Page 73 of The Devil's Scars

“Nah. Not really.” Arrow hesitated, because it was club business, really, and Zoe’s status wasn’t totally clear to him, for many reasons. “It’s – a memorial thing, kind of. They want to go and pay their respects to… someone.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, fully aware that he was being evasive, not liking it, but not really willing to push. “Ohhhh-kaaaay. So I guess Scars doesn’t want to wait to finish his tattoo until he gets back from this mystery trip?”

Arrow cocked his dark head at her, looking speculative. “Some reason why you don’t want to finish the ink, Zee?”

“No!” she blustered, blushing. “It’s just – I don’t like – well. Nothing. It’s fine. I’ll do it.”

“You sure?” Arrow teased her. “Maybe I’ll tell him you’re humming and hawing?”

“I’m not doing either of those things,” she said with great dignity. “Tell him that I’ll be right out.”

“I shall do that, Zee.” Arrow’s black eyes sparkled. “See you tomorrow.”

“You know it.”

Arrow left, and a minute later, Zoe heard the bell on the front door tinkle. Then silence.

Oh, God. I’m all alone here with him. Jesus Lord, give me strength. And please, please let his jeans still be on.

Or maybe not.

Gah.

Without stopping to consider why she was doing this, Zoe lunged at her purse, got out her small makeup bag. She opened her compact and dusted powder across her nose, put on a bit of blush, even used her lipstick. She gazed into her own eyes, and then lined them with a bit of gold pencil, liking how the color picked up the tiny gold flecks in her eyes, and her blonde curls.

She smiled at herself, frowned at the stiffness, tried again. Then she shook her head, annoyed at herself for caring how she looked to damn Scars Innis, and threw the makeup back into her purse. She got to her feet, went into the main work area.

“Hi,” she started, then stopped dead in her tracks at the sight greeting her. “Uhhh…”

He was lying on his back on Arrow’s client table. Shirtless. His arms bent at the elbows, his hands under his head, cradling it like a pillow. The position made those incredible arms bulge with muscle and tendon; his shoulders were huge and hard. His broad, tattooed chest was rising and lowering with every breath, and she licked her lips as she remembered running her tongue over that strong collarbone. Her eyes followed the line of hair down his body to the groove of muscle just above his belted waist, loving the ‘v’ that disappeared into his jeans.

God help her. The man was nothing but gorgeous. Sex on legs. Hot as hell.

And she was nothing but dead meat.

Scars turned his head to look at her, and those blue eyes flashed. “Hi.”

“Ahem,” she replied. “So – what are we doing?”

He smiled. Slow. Hot. “What do you want to do, baby?”

She flushed – yet again! – and spun to find some gloves. “I mean, what’s this new tattoo that I’m finishing?”

“Here.” Scars patted his right shoulder, and she approached warily, then walked around the table to get a better view. “Nothing too dramatic, as you can see.”

She furrowed her brow at his massive upper arm. “Uh… so it’s not a new tattoo? It’s an addition to an existing one? The sun and garden one?”

“Yep.”

“Alright.” She squinted a bit, trying to recall the tattoo that night in the back room, knowing that it had changed, but struggling to see how. “What – what’s different, exactly?”

“The number here is new,” Scars said, tracing the Roman numeral for ‘twenty-three’ in black ink. Zoe looked more closely, saw that the tree was scattered with the numbers from ‘one’ all the way to ‘twenty-three’ now, and she wondered what they signified. “And Arrow added a new sunburst here.” He pointed at the bottom of the Aztec sun.

“Oh, right. OK.” Zoe nodded. “What else do you want added, then?”

“A rose encased in ice,” he said. “Next to the sun… right here.”

“A rose in ice,” she repeated. “OK, coming right up. Relax.”

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