He obeys, folding and resting both hands on his head casually, and watching me through that penetrating gaze as I wrap the plastic around his entire torso. “Keep this on for the night. I’ll give you an aftercare kit that should cover you for a day or two, but you’ll need to hit CVS to stock up.” I go through the aftercare steps with him. I could recite them in my sleep.
“And your shoulder? It must be sore.” Again, he takes the initiative, reaching out to massage the ball of my right shoulder, a boundary he wouldn’t have crossed before my work on him. This happens more often than not to me, when I make a connection with clients. Their tattoo is done, they’re relieved and enthralled and grateful to me. I call it the “post-ink high.” Sometimes I experience it, too.
Right now is one of those times, and his touch feels good—too good. Enough that I’d gladly stretch out on this table and let him tend to my entire body.
I shake off the thoughts. “Are you even listening to me? This is a major open wound on your body right now. If you don’t follow this, step-by-step, you will get a serious infection, and you don’t want this infected, trust me.” I like to use strong phrases, like “open wound” and “you will,” especially when I’m talking to men, who seem to have a hard time following instructions. I’ve only ever had one of my clients end up with an infection—a guy with questionable hygiene habits to begin with. He showed up at the shop where I was working a week later, wondering if the pus draining from his arm was normal.
Sebastian smirks and recites back to me everything I just said, word for word.
“Okay, Rain Man. So you were listening,” I mumble, though I’m impressed. “You’re good to go.”
He fastens his pants and buckles his belt, and disappointment stirs in me. Not that I expected something to happen, right here right now, after I’ve etched half his torso with ink. I’m just not exactly ready to say good-bye to him yet.
He reaches over to grab his T-shirt. “What do I owe you?” he asks, sliding a clipped wad of money from his back pocket. He begins flipping out hundreds.
“Seven hours at two hundred per hour.” I’m not going to charge him double, even if he is willing—and prepared, based on the money I’m seeing—to pay it.
He holds out the cash, watching me chew my lip as I stare at it. Suddenly I feel guilty for taking it. Working on him was the most fun I’ve had in a while. But business is business and he’s just another customer passing through. For all I know, he was flirting with me for a discount. Plus, I need the money. Still, I stall over his hand. “Thanks. And thanks for your help yesterday. I couldn’t have—”
“Wanna grab a drink?”
EIGHTEEN
ICE
Seven hours of casual probing and I’ve gotten nothing out of her that I didn’t already know or guess. And nothing at all that gives me a clue about where this videotape could still be hiding.
But after seven hours of her hands on me and her scent around me and her breath skating against me, I’m having a hard time giving a shit about anything that’s on this tape.
It’s been so long since I’ve actually tried to seduce a woman, I don’t even know if I’m capable of it anymore. Even when I was a newly minted SEAL and my teammates and I would head to the local bars, I wasn’t much into chasing skirts and placing bets on whom I’d bring home, and how many drinks it would take to get her there. Maybe it’s because I never had to put much effort into getting someone to come home with me; or maybe it’s because I knew it wouldn’t last past the night.
My ex-fiancée, Sharon, was the first woman to grab my attention. I met her at a friend’s BBQ, on a Sunday afternoon. No booze involved. She was feisty, opinionated, and beautiful.
And I thought she was for me.
Maybe she was, but it turns out I wasn’t the one for her because she kept trying to change me, right up until two weeks before the wedding, while I was between tours. I guess she realized she couldn’t change me, and the things she didn’t like—my desire for solitude, my reclusive nature, my “shitty” communication skills, my reluctance to have children—were amplified after all that I had seen and done abroad.