Surrender of a Tattooist: Obsessive Dark Romance Alpha Bad Boy (Tattooist Series Book 2) (6 page)

“I would guess a lot of people babble while you’re tattooing them.”

He nodded. “I’m no different than a bartender or a hairdresser, or what have you. When I was still learning, I drove cab for about a year to make bill money. Man, I thought people in cabs talked a lot. And the things people talk about—it’s insane.”

“Maybe they feel comfortable because it’s almost like a confessional. Think of yourself as a priest.”

Cliff gave her a serious side eye. “I beg your pardon?”

Pixie giggled. “I’m serious. It’s just human nature. We get into what feels like an intimate situation with someone we know we’ll likely never see again and things we wouldn’t normally say just come flying out of our mouths.”

He nodded. “That makes sense. I never thought about it like that, but it does sound about right.”

The doorbell rang and Cliff went to answer it. He came back bearing food, and Pixie turned on the television. To her delight they shared a love of reality-based crime shows, and it wasn’t long before they were eating and discussing the case being shown like two seasoned detectives. She was pleasantly full, relaxed, and tired, but apparently her body wanted something else.

She wanted him. Her entire body was filled with that wanting. His shoulder brushed hers occasionally, and his knee pressed into hers. As tired as she was, the last thing she should have wanted was to go to bed with him, but she did, and freakin’ badly.

When the show was nearly over and their food cleared away, Cliff reached for her hand and said softly, “Come.”

One word and her body lit up. Her nipples stood out in stiff points and her legs shook as he guided her to her room. She was going to rape him… could you even rape the willing?

“I’m going to tuck you in and see myself out.”

She gaped at him. “You could stay.”

“I could. But you’re dead on your feet, and you need some rest. Do you work tomorrow?”

She sighed. “Yeah, at the kennels. But I only work from eleven until three.”

“I go to work at three.” He scowled, as if bummed that he wouldn’t see her. “What about Saturday? I’ll make sure I’m off. We could hit the beach?”

“I’ll make sure I’m off as well.” She would. Definitely. “You know, I thought you wouldn’t be a nice guy. Guys who look like you aren’t usually nice guys.”

He gave her a crooked smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. That pain was back; she could see it. “I wasn’t always such a nice guy,” he said softly. He picked her up and put her bed, blankets tucked, and a soft kiss on her lips that left her begging for more, but refusing to ask.

Then he left.

Pixie lay there wondering what had happened, and who had hurt him so badly. It was obvious that someone had.

Before she could really untangle those thoughts, she fell fast asleep.

Pixie loved the beach, and she smiled as they turned into the public parking lot. The truck Cliff had borrowed from Hawk was loaded down with surfboards and wet suits, a picnic basket, and blankets and towels. She had gotten sunscreen and plenty of water, and they had a bottle of wine—which came in a clever carton so they could hide it from the cops if they had to.

They found a spot and began unpacking the gear.

Pixie kicked through the brown sand as they began to set up their stuff for what promised to be a great day. The beach was packed, and with good reason. It was a stunning Southern California day. The sun was shining brightly and the air was warm and slightly breezy. The smell of tanning oil and salty water called to her, and Pixie dropped the blankets and began to stake them out so that they wouldn’t ruffle in the breeze while Cliff set the cooler down on one side of the blanket and went back for the surfboards.

She watched him go. He was bare-chested and wearing flip flops and board shorts. His body was magnificent, and a little shiver stole through her. She saw a few women turn their heads to look at him and she glared at them before laughing softly at herself and continuing to set up their things.

Cliff came back and asked if she wanted to sun a while or get into the water.

She laughed, drunk on his beautiful body. “Oh, let’s go in. It’s too pretty a day to just sit on the shore.”

“Now, that’s my gal.” He slipped his arm over her shoulder as they headed for the water. The waves lapped at the shore gently, rising higher further out. They waded in and she gasped as the warm water lapped up toward her thighs and her feet slid on the wet sand below.

They floated and swam a little way out. Cliff was good at body surfing and he rode every wave easily, letting it toss his body gently. She wasn’t as good at it and a few times she went under a glassy green wave, but his hand was always there to yank her back up.

She came up once, spraying water out of her nose and coughing hard. Cliff chuckled and wiped her face with one hand, and then he flipped over and started to swim in a zigzag line.

She followed, watching his powerful, colorful arms stroking above the surface then falling again. He was a part of the sea in that moment, and it was so exciting to be in the water with him, to feel the sun and the water, and to see the dark blue sky folding down onto what looked like the very edge of the world.

