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“Thanks again,” Carly said. “I don’t know how I would have managed at the hospital with the kids. My husband couldn’t get away from work and they’re such a handful.”
“Like I said, it’s perfectly fine,” Xavier said.
I gave Carly her mother’s medication and repeated the instructions the doctor had given me.
“Will you be okay?” I asked Helen.
She groaned and nodded.
“I just need some sleep,” she said without opening her eyes properly. I kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand.
“Give me a call if you need anything.”
40
JACKSON
“Comfortable?” I asked in a joking tone, as Emma stretched back on the reclining chair and yawned. Her body language was the complete opposite of how it was the first time I met her: this was a woman who didn’t need anyone to hold her hand.
“Very,” Emma said, and gave me a playful smile. “But I’d be more comfortable if you were in the chair with me.”
I grinned as I prepared my equipment. My gloves were on and I had everything I needed within arm's reach. All I needed to do now was fill in the missing details on Emma’s tattoo, and she would never have to deal with seeing Nathan’s name on her body ever again.
“I don’t think Xavier would be on board,” I said as I checked the tattoo gun, and wondered whether he could hear our conversation through the curtain.
“I bet he would be, if I invited him to join in,” Emma mused, and at first I thought I’d misheard her. She gazed at me, blinking her electric blue eyes slowly enough that I knew she was serious.
“You mean… a threesome?” I asked, lowering my voice so none of the other clients could hear us.
Emma gave me a sly shrug.
“I didn’t mean anything.” She gave me an innocent grin and ran her finger along my forearm. “What does this tattoo mean?”
“Uh…” I said, struggling to get my brain into gear.
The mental image of both me and Xavier pleasuring Emma at the same time made it hard to focus. My dick was semi-hard from the moment Emma removed her shirt, and now it stood straight up, straining against my jeans in a way that would make sitting uncomfortable. The tattoo she’d pointed out was a pen whose barrel morphed into a rose’s stem, with a full flower at the end. The person holding it was writing a sonnet from Shakespeare, and the ink started out black and became red as the roses’s thorns pierced the hand.
“It reminds me that art can be beautiful, even when it hurts,” I said, and rubbed the skin. “I had it done years ago, in law school, when my work and art felt like they could never co-exist.”
Emma traced the looped letters with her finger, her touch sending electricity straight to my groin.
I’d be lucky if I could sit down at all today.
“Ready?” I asked, pulling my hand away under the guise of positioning myself comfortably to start work.
“Yeah,” Emma said, and nestled her back against the chair before closing her eyes. “Do you believe in symbolism?”
I scoffed.
“I’m an artist, so Ithinkthat’s self-explanatory.”
“Do you think that covering his name will trigger the universe to kick Nathan out of my life?” she asked. “Sort of like manifesting a new beginning?”
“I hope so,” I said, although the truth was, my feelings were more complicated than that. On the one hand, I obviously wanted Emma to be safe, and that wasn’t even a question. But on the other, if Nathan wasn’t a threat anymore, she wouldn’t need to stay here.
I’d be heartbroken if she moved out.
I worked quickly with yellow ink, injecting color into her skin and wiping the excess away. If she was in pain, she didn’t show it — she didn’t flinch, not even at the first pinch as the needles pierced her skin.
