Page 8 of Devilish Ink

Shit. Was I losing my mind? Had this guy been the exact guy standing outside Rian’s apartment?

“Here,” he said as he pointed at the dangling cuffs, “how about you cuff me while you tattoo me? Would that make you feel any better?”

I—What?

This was a bluff. He was trying to lure me into a false sense of security.

I frowned. Well, I’d call his bluff then.

I nodded at the cuffs. “Go on, put them on.”

He reached out slowly as if to not frighten me, and grabbed the cuffs, locking them around his wrists with a click before holding them up to show me.

“Wanna make sure they’re on properly?” he said, his voice low and suggestive.

What the hell? Why would a hired thug willingly cuff himself to my table?

I narrowed my eyes. With the cuffs around his wrists and him locked to the table, I felt enough space to study him. Really study him.

Normally hired thugs had gang or prison tats, a crooked nose from being broken, bullet or knife scars on their torso.

He had none of these.

I noticed the tan line on his upper arm and around the back of his neck. The dirt beneath his fingernails. The calluses on his open palms. Like arealfarmer. Who’d just moved here from Cork.

Not a hired thug.

Oh my God. I was such a paranoid freak.

I sank onto the stool, exhausted, and lowered the tattoo gun to the table. My fingers started to shake, the adrenaline wearing off.

The man—Lee he said his name was—stayed very still. He was silent as I caught my breath, drawing my trembling fingers through my hair.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Jaysus fuck, I’m sorry. I just—”

“It’s fine.”

I looked up to see him watching me.

He wasn’t afraid. Wasn’t weirded out by my freakout. Wasn’t heading toward the door like any normal guy with half a brain would be at this point.

“I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a woman in this world,” he said, his voice soft.

“You have no idea,” I said.

Lee laid his cheek back against folded hands, the cuffs clanking as they resettled around his muscled forearms.

All the while, his eyes remained on me, like he was appreciatingme, studying me, not the way a predator studies his prey, but the way a man would appreciate a beautiful painting.

My skin flushed with awareness at his gaze.

When I realised he was waiting for me, I frowned in confusion. “Wait…you still want me to tattoo you?”

He smiled and the corners of his green eyes crinkled. “It is what I came in here for.”

“Even after all,” I waved my hand vaguely between us, “that?”

He grinned. “Especiallyafter all that.”

---