Inked Magic (9 page)

“You okay?” Etaín asked, exchanging the liner for the shader, the concentration on detail helping her to block the worst of Kelli’s emotions.

“I’m fine.”

She applied a gray wash next, for dimension. Then began working in the color, from dark to light. Adding flesh tones to skin in slow strokes so the portrait came alive, the subtle differences in shade and density creating depth, turning an outline into something evocative, into art that would exist only for a single lifetime.

She held against the heavy emotions dumping into her bloodstream until her throat clogged with them and she was forced into blinking away tears that didn’t belong to her. She eased off the foot pedal then and the needles stilled.

A swipe with a paper towel cleared the excess ink from Kelli’s skin. “What about a quick break?”

Kelli sat up. “Sorry I’m such a mess.”

Between the visit to the hospital and this session, Etaín ached inside her skin and would have shed it like a snake if she could have. She couldn’t bring herself to give Kelli a hug, but the smile she offered was genuine. “Don’t worry about it. You’re doing great.”

Kelli’s gaze strayed to the reference photographs on the worktable. Her hand lifted, unconsciously reaching to touch the nearly finished tattoo memorializing her daughter.

“Don’t,” Etaín said, stopping her. “You want a bottle of OJ or a can of Diet Coke?”

“How about the mirror again?”

“Hold off for another fifteen minutes? Thirty tops.”

“I can make it.” Kelli took a deep, calming breath. “I’m good to go again.”

“Let’s do it.”

Kelli lay back down. Etaín compared the tattoo to the pictures and decided to use a different shader. She picked up the machine and went back to work.

T
he reality of what Etaín did in the human world slammed into Eamon like a fist to the gut. He’d been alarmed when Rhys brought the news to him, but witnessing it made his chest constrict so it was difficult to breathe.

In Elfhome the
seidic
were said to live apart from others, in small isolated communities requiring will and purity of purpose for a petitioner to reach. And even then, not everyone who approached the
seidic
gained a tattoo.

What he knew of those with Etaín’s gift came from rumor and myth and ancient texts, but one thing never changed, the tattoos they created were linked to elemental magic. Nothing good could come of her applying ink to human skin in this way. Worse, a great deal of harm could come, if not to the humans, then to her. She was changeling, more possessed
by
magic than possessing
of
it.

He had to believe some instinct for self-preservation had been at play this long, unconsciously guiding her in the clients she accepted. But it still took discipline not to cross the street and push into the shop, demanding she stop what she was doing.

It required effort on his part not to summon Rhys and arrange for her to be discreetly abducted and delivered to his estate. He wouldn’t allow her to continue this once they were bound.

Forcing himself to inhale deeply, he breathed in calm. Nothing had changed with seeing what she did among humans, other than the
rising urgency to have her in his arms and beneath him, forging a bond first with his body, then later with his heart and magic.

He wanted her as willing wife-consort, not a dangerous, unwilling prisoner. Meaning that for now, great care must be taken in how he dealt with her. To that effect he decided to wait until her client left before approaching her.

A
s Etaín put the finishing touches on Kelli’s tattoo, Bryce emerged from behind the privacy screen. A thin blonde followed him, her ears, nose, and lips sporting nearly as many piercings as he had.

She paid and headed for the door. When she reached it, she turned and said, “See you in a little while?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She left and Bryce strolled over. “Iraq?” he asked, putting together the photo of a girl in uniform and the signs of crying.

Kelli nodded, not giving in to the tears again until she took the mirror from Etaín and saw the tattoo.

Bryce put an arm around her shoulders.

Etaín sent him a grateful look for stepping in, and started cleaning up her station, letting Bryce handle the emotional fallout. The day was catching up to her and the worst of it loomed ahead, in the defenselessness of sleep.

Kelli took a final shuddering breath and pulled away from Bryce. Etaín made quick work of applying bandages and going over the care instructions. She rang Kelli up and walked her out, waiting in the doorway until Kelli was in her car before turning back into the shop.

“So, hot date tonight?” she asked Bryce, who for the second time in one day was taking care of her equipment so she could leave.

“I’m going to get laid. How about you?”

A glance at the clock, a moment of temptation arriving with thoughts of stopping at Cathal’s club before heading home. “I wish.”

“Well, the night’s not over yet. We’ve got incoming despite it officially being after hours. You take him, see what he wants, and schedule him. I’m out of here.”

Etaín turned and saw Eamon on the other side of the glass.

The night loved him, caressing his features like moonlight on an ocean hiding rip tides. Seeing him brought back the edginess that had been lost under Kelli’s emotions. It returned full force with a body-tightening vengeance, came laced with raw desire and the need to blow off steam in a purely sexual way.

Rather than waiting for Eamon to enter, she snagged her jacket and went to him. “This is a surprise,” she said, allowing him to maneuver her so they weren’t standing in front of the glass, visible to the artists and clients still inside the shop.

“Is it? You had to know I’d come looking for you.”

The words flowed through her like the notes of a song. “My own personal stalker?”

“I have questions for you, as you no doubt have them for me.”

His fingers circled her wrists, lifting and holding them above her head, pressing them to the wall at her back, the restraint exciting her where it might have led to a hard, fast knee to the groin for another man.

She breathed deeply when he stepped closer, filling her lungs with the sea-breeze scent of him. A moan escaped as his thumbs stroked over the eyes on her palms, sending molten lust straight to her cunt, making her flushed and desperate and wet.

“And then there is this,” he murmured against her lips before claiming them, the decadent taste and sweet softness of him pulling her into an undertow of desire.

Where Cathal had demanded, his tongue thrusting, mimicking what he intended to do with his cock, Eamon sipped, turning her need and her eagerness to his advantage.

