I shut up. For a minute, then had to ask. “Shouldn’t you have rubber gloves on or something?”
“If I were in a worse mood right now, I would make a quip about protection and the lack thereof, but tattooing is my happy place, so let me be brief. I’m an ink mage, and you’re immortal.” He laid a finger over my lips, and I desperately screamed at myself not to lick it. “Now, shhh.”
Truly not wanting to end up with a dick permanently tattooed on my body, I kept my mouth shut while he began. The little needle of the tattoo gun buzzed and picked at my skin, but given the amount of pain I had endured in my life this far, it was little more than an annoyance as I stared up at the ceiling and tried not to start talking out of boredom.
Eventually, he must have gotten sick of my huffing and sighing because he got up and flicked on the stereo. The soft, soulful sounds of cellos filled the room, and I couldn’t help myself.
“Classical?” I asked, squinting up at him where he leaned over my waist.
“It helps me concentrate,” he murmured back, not bothering to look up but also not throwing a tantrum and changing whatever my tattoo was to a cartoon dick.
“When did you start tattooing?” I asked, testing the waters to see if I was allowed to speak yet—for two reasons. One, I was bored as all get out. Two, Austin seemed in a really good mood, and this sort of seemed like a good opportunity to get some answers out of him. Maybe take a step in the right direction toward not flat-out hating each other?
“When I was about”—he paused, detailing something and blotting with the cloth in his other hand—“thirteen, I think. I had known Yoshi about a year, and he’d seen my sketches, so he knew the value of my work.”
“Wow, thirteen seems really young. Someone let you tattoo them as a thirteen-year-old kid?” I wasn’t trying for it to come out judgemental, but it sort of did and I tried to backtrack. “I just mean, if I walked in to get a tattoo and there was a kid doing it—”
“I get it,” he cut me off. “And you’re right too. I mostly just tattooed regulars who already knew me and knew my art. At the end of the day, who gives a shit what the artist looks like if the piece looks good and is well executed?”
We fell back into silence for a bit; the only sounds in the room were that of Austin’s tattoo gun and the melodic arrangements of a cello quartet.
“How long have you known you were a Mage?” I asked finally, and he sighed.
“Since I was thirteen.” I froze, not having expected him to actually answer this question, given his earlier cageyness. “Yoshi could tell I was a potential almost immediately, but he didn’t tell me until I’d been working in his shop for a year. Our aunt and uncle were raising us, and they didn’t have much. Cal and I both took cash jobs as early as we could.”
“And so he, what? Trained you as a mage with no magic?” I tried to get my head around how it all worked. Austin clearly knew how to use his magic, so there appeared to be little to no learning curve for him. Meanwhile Caleb had said he needed help gaining control so he wouldn’t hurt us?
“Uh, yeah, pretty much.” He sat back a moment, sorting through his colors before returning to my side. “Shh for a sec while I do this next bit.”
Sorting through my thoughts while I stared at the ceiling, I tried not to think too hard about Austin’s hands on me and how the magic rippled between us as though this was sexual contact. Which it definitely wasn’t. Was it?
He leaned over me briefly to pick something up, and the back of his hand brushed over my breast, causing my nipples to tighten and pebble against the thin cotton of my T-shirt.
Dammit Kit, get a fucking grip, woman! This is Austin for fuck’s sake!
“Why do you hate me so much?” The question blurted out of me without my brain filter even noticing it, and my eyes widened at the light fixture above me. Shit, backtrack! Um...
“I don’t,” he muttered, bending back over his work and seeming to be content with that as an answer.
“Um…” I frowned up at the light. “Yeah, you do. You’ve deliberately gone out of your way to be an asshole to me since the day we met, you take every opportunity to be a dick, and when Caleb arrived at Yoshi’s apartment, you literally ran out of the room so fast it looked like your ass was on fire. Was it seriously that repulsive to kiss me?”
“I’ve also saved your life more times than I can count, put your best friend in a secret rehab facility to keep her safe, and made out with you on several occasions when you needed magic. Doesn’t really sound like the sort of stuff someone does when they hate someone, does it?” He glared down at me a moment, then turned back to his work, resting his forearm against my ribs while he drew.
“Trust me,” he muttered. “Life would be a hell of a lot easier if I did hate you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, and he shushed me.
“Quiet for this next bit,” he ordered and turned back to my tattoo, leaning in close as he worked on something small. His warm breath feathered over my inflamed skin, and I bit my lip, trying to hold back a shiver of desire.
“Who’s Peyton?” I asked, not able to keep my mouth shut for longer than a few moments when Austin was all chatty like this. Who knew when I’d get another opportunity.
He made an annoyed grunt and didn’t respond as he continued working on the small details he was doing. After some time, he sat back and looked at it from a few different angles.
“You’re healing as I go, so it’s probably not hurting too much, am I right?” he checked with me, and I nodded. It barely hurt at all any more, now that I’d gotten used to the feeling. “Right, well in that case I’ll go ahead and finish all the shading now.”
“How does that work?” I asked as he bent back over my hip to continue his work. “Tattooing me when I heal so quick. Wouldn’t it just push the ink back out again?”
“Two things in play here,” he answered as his free hand held my hip firm while he shaded with his buzzing tattoo gun. “First, I’m an ink mage. Part of the reason I’m not using gloves is so that I can infuse magic into the ink directly through your skin, instructing it to bypass your body’s healing. Second thing, your own control over the healing.”
“How do you mean?” I craned my neck up a little to try and see what he was inking onto my hip, but not for the first time, he pushed me back down with a palm to my chest.
“Stay,” he ordered. “I mean your healing isn’t as mindless as you make it out to be. It’s a part of you. You control it in its entirety, so if you don’t want something healed—for example, this tattoo or your contraceptive implant or even those hickies on your neck—then it won’t be.”
My hand flew up to my neck, as I hadn’t realized there were visible hickies. Ugh, how embarrassing. Except some of them were from Austin himself, so whatever.