Chapter Six – Jack
Chapter Six
Jack
That was part of its ‘mystique’, and the introduction to many of its favorable online reviews—“Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to get a tattoo!
”—but what was understood by me and the other artists who took nightshifts waiting for not-entirely drunk walk-ins, was that you could close up for a few hours here or there.
Some of them slept in the back—one of the reasons the bell over the door was so loud—others took naps in their cars during breaks.
As Vegas was between major conventions, it was a weeknight, and colder than balls on a brass monkey outside, I felt pretty safe taking off for a few hours as long as I was back to high-five someone on the early crew pre-dawn.
So I drew to entertain myself until one AM, but after that I set the ‘be back soon!’ sign to a generous five AM and locked the shop behind me.
I walked out to my car feeling loose and tingly. Tonight I was playing close to the edge. Not with my employment—Angela would never fire me, I was the best artist she had—but with my need to feed. I was down two nights, and the co-eds had helped, but I was too hungry for them to top-off alone.
You see, sex took the edge off and amazing sex could just about replace it—and sex with Bella was almost guaranteed to be amazing.
But if she wanted to do other things for some reason, like just read tea leaves, my hunger and I were going to have a bad time of it.
I didn’t turn into a slavering monster after one night, or even two or three, but after four or five I had a lot of sympathy for junkies.
My first stop was my apartment. It was a basement unit, next to no windows, perfect for me, antithetical for the majority of Vegas. I slid out of my clothing and into the shower, washing the scent of tonight’s Penthouse letter away, and when I got out of the shower, dried off.
I didn’t look at myself in mirrors much.
Not because I couldn’t see myself in them—I could, movies were stupid—but because there wasn’t much point.
For the past four years I hadn’t changed.
But now something compelled me to lean over my sink and look.
I had one Japanese sleeve, with a dragon swirling up it from my old mentor, the other was covered in thick-lined American traditional tattoos.
The knuckles of one hand had the letters JACK tattooed across them, the other had ROCK, since my last name was Stone, from when I was punk and seventeen.
I wasn’t stupid, I knew I was good looking, but there had to be something else. Karma, Jennifer, Bella, Rose, Cymberly, JJ, Kate, Ruby—all the girls that’d come before, and all ones I knew would come after—what was it they saw in me? How come with them it was so easy?
Why couldn’t Angela see whatever it was?
I pushed back. That was a stupid question to ask and it didn’t deserve an answer. Didn’t need one. All those other women, they knew trouble, were trouble, or were just passing through. Angela…was real to me.
Which was why I wanted her—and precisely why I could never let that show. I locked down that train of thought and threw away the key, just as my phone buzzed on the counter.
Bella: Don’t be late.
Never, I texted her back, and went for the bathroom door.
Bella lived out in Summerlin, in a suburb that’d sprung up and managed to thrive.
I drove the way to her place by memory and when I got there coasted in, parking beside her Kia in the driveway.
That someone who considered themselves so mystical lived here and drove that? I shook my head as I walked up.
Five minutes early, I decided not to ring the doorbell, and instead just tried the door. It opened—and as she’d already invited me in once before, and I stepped through.
“Open sesame,” I announced, in her entryway/den. Her couches were black velvet, her lamp had a maroon sheet over it to tint the light, and everything else was painted black, the walls, her shelves, her fireplace. Everything but the carpeting was gothic—it was still its original suburbian tan.
“Jack!” She walked in from her kitchen. She was wearing an apron and not much else, if I could believe my eyes. “You changed,” she said.
“Not really,” I said, giving her a feral grin.
She chuckled and walked around behind me to lock the door. Definitely just an apron. I started to feel a lot better about getting fed tonight.
“So what’s going on?” I asked, following her back to her kitchen. “It’s been months.”
“Miss me?” she said, looking over her shoulder, as she returned to stirring a small bowl.
“Always,” I said, but she made a demurring sound.
“You know better than to say things you don’t mean.”
From behind her, the apron covered nothing, which meant that I could see it all: her perfectly heart-shaped ass, and half of her numerous tattoos.
She had a tramp stamp from before their coolness came and faded, only hers were photorealistic antlers, coming out of a mystical grail.
We’d met when she’d walked into the shop and needed a mandala tattooed on her inner thigh, which led to the first of many times we’d fucked.
