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I laughed again. “Relax. I’m just giving you a hard time. Honestly, I think that’s pretty awesome. You deserve to just sit and relax.”
“Okay, I got the artwork printed out for both,” the artist said when he walked in.
“No one looks familiar?” I asked Temperance quietly, and she shook her head.
“No. That guy was skeezy as hell. This is a really nice shop. I don’t think he’d work here.”
“Who?” the artist asked.
“Barrett Wilson,” Temperance answered.
The guy huffed an unamused laugh and shook his head. “Talented as hell, butbadnews. He came in here two years ago looking for work, and I turned him away quickly. I had a bad feeling about him.”
Temperance seemed to relax. “Your gut was right.” She pointed to her shoulder. “He gave some girls at school some roofies to knock me out, and the girls held me down while he tattooed this. The cops haven’t found him yet. You made a good call.”
“What a piece of shit,” the guy said, looking at her tattoo. “I can tell you scrubbed the shit out of it during the healing process. It’s faded quite a bit, so I doubt he tattooed at a proper depth. Looks pretty superficial, which is good. It’ll be easy to cover with what you brought in. The work was shitty, too. Though I’m sure tattooing someone fighting you probably doesn’t allow for quality.” He shook his head in disgust.
“Hey,” she said. “Do you have a piercer here tonight?”
I choked on the bottle of water I brought in. “Piercer? You want a piercing, too?”
She laughed. “Yeah. I want my nipples done.”
My eyes widened, and my dick twitched.Calm down, calm down, calm down.
“I see,” I said.
“Yeah, we got someone. Since the place is empty, she’s doing inventory. We’ll do it after. This is a big tattoo, so we’ll need to do it in stages,” he said.
“Can we get the outline and the compass done today?” she asked.
He looked at the art for a few moments and then nodded. “Yeah, I believe we can. I’ll do the outline, then fill in the compass. It’ll look great. Bare minimum, we’ll get that right there covered,” he said, pointing to the original tattoo.
“Perfect!” she said cheerily.
“I’m Jeff, by the way.”
“Temperance,” she said with a smile.
God, I love that smile.
“Hey, I’m Erin,” a woman said as she sat down next to me. “Jeff, you got his?” He passed over the transfer and the printout of the finished artwork. “Oh, this is nice.”
“She did it,” I said, pointing at Temperance. “She designed hers, too.”
“Damn, girl,” Erin said. “You ever thought about being a tattoo artist? You’re fucking talented. Far better than anyone I’ve seen in a long time.”
A shy giggle left her as Jeff applied the transfer. “I’ve thought about it. I always thought it would be fun.”
“It definitely is,” Jeff said.
The four of us fell into a comfortable rhythm talking about their jobs, the kind of people they meet, the kind of traveling and charity work they did, as well as music and other fun stuff. The piercer, Jakklynn, came to join us, too.
It took several hours to outline Temperance’s tattoo, but after about two hours, mine was done. I sat and watched Jeff work, and I was amazed. She’d really done her homework before taking us here. Mine turned out flawless, and hers was well on its way.
It was after midnight when we finished for the time being, and Temperance was practically vibrating with excitement. Jakklynn took her into the private piercing room, and I waited out front. If I said I didn’t want to be in that room with her, I’d have been a lying bastard. I wanted to see them when they were done.
And lick them once they were healed. Mmm.