Rock Steady (3 page)

She bit back the snide
Yeah, right
that tried to escape her lips.

No way.

But they were all standing there looking pretty confident. She reached over and tapped “Toxsin” into the laptop on the countertop. Their website was the first thing to come up. She clicked on the link.

“What the fuck are you doing roaming the streets?” She looked up from the screen at the three guys standing in front of her. It was weird, to say the least, to have the pictures from the screen living and breathing in her shop. “Don’t you have people to deal with stuff like this?”

Ramsey eyed her from where he was lying on the counter. “I’m a hands-on sort.” He covered her hand with his, stroking the back of it.

Jewel ended up taking that step back. Victory flashed through his eyes as she sent him a sharp look.

Taz punched him in the shoulder again.

“How’s that ‘hands-on’ thing working for you tonight?” Jewel said. It was a barbed comment, a challenge. Hell, it felt like she’d smacked him across the jaw with a white glove and dropped it at his feet.

The way his eyes narrowed confirmed that he felt the same way. For one split second, she half feared he might just flip the counter out of the way or jump over it.

“Let’s focus on the problem,” Syon said. “We need this fixed—discreetly, quickly.”

“No joke.” Jewel happily changed thought tracks. She pulled one of the shop disclosure agreements up onto the counter. The tightly packed lines of legal mumbo jumbo didn’t give her the same sense of comfort they normally did. Ramsey grabbed it and yanked the top off a pen before boldly scrawling his signature across the bottom line.

Taz was flipping the lock on the front door.

“Good idea,” Jewel agreed. She didn’t care for the fact that she had to take a breath before getting her feet to move.

Ramsey flopped down on her worktable, popping his pants open. They were custom-made, all right; the right side of them shaped perfectly to contain his cock.

The guy had an impressive package.

She ended up stopping halfway around the counter, earning a smirk from him.

“Don’t let my fame make you nervous,” Ramsey teased her.

“Typically, I worry about my clients taking their displeasure out on my hide.” She made it to her stool and sat down. Her workstation was normally the place she felt most comfortable.

Today, she felt like the padded stool was full of spikes.

“So what’s your problem with me?” Ramsey asked.

She wasn’t going to answer that.

Nope.

Not a chance.

She turned half away from him and sterilized her hands.

“Cat got your tongue?” he asked.

Jewel turned back toward him and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat.

What a man-animal.

She really needed to get a grip and enjoy the moment. She was pretty sure she was never going to get the chance to work on so fine a specimen again.

“I’m thinking you wouldn’t think twice about filing a lawsuit against me, signature on a release form or not,” she said.

His expression turned serious, his eyes narrowing, his lips thinning. “I don’t get my kicks out of using my money to pin my mistakes on other people. I own my fuckups.”

It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say.

But she liked it.

A whole lot.

Integrity was something most people sold out on. Especially when it came to admitting they’d made dumb mistakes.

“I’m beginning to see why the gals at Spike didn’t refuse to do your girlfriend’s dirty work.”

Ramsey leaned his head back. “She wasn’t my girlfriend.”

“I’m guessing that was the problem.”

He’d closed his eyes but opened them and looked at her. “Guess it was. But I didn’t lie to her.”

He really did own his screwups. It was there in the flat acceptance on his face. He looked past her to his bandmates. “I’m good. You guys can shove off.”

“Not a chance.” Syon settled himself on the other worktable. “Those little pink flowers will take us all down.”

“Yeah.” Taz sat down behind the counter and claimed her laptop. “Besides, I don’t trust you to be polite. Jewel is a lady.”

Ramsey made a low sound under his breath. “I bet she gets naughty with the right company.”

Jewel didn’t look up from where she was cleaning the skin on his abdomen. She was no stranger to personal jabs, especially off-color ones.

What surprised her was the way her pulse leaped.

She needed to get a grip.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Taz said. “She’s an artist, like Kate.”

“Yeah,” Ramsey agreed. “Sorry, I’m still a little buzzed. Talking out of my ass.”

