Chapter 8
EIGHT
MAYA
“Maya, please. Just hear me out,” Harry said.
I rolled my eyes as I walked around behind my register.
“Harry, there’s nothing to hear out. Okay? You’re the one that did all this to your life in the first place. Not me. I was perfectly fine until you popped up on San Diego’s radar over a year ago. I was perfectly fine and away from danger until you brought it to my doorstep,” I said.
“Maya, all I want to do is—”
I held up my hand. “The less I know, the better. That’s how it always worked with Dad, right?”
He eyed me carefully, and I scoffed.
“You’re an idiot if you don’t think I know what you do for a living. What you did after Dad died. You’re dumber than I thought, and you want to protect me? I’ll need someone smarter than you to do it,” I said.
Harry gritted his teeth. “Just let me help you.”
“You’re the one who needs help, brother. Not me. Now, get out before I call the police and report an unwanted trespasser.”
My eyes scanned over my brother, and I grew very worried for him.
Which meant I grew worried for myself. He looked disheveled.
Tired. There were bags underneath his eyes, and he looked as if he had aged twenty years.
This was the second time he’d come around since his initial visit, and each time he looked worse than the last. His tie was crooked.
One of his leather shoes was unlaced. His suit coat was buttoned unevenly, and his hair looked like it hadn’t seen a comb in days.
“You bring more trouble onto my doorstep whenever you show up. So, if you really want to help? The best thing you can do is stay away,” I said.
He nodded silently and left my shop. And when I was convinced he wasn’t doubling back, my fingers flew across my keyboard.
I pulled up my security system and checked the dates of the last time it was updated.
Shit. It was over two years ago, which meant there were probably several patches since then.
I logged into my account on their website and began the painstaking process of slowly downloading two years’ worth of patchwork material.
Then, I opened up a new tab to schedule an emergency appointment.
Take a second and breathe.
I slowly drew in a deep breath, settling my heart rate.
Think about how this looks.
My mother’s voice emanated off the corners of my mind.
She was always the one who kept me grounded.
Rooted. She taught me how to hide my facial expressions and control my emotions.
Especially in this lifestyle. And with Harry refusing to tell me the type of trouble he’d gotten himself into, I needed to make sure everything around me was up to date. Just in case someone came for me.
Like they did for my parents.
I navigated away from the emergency visit and scheduled a normal appointment.
I was due for a security system upgrade anyway.
All the equipment for a quarter of the price.
The contract was wonderful though pricey.
Thank fuck, I could write it off as a business expense.
I scheduled an appointment for two weeks out on their calendar and submitted my information.
Scheduling an emergency appointment to upgrade my system just after Harry stopped in to see me was suspicious at best.
The bell over the door rang out, and I tensed. I just knew it was Harry. I knew it was him coming back to strong-arm me into something. But when I looked up, I saw someone who made me smile.
“And here I thought I’d never be able to make you smile with my presence,” Notch said, grinning.
“You ready for your appointment?” I asked.
“Whenever you are.”
I quickly navigated away from the updates and ran them in the background.
“Then, follow me,” I said.
I locked the front door and fixed my sign to let people know I’d be back at one thirty.
Then, we made our way back into my office.
I closed the door behind us and drew in a deep breath, trying to settle the rest of my nerves.
I’d had a very busy morning with piercings and a few touch-up tattoos, but I always closed down for my lunch hour.
“Busy day?” Notch asked.
“You have no idea,” I said breathlessly.
“Well, maybe I can help you relieve some of that tension.”
“You mean you’re going to let me poke you with my needle again?”
“If that’s what you’d like to call it. Though, I’m usually the one doing the poking,” he said, winking.
Heat trickled up the back of my neck as I went to sit down in my office chair.
“Okay. I have four distinct patterns to fill in the gaps on your right arm and link all of your tattoos together. Tell me what you think,” I said.
I pulled out my file folder and slid it toward him. He took it from me and opened it up, pulling out each of the four sketches. I’d worked hard on them early this morning. Early, because a dream about him woke me up and I wanted to distract myself from how hot my thighs were after the fact.
