Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights 1)

Mentally shrugging, I went back to work on getting the green backdrop set up and all the lights in place.

I had my own little studio downtown where I did family portraits and where I kept my dark room, but most of my work required me to travel to the clients.

Emmie Armstrong and her two other partners were my favorite clients, and I always dropped whatever I was doing and blocked out an entire day just for them whenever they needed my services. They normally told me what they were looking for then turned me loose on their rockers.

With the green backdrops in place and my lighting about as perfect as I could get it without a muse to work with yet, I headed for the table where I had left my camera equipment and my iPod. I’d had that damn iPod for eleven years. It had over ten thousand songs on it, and all the playlists I used while working. My roommate kept telling me I needed to get a new one, but every time I so much as thought about it, I felt like crying.

My dad had given me that iPod when I was ten. It was the last present he had given me before he left for his tour of duty in Iraq. Three months later, his convoy ran over an IED. I lost everything the day two men had shown up on my aunt’s front door to tell us that my father was gone.

Pushing those memories back into the deep, dark box where I tried to keep them, I pulled up my favorite playlist and hit shuffle. I was grumpy and tired, and all I wanted was a nap … or a really strong cup of coffee. Therefore, when the door opened behind me and Emmie walked in with a group of five guys and two girls who looked at least two years younger than me, I had to bite back a groan.

Catching Emmie’s green gaze, I lifted a brow at her. “Really?”

Typically, when I worked with Emmie, I had older guys to deal with. Most of the time, they were on good behavior, especially when Emmie was around. I didn’t know what to think of this group.

The first one my eyes zeroed in on was massive, like he could bench press the four other guys stacked on top of each other with ease. His dark hair was long on top but the sides were shaved. He had a sun-kissed, golden complexion, but it was his eyes that had me taking a second look. They were tan, almost the perfect shade of sand. I had a knack for reading people, and from just the tilt of his chin, I summed him up easily.

Douchebag. Probably a little narcissistic. Definitely not my type.

Beside him stood a beautiful blonde whose eyes kept going back to the sandy-eyed muscle head. She had startling wide blue eyes that told their own story with every emotion she was feeling shining out of them so clearly. Her lips were full and naturally pouty.

The guy who stood behind her couldn’t have been anyone but her brother; they looked so much alike. He was taller, but he had the same hair, the same eyes. He was fit, but compared to the other guy, I could tell he didn’t live in the gym.

The blond guy was holding the hand of the second girl, and at first glance, I thought she was pretty, but when I really focused on her, I quickly changed my mind. Pretty didn’t even begin to describe the tall redhead. With her long limbs, slender figure, with just the hint of curves under her slightly baggy T-shirt and jeans, this chick was smoking hot. The way the blond guy held her hand so possessively had me pausing for just a second on their linked hands. I wasn’t sure if he held on to her so tightly because he couldn’t bear to let her go, or if he was making sure every guy in the vicinity knew who his girl belonged to.

Two guys shifting behind the couple drew my eyes to them. Just as quickly as the first guy, I instantly summed them up. The one wearing the sunglasses was perhaps a bigger douchebag. His face looked like he had never smiled a day in his life. That made me sad, because my favorite thing in the world was to laugh, and I instinctively knew this guy’d had very little to laugh about in his lifetime.

The guy beside him didn’t fool me with his relaxed face. His eyes were moving around the room, taking everything in all at once. I figured he was the voice of reason with this lot, but at the same time, a part of me suspected he was nothing more than a tool. He didn’t move like any of the rockers I had come across in the past. No, he was more refined, just as I figured his accent would be. He might look like a rocker, but I got the impression he came from a stuffy, old money family. Politics, I decided. Maybe.

Then my eyes landed on him.

He had blended in with the others when he’d first come in, so I hadn’t really looked at him. Now, as I took all of him in for the first time, all the oxygen seemed to evaporate from my lungs.

Standing just over six feet, he had a lean build that I thought belied his strength. I instantly liked the gauges in his ears when normally holes that size in a guy’s ears would turn me off, but they suited him. His dark hair was cut short, but styled in a careless way that looked both lazy and sexy. His beard was neatly trimmed along his jaw, giving him a scruffy look. And the piercing in the middle of his bottom lip pulled my eyes right to his mouth. But it was his ink that had me taking an unconscious step toward him.

His left arm was completely bare, but his right was covered in a sleeve. For a moment, I had no idea what I was seeing. A woman’s face? A back street? I wasn’t close enough to see them clearly, but the others were the same. One second they were one thing, and the next, something completely different.

Optical illusions. Two pictures in one.

“You remember what I want, right?”

I had to force my attention away from him.

Mentally scolding myself for letting some guy affect me so strongly, I gave Emmie a tight smile. “I got ya, babe.”

“I’ll be up in my office if you need anything. I have a conference call I couldn’t reschedule,” she informed me with a twist of her lips. “And if these guys give you any trouble, kick their asses.”

I found myself smirking at her, despite the maelstrom still swirling through me because of some guy I had just set eyes on.

“Will do,” I assured her. “No worries. I’m sure we can knock this out in no time.”

“Travis should be here in about an hour,” Emmie promised. The face I made had her lips twitching. “Don’t worry; he won’t get in your way. He learned his lesson.”

I clenched my jaw, unable to return her smirk this time. “Let’s hope. Otherwise, you might be peeling his dead ass off the street after I throw him out the window.”

“Noted.”

Everyone was quiet until Emmie was out of sight. Once the door closed behind her, I heard more than one relieved sigh come from the guys. It was amusing to see how Emmie could control the bands she worked with. At the same time, I could understand their tension. Emmie Armstrong could make or break an up-and-coming band. Hell, she could make or break one that was already established and at the top of their career. She was that powerful, and not just in the rock world, but the entire music industry. I was grateful she had picked me to work with her, because one word from her had been all I needed to kick-start my career.