He took his time, as if it were limitless. One kiss merging into another, his tongue retreating only to return, twining and rubbing
with hers, like waves lapping at the land, eroding all resistance until she was the one to close the distance between their lower bodies and grind against the hardened length of his erection.

He took his mouth from hers, but only far enough so their eyes could meet. “Come home with me.”

Not a question. Not really. There was no hint of uncertainty as to what he thought her answer would be.

The call of like to like, the mingling of hot lust and dangerous curiosity tried to drown out any reason that would lead to
no
, but failed to. She had to finish what she’d started when she pressed her palms to Tyra Nelson’s skin.

“I can’t.”

Eamon’s fingers tightened on her wrists. “Because you intend to go to Cathal? You want him?”

She avoided the first question by answering the second. “You’ve seen him. What do you think?”

White teeth flashed in the darkness, making her think of a shark in deep waters. “Men don’t hold any attraction for me. But I can be flexible in what I allow of a lover. Of you, Etaín. I can even share if I have to, though I’ll never believe you prefer him.”

Heat pulsed through her with his words, coming with the image of lying naked between the two men. She was used to being hit on, but not like this, where the hints of dominance and threat made her wetter. She was open-minded about sex but had never
craved
what the fantasy he provoked promised, though she did now.

Eamon laughed softly. “Have I shocked you? Or aroused you?”

He leaned in, kissing her again in a sensual exploration, his tongue gliding against hers, each stroke making her cunt clench.

Shifting her wrists so he needed only one hand to keep them held to the wall, he covered her breast and the heat from his palm burned through her shirt and skin, pouring fire into her bloodstream.

She moaned, shamelessly grinding against his cock as he teased a hardened nipple, circling and stroking it with his fingers then clamping
onto it to send a jolt of sheer need straight to her clit. She wanted him inside her, wanted to feel the press of his body to hers, skin touching in a hot meld of desire. It’d been so long and everything about him called to her.

A whimpered protest left her lips when he ended the kiss. “This isn’t all I want of you,” he whispered against her mouth before leaving it, kissing his way to her ear. “This isn’t all I have to offer you, but it’s a start.”

He took her earlobe between his lips and sucked, each pull arrowing molten lust straight to her swollen folds. She tried to free her shackled wrists so she could explore him with her hands and feel his skin beneath her palms but he didn’t allow it.

“Come home with me.”

“I can’t.”

His tongue slid into the sensitive canal of her ear, delivering heated desire in a thrust that had her channel clenching, hungry to be filled by him. He squeezed her nipple, delivering pain with the pleasure, a punishment for denying him along with the promise of an exquisite reward for surrendering.

He remained in control, but he wasn’t unaffected. His breathing was fast and his cock hard, his eyes a turbulent blue sea.

“Then come back to Aesirs for a drink.”

“And a fuck?”

Irritation showed in his face but his voice was smooth confidence. “For starters, Etaín, if that’s what you want to call it, but don’t think I’ll always settle for a meaningless physical act. I’d prefer the comfort of a bed, but as I said earlier, I can be flexible when it comes to you.”

Danger rolled off him, an emotional threat, not a physical one. She stiffened in reaction to it, both repelled and attracted, believing he had answers if she was willing to ask the questions.

“I’ve got to get going,” she said, tugging at her captured wrists.

He freed them, accepting her retreat but not without a thinning of his lips. “I’ll walk you to your bike.”

They walked in silence. When they reached the Harley he took her wrists in his hands again, this time holding them behind her back, using them to imprison her in a way that arched her spine and forced her pelvis against his.

“I can give you some of the answers you’re looking for,” he said, reinforcing his point by stroking his thumbs over the eyes on her palms. “I can give you so much more.”

He leaned in, taking her mouth with his as if trying to storm her defenses. His lips and tongue more demanding than they had been before, more blatantly carnal. Renewing the desire and sending it crashing through her in hot, stormy waves that had arousal flowing from her slit to wet her panties.

When she was trembling with need he released her and stepped away. “Call Aesirs at any time and for any reason. A car will be sent for you. Or come to the door. Day or night, you’ll be brought to me.”

“That could be awkward if you’re with someone.”

“I won’t be now that I’ve met you.”

The declaration sent emotion skittering through her, too much and too varied to process. In the course of one day, she’d found herself hungering for two different men, caught in twin snares of attraction unlike any she’d experienced before.

She unlocked the helmet then straddled the bike, acutely aware of the way her cunt throbbed where it touched the Harley’s saddle. Danger and desire were part of a chorus warring with caution, with the echoes of her mother’s warnings against getting involved, and her own experience when it came to letting others close enough to hurt her, or be hurt by her.

“See you around,” she said, putting on her helmet and fleeing his presence.

Eamon watched her as she sped away. A car left the curb and followed, the humans assigned the task of shadowing her.

He moved in the direction of Aesirs, aching with need and seething
with frustration. And yet the encounter with her had also left him satisfied as well.

She would come to him of her own free will, of that he was certain. And when she did . . .

Desire pulsed through his hardened cock. Lust heightened now that he knew her taste and scent, and the heady feel not just of her body touching his, but the magic filling her. She was a seduction of all his senses, a siren call he doubted he could resist even if he wanted to.

She would belong to him. And undeniably, because she was
seidic
, he would belong to her as well.

Her foundling status gave him the advantage of knowledge. Her being changeling gave him the upper hand when it came to magic.

He intended to use both. Guiding her into her Elven heritage and away from human concerns. All while teaching her that he would also be her Lord, though she would be cherished no less because she yielded to his will.