I could see a hint of it right now, my art, on her.
“Sometimes,” I said, more truthfully, walking up to stand behind her. Whatever she was stirring looked like dirt mixed with different dirt. “I’d just assumed you’d moved on.” And I wasn’t the calling type. Why should I be? I had nothing to offer a normal human being.
Her stirring slowed. “Well, I did. But—it didn’t work out. So—now I’m back. But I need your help.” She set the bowl down and twisted around to face me. “I’m in trouble.”
I set my hands on her hips. “What kind?”
“I—fell in with these guys and—" she started, then looked up at me and gave up. “Your aura’s the only thing that’s worse than theirs are.”
One of my eyebrows rose. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
She looked innocently at me—as innocent as she could. “It means I think you’re the only person that can save me.”
Instead of asking ‘Really?’ I had the wisdom to growl, “How?”
“Like this,” she said, drawing near and leaning up to kiss me.
Bella and I—we weren’t kissers. I was generally worried about inopportune teeth and she usually wanted me to fuck her fast and animalistic.
So I stiffened as her mouth met mine and her lips parted.
“Bella,” I murmured, trying to pull up, but her hands caught my head and brought my mouth back to hers.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as she set my forehead against her own, giving me a glorious view down the front of her apron at her heaving chest.
“I am,” she whispered, and grabbed my belt.
In a moment my belt was unbuckled and my button-fly undone. One of her hands pushed down as the other one went up my stomach. I pulled my shirt off quickly, giving her more access to skin, as her hand inside my jeans found my hard cock and wrapped around.
“You have missed me, haven’t you?” she said.
I ran a hand into her thick hair and pulled her head back so she had to look at me. “I’m gonna show you just how much.”
She shuddered, at my tone, at my raw need—I saw her do it, and I felt her hand tremble, holding me.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” I said, taking a step forward, still holding her by her hair, pressing her back against her countertop. “You thought you were going to be in control tonight, didn’t you?”
She nodded a little, her head unable to pull much against her trapped hair.
I lowered my head to breathe in her neck, to smell her, to almost be able to taste her blood—to definitely be able to taste her sex, in the wetness that I knew now freely flowed between her thighs.
“I don’t know who you’ve been fucking, Bella, but they sure as hell weren’t me.
” I stepped back, letting go of her hair and pulling myself away from her in a rush.
“Take that apron off, now,” I commanded, and her shaking hands went for the knots.
“Then get back to your bedroom and lay down, ass up.”
Her eyes widened and the apron fell to the ground as she raced down the hall.
I took my time in her kitchen, kicking off my boots and my jeans.
I knew she could hear me, just as I knew she’d obeyed.
She wanted something from me—and I needed something from her.
Waiting made it sharper for us both. And before I walked after her, I went to the den and grabbed the scarf from her lamp.
Her room was even darker than the den was, but vampires have excellent night vision.
Although if I hadn’t been able to see her, I’d still have heard her, breathing unsteadily as she waited and hoped, and I’d definitely have been able to smell her, anywhere.
I walked up behind her bed, which she was on, ass up, like I’d commanded.
I put my knees against the mattress, moved it, and heard her gasp.
“Jack?”
I held the scarf up between my hands. I hadn’t decided what I’d do with it yet. Maybe I ought to gag her. “Yeah?”
“I’m scared.”
“Whoa.” I stepped away from her bed, letting the scarf go. “Why? It’s just me.” We’d played rougher games than this before.
She turned on the bed, laying naked in tousled sheets. “It’s just—I was supposed to—the past few months—they’ve been really bad for me.” She got the words out in gasps, and I realized she was crying.
“Oh—Bella.” My hard-on sank, and my hunger lunged out, like a dog on a leash. She crawled across her bed to me and pulled me down to hold her. “I’m sorry,” I apologized, for who or whatever had hurt her. “I am sorry,” I said, brushing her hair from her face.
She clung to me, sobbing, and all I could do was hold her back. “My poor baby,” I whispered to her, like someone long ago had once whispered it for me, and rocked her, skin to skin.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping a hand across her face. “I didn’t mean to do this with you.”
I could feel her heart beating against the wall of my chest, and felt small fangs budding out. “You can’t be strong all the time. It’s okay.”