Ink Me Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Ink Me

  ISBN 9781419921339

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Ink Me Copyright © 2009 Anna J. Evans

  Edited by Briana St. James.

  Cover art by Willo.

  Electronic book Publication March 2009

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Ink Me

  Anna J. Evans

  Chapter One

  “Sorry, we’re closed.” Summer Wakayama popped up from behind the counter where she was emptying the safe and mentally cursed her apprentice for neglecting to lock the door on his way out.

  Robbie was a great artist and took to ink like he’d been tattooing his whole life, but he was terminally scatter-brained. He never locked up, forgot to write down appointments and let their supplies get dangerously low before he reordered. She was going to have to make a decision—hire someone else to take care of the details or find a new apprentice. If she weren’t such a soft touch when it came to the struggling artist bit it would be an easy choice. There were tons of tattoo artist wannabes on the Vegas strip, and not a month went by when Summer wasn’t approached by at least three or four potential apprentices.

  Ink Me Studios did killer business and was quickly gaining a reputation as the place Young Hollywood went to get their tats. Never a big star slut, Summer hadn’t been impressed when she first became a certain pop prince’s favorite tattoo artist, but she couldn’t deny she liked the extra money the celebrity backing brought in. It was nice to have the luxury of closing down early a few nights a week too. She’d always been a night owl, but she preferred other nocturnal activities to staying at her shop until two a.m.

  Speaking of closing down early, it seemed somebody hadn’t gotten the message…

  “Excuse me, we’re closed,” Summer repeated to the woman now browsing through the tattoo font books near the door.

  “The door was open.” The large, busty redhead shot her a hard look before turning back to the book in front of her. The woman’s eyes were shot through with red as bright and brassy as her curls, and her words more than a little slurred.

  Great, another belligerent drunk.

  Dealing with drunks was part of the price of doing business in Vegas, but it certainly caused its share of headaches. Summer refused to work on anyone who was legally intoxicated. Not only was it against the law, she also had moral issues with permanently marking the skin of someone who might not be in their right mind. She’d turned down more work than she could remember because of her principles, but usually the customers didn’t care. Most knew they could go somewhere else and easily find another, less ethically challenged artist to do the work.

  But there were times when people made it clear they didn’t like taking no for an answer. She’d had to call the police twice in the past when customers had turned violent. Thankfully, however, no one had given her trouble since she hired Robbie. Her apprentice might have the soul of a tender artist, but he had the body of a sumo wrestler. Robbie Namaguchi was three-hundred-and-fifty pounds of scary Asian motherfucker, a fact Summer appreciated almost as much as his talent. At five-one and barely into the triple digits, she’d never been particularly suited for physical intimidation—at least not until you got to know her a whole lot better.

  A wicked smile crept across her face as she thought of just how physically intimidating she planned to be tonight. Aidan was on his way to the studio right now and she had a night planned her man would never forget. It was a special night and she was ready to release her inhibitions and fulfill all of his fantasies, even the ones he didn’t know he had yet.

  Her outfit was laid out in the bathroom in the back. She just had to move the money from the front safe to the secret lockbox in her office, shut off the shop’s front lights and go light of few candles.

  “Do you do butts?”

  And get rid of one very obnoxious woman, mustn’t forget that little detail.

  “I’ve inked just about every part of the human body, but I’m not going to be doing any more work tonight. We closed about fifteen minutes ago. My assistant just forgot to lock the door. So if you wouldn’t mind coming back tomorrow, then—”

  “Actually I would mind. I’d really fucking mind. A lot,” the women said, her words ending with a hysterical sob.

  So the red eyes weren’t just from the booze. The woman was upset. But who could tell which came first, the alcohol or the out of control emotions? There was a reason Summer didn’t touch the stuff. Her dad had been on and off the wagon for years. He’d never been violent with her mom or her sisters, but she’d seen how alcohol could change a person, transforming a usually happy man into a depressive who rarely woke before noon.

  Not for her, thank you, she valued her happiness and control over her life way too dearly.

  “Hey, I can see you’re upset. Do you have someone you’d like me to call to come pick you up? Maybe you could go get a bite to eat with a friend.” Summer made her voice as friendly as she could, despite the fact that she could think of about a dozen things she’d rather be doing than humoring a drunk, most of which involved strapping herself into a very sexy set of fuck me boots that buckled all the way up to the middle of her thigh.

  Aidan was going to flip. Flip and then beg her to let him unbuckle them with his teeth.

  “No, I don’t want to ‘get a bite to eat’,” the red-head sneered, making it clear with her high pitched affectation of an Asian accent that she wasn’t the sort to appreciate a little human kindness.

