Page 4 of Snowed In with an Incubus

He didn’t reply. His back was toward her, hands trembling around the tattoo gun as he inserted the yellow ink. He placed the gun down and clenched his hands hard, breathing in through his nose: antiseptic; lavender air freshener; hot, tangy anger mixed with mourning and stinging pain. And underneath that, desire. Just a whiff of it, bright and mouthwatering. Not enough to feed him properly. Just enough to whet his appetite.

He shuddered.

“Is everything okay?”

Sam unclenched his hands. They were steady.

“Peachy,” he said. He turned, lifting the tattoo gun. “Let’s start on that colorwork.”

He fended off the worst of the trembling by clenching the tattoo gun. But by the time he was adding the last swirls of orange, they were getting bad enough that he worried about the tattoo. He finished the final swirl more hurriedly than he usually would, relieved when he wiped it and saw nothing had gone astray. He’d kept it together until the end.

“Right,” he said, sitting back. “That looks done to me. What do you think?”

She held up her arm. A satisfied smile spread over her face. “That’s great. That’s great. Just what he deserves. What I deserve.”

Her grin grew. He was right: She was even more beautiful when she was happy. His stomach twisted with hunger, wanting to see her flushed and sweating, her lush mouth open and smiling as he took her desire for his own.

He shivered again, forcing down the wave of hunger that shimmered through him, which made his scalp itch, his back spasm, and his tailbone twinge. He could feel it all under his skin, waiting. The scent of desire had only gotten stronger as the tattoo continued, especially when he adjusted her arm or leaned closer. It was always smaller than the anger and mourning and pain, but it was still there, and he was so hungry, and she was so delicious.

He breathed through his mouth as he sealed the SecondSkin over her tattoo and hurried through the usual aftercare instructions. He even tossed in a free tube of tattoo cream. They were usually five dollars, but he needed to get home. His dog was waiting, and so was his potion.

“Thanks for coming to Inky Talons,” he said as he walked her toward the door. “Have a nice night. Don’t crash.”

She smirked as she pulled her jacket back on. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Forgetting something?” He rubbed his forehead. He was starting to sweat. He was actually looking forward to the freezing wind outside cooling him down as he walked to his car.

“I still have to pay you,” she said. “Double, remember?”

“Right.”

Her smirk grew. “So … how much?”

“Right,” he repeated. He glanced at the clock above the front desk, calculating the time she’d spent here and his usual rates for drawing concept art. “Uh, two hundred normally. So four hundred.”

She stood there, waiting. It took him a moment too long to realize they had to go back to the counter.

“Right,” he said for a third time. “Shit, sorry. I’m really hungry.”

“You and me both,” she said. “I’ve been driving for ages.”

He took her to the counter and turned the main computer screen back on, grateful that he had been procrastinating about shutting everything down earlier.

The lights flickered. They both paused, but when nothing happened, he waved at the machine.

She tapped her card against it. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“Pleasure,” he said, strained. Another wave of hunger made him flinch.

She frowned. “Are you okay?”

He opened his mouth to say “peachy.”

Then everything went dark. The lights, the computer, the salt lamp in the corner that he’d verified was salty one night when after-work drinks with Tammy turned into an ill-advised game of truth or dare.

Neither of them spoke. He could hardly see her through the dark, but he guessed she was doing the same thing he was—absolutely nothing—in the hopes that this was a temporary power outage that would be resolved momentarily.

The studio stayed dark.