We Interview & Flail About Kit Rocha Plus A Giveaway!

Instead of showing him, she picked up the sketchbook and held it close to her chest.  “It’s nothing.  I was just fucking around with a design from earlier.  Ace says it still needs work.”

Ace.  Plenty of the O’Kanes had files, but none as lurid as Alexander Santana.  In Eden, he was best known for series of paintings he’d done almost a decade ago, paintings rumored to have been gifts to the rich women he’d slept with in exchange for credits and patronage.

Ownership of a Santana had led to divorce and scandal more than once, which only added to their legend and increased their value among a certain set.  But Noah had seen enough pictures of the paintings in question to know the man had skill.

Something else Noah and Cib had never been able to supply–a teacher. Squashing jealousy, Noah tried for a smile.  It stretched his mouth in unfamiliar ways, but maybe it was the kind of thing muscle memory could bring back.  “C’mon, Em.  Just a peek?”

She looked like she was going to say no, but then she flipped the sketchbook around and held it out for him to see.

The page held a heart with a keyhole at its center, effortlessly shaded to make it three dimensional. Barbed wire and chains crisscrossed each other around it, so intricately sketched that he could make out the twists of wire and the sharp pointed tips of the barbs.  “It’s a tattoo?”

“It is.”  She wiggled the pad of paper.  “You want this one? It suits you.”

More than she’d ever know.  “It’s not meant for someone else?”

The book hit the desk with a soft thump, and Emma turned away.  “I was kidding.”

“You were right.”  He shrugged out of his jacket and stripped his shirt over his head.  “Where would you put it?  If I’m going to hang around the O’Kane compound, I should have at least one tattoo, right?”

She sucked in a breath.  For a moment, her gaze lingered on his chest, soft with memory.  Then her eyes shuttered, and she folded her arms across her body, one hip cocked out in a pose that screamed challenge.  “I’m not that easy.  You want me to give you ink?  You have to pay.”

Good for you.  “All right.  Cash, credits or information?”

“Information,” she said immediately.  “Answers.”

Of course. The thing only he could give her, and the quickest path back out of her life.  But he liked her like this.  Tough, challenging, unafraid to demand what she wanted.  “Just as long as you know that I’m not easy, either.  Anything that’ll put you in danger’s gonna cost more than a tattoo.”

“Fair enough.”  She gestured to the antique tattoo chair.  “Have a seat.”

Noah tossed his shirt over the table and sank into the chair.  “How do other people pay for tattoos?”

“Depends.”  Tiny plastic cups rattled on one of the trays as she laid them out, side by side.  “O’Kanes get certain ones for free, obviously.  More if Ace is feeling generous.  Someone off the street better bring cash, clean credits, or damn good favors.  He barters sometimes, too.”

“Did he do yours?”

Emma grinned as she dropped to a rolling stool and pulled the tray to rest beside the tattoo chair.  “Ace would have a hissy if I let anyone else do my ink.  He gave me my first one a few years back–I’d heard he was the best, so I saved up and brought him one of my designs. Been in and out of this shop ever since.”

He quirked an eyebrow.  “Are you adding my questions to my bill?”

Her grin gentled into a smile.  “Maybe.”  She pressed the design notebook face down against a thinner sheet of paper, then ran them both quickly under a light fixed to the bottom of the rolling tray.  The image appeared on the thin sheet, and she held up the paper.  “Where do you want it?”

“Wherever you think is best.”  This was fascinating, too.  Watching her so sure and confident, totally in her element.  She looked the way he felt surrounded by terminal screens–in control.

She considered him for a moment, then cleaned a spot on the left side of his chest.  “Here, I think.”  When she pressed the light-processed paper to his wet skin and lifted it once more, it left a blue image of the design behind.  “Perfect.”