  “Well then, why don’t you go play in the street and see if someone will run you over? We’re closed. Now get out of my shop or I’m calling the police.”

  Summer played nice only as long as people would let her. She was second generation American and the only accent she had was pure upstate New York. Her father didn’t even speak Japanese and her mother only used her native language when Summer’s grandmother came to visit. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time she’d been treated like she was a reject from a bad Chinatown film. It probably wouldn’t be the last, either, and she knew she should learn to let some of it roll off her back.

  But not tonight, not when she’d busted her ass to finish all of her work before eight so she and Aidan could finally have an evening all to themselves.

  “You’re a fucking bitch,” the woman said, taking two unsteady steps toward the counter.

  “The feeling’s mutual. Now get out. I’m not kidding around.” Summer was already reaching for the phone. This wasn’t going to happen. She would not throw down with this woman. She valued her neck and the rest of her body way too much to ris
k a physical confrontation with someone three times her size and four times as nasty.

  “I’m not kidding around either. Put the phone down.”

  “Listen, I don’t know—”

  “Put it down! Now!” Summer let the cordless phone drop from her hand and clatter to the tile. She followed the action by raising both hands into the air in what she supposed was the universal sign for “please don’t shoot”. Looked like it was her lucky night.

  Fuck, that’s a gun. A big, serious gun. Think, Summer, think!

  “Listen, I was just emptying the safe when you came in.”

  Good. Just give her the money and get her out of here.

  “I’ll give you the money and you can leave. There aren’t any cameras in here—”

  Liar! If she looks over her shoulder she’ll see them and—

  “—and I have no interest in reporting this to the cops.”

  That’s better. God, please, just let her take the money and run.

  “I don’t want your money! I don’t want your fucking money,” the woman screamed, sobs racking her body and making her gun waver wildly. Still, she managed to cock the thing, loading a bullet into the chamber.

  A weird, detached part of Summer watched the gun wobble up and down and wondered whether she’d be getting a bullet in the belly or the skull. She was betting the belly would be more survivable, but what did she really know about gunshot wounds?

  “Then tell me what you do want. Maybe we can work something out.”

  And maybe you can stall her until Aidan gets here.

  Aidan had served ten years in the police force and presently ran a business that provided personal bodyguards to visiting stars and Vegas high rollers. If anyone would know how to take this woman down without anyone getting hurt, it would be him. She just had to hold on until his arrival, which by the clock on the wall could be any minute.

  “My name is Summer and I—”

  “I know your name. It’s on the fucking sign,” the woman said, sniffing loudly though she seemed to regain some measure of composure.

  “Right, well then, what’s your name? We obviously got off on the wrong foot and I—”

  “My name is Kelly, not that you fucking care or that it fucking matters. The only name that matters is the one you’re going to tattoo on my ass.”

  She had to be kidding. This was still about a tattoo? The woman was willing to hold a gun on another person just to get a tattoo? Summer felt a small amount of tension ease from her muscles. If that’s what the woman wanted, that gave her more options. She could just do the damn tattoo, or, better yet, get the woman all comfy in one of the tattoo chairs and then bust her over the head and make a run for it.

  Option two sounded fairly appealing.

  “Okay, so you want a tattoo. That’s fine. I’ll go wash up and get my tools ready and we’ll talk about what you want.”

  “Yeah, we will talk about what I want,” Kelly said, looking confused by Summer’s abrupt change in tone. “A gun sure makes people treat you nicer.”

  “I would have treated you nicely.” Summer moved slowly toward the sink at the wall. “If you’d come back tomorrow.”

  And were sober and reasonable and refrained from being a racist ass hat.

  “It can’t wait until tomorrow. I need it tonight or everything’s going to go to shit,” Kelly said, her face crumpling once more. This time, however, there was more vulnerability in her features. She was starting to relax her guard. Good, that meant Summer would have a better chance at escaping. She just had to keep Kelly talking, make her feel like the other woman could confide in her, trust her.

  “So this must be a really important tattoo.” Summer turned off the water and dried her hands. She kept one eye on Kelly in the mirror over the basin as she reached for a pair of surgical gloves and slowly pulled them on.

  She wouldn’t normally wash hands or don her gloves until she’d spent some time sketching with the client, making sure they were in agreement about the exact look of the tat, but she didn’t think Kelly was up to an in-depth discussion. The quickest way to put her at ease was to get her in a chair, thinking she was seconds away from getting her tattoo.

  “It’s the most important. I didn’t realize how important until he left me tonight.” She ran the back of one hand across her eyes, smearing green eye shadow and black eyeliner across the right side of her face.

  “This is your boyfriend?” Summer asked. She took small even steps over to the nearest chair and gestured for Kelly to sit down and make herself comfortable.

