Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,12
wanted to forget the past, didn’t want to cover up her internal scars, more like sideswipe them and focus on the future.
Which I found interesting.
Me—so focused on the past, her—pinning so much hope on the future.
The thought had me smiling because I wanted that for her. Genuinely, I did. Not because she was a victim or because she was Nyx’s baby sister, but because she deserved for tomorrow to be brighter than yesterday.
“Thought you only wanted a touch up.”
Her brusque comment told me her walls were back up. I’d had a brief glimpse into something she hadn’t meant to reveal, so I understood she needed to reconfigure things.
It was a testament to how much I’d learned about the woman through her art, through the calming and delicately detailed mandalas to the charming black and white portraits that were hyperreal to her own ink, that I didn’t joke about wanting to touch her up.
Indy wasn’t a clubwhore.
She was more than that.
Only a moron would fail to see that—which was the last thing anyone could describe me as.
“You’re very talented,” was all I said, prompting her to clear her throat.
The air was charged for a moment, and I wondered what she was wrestling with as she muttered ungraciously, “Thanks.”
Her grouchy reply had me shooting her a smile, and when our eyes clashed, she bit her lip.
Always a good sign.
“Which ink do you want touching up?” she asked, her tone almost dogged.
“The negative tattoo on my chest.”
Her gaze dropped to my cut and the Henley I wore beneath it. I felt her stare like a laser, and wished it’d have the soft jersey fabric disintegrating into dust beneath the power of her glance.
I got the feeling Indy was attracted to me, but rather than be comfortable with that, she was the exact opposite.
Could her past have fucked her up that much?
Nyx had never mentioned her having boyfriends, and I’d been wracking my brains over any conversation I’d had or overheard about her, and didn’t remember hearing about her having a partner or a lover. The only guy he complained about was her assistant, and they definitely weren’t together. Not with him giving her puppy eyes and her brushing him off and telling him to go home with a kindness that let me know she was aware he had feelings for her, and wasn’t interested.
Even as I thought about that and wondered why she kept him around, I murmured, “Want me to take it off?”
Her nostrils flared, eyes flashing with something I didn’t think she recognized in herself—lust—and she took a step back, even as she moved toward the back office. Then, freezing in place, she moved over to the desk instead, and pressed a button which had a bunch of blinds flowing down to hide the building’s interior from the outside world.
So, she didn’t want me in her studio, her private workspace.
Interesting.
Taking that for a positive, I watched as she folded her arms against her chest then said, “It’s okay. I’m too tired to do it tonight, but I can check it out, see how much time I think it’d take, then I can give you a quote.”
“Money’s inconsequential.”
Her brows snapped up at that. “Aren’t you lucky?”
“Not really. Don’t have many bills, and don’t have many vices. Apart from my ink.”
She grunted, then wafted a hand that told me to move things along. Her bossiness amused me, enough that I obeyed when usually it’d get my back up. With care, I shrugged out of my cut and draped it over the flash rack I’d just been glancing through. Dragging the Henley over my head next, I heard a sharp inhalation that had me smirking into the folds of fabric.
Apparently, Indiana liked what she saw.
Fisting the material in my hand, I pointed to the tattoo in the middle of my torso, one that spanned around my side toward my back. She bit her lip—again—and mumbled, “You went to Lance Black, didn’t you? Only he could pull off that kind of negative ink.”
“I did, just in time before the cancer got him.” I nodded. “Sad to lose a talent like that, even sadder when you think how young he was and how small his kids were.”
She winced, nodding. “I didn’t know him that well, just of him.”
“No?”
“Rep only,” she confirmed. “I did my apprenticeship down in Louisiana. If I’d stayed in the City, we’d probably have crossed paths.” Indy tilted her head to the side, which had her hair drifting over her shoulder and falling