Page 86 of Essence of Fear

Pav shrugged. “Yeah, all right.”

• • •

“Stop glaring,” Viktoria whispered.

Pav’s gaze snapped away from the man who currently had his hands on Viktoria’s inner thigh as the buzz of the tattoo machine started up again. He found her staring at him, amusement dancing in her eyes like she knew exactly what this was doing to him.

Someone was touching her.

A man.

Oh, sure … for a tattoo, but right now, that didn’t seem to make a difference to Pav. He had never quite known jealousy before. At least, not like this. It literally felt like it was eating away at his brain with every passing second. How he had managed to stay seated in the chair, in the corner of the room for the last hour was anyone’s fucking guess.

The man—an old and trusted friend, according to Viktoria—chuckled. “Just about done here, actually.”

Pav dragged in a burning breath. “Hmm.”

Viktoria gave him another look. “You can step out, if you want.”

“Nyet.”

Pav knew he was being ridiculous, but that didn’t stop the way he was feeling, frankly. He was only calmed by the fact that Viktoria was actually letting this man put his hands on her, and while it wasn’t intimate, it was close enough to an intimate spot. The trust she must have felt for this tattooist friend of hers … it was a good enough reason for Pav to stay in his chair, and not rip the man’s throat out with his bare hands like he’d been fantasizing about for the last hour.

Some people would never understand how close to death they came when Pav was near. This man was a good example.

“Done,” the man muttered, moving his chair back a couple of inches as he straightened and eyed the work he’d done on Viktoria’s inner thigh. “And no spelling errors.”

Viktoria leaned up and gave the man a look. “Better not be, Dirk.”

Dirk.

Right.

That was his name.

Pav hadn’t cared.

“You wanna do the clean-up and wrap it?” Dirk asked.

Viktoria passed a look to Pav over her shoulder, and then nodded. “I think I better. He’s about at his limit, I think.”

Dirk snorted under his breath. “Don’t bring him next time—don’t think I ever felt that much pressure while working. Makes my fucking hands shake.”

“Get out, asshole.”

Pav scowled, knowing they were talking about him. He hated that his jealousy was that obvious, but what could he do? This was all new territory for him, and he didn’t know how to handle it. He figured not killing the man doing the tattoo was a win for him, right?

And for them.

It was good for them, too.

“Nice to meet you, Pav,” Dirk said before he headed for the door of the private room in the shop. “I suppose.”

“You can say it wasn’t,” Pav muttered in reply, “everyone else does.”

“Yeah …”

Viktoria was giving him another one of those looks as the guy left the private room. She’d called her friend to see if he was working late and was up for doing a tattoo. Apparently, Dirk lived in the apartment above his studio—he owned the whole building. He didn’t mind coming down and opening up to do a quick tattoo for her.