  “Yeah. He rides with a bunch of my old high school friends. I’ve been riding with them for years, had a few boyfriends, but I never got the tattoo. I never wanted to until Jake. I told him I wanted to, but that I just wasn’t ready yet. But he said— he said—”

  “It’s okay, just sit down and take a deep breath,” Summer said, taking a deep breath herself to try to encourage Kelly to relax.

  She was starting to put the pieces together. Everything about Kelly screamed “biker chick”—from her studded black leather halter top to her steel-toed boots—and Summer had been tattooing long enough to learn a bit about the culture.

  “I’m not going to sit down, I’m going to stand up. That way I can keep an eye on you in the mirror, make sure you don’t try anything,” Kelly said, sniffing loudly again before running her hand across her nose. Now a trail of snot joined the trail of makeup. Lovely, just lovely. The woman was a wreck, certainly in no shape to be making decisions about what she did or didn’t want written on her ass in the most permanent of inks.

  “I can’t guarantee what the tattoo will look like if you’re standing up. I need you to be seated and still. That way I can get the angle I need to—”

  “I don’t give a fuck about what it looks like, as long as you can read what it says. Property of Jake. That’s what it has to say, in big black letters.” She emphasized the words by unbuttoning her tight black jeans and tugging down on one side, baring a large expanse of her right hip and buttock.

  It was exactly what Summer had expected to hear. She’d had numerous requests through the years for the ultimate biker chick tattoo, but to this day she’d never done one. She had helped cover up or alter too many of the damn things for her to have a clear conscious creating one herself. Besides, her inner feminist had issues with marking a woman as anyone’s “property”.

  “Kelly, I understand you’re upset and I’m going to do the tattoo. But do you really mean that you don’t care what it looks like? This is permanent, it’s going to be on your body forever and I—”

  “I don’t care, just stop talking and start getting it done,” she said, her voice calm and controlled as she lifted the gun and aimed it at Summer’s chest.

  God, this nutcase would really shoot her if she didn’t do the tattoo. In a heartbeat.

  Summer could read that truth in the cold way the other woman’s green eyes landed on her face. Hell, Kelly might decide to shoot her anyway. Once she had what she wanted, Summer sensed her own life would become expendable.

  “Okay, fine. You said you wanted black ink, right?” Summer tried to ignore the slight trembling of her hands as she loaded her machine. She was going to have to do the tat. The woman was giving her no other choice.

  God, where was Aidan? You could set a clock by the man, but apparently he’d picked tonight to be late—for the first time in his life.

  “Yeah, black,” Kelly said her eyes darting to her own reflection in the mirror. What she saw there obviously troubled her because her face crumpled again, fresh sobs shaking her ample flesh.

  Summer seized the moment, swinging her tattoo machine up and over onto Kelly’s gun hand almost before she had time to realize she’d made the decision to fight back. Kelly cried out in pain as the heavy hunk of metal made contact and the gun clattered to the floor. Without pausing for a second, Summer kicked the gun away and made a run for the front of the store. She could be out the door and clear of the windows be
fore the other woman had time to reclaim her weapon. She was sure of it.

  Her pulse pounded in her ears as she swiftly cleared the fifteen feet to the exit. Bracing herself on the frame, she closed one hand around the handle and pulled, the force of her movement nearly ripping her arm out of her socket as she realized the door was locked.

  Shit! Kelly had locked the door behind her, a fact that would cost Summer precious time. She prayed as she fumbled with the lock that she would still make it out, that she wouldn’t be shot in the back and killed before she had the chance to tell Aidan and her family she loved them one last time.

  “Stupid bitch!” Kelly screamed and then Summer heard the sharp, loud pop of a weapon being fired.

  She hit the ground as fast as she could, the air whooshing out of her lungs as her body made brutal contact with the floor. Seconds later the sound of shattering glass filled the shop. Summer covered her head with her hands, expecting to feel shards from the glass door falling all around her.

  Instead, she heard three words spoken by what had to be the most comforting voice in the universe.

  “Freeze, don’t move,” Aidan shouted from across the room. He must have come in the back door because now he stood just inside the staff only entrance, his gun aimed at Kelly.

  The other woman moaned and clutched at her hand. Her gun was nowhere to be seen, but the mirror behind her was in pieces. It had been Aidan who had fired, which didn’t give Summer the least bit of comfort. Aidan never drew his weapon, let alone used it, unless he had no other course of action.

  A violent shiver worked through Summer’s body as she realized how close she had probably come to the death she’d been fearing.

  “I said freeze!” Aidan yelled the words again and moved smoothly into the room, not taking his eyes off where Kelly now leaned against one of the tattoo chairs. Still, Summer could practically feel his concern for her sweeping over her skin.