Lee had the nerve to chuckle, but it worked. His chills were gone, and Wren finished shaving — as roughly as she could manage without actually breaking the skin. She squirted him again with green soap, rubbed it off, and picked up the stencil.
“Lie flat. I need to line this up so it’s perfectly level.”
Lee untucked his right arm and pressed himself flat against the table. She leaned over him and studied the contour of his pec before she angled the stencil and pressed it down on his chest. She ran her fingers over it and counted to twenty before she carefully peeled back the edges.
Standing back, she checked her work and nodded in approval. She passed him her hand mirror.
“Okay, make sure that’s what you want and where you want it,” she warned. “I’m going to let this dry for a few minutes, glove up, and get started. If you have any doubts, now’s the time to pull the plug.”
Lee held the mirror over himself and smiled at what he saw.
“No doubts.” He passed the mirror back to her, and she gave a shrug.
“Suit yourself.” Secretly, she was thrilled he wanted to go through with it. Of course, he didn’t need to know that. Wren turned back to her table, took an alcohol swab, and sterilized the handle and body of her green soap so she could grab it as needed once she’d donned her gloves.
Across from her, Rocky was helping Dallas off the table, and both turned her way with curious smiles. Wren scowled at her boss before pulling on a pair of gloves. She peeled open the grip, connected it to her rotary machine, and then opened her liner needles and loaded them. She flipped on the machine, the hum at least filling up some of the awkward silence in the studio. She tapped the foot pedal and did a quick ink check before turning back to Lee.
“Ready?”
His eyes were on the machine in her hand, but he cut them back to her. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Biting down on her smile, she applied the green soap again, dabbed the stencil lightly with a fresh paper towel, and angled her machine light over him. She tapped the foot pedal twice to set it on cruise, and she leaned in.
“Here goes,” she whispered, pulling his skin tight with her left hand and letting the tip touch down, biting into his flesh. Wren pulled back and looked up to check on him. Lee’s eyes were closed, his brows high on his forehead. “You okay?”
He drew in a deep breath and opened his eyes. The heat in them nearly knocked her back.
“Yes, Wren.” His voice, low and hoarse, hit the tingly spot in her belly, and she took a measured breath. On the exhale, she set the tip back to his skin, and a sound, low and short, came from his throat. She didn’t stop, and she didn’t take her eyes off the stencil.
People reacted differently to their first tattoo. She thought she’d seen it all. The Fainters. The Shriekers. The Laughers. The tough guys with the stoic looks. And the ones who felt a rush and rode it like a wave.
She’d never seen the look Lee wore — as though he were submitting himself to the sweetest torture.
Wren felt his look sear through her, fluttering up to her heart and spreading down into her womb. She shifted on her feet and threw her concentration into the lining.
The first drop of blood that bloomed on his skin seemed to yank at her heart. Blood had never bothered her before; it came with the territory, but Wren found she had to concentrate harder on pressing ahead after she saw it. So she did. Down along the shaft, around the bit of the key, carving out the notched cross, up along the bottom, and then around the decorative head. She paused only to dab up the excess ink and the occasional drop of blood. Each time she did, she’d glance up to find Lee watching her with unshaken focus.
When Wren tapped the pedal to stop the machine so she could swap out the liner for the shader, she noticed Rocky grab his keys.
“Where are you going?” she asked, hearing panic in her voice.
Rocky cocked a brow at her and gestured to the empty studio. “No customers. I’m running to the bank while I can.”
Wren tried to shoot lasers from her eyes, but they only served to make her boss laugh.
“Be good, you two,” he called over his shoulder as he pushed his way out the door.
She swallowed and turned back to her tray, avoiding Lee’s eyes even more now that they were alone. She opened the pack of shader needles, changed the pigment to the mustard, and put on a fresh pair of gloves.
“This will feel a little different,” she told him. “More needles, but less pain.”
“Okay.” His voice still sounded hoarse, but Wren ignored it, hit her pedal again, and got back to work.
She started at the bit of the skeleton key, the largest area of the design, but she swept the shader across carefully so she didn’t lose the sharpness of the cross. She’d just made her way around it when Lee’s hand was suddenly at her cheek.
“Wren.”
She pulled the machine back and jumped out of his touch. “Don’t move.” She met his eyes to scold him, but his pupils, so dark and wide, made her heart start racing and her mouth go dry.