Jewel warmed under the single word of praise. She got the impression Ramsey didn’t hand out undeserving compliments. She ended up looking into his eyes because he was watching her.

“Kate made my pants.” He gestured at his buddies. “She makes all our leather gear.”

“She’s good.” Jewel picked up her sketch and began to position it. “I see my share of leather around here. The good, the bad, and mostly the ugly.”

“She’s the best,” Syon added without opening his eyes. “Even has good taste in men.”

Ramsey snorted. Syon offered him a single-finger salute.

“Aren’t you guys cute,” Jewel muttered.

“There’s nothing cute about the part of me you’re looking at.”

She should ignore him.

Should, but she wasn’t going to. Jewel looked up and caught Ramsey grinning at her. “Did you want this done sometime before Christmas?”

“You wouldn’t let me go on stage wearing flowers…would you, Jewel?” He tried out his puppy eyes on her.

“The idea is growing on me.”

He made a soft humming sound beneath his breath. “I like a girl who plays rough.”

“I bet you do.”

Which was just enough of a reality slap to get her focused. He was an animal, the prowling kind.

And she was already living on the edge enough.

She got the drawing into position and transferred it onto his skin.

Canvas.

Normally the word helped her tune out everything but the art.

Yeah, well, there wasn’t much of anything that was normal about Ramsey.

“Do you want any painkiller before I start inking?” she asked. “You seem to have sobered up. This is going to feel like a cat scratching at sunburned skin.”

He bared his teeth at her. “Scratch me, pussycat.”

She ignored the word
pussy
.

Or at least she tried to.

“Okay. But you might reconsider, since you’re a virgin—”

He curled up as he laughed. Taz was snorting, and Syon actually rolled off the other workstation.

“Cute,” Jewel said as she pushed her hands into gloves. “I’ve
never
had that response before.” She dabbed a bit of Vaseline from a tub and put it on the skin she was about to work on. “But you are a virgin, big boy, an ink virgin.”

Ramsey straightened back out, his lips curved into an expectant grin. “Can’t wait for you to pop my cherry.”

Oh yeah, one hundred percent animal. Night jungle cat, unless she missed her guess.

She got the impression it was something she’d both love and hate. He was a study in extremes. Which was something that combined rather well with the dragon she started to ink on him. It was a potent combination that made her feel linked in to the creature taking shape beneath her fingertips.

She wanted to breathe life into it.

Needed to, actually.

It was an obsession, one she willingly submitted to. Inside her art was her personal haven, where things like doubt didn’t penetrate. She knew she was good and made sure she worked hard at becoming better. The little needle gun in her hand was a way to express herself and share the wealth of dreams inside her with the outside world.

She ignored the way her neck stiffened up and the pain in her knuckles. Bringing the dragon to life was all that mattered. Through it all, Ramsey watched her. It was hypnotic in a fashion and deeply intimate in another, because he didn’t turn his face away when he flinched. It was like he was mesmerized by her, which couldn’t be true. Not a man like him. Maybe she had her cute factor, but he must be chased by hundreds of women daily.

Still, he watched her. It warmed her cheeks, and his lips twitched up slightly in response.

Oh yeah, he knew what effect he had on the opposite sex.

But that just seemed to be part of his charm.

* * *

Her entire back ached by the time she finished.

Jewel decided she didn’t care.

Ramsey was looking at his tat, his face set into an expression of dark satisfaction. He turned slowly in front of her full-length mirror. His gaze shifted up until he was watching her through the polished glass.

Her breath froze.

She was kinda sure that something shifted between them.

The sun was just coming up.

He was a little too perfect. Part of her actually expected him to dissipate as she woke up and realized she’d fallen asleep on the countertop because the night had been another dud.

“You rock, Jewel.”

He wasn’t teasing her, wasn’t trying to get a rise out of her. The three words were sincere, and she realized she liked the glimpse of his serious side far too much. There was something inside him just as tempting as his animal persona. Something she got the feeling he didn’t share very often, if at all.

“Keep it out of the sunlight for three weeks,” she warned him as she handed him a printout of rules for making sure the tat healed. “And follow these instructions. Seriously, follow them.”

