When I get outside, I try to shake the trembling out of my hands, and I bite on my finger so as not to scream.

I can’t believe I’m going to be apprenticing for my favorite artist!

Everything is just going so perfectly so far.

I just took the first step toward my dream career. How many people can honestly say that?

Chapter Twelve

“Well, well, well…”

I whip around, recognizing the voice, and see Pierce strutting into the shop.

“Oh my God,” I groan to myself. This was the client who was going to be half-nude? This was the guy Tina said women found difficult?

Tina looks between me and him, and then frowns. She opens her mouth to say something, but then stops herself.

“You’re apprenticing for Tina?” he asks. “Looks like I just found my new favorite tattoo artist.”

“Evidently,” I say, forcing a polite smile. It’s my first day – I need to impress Tina, but obviously Pierce isn’t going to make it easy at all. But he’s not going to rattle me, no matter how hard he tries. And I know he’s going to try.

“Come on Pierce,” Tina says. “Let’s go into the back.”

I follow behind him and he follows behind Tina. He turns around and winks at me. I shoot him a glare. He’d better not mess this up for me!

He goes to the chair that’s in its reclined position, and hops onto it, and immediately begins undoing his belt.

It all comes back to me: The unfinished tattoo! Oh God, why did it have to be him?

He pulls his trousers and boxers down in one go to his knees. I instantly snap my eyes away, but I do not fail to miss his neatly trimmed pubic hair. Also… he’s… really big.

“Looking won’t kill you,” he says, and I feel my face burning.

“Pierce,” Tina warns, her voice stern.

I force myself to look, focus on the half-finished tattoo. Tentacles from a jellyfish coil around his thigh – I had caught a glimpse of that at the fight, but couldn’t make them out as they were mostly covered by his shorts. The body of the sea creature was only outlined, and still needed to be filled in and shaded. That bit lay across his Adonis belt and hip bone.

The body of the jellyfish looks strange. It is a banana-shaped hollow bubble with what looks like the outline of a dorsal fin.

He lies back and puts his arms above his head and grips on to the edge of the reclined chair. He actually looks really sexy with his arms up like that. He’s smirking at me.

Tina takes a seat at his side, and starts to prepare the tattoo machine. She fills it with black ink, and explains to Pierce that she’s going to do shadows first, to make the jellyfish appear more real, make it pop.

And I’m just standing, trying my best not to stare at his cock.

“I want her to fill it in,” Pierce says, nodding his head at me.

I look from him to Tina, and then back at him. “I—”

“She can’t,” Tina says. “This is her first day apprenticing. I am not even confident of her skills. I have never seen her administer a—”

“Well, nothing like a bit of hands-on experience to sharpen the skills, am I right?” he says in a cocky way. He’s so smug that I just want to punch him on the nose. “Unless she thinks she’s not up to scratch.”

“She’s not up to scratch,” Tina says.

“I have the skills to do it,” I say, eyeing them both with some hostility. “But Tina’s right. It would be inappropriate.”

I look away from him, from his groin, and focus on the vials of ink and the tattoo machine sitting on the tray by Tina.

“Never seen a cock before?” Pierce asks. “Don’t worry, it won’t bite.”

My face grows even hotter. But he’s right. This is the first time I’ve seen a man’s penis in real life.

“Hey!” Tina barks. “You will respect her, or you will leave.”

I turn to face them, and give him a glare, flashing my eyebrows. But he doesn’t seem checked.

“Don’t worry, I’m only playing. But I know what the real reason is.”

God, I’m losing my temper. “What?” I snap. “What’s this ‘real’ reason?”

“That you’re scared you’ll fuck it up because you’ll be distracted.”

I snort, and roll my eyes. “Please, Pierce. You’re such a pig.”

“Hey, just calling it like it is.”

“Right.”

“You are scared, aren’t you?” he asks. His eyes tunnel into mine, and I find I have to look away. My heart is beating fast, and I try to look anywhere else but his naked lower half, but I can’t.

“It would be unethical for Tina to let someone as inexperienced as me fill in your whole tattoo,” I say, voice level. “But, in order to get some hands-on experience, perhaps she would let me fill in only a portion of the tattoo.”

I look up at Tina, and she just presses her lips together and nods. To me, it looks like she’s just accepting that this tide won’t recede.

She steps back, and I sit on her stool, snap on latex gloves, and take the coiled tattoo machine.

“Ah, so the rook’s going to be wielding the tattoo gun this morning, eh?”

“We don’t refer to it as a gun,” Tina says. “It’s a machine.”

“Okay, Tina.”

“Pierce, you know that if she makes a mistake—”

“I know. I’m willing to risk it. No skin off my leg.” He grins.

“I won’t make a mistake,” I say through gritted teeth. “This will hurt.”

“No it won’t.”

“Yes it will. The skin on the inside of the thigh has shallow nerve endings. That’s why it’s so painful when we chafe there, or if you get cut there. That’s also why it’s so painful to get a tattoo there.”

I still my hands, place one on his knee to steady it. His flesh feels burning hot. Just touching him is making my heartbeat quicken.

His smell, just faint, reaches my senses. I try to ignore it.

Carefully, I trace the inside line of the jellyfish’s main outline with the machine. I’m holding it about an inch above his skin, but getting a feel for the device, how long the needle extends, the weight in my hands, the balance. There are a great many models of tattoo machines, and little standardization because of the industry’s taboo nature. Understanding the weight and balance is crucial.