Chapter 2
My dad’s friend was hot. Smoking hot. He owned this tattoo parlor, which he’d owned when I was a kid and visited my dad here in Rosewood Ridge.
My parents split when I was an infant, and I’d grown up in Kentucky, so that might explain why Dylan didn’t recognize me. The last time he’d seen me, I was only fourteen.
“This might sting a little,” Dylan said.
I was seated in a black chair in the room in the back. Dylan was coming at me with a large cotton swab covered in some sort of liquid that I assumed was alcohol. All I knew was this gorgeous guy was running a cotton ball over the top of my chest, and it was just about the sexiest thing I’d ever experienced.
“Do women normally take their tops off in here for you?” I asked, giving him a teasing smile.
Was I flirting? Yes, I was definitely flirting. I liked this rebellious side of myself. Maybe having a fairy on my chest would permanently change my personality for the better.
“Most of the time, customers come in knowing what type of tattoo they want,” Dylan said, tossing the cotton swab in the trash. He wore gloves and used a cloth to make contact, but I felt every touch as though his bare fingers were sliding across my skin. “If they’re getting a chest tattoo, they wear an open shirt they can unbutton. If it’s on the lower back, they just have to lift up the shirt.”
“So I’m the first topless woman you’ve tattooed?” I asked, not taking my eyes off his face as he worked.
He turned and when he was once again facing me, he held what looked like a really fat pen. That couldn’t hurt too much, could it?
“You’re not topless,” he said. “You’re wearing a bra. I’d say that’s as much coverage as you’d have at the beach.”
“You haven’t seen my swimsuits,” I said with a snort-laugh.
“I assume they’re two-pieces since you were going to show off your lower back tattoo.”
Yeah, that was the flaw in my plan. I had this fantasy of whipping off my cover-up and shocking everyone with a large tattoo on my lower back, but it wouldn’t have shown. All of my swimsuits covered as much of my upper body as possible.
“Well, the next time I get a tattoo, I’ll dress for the occasion,” I said.
“Hey, I’m not going to complain,” he said. “In fact, you could take off the bra altogether if it, you know, makes you comfortable.”
“Okay,” I said.
He froze, staring at me. “Okay?”
I shrugged. As he sat unmoving, I leaned forward, unhooked my bra, and removed it, tossing it to the floor.
Holy cow. I was topless in front of a man for the first time in my life. This was against everything I’d ever been taught.
And I’d never felt more alive.
Dylan, meanwhile, had gone full-on slack jawed on me. I wondered if I’d need to punch him in the arm to pull him out of it.
“You could paint stardust around my nipple,” I said, pointing to it.
“Tattoo your nipple?” he asked.
The words sounded forced, like his throat was tight. Was I doing that to him?
“Is that painful?” I asked.
Yeah, the whole stardust thing was silly. I had no interest in expanding the tattoo. Really, I just wanted this man to run his fingers across my breasts. And the rest of my body.
“I’ll tell you what,” Dylan said. “Why don’t we get started on the fairy and if you want more..?”
I wanted more. So much more. But I simply nodded. He was all business, and I was disappointed about it...until that needle touched my skin.
“Holy heck!” I yelled. “That hurts.”
He withdrew the needle and stared at me. “Do you want me to stop?”
I shook my head and gritted my teeth. I was tough. I could take this. Plus, it was worth it. What were a few minutes of pain compared to a lifetime of enjoying this beautiful pink fairy on my chest?
But it was more than a few minutes. It was a full hour. That gave us plenty of time to get to know each other.
Unfortunately, that meant fibbing a little on my end—withholding some details. I told him I grew up in Kentucky. It was totally true, but I left out the part where I spent some holidays and part of each summer right here in Rosewood Ridge.
Dylan clearly didn’t remember me as the teenage girl he’d met numerous times. I stopped visiting my dad around the age of fourteen. I was on the cheerleading squad, and spending time with my friends was just more important to me at that time than my dad.
But my father paid for most of my college and offered to let me come stay with him after I graduated. As graduation drew closer, his offer to stay with him in the mountains until I got established was too good to pass up. Plus, Rosewood Ridge Elementary needed teachers badly enough that I got in on a waiver, giving me extra time to get my licensing.
“What do you think?”
I’d been so caught up in our conversation, I hadn’t noticed Dylan had finished the tattoo at some point. He’d grabbed a handheld mirror from the counter behind him and was holding it up to my breast.
