When it was done, she blotted the design clean, then began dressing it. Mathias’s Breed skin was already healing on its own, but she still stripped off her gloves and reached for ointment and bandages.
As she applied the first one, he lifted his head, bulky shoulders rising off the table. “Aren’t you going to let me see it before you cover it up?”
She pushed him back down. “I thought you wanted to be surprised.”
He exhaled a low chuckle. “Probably not one of my more prudent decisions, all things considered.”
“It was a first.” She put the last couple of bandages over the fresh ink, carefully patting them into place. “If you ask me, only an idiot or a lunatic would let an unknown artist go freestyle on them for two full hours.”
He grunted. “So, which one do you think I am?”
Nova smiled in spite of herself. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Maybe I’m just an excellent judge of character.” With that, he rose all the way up and pivoted around to a seated position on the edge of the chair.
Good lord, it was distracting to watch him move. He was muscular and long-limbed, powerful arms and thick shoulders framing a sculpted chest and ripped abdomen.
Mathias leaned forward slightly, elbows braced on his knees. The look he gave her sent her pulse skittering in her veins. “Maybe we both need to trust each other a little bit here, Nova. What do you say?”
Those penetrating eyes she had avoided all the while she was working on him now bore into her with the intensity of twin lasers. Heat seared her, and she couldn’t dismiss it as anything other than what it was.
Curiosity.
Awareness.
Desire.
How long since she’d felt any of that? God, had she ever--really ever--felt such an immediate, undeniable pull toward a man?
She didn’t dare let it take hold of her now.
Not with him.
It would be a mistake she couldn’t undo.
Letting herself get close to one of the warriors from the Order--particularly one whose investigation had brought him to her doorstep in the first place--was a mistake she refused to make.
Pivoting away from him, she began cleaning up her station. “You’ll want to remove the bandages after a couple of hours. I can give you some ointment to use for the next few days, but the way your kind heals, I doubt you’ll need it.”
“My kind,” he murmured from behind her.
She shot him an arch glance over her shoulder. “I don’t suppose I have to remind you to stay out of the sun.”
He was staring at her, and he didn’t look pleased. “You’re dismissing me. Always so eager to get rid of me. I have to wonder why that is.”
She shrugged. “You asked for a tattoo and I gave you one. So, unless there’s anything else--”
“There is, Nova.” He held her in a piercing, narrowed stare. “What are you afraid I’m going to find out? You and I both know the man who came in here last night didn’t leave the way you explained it to me.”
Anxious now, she pushed her hands into her pockets and faced the Breed warrior. “If you want to accuse me of something, do it.”
He exhaled a sharp breath. “I’m not ready to say you had something to do with his death, but I know you’re not telling me the truth. What do you know about the others?”
Confusion bled into her dread. “What others?”
“The six other men pulled out of the Thames in the past week, Nova.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And she didn’t. But he wasn’t baiting her, that much she knew, just from the unflinching seriousness of his expression. “Why would you think I know anything about anyone else?”