t work tonight.” The lot was fairly empty save for a few cars she recognized, a few trucks she didn’t and a few bikes she’d like to get to know really well.

“No, you don’t, but… I sorta do.”

She turned surprised eyes on him. “You do? Since when did Jackie hire you back on?”

He shrugged. “It’s a special event. I won’t be working long, and when I’m done, we can go if you want.”

Uh-huh. “So let me get this straight. Jackie gives me the awesome birthday present of you and the weekend off, but then she asks you to work a special event?”

“Yeah.” He pulled into a spot in front of the building and put the Charger in park.

“Feel free to take it up with her.”

“I will be happy to.”

Jaz grinned across at her and got out of the car. He was acting a little weird, and truth be told, it was making her a little uneasy. He walked around and opened her door, helping her out, and kept hold of her hand.

His palm was a little clammy and there was a slight tremble in his fingers, but when she chanced a glance up to his face, it betrayed nothing. Yeah, something was going on.

That uneasy feeling was churning in her belly and she didn’t like it.

Jaz opened the door to Katz for her and followed her inside. It was dark, there was no sound, there were no people, no—

“
SURPRISE!
”

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Okay, there were people. Lots of them. And lights and noise and… Her hands flew to her mouth and she took an unconscious step back and found the solid body of Jaz behind her. He wrapped an arm around the front of her shoulders and held her tight against him. “Oh god.”

Mandi’s heart skittered to a stop then picked up speed. A surprise party. For her.

“Gotcha.”

Jackie and her megawatt smile had come to hug her, and Mandi wrapped her arms tight around her friend. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“I don’t know why not. You’ve never had a surprise party and, well, now you have.”

It was true. She’d never had one, and while a small part of her had always secretly hoped for one, she’d truly never expected one. Ever. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Since you said you’d come work for me for a while.”

“You couldn’t have known I’d fall for him.”

“No, I had no idea you’d rather have a badass than a buttoned-up suit, but I should have. He was just the icing on the cake, so to speak, once I realized the attraction ran both ways.”

Mandi looked in the direction Jaz had gone. As soon as Jackie had come forward, he’d squeezed Mandi and kissed the top of her head, telling her he’d be back shortly.

He went off to talk to his friends and they were… She turned her attention back to Jackie. “What are they doing?”

“It’s part of your surprise. You didn’t know they had a band?”

A band? “No. I didn’t know.”

“Oh yeah. Jaz is their drummer. He’s pretty damn good too. Hell, he’s pretty damn good at everything he’s ever tried. Creative little shit. No matter what it is, he can turn it into gold. He’s got so much talent. He couldn’t sit still when he got out of jail.

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Between working for me and tattooing at the shop, there were still hours left in the day.

Usually the middle of the night or the crack of dawn. I don’t think he slept more than a couple hours at a time.

“He came to me a few months after he got out and said he would like to learn to play the drums. I bought him his first set, which we had to have custom designed because of his size, and I guess you could say the rest is history. He started taking lessons early mornings from the local high school music teacher, and after awhile, he was on his own with it. The teacher said he didn’t have anything else to teach him. Jaz had the technique. He also has an ear that can hear any beat, any cadence, and play it after only a few bars of listening to it. About a year or so ago, he and Vinter and Dallon came up with the band idea. They’re not bad for a garage band.”

“I had no idea.” He was a musician, a drummer no less. That explained a few things, she thought with an inner smile. It especially explained his coordination when he played with her body using both hands. How he could touch her with such finesse, with such precision. Just thinking about it, the way he could manipulate her responses…

Jackie was right. Jaz was a creative little shit.

“He’s been fucking nervous too.”

Jackie’s comment drew Mandi’s undivided attention. “Why?”

“Girl, he’s got it so bad for you.”

“Well, that’s no reason to be nervous.”

“I think for him it is. He might look gruff and mean, but he’s a marshmallow inside.”

A damn lusty-hot-as-fucking-hell-she-was-surprised-he-hadn’t-melted-from-the-inside-out marshmallow. “I’m not sure he’d appreciate you saying that.”

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Jackie laughed. “No, probably not, but so long as only you and I know I said it, it’s all good.” She took Mandi by the hand and started walking. “Let’s introduce you to a few people.”

“Might be a good idea.”

She was summarily introduced to Elise who was Vinter’s girlfriend and Carrie who was Dallon’s. Mandi had met both Vinter and Dallon over the past few months, but hadn’t met the women in their lives. Turned out, Elise had just moved closer to the small town after meeting Vinter in his bar, or was it Dallon’s bar?

“They all own it. Just like they all own the tattoo parlor. They split it three ways.”

“Oh. Well, what does Vinter do if Jaz runs the tattoo place and Dallon runs the bar?”

The blush that covered Elise from the opening in the low-cut blouse to her sweet, heart-shaped face was priceless. And telling. Mandi couldn’t help but blush herself, feeling the heat creep up. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing around for Jaz. Her eyes locked onto his from across the room and how the hell she read what his look said, she’d never know.

He was in front of her before she caught her breath, and he didn’t even give her the chance to excuse herself from the conversation she’d been having. He had her down the back hallway and his mouth on hers, his tongue between her lips, her body hiked up the wall and her legs wrapped around him…

Damn, but he took her breath away.

“You can’t look at me like that,” he growled at her.

“Like what?”

“Like you can’t get enough.”

“Well, I can’t, but I didn’t think that’s what that look said.”

“Trust me, that’s exactly what that look said.”

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“Okay, so does that mean I can’t look at you at all then? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I always look at you like I can’t get enough.”

Jaz laughed and thrust upward slightly, rubbing his hard cock against the crotch of her jeans. Damn they both had way too many clothes on.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Maybe you should blindfold me.”

“Maybe I should. And tie you up.”

Desire flowed like lava through her veins. “Maybe you should.”

“I still owe you birthday spankings.”

“Yes you do.”

“Damn, woman.” He buried his face in her neck and licked at the pulse throbbing there.

She quivered in his arms and rocked her hips. She wanted him. Now. Would anyone see? Would anyone notice? Would she give a crap if they did? “Damn, man.”

“Damn, you two. We got a show to do for the lady. Let her down, you animal. You can maul her later.”