“Unless it’s a damn taser and a bodyguard, you’ve got nothing,” he argued, like he truly believed there was no way I could be prepared if someone jumped me.
“I take self-defense classes. Dante’s been training me for years. I’ve been in enough dicey situations to get out of most of the ones I encounter now. If not”—I shrugged and reassured him—“I’ll live. Because if I don’t, I’ll die, right?”
He grunted at the words he’d said to me so long ago.
They’d echoed through me. They’d ricocheted around in my head for years, even in the darkest nights when Marvin and the men who paid him stood over me, when Jimmy held me down, when I was sure death would be a better option than life.
The tube lighting of Crowned Ink glowed a bright red as we neared the shop. Their logo was a red crown with bold colored skulls in a pile below it. I pushed open the heavy glass door but didn’t hold it for Rome.
He grunted, but I ignored it. I took in the wall of magazines and, next to it, a large display of tattoos. All of them were intricate, popping with color or navigating the darkest shadows.
The leather seating didn’t look too inviting, but I wasn’t here to sit. It was late enough that no one else was in there getting work done. When I tapped the bell on the lacquered counter, I heard someone from the back immediately start shuffling toward us.
“This is a bad idea,” Rome warned from behind me. He stood so close I smelled the mint on his breath.
“Then, leave. I don’t need you here if you don’t want to be.” When the tattoo guy rounded the corner, I glanced back at Rome. “Okay, now I really don’t need you here.”
He growled at my wink, but my attention was back on the tattoo artist. His greenish eyes popped against the bright green of the walls. Black designs on his neck contrasted with the white collared shirt he wore.
He opened the laptop on the counter. “What can I do for you two tonight?”
“I just want a little writing on my ribs. Adding something to what I’ve already got.”
“I’ve seen a little of it.” He said, staring at my ribcage. I lifted an eyebrow but let him continue. “Exactly what is it that you already have?” Rome asked.
The tattoo artist nodded. “Can I see what you already have?”
I smirked at them both and stepped to the side. The black tiling on the floor shined with cleanliness—a much better establishment than the knock-off shop Jimmy’s son had taken me to. They’d done my flowers with the jewels strung around them, even though I was underage. I’d told them I wanted it to look like the flowers were tangled in them, like the beauty was almost suffocating.
Every time I looked at it, the art made me want to cry and rage all at once. The piece was stunning, a testament to the fact that you could even find an artist in someone’s basement.
I lifted my shirt to show them both. The art wrapped from my back diagonally forward down to my hip.
The green-eyed man stepped forward to examine the work and hummed low. “That’s some good ink.”
“I know.” I bit my lip and shrugged when he raised an eyebrow at me.
He chuckled and stuck his hand out. “Name’s Zane.”
I dropped my shirt and took his hand. “I’m Katie. Obviously, I want the writing in the empty spot. I need a font that fits, and I’ll write out what I want if you’ve got time to do me.”
“Sure thing.” He turned to Rome. “You want him in there with you?”
“That’s why I’m here, Zane,” Rome answered for me.
“You can leave the shit attitude on that side of the counter.” I pointed behind us. “I need you being supportive, not an asshole.”
Rome stalked by me as Zane handed me a form to sign and another piece of paper to write my words on. He explained his cleaning techniques, how I should sit, and when I should tell him to stop if it was too much.
“I can take a lot of pain,” I announced as I lifted my shirt over my head.
When I glanced at them both, Zane was prepping his tattoo gun, smiling at my bravado, while Rome glared at me. “Is no shirt necessary?”
“I’m sure it’s easier, right, Zane?”
The man didn’t even lift his head, too engrossed in his process. “Whatever makes you feel most comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable in less clothing.” I wiggled down into the chair, settling in.
“Do you always have to do that?” Rome pulled a stool up so his massive upper body was close enough for me to see all of his abs, all of his chest under the tight T-shirt he wore, and all of his broody, strong-jawed face.
I hated how much I loved seeing that jaw pop when I pissed him off. He was ready to unleash tonight, and I wondered if it would be on me. I knew he was dangerous, that his temper flared and let loose something wild. The kiss we shared so long ago was a memory of that. I wanted it again even when I knew Mario would never let his right-hand man casually sleep with me, even when I knew we were two hurricanes blowing through the world and there was no way we could cross paths without leaving destruction behind.
