Read Online She's Got It Bad by Sarah Mayberry - Free Book Online

just pull them down. Your choice.”
    She’d seen hundreds of guys strip for tattoos. She’d tattooed asses, groins, thighs, chests. She’d seen it all.
    But she hadn’t seen Liam Masters without his shirt on for a very long time. She forced herself not to stare as he pulled his T-shirt over his head. He had big, defined pec muscles, the kind that came from manual labor, not the gym. His abdominal muscles rippled beneath his skin as he climbed into the chair.
    She looked away when he undid the stud on his jeans, fiddling with her gun and needles. When she looked back, he had his jeans unzipped and spread wide, the top of his boxer-briefs rolled down, his lower belly fully exposed. She stared at the crisp dark curls arrowing down his flat, hard belly, then darted a quick glance at the thicker hair growing at the top of his pelvic bone.
    “I’m going to have to shave you,” she said.
    He shrugged. She grabbed the old-fashioned boar’s bristle shaving brush she preferred and lathered him up. His skin was firm and resilient beneath her hands as she shaved the left side of his belly from navel to just above his groin.
    He lay back with one arm crooked behind his head the whole time, watching her.
    “So, how’s Tom? What’s he up to these days?” he asked as she dried him off.
    She gave him a look. “We’re not talking about my family.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I don’t want to. Because it’s my life and you’re not a part of it.”
    He was silent as she prepared a spirit master transfer of his company logo.
    “I don’t think you should go any bigger than this,” she said when she displayed the finished image.
    The design she was proposing was approximately three inches across and would sit snugly between the midline of his belly and his hip bone.
    “I trust you,” he said.
    She snorted. “There’s your first mistake. Never trust anyone, Liam. You should know that by now.”
    She pulled on fresh gloves, poured ink and prepped his belly with alcohol before applying the spirit transfer to his skin. Clear purple lines were left behind when she peeled off the transfer.
    She smoothed Vaseline over the top to keep his skin lubricated while she worked. Then she reached for her tattoo gun.
    Her hand was shaking. Her hands never shook when she worked. Ever. She could feel Liam watching her. She met his eyes.
    “Now’s the time to back out,” she said.
    “I trust you,” he said again.
    She shook her head and pressed the foot pedal to turn the machine on. Then she placed a hand on his warm, firm belly and held his skin taut while she pressed the needle into his body.
    He didn’t tense or flinch like some people. He simply lay there, utterly relaxed, watching her. He waited until she had completed the initial outline before speaking again.
    “What can we talk about, then?” he asked. “Tell me what’s not out of bounds.”
    She kept her eyes on her work. She was acutely aware of him, more so than she’d ever been with any other client. The warm soapy smell of him, the muscles beneath his skin, the occasional brush of his pubic hair against her forearm as she shifted around.
    “The weather. Football. The state of the economy. Pick a topic,” she said.
    “What about your work? Can we talk about that?”
    She shrugged and kept working.
    “Are you any good?” he asked.
    “Fine time to ask me that,” she scoffed. She lifted the needle from his skin as his belly flexed with laughter.
    “I already know you’re good. You never did anything by halves,” he said. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
    She used some paper towel to wipe ink away and took a moment to scan the design. It was coming along well.
    “You think I have an ego problem?” she asked. “You think I need some positive reinforcement, is that it?”
    She glanced up at him and got caught for a moment in his deep brown eyes.
    “I don’t think your ego is the problem, but something is.”
    She smiled as she sat back and stretched out