They swam for a long time and then they made their way closer to the shore. He grasped her and pulled her close. Her toes met his claves and then she wound her legs around his waist. He held her up and they bobbed in the water, their bodies pressed close together.

The heat of his skin seeped into hers and her arms wound around his neck. Little fish darted past them and the waves crested and foamed. Desire grew and grew as he kissed her. His mouth tasted like salt and sun, and she closed her eyes, just letting all the sensations of the moment ride across her body and through her.

They finally grew tired and climbed out of the waves, tossing themselves onto the blankets. Cliff glanced over at her, and smiled a lazy, handsome smile. “You need some sunscreen.” He reached for the bottle, and Pixie lay on her back. Cliff squirted some into the palm of his hand and began to gently stroke the warmed lotion across her body.

The sensation was so intense that she could barely breathe. Her stomach sucked in as his fingers moved lower, stroking across the bundle of nerves right above the spot where her buttocks began to rise. His hands moved around her shoulders, brushing against the sides of her breasts, exposed by the triangular top of her bikini.

His hands rose higher, sliding across her shoulders again. “Roll over,” he said gruffly.

She did as he commanded and he bit his lip as he poured more lotion into his hands and rubbed it over the exposed skin on her chest, over her tight belly, and down her legs. He paid particular attention to the insides of her thighs and groaned when a low moan escaped her mouth.

He finally sat back and sighed. “I’m going to have to lie on my stomach for a bit.” He winked at her and glanced down quickly, indicating that rubbing the lotion over her had turned him on.

Pixie nodded, afraid if she said anything it would be to beg him to take her in his car and then come back to the beach. Instead, she took the lotion from him and applied it to his heated skin, reveling in the sensation of his flesh below her hands and the sight of the lotion sinking slowly into his skin.

They lay back on their stomachs, eyes half closed, staring at each other. After a few moments, Cliff asked, “If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

“Oh, that’s easy. I would get on a cruise boat and get off at whatever ports they stopped at.”

He lifted his head and turned slightly so that he could peer down into her face. “Why a cruise ship?”

She giggled. “I used to watch that show, you know, the one with the cruise ship where everyone fell in love or had grand romantic adventures or whatever. I always wanted to go on a cruise, but I never have. Joy invited me on a trip with her and her family on their yacht once and I went, but only because I knew how miserable she was about having to go. Believe me; I’ll never do that again. However, I would like to do a cruise. I know it isn’t as glamorous as it used to be and all, but I still want to do it.”

“I’ve never been on a cruise either.”

“Really? I’d have thought you’d have gone a few times since the port’s here. It seems like everyone I talk to who is from here has gone on a million cruises, because they’re the cheapest family vacations if you live in L.A.”

Cliff chuckled. “My family vacations were weird. We went gem-mining in North Carolina…”

Pixie pushed up on her hands and arched her back to look at him. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.” He laughed again. “They have all sorts of places up there where you can go. We would camp for a week in the parks and go digging for gems. My mom has so many quartz crystals all over the house, it’s crazy.”

“You did that every year?”

Cliff shook his head. “No, we went to Vancouver one year and up to Alaska another. We did eco-stuff. Like we’d go help build houses or we would do things where we could camp instead of staying in some fancy electricity-sucking resort.” He shrugged. “How about you? What were your family vacations like?”

She flicked a few pieces of sand off the blanket. “We didn’t take vacations. My dad was a farmer first. He had another profession, too, but farming was in his blood. All his family were farmers. My mom was a beautician and a mortician; oddly enough, the two things are really compatible…”

Cliff choked, “Run that by me again.”

Pixie glanced at him from the corner of her eye, trying not to smile. “You heard me. When I was a kid, about eleven or twelve, I got into a lot of trouble because I put a lot of glitter into this one old lady’s hair because I thought it would make her prettier than my mom had made her. It took them hours to get it all off her, and boy was my mom angry.”

Cliff did his best not to laugh but he couldn’t help it. When he was finally able to speak again, he said, “Don’t tell me how they got it off again.”

Pixie felt the corners of her mouth rising. “I won’t. I will say I have a healthy respect for death, and I hate it. I have always hated it. Maybe that’s why I’m always trying to save lost or dumped animals. I hate death and I know I can’t stop it from happening to people, but maybe I can help it not to happen to innocent little dogs or cats that just need a chance to stay alive.”

“I can see that. So, no vacations at all?”

“You never know when someone might die or a sudden freeze or hail storm will happen. You never know when bugs are going to ride over your crops or when the animals might get sick, and trying to get somebody to look after a farm is pretty difficult.”

