“Nothing but decide what couple of square inches of flesh you want to sacrifice to my tattoo gun and lie over there.” He pointed to a padded bench across the room. The guys standing just beyond it, watching her, drew her attention.
“I told you, don’t worry about them,” Lars said in a soft voice but sounded almost angry about saying it. Weird man.
She nodded and forced herself to stop looking in their direction.
Lars waved his hand impatiently toward the bench again and she took a deep breath, stood up and headed toward it.
“If this is under control, I’m out of here,” Fate said. “The Jinxes are on watch and I can’t keep those little bastards sober.”
Lars waved him on and turned to one of the other guys. “Angus, can you go get us some subs or something?”
Food. Faith’s mouth watered thinking of a sub sandwich but she didn’t say anything; she just headed to the bench. She didn’t have a penny to her name. Her clothes, dirty and bedraggled, weren’t even her own. Her pride could only take so much begging. She wasn’t going to ask for anything else. It was bad enough she’d shown up like she had.
“Yeah, cause it’s that easy to go shopping these days, with all the stores closing,” Angus complained.
“We’ll go with him,” Bic, the shaved head guy said as he patted the other guy on the back. “I know a place down the street that’s still open. Come on.” The three of them left the shop while Faith was still digesting what they’d said. Had the world deteriorated that much in the past week?
Once the sickness had passed, she’d made her way here mostly through the wooded areas. She been so consumed with her own issues that she hadn’t paid much attention to anything else. Now that she thought back, there had been an awful lot of businesses boarded up and the streets had seemed eerily empty. But it was a coastal town. She’d thought a storm was heading in or something.
“What’s happening out there, it’s because of this guy, Malokin?”
“We aren’t sure, but we suspect so. We just know that a lot of humans are getting violent and it started the same time he showed up.” He pointed to the bench. “Come on. This needs to be done sooner rather than later.”
“Can you put it on my back?” she asked, lying down on her stomach, deciding to let him put the tattoo somewhere she wouldn’t see, not sure she’d want a daily reminder staring at her in the mirror if she ever dug her way out of this mess.
How had things gone from so perfect to this in a week’s time? Why didn’t catastrophes ever come with warnings? She got up one day, thinking everything was perfect, to have it all torn apart in a moment. It was as if we all lived in a house of cards and at any second a strong breeze could blow it to pieces. And somehow, when our cards were all strewn about in a mess, we were shocked it happened.
She’d opened up an art gallery a year ago, and it was doing so well she was considering opening another. She had a great group of friends, had even gone out with a nice guy last week, who she was making plans to see again. Now look at her. Dead at twenty-eight, a no-named face running from one psychopath who made people crazy, and another one she feared even mentioning, all while sleeping in the forest, picking bugs out of her hair when she woke.
Chapter Five
Lars sat in his chair beside her. He moved his portable table into place with the special ink. No one touched that ink, not even the guys.
Faith was stretched out on the bench in front of him, hair knotted on top of her head, clothes filthy, and yet he felt his dick getting hard. She was a mess. Didn’t even smell good. She wasn’t anywhere near the way he liked his women—how most men liked them; clean, with maybe a touch of perfume and a cute outfit. No, she was filthy and smelled like the forest, and not the part where wildflowers grew.
So why was he fighting off an erection, the likes of which he hadn’t had in years? Shit. What the hell was wrong with him?
He needed to get his head together.
“Is here good?” he asked as his fingers grazed the exposed skin on her lower spine. And the next thing that popped into his head was tugging down the snug pants she was wearing, grabbing her small waist and arching her hips up so he could thrust himself deep within her, pumping into her until he heard her sweet voice moaning and calling out his name as she came.
“I don’t care as long as I can’t see it,” she said, and instead of thinking of her words, he thought of what she’d sound like moaning beneath him or how many times he could make her come. How hard he would come inside her.
Maybe if he concentrated on the tattoo he could get past whatever this sudden and powerful attraction was. After all the women he’d had, he’d thought he was immune to getting this worked up over one.
He shook his head and leaned forward again. He pushed her shirt up a little more, to give himself more clearance. She raised her hips slightly to let it slide easier.
Her skin was unblemished perfection, the dent of her spine running up the center of her back. Her curves were smooth, dipping from a tiny waist before swelling with her hips to a perfect ass, not too skinny and not too big. All he could think about was grabbing her with both hands and setting her down on his cock.
He leaned back in his seat, away from her, and tried to clear his thoughts before his body followed the actions in his mind. When that didn’t work, he stood abruptly. “I’ll be right back. I need another color. Don’t touch anything.”
He was already halfway to his office when he heard her say okay. He shut the door, not caring that he’d just left her alone. It was better than the alternative of some serious togetherness. What was wrong with him? Maybe there was some sort of spell on her?
He dug out his phone quickly and dialed Angus. If anyone would know, it would be him. No one discussed what he used to do for the Universe but once you’re the Evil Eye, you don’t forget that shit.
“What’s up?” Angus said.
“Before I start the tattoo, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t pick up on any other magic coming off her. You know, anything. A curse or spell, no matter how slight, could react strangely with the tattoo.”
“Nothing,” Angus said quickly.
“You’re sure? Take a second to really think on it. You’re completely positive you aren’t missing anything? I mean, it’s not like you didn’t miss the fact that Karma was being tracked.”
Angus let out an annoyed sigh. “We already talked about this when it happened with Karma. However he does what he does, it isn’t a curse.”
Fuck. “Are you absolutely positive? You aren’t getting a little rusty maybe?” There had to be something.
“Yeah. I’m fucking positive.” There was some shuffling around before he spoke again. “You want to eat tonight, I need to get off the phone. There’s a line, because this is like the last sub joint in the area that’s open. Goodbye!”
Angus hung up and Lars pocketed his phone. He walked back into the shop’s main room.
Faith was lying right where he’d left her, looking like she was on the verge of a nap. He knew she couldn’t be that comfortable, which meant she had to be that exhausted.
He sat back down beside her and laser focused his eyes on the one spot on her back. Don’t look anywhere else.
He grabbed the bottle of cleanser, attempting to keep his thoughts on the project at hand. He drenched a towel with it and wiped it over her skin. He picked up the tattoo gun and started, wishing for the all-consuming submersion into his art.
He made his first preliminary lines, struggling to get his mind into the mental state needed to create. “You’re going to go stay at Cutty’s until we figure out a better situation.” He could not have her in his place all night, that was definite.
His canvas jerked upward as she looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes more alert than they’d been. “Which one was Cutty?”
“The first guy that talked to you.”