"Me? Never." He peeked up with a teasing grin. "I'm bad, and sure, I'm big...but I'm harmless as a kitten."
Rachel grimaced. "Everything's a dick joke to you, isn't it? You couldn't hold a serious conversation if I put it in a fucking bucket for you."
That wiped away his smile. "I didn't think you were serious. Shit, Rachel. That girl beat Wilson Trent to death with her bare fucking hands. I'm a little scared of her."
God, she didn't want to talk to him, to get wrapped up in trying to figure him out again. "It's complicated. Don't give her a hard time, all right?"
"All right, angel." He settled back into sketching, working in silence beyond the rasp of the marker and the slow, even sound of his breaths. Every once in a while he switched to a different pen, laying thick lines around the edges and going back with a fine-point pen to tease out details.
He finished the guide sketch quickly and turned back toward the low table, and Rachel took advantage of his distraction to rub the goose bumps off her arms. "Can I lie down? The needles make me woozy."
Ace tilted his head toward the chair. "Why don't you sit there? It'll make it easier to move around, if I need a better angle."
A casual request, but everyone knew what kind of shit went down in Ace's tattoo chair. She swallowed hard, pushed away the mental images, and slid off the table. "Fine."
He sighed as she settled onto the leather. "Now you're looking at me like I'm the big bad wolf. You don't have to worry about me, and neither does your city boy. I don't play that dirty."
It stung, but only because it was so far from the truth. "I'm not arrogant or vain enough to think you can't keep your hands off me."
"It wasn't an insult." He slid into place in front of her, scooting his stool between her legs. "No man with a working dick wouldn't be tempted, angel. Trust me."
"Why should I?" Rhetorical enough to be safe...and earnest enough to be dangerous.
Ace stared up at her in silence for a moment--long enough to remind her that he was mere inches away and her shirt was wrapped around her waist. If he bent his head, just a little, he could have his mouth on her bare skin, her breasts, and something about the tightness in his eyes and the sudden unsteadiness of his breathing made it seem like a possibility.
But when he leaned in, it was only to reach past her for a mirror.
Jesus, she was a mess. Her skin was flushed, from her cheeks down under the sketch he'd inked between her breasts, and even her hair was disheveled.
She looked like he'd fucked her already.
Ace held the mirror steady and dipped his head to catch her eyes. There was something profoundly gentle in the way he smiled at her, not wicked or teasing, and all the more dangerous because of that tenderness. "Does the sketch look all right?"
"It's fine," she murmured breathlessly.
"Good." Once the mirror was back on the table, Ace returned with the tattoo gun and brushed a stray lock of Rachel's hair out of the way. "This is bigger than your last one, but it's simpler. Just the black. I'll go easy, but if it hurts or you need a second, you ask, all right?"
"Okay." She clenched her fists as he poured out the ink caps and turned on the machine.
Pain came with the first touch of the needle. Not much at first, just the initial shock that almost vanished in the next moment. Then it bloomed into a burning ache, a low-level irritation that couldn't quite distract her from the hand he placed above the spot he was working on, his fingertips brushing her throat and his thumb riding the curve of her breast.
He'd said something to her months ago, when she'd first mentioned the tattoo. That laying ink over sensitive skin and bone could be excruciating. This was sharp and dull, throbbing through her slowly at first and then swelling into a prickling wave.
She almost begged him to stop, had to dig her teeth into her tongue to hold back the plea. Then the edge of pain subsided, a wave flowing back out to sea only to be replaced with the crash of something else, hot and blurry.
"Stay with me, angel." A gloved finger touched her cheek, tilting her head. "I need to know what