Page 40 of The Rush

But those eyes. So intense and focused directly on me.

“Wha?” he asks around the straw with a tip to the corner of his lips.

Some people would call that a smirk, stupid.

So why do I wanna smack it off of his face?

But also kiss it to make sure it stays there?

Sighing when Fin holds out the cup in offering, I shake my head and turn back to the client in my chair. “Can’t drink and ink.”

“Sure you could.” Hands to the tattoo gun, foot to the pedal, I dip the needle end in the little cup of ink and roll my eyes. “I’m sure dude wouldn’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Dude affirms when I raise my gaze to meet his. I’m trying to ask if he’s ready, but instead I’m met with humor glinting back at me. So I look over my shoulder and scrunch up my face at Fin.

“You would want a drunk bitch tattooing you?” Fin’s heavy shoulders lift in a shrug that elicits another creak of the straw moving inside the lid as he sips.

“If it’s you? Fuck yes.”

“I’ll agree to that.” Dudenods when my gaze swings back to him, but then his smile falls right off his face as his eyes go over my shoulder and a growl that makes my hair stand up reverberates from behind me. “I mean … uh … if it was someone like you.”

“Stop talking,” Fin deadpans.

“Yep.”

I snort when my client averts his eyes but keeps his ass in my chair and his arm out, ready for the same tattoo that so many other people have gotten that I’ve lost count.

The silence of the tent that isn’t really all that silent with a rock concert going on around us is a level of awkwardness that it actually puts a hidden smile on my face while I freehand the line work into Dude’s skin. He keeps still, his skin the perfect combo of elasticity over the somewhat firm muscle, that the tattoo is one of the smoothest ones I’ve done yet.

Once I get him cleaned up and cashed out, he disappears with a simple thanks that has my scowl snapping to Fin who still stands in the corner, the second drink in his hands and a quirk to his brow.

“Are you going to continue harassing my clients?” My hands go to my hips as my shoulders square and my stance widens, but that only tweaks Fin’s smirk farther up on his face.

“Hm,” he grunts, pulling his phone from his pocket to glance at the screen that lights up. “Yep.” He juts his chin and tucks the thing back in his too-sexy jeans. “All day.”

I balk at him. “Fuck you mean allday?”

“All.” He waves his hand out, a finger loose from the cup in his fist. “Day. Now go get the next one.”

Growling, I spin on my heel and do exactly as he suggests.

Because I don’t want to keep my clients waiting.

And notbecause he told me to.

The rest of the afternoon flies by in a haze of devil heads and ink mixed with the scent of a man that somehow irritates me with his existence, yet manages to be soothing with his looming presence. My clients throw glances his way when they walk in, but dismiss the possibility that a rockstar—the same one that was on stage just yesterday and is scheduled to be back on stage as the headliner closing the festival out—is really standing inside a tattoo tent like mine.

The canvas enclosure isn’t in the best shape, having been gently used in its past life and thrifted to me via my savvy-as-hell bestie for cheap. There are a few holes all over, mostly pinpricks that let in extra light and put my portable air to the ultimate test in this heat, but it’s doing exactly what I needed when I signed up for this gig.

What’s not doing well, though, is the pain in my lower back from leaning over so many damn bodies with what feels like a bruised kidney testing my patience more than the man that refuses to leave. Even when the clients ask for ink in more … private areas and remove their pants or shirts despite Fin’s demands not to.

And I admit, I almost encouraged a few, just to piss him off. But all that accomplished was Fin needing something to do which led to him taking cash and pulling the next ones in like hewas my receptionist instead of the woman that only returned long enough to be dismissed again.

I hopesheenjoys the fucking show.

Asshole.

“Clooney!” I look up from cleaning my equipment and fixing a tick in the hammer that has grated my last nerve for more than a few hours before I accept the next human canvas to see Fin’s orange-haired bodyguard stepping into my workspace in search of hisclient.

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