“We should go on a cruise, the two of us, one day. Soon. It would be an adventure. We both need to blend in with the locals.”

“We are locals.” She smiled. He was trying to be so sweet. “I’d love to. First I need to get my finances in order.”

Cliff scowled at her. “You’re not paying, silly. I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t willing to pay for it. They aren’t terribly expensive, not like they used to be back in the day from what I hear.”

“It’s very sweet of you.” She stared down at the blanket again, watching the sand glisten in the sun. “It just bothers me that I’m so…at my age I should be better with money.”

“Then do something about it.”

The words were a challenge. She knew it. It wasn’t something she was used to, feeling like she wasn’t doing exactly what she needed to be doing. She’d thought that once she left home, once she’d shed the weight of being who she’d been as a child and young teen, that all of that would change.

She had been happy for a very long time, but now she wanted more than what she currently had, and she knew that; she just didn’t know what to do about it. She asked, “Do you think this is how normal people do things?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re getting to know each other, right? But we’re doing it by flying eagles and hanging out on the beach. Planning a cruise when we barely know each other. Is that normal?”

Cliff rolled onto his back and tucked his hands behind his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I care either. About being normal, anyway. I care very much about getting to know you, though. You fascinate me, Pixie.”

“I’d like to get to know you too. I like you.” Had she just said that? She bit her lip and added, “Oh to hell with it. I like you a lot. I really do, and I want to get know more about you. You’re probably the most interesting guy I’ve ever met. Damn sexiest, that’s for sure.”

He opened one eye and glanced at her, obviously enjoying the compliment. “I can say you’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever met. Do you know that the day I first saw you, when I walked into the shop to try for a job, the first thing I saw was you?” He let the sun warm his face behind closed eyes. “You were so little and so cute that I just wanted to pick you up and put you right into my shirt pocket and keep you there forever.”

By his heart. She swallowed hard. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Then you haven’t been hanging out with the right people.”

He was right about that. The sound of the waves grew louder as they grew on the crashing surf coming toward their feet. The tide was coming in. Her belly let out a low rumble and reminded her what time it was. “Are you getting hungry yet?” she asked.

“Starving.” His eyes stayed on hers, and she shivered as she saw his eyes darken with the same desire that was running through her body. She wanted to tell him to make love to her right there in the sand, right there with the water running over and around them.

Instead she said, “I made a muffaletta.” She sat up and dug the food out of the basket. The muffaletta, a large round sourdough loaf that she had hollowed out and filled with a mixture of sliced olives, olive oil, bell pepper, sliced tomato, chopped lettuce, red onion, shredded carrots, as well as thin slices of seitan, had been wrapped tightly so that the juices could all run into the bread and soak it.

She cut it while it was still in the tight plastic wrap and the used the edges to form a kind of container before she set it on one of the paper plates she’d also brought. She dug out the jar of kosher pickles and the bag of chips and two bottles of water as well as two plastic forks. The sandwich could get messy and they both knew it.

The bread was still firm and the vegetables were soft and delicious. The chips crackled in her mouth, imparting more salt to her lips. They finished off the meal with vegan cookies and a glass of wine then, full and sleepy, they set up the umbrella and lay in each other’s arms under the shade of it.

The birds wheeled overhead and they watched a group of kids building a giant sandcastle. Cliff asked, “Do you want kids?”

She hesitated then said, “No, not really. Not right now. Maybe not ever. You?”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t be pissed off if it happened, but right now I’m just so busy trying to get myself together that I don’t have any energy to try to handle a kid. People are having kids a lot later now anyway, and why not? If I was older I might want them more.”

“Exactly,” she heaved a sigh of relief. “I dated a guy about three years ago who really wanted kids even though we were both so young. I had just gotten out of college and moved here, and when I said I didn’t want them he really blew a gasket.

“People can be so judgmental too. Like when I go home and everyone’s like why haven’t you gotten married? Why aren’t you thinking about kids? It’s like they can’t see me as wanting anything more than that. Not that that isn’t a good thing to want. It’s just not for me, not yet.

“The worst part is when people start tossing their kids at me in an effort to get me to like kids. I do like ‘em, I just don’t want to have to have one of my own yet. I don’t think I’m equipped for it.”

Cliff stared out into the water. “If that’s how you feel, then that’s how you feel. I don’t understand why people do that either. My brother has three kids. He’s only two years older than me, and according to everyone I’m supposed to be jealous of that, but every time I go to his house it’s all screaming and shouting and snotty noses and diapers. No thanks.”