Under His Skin Read Free Page B

took over when she got into the zone. Dipping the needle into the ink, she swirled it around and closed her eyes, embracing her inner calm.
    When she had enough ink, she turned to Brian, only to find him watching her. He had the most captivating eyes. There was a melancholy quality to them now that she wished she could wipe away. Nothing could bring back the people he’d lost, but she could do their memory justice. She flashed a smile, determined to do what she could for him here and now.
    “Deep breath.”
    When she placed her left hand with a folded paper towel against his skin, she could feel the heat of his body through the latex. It was a cruel kind of torture to have her hands all over him but separated by gloves. She breathed with him and held the pedal down with her foot. The machine in her hand vibrated to life and everything was right in her world. Her vision narrowed to the highest point of the ship she’d drawn on his skin with a special tattoo pen. Brushing him with the needle, she watched his skin absorb the pigment. Slowly, she traced the long lines of the mast and topsail, pausing to refill on ink and wipe away the excess pigment on his skin.
    “How do we know each other?” he asked after she’d settled into a rhythm doing the outline.
    Biting her lip, she glanced up. “Oh, um, we don’t know each other,” she mumbled, ducking her head to focus on the delicate lines of a net draped over the side of the ship.
    “Come on. You looked like you were going to run away from me earlier. What did I do? Was I a jerk?”
    She swirled the needle in the reservoir and met his gaze. She had to work on him for the rest of the day and she did not want to relive those memories. “No, I was dumb and embarrassed myself. I wouldn’t exactly call it knowing each other.”
    “What did you do?” He sucked in a breath as she worked on a particularly sensitive area over his side. “You don’t seem like the kind of chick who would flash her tits. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
    If only she could be lumped in with those girls. “Nope.”
    “Did we, uh…”
    Choking on a laugh, she shook her head. “No, not that either.”
    “I’m not going to give up. Do I need to apologize for something I did?” The smile on his face was infectious. There was no sorrow there now. Something in her chest relaxed and her hand moved more freely across his side.
    “No,” she said, her cheeks heating.
    “Did you hit on me?”
    She shook her head and turned to get more ink. “I’m not answering this. It’s stupid.”
    “Okay, do you live here in Dallas? Or did I meet you on the road?” His foot bounced under the sheet she’d tossed over him to keep him warm.
    “Stop moving. Do you want me to draw a line across your stomach?”
    “No.” He smothered his smile and stilled. “You from around these parts?”
    She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Are we seriously playing twenty questions?”
    “It’s not like we’re pressed for time. Come on, it can’t be that bad. This one time, we were opening for this little band, Dropkick Murphys, you might have heard of them. Anyways, I had to pee so I ran into the port-o-potty behind the stage and took a piss. I was still doing vocal warm-ups.”
    Pandora let up on the pedal and the machine stilled. Phantom vibrations raced up and down her arm. She had a feeling she knew where this was going. Taking the opportunity to wipe down the area she’d worked on, she gently swiped at the raw flesh.
    “I’m standing there, taking a leak and singing, and they never muted my mic. So there’s, I don’t know, forty thousand people out there, and they all get to hear the sound of me tinkling and signing do-re-mi.”
    “Oh my god, are you for real?” She shook her head and picked out the next part of the outline to tackle.
    “One hundred percent. They recorded the whole thing. I have a copy somewhere.”
    Leaning back over him, she pressed the pedal and the machine clattered to life.