Still, I stared at his lips for moments too long before I replied, “Do I always have to do what?”
“Fuck, woman. You know you’re toying with me and every man you encounter.”
“Zane doesn’t care one way or the other. Do you, Zane?”
He inserted a new needle, tested his tattoo gun on a wet sheet, and spun around in his chair to start. “I only care that you get through these next fifteen minutes.”
Leave it to a tattoo artist to get straight to the point.
“You ready?” he asked.
My heart picked up speed, and the adrenaline kicked in. The need to feel anything other than what I was feeling became overwhelming. Not because of his question but all because Rome’s hand snaked up and grabbed mine.
Like he cared.
Like he gave just a bit of a damn.
I needed to feel anything but that. So I nodded. “Give me the pain.”
Zane’s gun pierced my skin, tiny needles wrecking it to produce something beautiful in the end.
Rome squeezed my hand, and I breathed out slowly as I looked his way. His other hand came up to tap my necklace. “Strong, like Cleo,” he murmured.
If I asked him to kiss me right then, I wondered if he would. His eyes tracked every part of me in those fifteen minutes, and when they journeyed all the way down to my toes, I wiggled them. He smiled like he knew he’d been caught and didn’t care.
“Thanks for coming,” I blurted out and almost covered my mouth in surprise at my word vomit.
Rome didn’t look at me but rubbed his thumb over my knuckles and watched Zane work. “Someone needed to come with you.”
“I’ve gotten tattoos alone before,” I announced and stared up at the fluorescent lighting just as Zane started marking over my rib bone.
“Doesn’t mean you need to do it that way every time. Now, breathe out and squeeze my hand, woman,” Rome coached me. “It helps.”
“I know how to get a tattoo.” I balked and tried to pull my hand away. He gripped it harder and leaned forward over me so that his lips were a hair away from mine. “Stop fighting me. Let out a breath on me, Katalina. I want to taste your air.”
I knew he was just trying to get me past the pain. I knew this didn’t mean a damn thing, but my nipples tightened, my body quaked, and my stomach dropped. Had I been standing, I may have fallen over.
I let out a slow breath. I wasn’t trying to forget the pain. It’d already been forgotten. I was trying to quell the new feelings stirring in me, the ones that had always been there but grew rapidly as I stared into the depths of Rome.
From far off, I heard Zane mumble that he was done.
Rome’s hand traveled along my collarbone as his voice rumbled through me. “Give us a minute, Zane.”
Zane rolled away on his stool because I guess every person in the world listened to Rome when he commanded them.
Rome’s fingers wrapped around my neck, but he didn’t squeeze. “You got my words on you.”
I licked my lips. “They’re just words.”
“They aren’t. Come back to the bar with me.”
“For what?” I whispered.
But I knew.
He tilted my head by pushing a thumb into my jaw, and then he lowered that dark head of hair to my neck where he took what he wanted. He devoured me without even kissing my lips, and his hand slid down to my cleavage where he dipped a finger in to graze my nipple. It puckered as I moaned.
His hand disappeared along with his mouth.
Suddenly, he was standing over me and throwing my shirt at my chest. “Put your top on. Let’s go.”
“I have to pay Zane.” I jumped out of the chair and glanced at my tattoo. He’d already taped cellophane around it while I was being hypnotized by my damn kryptonite.
“He’s been paid.”
I spun toward the dark hallway Zane had disappeared down. “What do you mean? How? Do you two know each other?” That was a dumb question. Zane was right down the street from Rome’s bar. Everyone knew him in one way or another, and Rome had a million and ten tattoos.
I pressed a bandage to the new ink and threw my shirt over my head. “I’m paying you back.”
“Just move your ass.”
I stalked out of the shop, irritated and completely unsatisfied. “I can pay for myself, and just so we’re clear, I’m not for sale.” I knew the comment would rub him the wrong way.
He grabbed my back belt loop and yanked me against him. His hand turned my chin his way. “Even if you do sell yourself as bait, I’m never paying for you, got it?”
I wore stilettos for a reason. I stomped into his foot, I hoped hard enough to hit the bone of his toe. He swore fluidly, and I left him stumbling after me on the sidewalk. “I never sell myself, and even if I did, you wouldn’t be able to afford me, jackass.”
