I sit waiting for Jax to come back with the tattoo design after giving him an idea of what I want for my cover-up. I sit in the chair, my legs nervously swaying, making me feel smaller than I should. I try to hold the anxiety back, but I can’t seem to, my head is filled with a thousand ways this could go wrong.
I’m here for a tattoo cover-up, but I’m also here to finally act on the attraction between me and Jax, no matter how bad of an idea it seems. I’ve been attracted to him forever, but when I was with Greg, I couldn’t act on it. I thought I was happy so I pushed the feelings aside and focused on my relationship. Now that Greg is out of the equation, I’m going to do what I want do to, God knows he did even when he was dating me.
I’d like to say that when I walked in on Greg screwing the receptionist at his shop, I was completely shocked, but I wasn’t. I mean I was fucking heartbroken, and still am a little, but I always knew he was a bit of a dick. Yet, I liked him anyway. He treated me better than any boyfriend I have had so far, which isn’t really saying anything because I have only ever been treated like shit by men, but still, he made me feel cared for in a way I hadn’t known before.
Since he owns the shop, he has a little bit of money. He was always giving me little gifts, thinking of me in different ways. That’s not something I had growing up, extra money, so it took me by surprise when he started giving me things randomly. He would buy me tickets to movies and spa days so I could spend time by myself/ He got me little knickknacks that made him think of me and always insisted on buying dinner, and although these things aren’t huge, they would make my heart feel like it was going to burst out of my chest.
But now, with the rose-colored glasses gone, I can see through the gifts, see what he really wanted. He gave me gifts that got me out of the house so that I would be gone for hours, giving him a chance to fuck whoever he wanted without fear of interruption. Everything nice that he ever did now seems like a ploy to keep me happy enough that I wouldn’t see the cheating right in front of me, and it spoiled the whole goddamn relationship for me, even spoiled all of the good parts.
I wish I could have seen through him. I wish I could have known what kind of person he was before I had gotten involved. I wish I would have listened to my gut, telling me that something was wrong, but I was hopeful, desperate even, to make it work. So I ignored all of the signs, all of the intuition, and kept moving through life. All while pretending that the hot tattoo artist, that Greg hates so much, didn’t catch my eye, and wasn’t the main character in all of my personal fantasies. That is until I was a witness to the cheating, to how fucked up our relationship really was. The sight of his cock sliding out of her as he ran toward me and, while still naked in front of me, tried his best to convince me not to leave, his dick wet from another woman, still sits inside of my head taking up far too much space.
I wanted to trash his apartment. I wanted to key his car. I wanted to burn his fucking tattoo shop to the ground, roasting marshmallows over the fire, but all of those options would, at minimum, result in a police report, and I didn’t want to deal with any more bullshit because of Greg than I already had, so I went with the next best form of revenge.
There’s nothing Greg hates more in this world than Designer Ink, Jax’s tattoo shop. It sits right across the street from his and is where I am sitting right now waiting for a cover-up tattoo. He knows they are good, decent competition to his business, sometimes even doing better than his, and he fucking hates it. He hates knowing that he isn’t the best and that they are both recommended around town.
So, I know it is going to drive him fucking insane when he hears that I got a tattoo here, especially since I let his rival cover up the tattoo that he put on me. He’s going to be in a fucking fit knowing that I turned to the one place that he fucking hates to do my ink, and that’s exactly what I want.
I can’t imagine how he is going to react if he hears that I’m sleeping with Jax, which is my second goal to accomplish by coming to Designer Ink today.
As much as I hate Greg, it isn’t all about him though. I have had a thing for Jax for far too long, always staring at him whenever Greg would drag me over to brag about something stupid he accomplished. I saw the way he looked at me, too, and if I’m reading him correctly, there’s an attraction there. Now it’s my chance to figure out if I’m right and if fucking him is as good as I think it would be.
The problem is, I have to ask him first, and that’s hard because he is so goddamn intimidating. He’s hot as hell with his dark hair and dark eyes. He has tattoos covering his whole body, each muscle lined with ink that I want to run my tongue over. He kind of caught me off-guard at first, because when Greg first took me over here and we first walked in, Jax looked at Greg with a death glare for the ages. It was as if Jax couldn’t stand the sight of him, but when his eyes met mine, they softened, as if he was really looking at me, trying to figure me out. I remember standing there, under his gaze, my entire body tuned into him, my head spinning, confusing the fucking hell out of me as I tried not to think of how attractive he was as I held my boyfriend’s hand. Ex-boyfriend now.
I’ve honestly wanted him ever since, but when I was with Greg, I was mostly happy. Sure I ignored some red flags, but I genuinely wanted things to work with Greg so fucking badly. I ended up pushing away anything I thought I saw between me and my boyfriend’s rival, pretending it wasn’t even there.
But now, Greg is out of the picture, and I can fuck whoever I want, and I got my sights set on a certain tattoo artist who looks at me like he wants to eat me alive.
The cover-up design is finished quicker than I expected. We decided on a new flower to cover up the old one, something a lot more intricate and detailed, hiding the old one in the dark colors of the new one. Jax is really insightful about this stuff. I explained what I wanted, but it was like he already knew. He didn’t think it was a stupid idea and added some things to make it better. Seeing his strong hands draw the sketch was mesmerizing, and I am glad that he is back so I am not stuck with my nerves and second-guessing thoughts.
He started tattooing slowly at first, giving me a chance to get used to the needle, and the way his body was so close to mine, his heat radiating off him, made me forget what was happening altogether. My body completely focused on him, and once it started to hurt, my body starting to come back into itself, he was already done and the new ink was embedded in my skin.
“What do you think?” Jax asks, his voice hoarse, his body moving away from mine, the heat going with him. I stare at him for a second too long, getting caught in his features, but I look away quickly at the new flower instead.
“It’s perfect. Thank you so much for doing this,” I say as I rise from the chair, looking at my wrist from the mirror across the room. I stare at it for a few seconds before I glance at Jax in the mirror, and our eyes connect, the heat in his gaze is palpable. I feel like he feels my gaze as well, like we got too close to touching each other, and now all both of us want is more.
He details the care instructions, and I barely listen, my mind running through a hundred ways to ask him what I want to ask him, my mind feeling blank. My mouth is dry, the anxiety running through me taking over my body, making it hard to speak or think.
“Okay, you should be good to go,” he concludes as his eyes trail down my body for just a second, as if they are getting one last good look before I head out the door. I take a deep breath, preparing myself, not even knowing what I’m going to say, but I know that I need to at least try, even if it blows up in my face.
