Page 62 of Turning Tides
“Hey, sleepyhead. You with me?”
I opened my eyes, blinking at Archer who had appeared next to me with his rolling tray covered in little pots of ink and paper towels.
“I’m with you.”
His smile was blinding. “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.”
“Will you kiss it better after?”
“Uh, I’m going to go with no, but I’ll kiss something else.” Archer waggled his eyebrows at me, then slid in closer. The machine buzzed to life and the first brush of needles against skin made me flinch.
Archer stopped the machine. “If you sit still, I’ll give you a sucker when you’re done.” He pointed to a jar on the counter that was filled with suckers.
“For real? You give people suckers?”
“If kids get them after the doctor, why can’t adults have them after a tattoo? Now, sit still. This will only hurt a little.”
He was a liar. It hurt a lot. Tattoos felt like being stabbed with acid, over and over again. I wasn’t much of a talker when I was getting ink, and that was no different with Archer working on me. He was content to sit and concentrate on what he was doing and I was happy to sit there and concentrate on staying still. After what felt like forever, he moved on from line work to fill in the colors. Color went faster, but it was no less painful.
“You’re doing so good,” Archer praised me out of nowhere. “But you’re looking pale. Do you need a break?”
“How much longer?”
He wiped a paper towel over the piece, sopping up blood and ink. “Probably an hour.”
“Then we push through.” I grit my teeth. “I want my sucker.”
Archer’s laugh was joined by the buzzing of the tattoo machine. I’d never been the type to fall asleep on the chair—pain wasn’t my kink—but I didn’t hate having Archer’s focus on me. He was intense to begin with, but when I was in his chair, it was a wholenew level. If my shoulder didn’t hurt so bad, my dick definitely would’ve been hard.
The machine stilled and Archer gently wiped the area down. “Okay, want to have a look?”
“Hell, yes.” My body creaked and groaned when I climbed off the chair. All in all, it hadn’t taken too long for Archer to work his magic, but when you spent a few hours concentrating on not moving, doing the opposite of that took a herculean effort.
Archer ushered me over to the full-length mirror he had on the outside of the bathroom door. He grabbed a hand-held mirror and moved it around to reflect the image where I could see it.
“What do you think?”
The tattoo turned out better than I’d thought it would. Vivid sunflowers surrounded the little 80s movie-inspired robot.
“I shaded him to match your eyes. Well, as close as I could get.”
I turned and swept Archer into my arms. “I love you. It’s perfect.”
He melted against me. “Did you want your sucker now?”
“I—”
A knock at the door stopped me dead. “I guess I’ll take a raincheck.”
Archer padded over to his door and yanked it open. Cyrus stood on the other side, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Vivian let me up. I don’t have a lot of time before my shift starts and my kitchen is—that doesn’t matter. Can I come in?”
Archer stepped aside and let Cyrus through. He spotted me standing there, shirtless. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Just a tattoo, Cyrus.” I didn’t want to show him, but I did anyway. I wanted him and Archer to make up as much as I wanted to smooth things over between the two of us.
“Come have a look,” I said, extending the olive branch, hoping like hell that he’d take it.