He offered her a lazy smile as he came toward her. “Worried that I don’t follow rules?”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure you view rules as things to jump over, but in this case, follow them or you’ll end up with scarring or in the hospital with an infection.”

Taz reached over and whacked his bandmate on the side of the head again. Ramsey jumped, looking like he’d been caught off guard, and flipped Taz off. The Asian member of Toxsin wasn’t intimidated. He pointed a stern finger at Ramsey before reaching past him and taking the instruction sheet.

“Right, I’ll follow them,” Ramsey said.

He was opening his wallet, digging out a bunch of bills. She hesitated before reaching for them. Which was stupid, but she didn’t want to let the moment end.

Of course it had to.

He stopped with his hand on the door. “I’ll leave your name at the security desk tomorrow night. Come see the show. You should get a front-row seat to the unveiling of your work.”

Ramsey, Mega Rock Star, offered her a wink before he walked out of her life. Jewel watched him go, enjoying the uniqueness of the moment. There was a soft sound of an engine as an SUV pulled up in front of the shop without a shred of regard for the red curb. A guy hopped out from the front seat and had the door open before Ramsey and his buddies made it across the narrow sidewalk.

Oh yeah…they had guys to do stuff for them.

Jewel didn’t waste her time feeling jealous. She soaked it up. It was the adventure element her life had been lacking.

And a fine, healthy dose of it, too.

* * *

“Hmm…” Ramsey considered the list of rules. “Tight clothing is ill-advised.”

Syon groaned. “Why do we have to suffer?”

Taz snickered but turned and looked out the window as Ramsey popped open his pants. Ramsey didn’t care for clothing most of the time anyway. Having an excuse to shed it was welcome.

“She was cute,” Syon muttered. “The artist.”

“Yeah.” Ramsey stretched out his legs and let his eyes close. But his brain was churning. Jewel’s face was there, and all the intensity that had shown while she worked. It was sexy, but he was used to having sexy females around. There was something else snaring his attention, something he hadn’t associated with a female in a long time.

Admiration.

That made him frown, because it might lead to things like respect. Sure, he respected a fellow artist, but the last thing he needed to do was think she was sexy too. He enjoyed his sex life the way it was—uncomplicated.

Jewel was complicated. Problem was, that was the thing about her that he liked best.

* * *

“You fucking bitch!”

Ted threw his hat toward the hat stand as he blew through the door of the shop just before noon.

“Ramsey of Toxsin was here, and you didn’t let me do his tat?” Her boss was in top form, his neck and face red as he threw one of his tantrums. The man knew how to seethe better than anyone she’d ever met. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d never actually seen a human seethe before she’d met Ted. Because in toddlers, what her boss was doing was called a temper tantrum.

He was covered in tats from his shaved head to his feet, and wore only a tank top with a low, scoop neckline to better show off his tats and body.

Jewel rubbed her hands, her joints aching from the hours of work she’d done on the dragon. “The deal is walk-ins are mine during my shift.”

“Not when it’s a mega rock star,” Ted argued. “And why is this place a pig sty? Cleaning is part of your job.”

“I had a customer.”

“That you should have called me in to deal with.” Ted planted his foot on the stool at her workstation and kicked it across the shop. “Get out of my shop!”

“You’re firing me because of a walk-in?” she demanded. “That was our arrangement.”

“You bet your ass I am,” Ted snarled. “No bitch is working under my roof who doesn’t know who gets the lion’s share of the meat! In case you don’t understand English, it means mega rock stars are mine, no matter when they walk in. I built this place, not you.”

Ted chucked a half-full coffee mug at her.

Jewel yelped as she jumped out of the way. Cold, day-old coffee splattered across her leg as the pottery shattered.

There was a blur of motion as she regained her balance. Then a gurgle, and the sound of someone struggling for breath. She looked up and stared at Ted’s arms and legs flailing while Ramsey held him pinned against the wall, a full foot off the floor. It was more than impressive, because Ted liked to lift weights, and wasn’t flabby by a long shot.