Tattooed Troublemaker - Elise Faber Page 0,28

bad experience if you’re on the viewing end.”

I snorted. “Pig.”

He didn’t deny it. “Do you need some water or something before we keep going?”

“I’m fine—” I frowned when he went to reach for his right shoulder then stopped, gloved hand a few inches from the fabric covered part of his body, and deliberately brought it back in front of him. I understood that he was trying to keep his hands clean and appreciated it, obviously, but I was more concerned that he’d reached in the first place. “Are you still hurting?”

“I’m fine.” But he did one more stretch. One more head tilt.

No, he wasn’t fine.

I also understood firsthand how much a body could ache after a full day’s work, after many days in a row, and he’d been in the shop as often as me, pulling longer hours than all the other artists. I got that he was a guest artist and was cramming in appointments, but Tig had mentioned he’d been traveling around to different studios for a while. Did Garret always work like this? Full-bore, head down, not stopping? And how long could one person sustain that until they snapped?

Pot, meet kettle.

Yeah, so maybe I wasn’t exactly known for taking time off, but I had my apartment and my candles and my bubble bath.

I didn’t work until my body ached and I could barely move—not anymore, anyway.

“Garret.”

“It’s part of the job,” he said. “Our hands go, our eyes go, our backs aren’t great—it’s reality.”

“You’ve been working a lot,” I pointed out.

His brow lifted. “Is Charlie Roberts cautioning me on my work habits?”

My cheeks warmed. “Okay, so maybe my brain has been cautioning me about the proverbial pot and kettle, but we don’t have to do this right now. You’ve had a long day and—”

“I’m fine, sweetheart.”

I stopped and stared at him.

One, because although that wasn’t the first time he’d called me that, it still made my heart skip a beat, and two, because, fuck, the slightly rough tinge to his voice made my pussy clench. I wanted him between my thighs and calling me sweetheart, and it was getting increasingly harder to ignore my attraction to him . . . especially when I’d spent the last few hours living in the moment.

Well, I wasn’t quite ready to jump his bones.

I mean, I wanted to, but I figured my insanity for that evening had to end somewhere, and that somewhere was going to be the very permanent artwork etched on my forearm.

“So, no water?” he asked.

I shook my head. “You need some?”

He shook his head and I tucked the sweetheart away, shoved it right down with the attraction. Not going to open up that particular can of worms. Nope. Not going to do it.

But then he reached for the tattoo gun and winced.

I stopped thinking about cans and worms. I stopped thinking about anything at all.

A heartbeat later, I was on my feet and standing behind him, Garret’s head turned slightly as he watched me move, body beginning to follow when I’d stepped out of eyeshot, but I stopped the movement by placing my hands on his shoulders.

“What—?”

“Shh,” I told him, and then I started kneading the muscles there. They were really tight, knots all along his shoulder blades. I ran my thumbs up and down them, pressing heavily at the spots. His head dropped forward on a groan. “Okay?” I asked softly.

“The best ever,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

“You should get a massage every once in a while,” I told him, continuing to massage his shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that it felt incredible to actually be touching him, that I could smell the spicy scent of him, could feel the heat of his back soaking through my T-shirt.

My nipples were very aware of that fact, however.

I continued to squeeze and massage the tight muscles, even though it made my left forearm sting. “God, you’re hard,” I murmured.

The air between us stilled.

I’d meant his muscles, the knots riddling his back.

But then he shifted slightly, and my eyes drifted over his shoulders, down to his lap, and . . . I saw that he was hard.

I bit my lip. “I mean— You’re tight—”

Shit. That wasn’t any better.

“You’re—”

His gloved hands came up, snagged mine. “That’s enough.”

Pure rasp, pure heat.

He tugged me to the side, pulling me forward so I was in front of him again. I think he was trying to get me to sit back in the chair so he could finish the tattoo, but one look at his