“This geometric one is interesting,” Notch said.
“It’ll give some 3-D depth to your arm, if you’re into that kind of thing,” I said.
“But I’m kind of liking the shading on this darker one. Are those swirls?”
“Of light, yes. Darkness and light. The darkness you saved those people from, and the lives that are now lit because of your efforts.”
He quickly pushed that one to the back, and I wondered why. Had I said something wrong?
“I’m not really a fan of this one, though I get what you were going for. Background colors for each of the tattoos, right?” he asked.
“One bleeding into the other. Like they each have their own canvases that are then bound together.”
“The colors would have to be changed. I’m not sure about the bright orange and the… pink?”
I grinned. “Magenta, technically. But yes. A form of pink.”
“Yeah, no,” he said flatly.
It made me giggle as he reached for one of my pens.
He set all the other ones aside and went back to the geometric one, and that made me grin.
Out of all the things I’d drawn out this morning, I knew he’d be drawn to that one the most. The depth of it.
The rich colors and the jagged edges. It was the epitome of a metaphor for a man like Notch.
He made a few tweaks to the outside layers.
How things were blocked off and cut off.
I hovered over the design and watched him play around with it, twisting it and turning it and changing a couple of the base colors.
Then, he handed it back to me.
“What do you think?” Notch asked.
“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s not my tattoo,” I said.
“I don’t want you doing something you won’t be proud of. Because when people ask me where I got it, I’ll obviously send them your way.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind,” I said.
“Just standard. I like those colors better. And the sketch was fantastic. Far better than anything I could have come up with. But do you like them?”
I tried not to smile at his compliment.
“I’d be proud to put this on someone, yes,” I said.
“Well, I’ve got the money. Why don’t we do it today?” Notch asked.
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“On our lunch breaks?”
“You want to take me out to lunch before we do this? Because, I mean, I’m not really dressed for something so formal.”
I threw my head back and laughed before I settled the picture down onto my desk.
“Sure, we can get it done today. If you’re feeling up to it,” I said.
“Don’t let my lanky stature fool you. I’m much tougher than I seem,” Notch said.
“Got nothing to do with how tough you are and everything to do with whether or not your body rejects the tattoo because of the stress it’s under.”
“Wait, a body can reject a tattoo?”
I shrugged. “The body can reject any foreign object. An implant. A crown on a tooth. Ink underneath the skin. Aren’t you a paramedic?”
“Yes, but I’ve never heard of someone’s body rejecting a tattoo.”
“People get tattoos all the time before figuring out halfway through they’re allergic to the ink. Or the metal of the tattoo pen. Or a plethora of other things that could go wrong.”
“Has it ever happened to you?” he asked.
I shivered. “Trust me, you don’t want to hear that story.”
“Yikes. Okay. Well, let’s get started on this tattoo before we thoroughly gross one another out.”
“What? No lunch date over talks of how the skin bubbles and oozes all of a sudden?”
“No thanks.”
“Or how it gets inflamed and the skin starts to peel back?” I asked.
“You can stop now,” he said flatly.
“Or how the person starts throwing up in my chair and can’t stop until they get into an ambulance and are injected with—”
Notch held his hand up, and I smiled.
“You’re a shit paramedic,” I said.
“I have my moments where enough is enough, yes,” Notch said.
I shook my head as I stood up. He followed me out of my office and into my tattooing cubicle, where we were alone as alone could be.
I tried learning more about him. More about his EMT job and how someone like him who had a queasy stomach would deal with some of the things he’d seen in his line of work.
We joked back and forth, laughing and jousting as I started in on the freehand geometric pattern on his right arm.
But when the conversation turned toward him, his childhood, his likes, or his hobbies?
He clammed right up.
“What about you?” Notch asked.
“What about me?” I asked.
“What was it like, growing up in Tianjin?”
I shrugged. “It was fine, I guess. Nothing really to complain about.”
“Were your parents happy about you hopping over the ocean?” he asked.
“My father actually funded the trip with my mother’s support.”
“Because you wanted to pursue your dreams of being a tattoo artist? Or something else?”