At first, I had a hard time getting past the fact that I’d been sitting here topless in front of this stranger. What had I been thinking? There were my nipples, fully visible to anyone who stepped into that doorway. Most importantly, this hunky tattoo artist had been only inches from them for more than an hour.
Then I shifted my attention to the reason he was holding the mirror up in the first place, and a big smile broke out over my face. “Perfect,” I said, gritting my teeth at the waves of pain still shooting through my body.
He set the mirror down and reached for the cloth he’d been using to wipe up blood as he worked. It grossed me out at first, but I’d gotten used to it. All of it. The pain, the buzz of the needle, and the blood as he worked to clean up the area.
As my gaze naturally drifted to his face, I couldn’t help but notice something out of the corner of my eye. His jeans were slightly baggy, but there was a definite bulge behind that zipper. The biggest bulge I’d ever seen.
“Do you normally get turned on while you’re tattooing someone?” I asked.
His movements stopped abruptly, and he looked up at me, eyes wide open, as if he really hadn’t expected me to notice that. Certainly, he hadn’t expected me to call it out.
“Only when the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen walks in and whips off her shirt and bra,” he said. “And then I get to touch that woman’s breasts for a full hour.”
As though he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary, he went back to cleaning me up. I was suddenly transfixed by his movements, wondering what it might be like if he tossed that cloth aside and touched my breasts for real. My mind drifted to naughty thoughts, imagining myself unbuttoning his pants, pulling down that zipper, and stroking him until he came.
I’d never done anything like that. Sure, I’d kissed boys, despite the rules in our private college. But I made it clear I could go no further than kissing. I’d never wanted to until now.
“It’s helping,” I said, and his movements froze again.
He looked at me. “What?”
“I was just fantasizing about doing things to you,” I said. “It turned me on, and now it doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Or maybe it just takes my mind off the pain.”
“Endorphins.” He nodded. “That can help with pain. I’m not a doctor or anything, just something I’ve noticed.”
“Sex right after getting a tattoo wouldn’t be weird?”
His expression changed then, and I knew he was on board. Not only on board, he was two seconds from ripping off the rest of my clothes.
Yes, there was no denying that heat in his stare, and I was one hundred percent sure it was reflected in my own.
“Take off your shorts,” he said.
Those words alone were enough to shoot a truckload of endorphins through my system. I was having a tough time breathing, the air had grown so heavy between us.
He stepped back, tossing the cloth aside and crossing his arms over his chest. His entire stance said he’d wait patiently until I complied.
Spurred on by the mischievous gleam in his eye, I reached for the fastening on my shorts. My heart was pounding so hard, the sound seemed to fill the room. But somehow, even with trembling fingers, I managed to slide the button through the hole and wiggle out of the shorts.
The warm leather felt almost soothing against my ass as the shorts dropped to the ground, leaving me wearing white cotton briefs and nothing else. My only regret was that I wasn’t wearing a sexier pair of panties, but if Dylan minded, he didn’t show it. In fact, the heat in his eyes seemed to have intensified.
“Now I want to see how you touch yourself,” he said.
His eyes were slightly narrowed, the intensity in them so strong, he could probably shoot lasers from them. I, meanwhile, was suddenly trembling a little, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
“I don’t do that,” I said. “Never have.”
“Let me guess.” His mouth twitched a little, like he was fighting a smile. “It’s against the rules.”
I nodded. “One of my friends told another girl that she touches herself under the covers. It got back to an instructor, and next thing we knew, she was expelled.”
“From college?” he asked.
“Yep. The handbook clearly states that we are to follow the school’s code of conduct or we can be expelled. We were told God was always watching, but I always felt like there were hidden cameras in some of the dorm rooms. Maybe I’m paranoid, but…”
I shrugged. What more was there to say? It was a fucked-up place, and almost as soon as I walked down the steps of that stage on graduation night, I was determined to break every single one of the rules in that damn code of conduct.
Starting with this tattoo.
“Do you know how?” he asked.
I frowned. “How to do what?”
“How to give yourself an orgasm.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“I’d love to watch you do that.”
I hesitated a moment. Did I dare say what was on my mind? Yes. I definitely dared.
“It’s a deal,” I said. “On one condition.”
His eyes widened a little. “What’s that?”
“You have to take off all your clothes. I want to see you touch yourself too.”