Under His Skin Read Free

both. How big are you wanting it?”
    He bumped a spot mid-hip on his left side, then up to just below his nipple. Her brows started doing the thing again where they wanted to crawl off her face.
    “That’s—big. We only have twelve hours to do the whole process. Do you want it in full color? With clouds and waves and shit around it?” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, stuff around it.”
    He chuckled. “I looked over your portfolio. You’re a freehander, aren’t you?”
    She blinked at him, surprised. “Um, yeah I do a lot of freehand tattoos, but that’s usually for flowing stuff. Ships are precise, with rigging and sails and nets. I can do it with a reference, but—”
    “Don’t let her tattoo you, man. She’ll screw it up,” a low, gravelly voice spoke from behind him.
    Brian turned and pasted a cool smile on his lips. He recognized that bastard.
    “Go fuck yourself, Robert,” Pandora said in a honey-sweet voice.
    “Seriously.” Robert stepped closer. “She used to be my shop girl, couldn’t hack it so she went over to this prissy all-girl place. She’ll screw you up, man.”
    Pandora pushed to her feet, hands balled into fists.
    Getting caught between two irate tattoo artists did not sound like the best way to start off his day. Still, Robert was high on the list of douchecannoes. Standing, Brian put a hand on her shoulder.
    “Thanks for your opinion, man, but fuck off.”
    Robert held his hands up. “Your funeral.” He backed away from the station and walked down the line. People were conspicuously not looking at them.
    She shrugged his hand off. He almost braced himself for a punch but it didn’t come.
    “Sit.” She nudged him back. “Shirt, off.”
    While she dug around in the drawers, he pulled his shirt off and lay down on the table. Turning to face him, she paused, gaze raking critically over his chest.
    “I heard about the accident,” she said as she sat. “I’m sorry.”
    “Thanks.” He laid his hand over the scars above his hip. “I was thinking you could use the scar tissue to imitate waves. Incorporate it into the design.”
    She nodded, eyes tracking his fingers. “Okay.” She sucked in a deep breath and pulled on gloves, snapping them at her wrist. “I’m going to wipe you down. How far do you want this to go?”
    “Here.” He tugged his pants and boxers down to expose the scars from surgery.
    Pandora nodded and her cheeks turned a slight pink. “Okay, it’s up to you, but you can either take your pants off and let me pull your boxers down on one side, or you can pull them down and lay on them. The problem is how it will make your body lay.”
    “I’ll take them off.” It wasn’t as though the whole world hadn’t seen him in his underwear already.
    She looked back up at his face, all business once again with no sign of the blush. “This is going to hurt like a bitch, you know?”
    He got up from the table and loosened his belt. His jeans were still too big and practically dropped off his hips. “I don’t have any feeling in my hip. My side will hurt, but I think after being trapped in a human blender, I can handle it.” He must have made the grinning grimace the band’s former manager had told him not to, because she turned away. He lay back on the table before any of the gawkers could snap a picture of his mangled leg. There were a few things he still wanted to keep private.
    “You sure you want me to draw this on you?”
    He glanced up and down the line. Artists were bent over drawing, clients hanging around looking bored. “Yeah.”
    “Okay, this is going to be cold.” She turned back to him, rag in hand, and began wiping his skin, over his chest, down his side and abs. The sensation disappeared when she went over his hip. If he weren’t watching her he wouldn’t have known she was still touching him.
    She asked him questions about colors and style as she shaved the sparse hair off one side of his chest. She clipped a few flash art