I didn’t like where this conversation was going. And suddenly, I understood how Notch felt. Which raised a lot of red flags. Did he have something to hide? Was he really a paramedic? Was he running from something? Maybe a dangerous life, like I was?
Was that why he was so closed off to my questions?
“They just knew I’d never be able to pursue my dreams in the traditional society Tianjin still has,” I said.
“Could you not have gone somewhere else in your country?” Notch asked.
“No. I couldn’t.”
That pretty much derailed the conversation.
And for a moment, I wondered if I had angered him.
Angered this man I was taken by. I wasn’t sure why I gave a damn about pissing him off, but I did.
I flickered my eyes up to his and found him watching me.
Studying me. And when our eyes locked, he grinned.
“Might want to watch what you’re doing there,” he said.
“Yes. Sorry,” I said softly.
I felt two inches tall and twice as beautiful underneath his gaze.
I’d never felt this way before, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
The tattoo came alive with every stroke of my needle.
Every shading and every outline pulled the tattoos on his right arm together in a fascinating sleeve I couldn’t stop staring at.
My hand smoothed over his skin, and electricity shot up my arm.
He’d shift and brush against me, sending chills down my spine.
We kept up with the stolen glances. The small brushes.
And slowly, the tension shifted. It went from nerve-wracking to hot in a matter of minutes.
Looking into his eyes made my heart flutter.
Smoothing the wipe across his chiseled muscles made my gut ache.
I finished off the last of the tattoo and checked to see if there were any spots I’d missed.
And after spot-shading, I covered his arm in Vaseline and wrapped it up in saran wrap.
“All right. Looks like you’re good to go. If you want, I can take a look at your other tattoo,” I offered.
“Be my guest,” Notch said.
I got up and walked over to his other arm.
I slowly eased the rest of his shirt off his body, trying not to stare at his rippling abs.
I unwrapped his tattoo and took in how raised it was.
How red it had become. I smoothed a wipe over it, gauging his reactions.
But he didn’t seem to be in any pain, and there was no oozing or pus coming from his hair follicles.
So, I wrapped that arm back up and nodded.
“Looks good,” I said.
“I could say the same thing about you.”
Our eyes connected as he stood up from his chair, his bare chest catching my eyes.
I watched his muscles roll underneath his skin as he made his way for me.
I backed all the way into my tattoo cubicle door, feeling him approach me.
I closed my eyes. If I blocked him out, I could block everything else out.
Like how he made my blood rush and how hard my heart beat whenever I was around this man.
“You’re beautiful, and I can’t help but…”
He trailed the statement off, and I opened my eyes. I looked up at him, taking in his cold, hard stare. Except, there was a softness behind it. A softness that disarmed me as his face dropped to mine. His hands pressed into the door as I stood to my tiptoes, allowing our lips to meet.
And when they did, fireworks ignited in my mind.
I slid my fingers through his hair and pressed my tongue between his lips. He groaned against me. He pressed his body against mine as he wrapped his arms around me. He pulled me away from the door, stumbling back into the leather chair. And as I straddled his pelvis, I ground deeply into him.
I let my body take over as his cock grew to life underneath his jeans.
“Maya,” he growled.
I hummed my appreciation as my small hands slid down his chest.
I let my fingertips rumble over the divots of his muscles.
His tongue raked against the roof of my mouth as I pinned his hands down against the arms of the chair.
He couldn’t embrace me like that. Not unless he wanted to ruin his tattoos.
I ground against him, pressing myself closer to him as I sucked on his lower lip.
His cock pulsed wildly against me, begging to burst free. But when my hands moved to his belt buckle, something vibrated.
I paused. “What was that?”
“Don’t worry about it. Fucking hell, just keep going,” he groaned.
He cupped the back of my head to crash our lips back together, but it happened again.
“Is that my phone?” I asked softly.
“No. It’s mine,” he grumbled.
“Should you get it?”
“Are you going to make me get it?”
“Depends. Do you need to get it?”
“It’s probably work,” he murmured.
“Then, yes. I’m going to make you get it,” I said.
And the sigh of frustration that fell from his lips matched my own disappointment as I hopped off his lap.