Page 43 of The Rush

Cackling.

She’s fucking laughing?

“Who the fuck thinks a tattoo tickles?”

My lungs heave. My fists clench. And my boots stop right behind the man with orange hair and a death wish.

“I do. Because it does!”

Breathe. Don’t kill him.

Don’t. Kill. Him.

The hum of the tattoo gun leaks into my ears as the show outside of the tent comes down. But that doesn’t do much to bring me down from the adrenaline spike set to murder.

Because that means he’s inkingmy—

“Fin. Tell him this shit tickles.”

“I have ink, too,” Peach protests on a chuckle that makes my skin prickle with sweat. “And that shit did nottickle. No more peach trees from you, Ma’am.”

I try to stop my heavy hand from landing on Peach’s shoulder. I really do.

But when he glances over at me and his face drops, I know I’m still not hiding my cards very well.

“Hey, Clooney,” Peach tries, the corner of his lips tipping up and a devilish glint shining in his light eyes. “She said she wanted my name, so I signed it.”

“Oh, shit.” I hear Cedar snort as I wrap my fist up in Peach’s shirt and haul him up from the stool to bring his nose to mine.

“I certainly hope you didn’t.” I stalk us back until Peach is clear from my girl and his back is ramming into the very toolbox that knocked out Cedar’s back. Except he’s tall enough that I would bet it buries itself in his ass.

Hopefully painfully.

“Oh.” Peach’s grin notches up, his breath washing over my face in a laugh that he refuses to contain despite the noticeably clear danger in front of him. “I just gave her what she asked for, Clooney.”

Growling, I arch my head back and slam it right into Peach’s nose so fast he doesn’t have time to react.

“Jesus.Fin—” Small hands crowd my shoulders and tug at me as I watch Peach’s nose leak like a faucet and a bloody grin spread across his face.

“I fucking knew it.” His words are a deep whispered chuckle as the hands continue to tug at me and Cedar cusses at my back that refuses to move.

“Fin, c’mon. What the hell?”

“Hands to yourself,” I snarl with a wing to my brow aimed at my too-giddy bodyguard’s knowing look. “Feel me?”

“Yup,” he snickers and wraps his fingers around the wrist that still holds him hostage. “I heard you loud and clear, Clooney.”

Slowly, I let Peach unravel his shirt from my grip until he’s loose and I take a step back.

Finally taking my sight off of my bodyguard, I swing my ticking jaw on the woman that pushes between us with towels wadded in her lifting hand. Snatching the wad from her, I toss the paper at Peach and grab her wrist to spin her. She whips around, her hair flinging out and smacking me in the chest as I tug her arm in my direction to examine the shit he put on her skin.

And what I see there pulls a laugh from deep in my chest.

Because on her wrist is a simple yellow smiley face with oval eyes and a thick grinning mouth.

The man has always been an artist, doodling in his sketchpad or the little notebook he keeps in his pocket that he almost never shows to anyone. But inking is different.

The line work is decent with only a few jagged spots from where she more than likely moved, the color is solid throughout, and only a few pinpricks’ worth of blood sitting on the surface.

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