Protective Ink. Misty Simon

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СКАЧАТЬ over herself to get out of the small room and into the bathroom.

      Once there she slammed the door behind her then gripped the white porcelain pedestal sink until her fingers turned white. “I need to stop looking at Jackson’s back like it’s a smorgasbord.” She took another one of those deep breaths and stared at herself in the mirror. This had only happened to her once in all the years she’d been tattooing—when she’d inked his last tattoo. Never since. Never. She was a professional, goddammit, and over the course of her career, she had seen more backs and chests and even a penis or two—when someone wanted a particular area tattooed—than she could count. Never had lust entered into the equation. And yet, here it was for the second time, hustling down the tracks of her brain like a freight train with disabled brakes. Another deep breath did not help. Neither did Jackson banging on the freaking bathroom door.

      “You okay in there?”

      “Yep, just had to pee.” My God, had she just said that out loud? Her reflection laughed back at her, breaking the seriousness of the moment. This was the guy who had taken in the lost soul she’d helped create. He had taken Garrett under his wing, making provisions in his military contract to almost always have Garrett move with him when Jackson was not in a war. She was grateful to him, indebted to him and not in lust with him.

      Feeling like she’d regained her cool, Lissa splashed water on her face, washed her hands and jerked the door open. She didn’t even notice Jackson was standing in front of her, bare to the waist with his brawny arms crossed over his lightly furred chest. Nope, didn’t notice how perfectly defined his abs were and the way his jeans hung just below his navel. Nope, didn’t notice one iota as she shooed him back to the chair and got to work again.

      The green she was using on his back matched his eyes almost perfectly. She kept herself in check while she finished the tattoo by praying to an ancient goddess whose name had been lost over time. She begged the goddess for help and asked for the strength to finish this job so she could go back to her regularly scheduled life—the one where she hardly ever saw Jackson and only talked with him when she was checking in on Garrett.

      And then it was done. The final poke of ink, a swipe of green soap and a smear of antibacterial cream and it was…

      “What the hell?” Lissa jerked her hand back and stared at…nothing.

      “What? What hell? Tell me you didn’t mess it up. Am I going to have a crooked line on my back for the rest of my life?”

      “I, um… No.” She bit her lip and backed up until she felt the solid metal of the filing cabinet behind her.

      “Talk, Lissa.” The low growl wasn’t menacing so much as it was commanding, making parts of her tingle that absolutely, under no circumstances, should ever tingle when she was around Jackson. Especially since his voice was coming from thin air—or what appeared to be thin air. Holy crap!

      “I’m not even sure where to start.” She fidgeted with the star ruby ring on her middle finger. He was not going to be happy. Not at all.

      “The beginning is good.”

      How do you tell someone you can’t see them? Sure, she had plenty of experience giving men the brush-off, but this was a whole different level of not seeing. “I’ll be right back.” And she ran to her office, hyperventilating all the way.

      “I’ll be waiting,” he bellowed from the next room. Impatient man.

      After grabbing her worry stone from a bowl on the tiny desk in her office, she headed back into the room, feeling more centered with the stone in one hand and a towel in the other. She could do this. She could tell him she’d accidentally tapped into a latent ability of his they hadn’t known about before, one that she hadn’t detected in his aura.

      He was going to be incredibly pissed.

      “So?” he asked before she had fully made it through the doorway.

      “Don’t be so grumpy.”

      “You swear and then walk out of here without an explanation after poking me God knows how many times with a needle…and I’m not supposed to be grumpy?”

      “Look, you knew poking was part of the process.” Even if she couldn’t see him, she knew he could still see her, so she thrust her hands onto her hips. “And I’m being as gentle as possible.”

      “All beside the point. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

      “I wish you’d stop yelling.” And perhaps reappear. Holy crap! She turned away and put her hand into her pocket, sighing with relief when her hand closed around the worry stone.

      “I’ll stop yelling once you start talking. Now speak.”

      “I’m not a dog, Jackson.”

      “Right. Just tell me already. It’s not such a big deal if you made a mistake. You can fix it. Right?”

      “I did not make a mistake. I’m very proud of all the work I do. Have I ever made a mistake?” Dead silence. She harrumphed. “On a tattoo?”

      “No, but there’s a first time for everything.”

      “Well, this is not it.” She fiddled with the stone again. “It wasn’t a mistake, but you’re not going to be happy.”

      “I’m not happy now, so out with it.”

      “It looks like you have a power after all.” Like ripping off a bandage, it was better to just blurt it out.

      “I what?” The growl was back and this one was kind of menacing, especially since she couldn’t see his face or his body language.

      “You have, um, a power. Something happened when I put the tattoo on you and you have a power.”

      “What exactly happened?”

      Clearing her throat didn’t help this time, so she just came out and said it. “You blinked out. I can’t see you.”

      “Come again?”

      Plopping down into what she had fondly dubbed the “next victim chair,” she rested her chin on her hand. “When I finished the tattoo, you faded under my hand.”

      “What the hell?”

      “Exactly.”

      She heard him rise from the chair and start pacing, his agitation obvious from the sound.

      “How did this happen?” He stalked around the already small space, making it feel miniscule in the process, even though she couldn’t see him. “Did you do something to me when you started the tattoo? Put some mojo into it that you didn’t tell me about?”

      “Now hold the hell on there, cowboy. I did no such thing! I may have tweaked a natural ability or two, but I haven’t ever done anything major without permission. People come to me for special tattoos all the time, sent through a friend of a friend, and I’ve turned down plenty of them. Why on earth would I change all that for you, you big lug?”

      “No, sorry, you’re right. Sorry.”

      But he didn’t sound СКАЧАТЬ