“You came here to finish it.”
“Yes.” He swallowed, and it was clear what I was dealing with.
The sudden urge to finish the tattoo might have been what drove him here, but his reason for walking out in the first place still hung thick in the air. Aiden Santos didn’t strike me as the kind of man who easily went back on his beliefs, and if he believed he hadn’t fully earned that ink—
“Maybe you should come back to this in the morning with a fresh, structurally sound head.”
His jaw tightened at that. I could see him working through something, the same way clients do when they realize a tattoo is less about the design and more about what it’s saying.
“My name was on that sheet just the same as everyone else’s,” he said. “Doesn’t matter how far down in the line-up. I was part of the team that lifted the Cup.”
I stepped closer, closing some of the distance without crowding him. Close enough to see the faint red mark where his helmet strap had pressed into his jaw.
“You think coming back here fixes all the mixed up feelings you have about it.”
“I think not coming back definitely doesn’t.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I walked past him toward the back of the studio, stopping just short of the curtain. “Well, it’s my professional opinion that you shouldn’t finish it and if you’re insistent, I’m gonna have to insist too, and refer you to one of my colleagues. Because I sure as hell won’t touch that thing.”
His gaze snapped to mine, shocked confusion flickering in his eyes. “What?”
“You heard me,” I said, not looking away. “But you forced me back into work mode, so now you have to sit in my chair.”
Then I reached up and flicked on the lamp behind the curtain, letting a strip of light spill across the floor.
“But you just s—”
“I said sit, Santos.”
He stepped past me, ducking past the edge of the curtain like it might snap at him.
“Are you always this bossy? Can’t imagine it’s good for client retention.”
“It works like a charm on the guys who like to be dominated.”
He paused mid-shift, one hand still braced on the armrest. His eyes lifted to mine, slow and knowing, and he smirked.
I planted my palm against his sternum, and pushed him back into the vinyl. “Keep it in your pants, hockey boy.”
He laughed under his breath as his shoulders hit the chair. The sound settled somewhere low in my stomach before I could stop it.
I turned to my tray, already mentally cataloging what I’d need to reset, when I noticed the open sketchbook sitting where my machines usually lived. Shit. I forgot to stow it back under lock and key where it belonged when I wasn’t alone.
He noticed it at the same time and without asking, picked it up.
“Hey, that’s not—”
But Aiden snatched it out of my reach as I went for it. “Relax.”
“I’m relaxed. I just don’t like people touching my stuff.”
He flipped a page, and my stomach twisted into a heavy knot. The overhead lamp caught the graphite, the wash of color bleeding into paper. Then he turned another.
“These aren’t tattoos.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Your powers of observation astound me.”
