Page 18 of Ink Wars

“My office is off limits, princess. We’ll work out here.”

I shake my head and tighten my hold on my folder. “Corbin, we can look through the designs here in your fucking waiting room, but tomorrow when we begin drawing designs it will be at my shop. It’s too dark in here to see your lines, never mind how bright any colors will be.”

His head snaps to mine and he leans back on the black leather couch. “No colors in this design, princess. This is a gray and white design.”

I laugh and take a step toward him. “This is a collaboration of both of our ideas and there’s no way it won’t include color. The color makes it pop, there has to be color.”

He grins and nods over to the spot next to him.

“Oh, this is gonna be fun, princess.”

If he considers war fun, sure let’s go with that.

This will be ink wars and I’m not going to fucking lose.

Chapter 6

Corbin

I can feel the tension and anger radiating off of her as she sits next to me. She can try to fight me on this all she wants but there will be no color in this tattoo. I don’t care how pissed off it makes her. I’m calling the shots here.

She drops her design on the small table I have in the waiting room, and I grab it. It’s good, it’s damn good. It’s just too colorful. We need something more subtle, not something that looks like a child’s coloring book.

I glance over at her as she stares at my design. Neither of us are willing to admit the other came up with something good.

“It needs color,” she says, dropping it onto the table.

I laugh as I drop hers on top of mine. “Princess, it looks like a child picked these bright colors. It’s too much.”

“Lucas disagrees. He loved the color,” she retorts.

I grin as I lean back, extending my arm on the back of the couch. “Did he? Because if that was the case we wouldn’t be sitting here together.”

She smiles at me, and I know she’s pushing down her frustration. “How about we just talk about the design of the falcon? We’ll deal with the color later.”

There will be no dealing with anything, but for now, I’ll let it go. We need this to be perfect and the falcon is the center of attention. I look at her as she stares down at the table. She’s not into this and that’s not going to work.

I sigh and stand up. “Alright, how about this. We both go home and do a rough sketch of what we are thinking for the falcon. Different from what we presented to Lucas. Tomorrow we’ll meet up and compare,” I say.

She jumps up and grabs her coffee off the table. “We’ll meet tomorrow at my shop. Be there at four o’clock because I open at five. It gives us an hour to discuss.”

I grin as I watch her unlock the door and rush out. She thinks she’s winning but she has no idea. I’ll go to her shop tomorrow but I sure as fuck won’t be working there.

I sink down to the couch and scrub my face. My office is where I find my peace and I don’t want her in there. She’ll taint it. I’ll forever see and smell her in there.

But it’s where I need to be.

So, I need to decide what is more important and right now I just need to focus on doing a sketch of this falcon.

I head to my office, after locking the door and pull out my sketch pad. I pull up photos of a falcon and begin to let my creativity take over. It’s a quick sketch, just a general idea, but I’m really liking how it’s coming out.

His wings are spread wide as it appears he is flying straight down, ready to grab his prey. I have his beak slightly open and his eyes are focused.

I nod, grinning down at the sketch. “That’s pretty kickass,” I say.

When I stand up to stretch, my phone rings.

“Hey,” I answer.

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