Surviving Ice (Burying Water 4)

I reach up and pull another chunk off. Something to kill time with while I wait to resume the search for this damning video confession.

And see Ivy.

ELEVEN

IVY

I jump at the sound of knuckles hitting glass.

The shade is pulled down, so I can’t be sure that it’s him. And as much as I’d love to not care whether it is, I already know that if I go to the door and find anyone besides Sebastian standing there, I’m going to be royally disappointed.

We never agreed on a time yesterday, thanks to Bobby, something I realized when my eyes cracked open at noon. So I threw on some clothes and rushed to my car, telling myself that I was in a hurry only because I’d already wasted enough of the day sleeping and still had plenty to do at Black Rabbit.

Really, it’s because I didn’t want to miss Sebastian.

If he’s coming back, that is. And I so desperately need him to, so I can prove to myself that my reaction to working on Bobby yesterday was an anomaly—an insidious after-effect of Ned’s horrific death and nothing that will stop me from inking people permanently.

Forcing myself to walk at an extra-slow pace, so as not to appear overeager, I make my way to the door and peer out from behind the shade.

My heart skips a beat at the sight of Sebastian.

And I’m instantly disappointed in myself. I can’t be having this kind of a reaction to a guy who lives in a city I’m about to leave. “Sebastian.”

His intense gaze is hidden behind reflective aviators today. I can see myself in them. My bright, wide eyes. I’m not hiding my eagerness very well.

“Ivy.” Even through the closed door, his voice is so deep, so even, so instantly soothing to me, that it sends a shiver down my back. No one should be able to elicit that kind of reaction by just saying my name.

I turn the dead bolt and open the door for him.

He steps past me, and suddenly Black Rabbit doesn’t seem as eerie and lonely anymore. Just his presence swallows up some of the anxiety that’s been hanging over me.

He inhales deeply. “You like that scent, don’t you?”

I use the excuse of locking the door to turn my back on him and hide my reddened cheeks. There’s nothing cheaper than a woman who wears too much perfume, and it doesn’t matter how much she paid for the bottle. Or how much her friend paid for the bottle, in this case. Still half-asleep, I must have gone a little overboard with it before I left the house, if he’s commenting on it now.

“We’re doing this in the back room, I gather?” His sharp raptor gaze sizes up the shop in a very calculated way. I worked double time all afternoon, both to keep my idle hands and mind busy while I waited, and because the painters are coming first thing tomorrow morning. There’s nothing much left here, except a few cardboard boxes and a thousand thumb tacks, where Ned had pinned up old newspaper clippings and pictures. I’m probably the least sentimental person on the planet when it comes to material things, and yet I can’t bear to throw them out, so they’re now neatly piled in a box. Maybe someday I’ll put them in an album.

Or I’ll get Dakota to put them in an album. She likes to scrapbook when she gets high.

Composing myself, I edge past him, reaching for the clipboard. “Unless you want to lie out here on the floor. You need to fill out this paperwork, and then I need a copy of your ID.”

He stares at it. “What’s this for?”

“It’s a legal requirement. I can’t put a needle to your skin until you’ve signed. You can fill it out while I finish getting the room ready.” Ned was always strict about filling out the required paperwork. The threat of losing his license was enough to scare him and, while I was working here, to scare me into following his lead.

“Right,” he mutters. “I forgot about that.” I lead him into the back room, watching quietly as his gaze scans the black walls—covered in dusty square outlines where Ned’s portfolio of the weirdest tattoos that he’d ever done used to hang—then the cases of ink that I haven’t decided whether to take home for my own use or sell with the store, and the leather table, laid out flat and covered in plastic wrap, my tools and supplies set on the tray beside it. “The room looks ready to me.”

It’s been ready for him for over two hours. What I need to do is get me ready. “So you said this isn’t your first time?”

The corner of his mouth curls. Setting the clipboard down on top of a box, he reaches over his head and peels off his T-shirt to reveal a canvas of skin and hard muscles and a few scars, along with a sizable tattoo covering his left shoulder.

All nerves temporarily forgotten, I automatically step forward to study its quality and design. “Where’d you get this?”

“San Diego.”

“When?” It looks to be a few years old, at least. And well done, which is good. He probably did his research on that artist, like he did with me. It tells me he’s no idiot.

“Awhile ago.”

I roll my eyes. Not the most talkative guy when it comes to personal questions, I guess. “What is this? A . . .” The helicopter covers the ball of his shoulder. Five men in black dangle from ropes below it. This has to be military, and I’m guessing it has meaning for him. “Were you in the army?”

Cool eyes peer down at me, but he doesn’t answer.

I take that as yes, he was, and no, he doesn’t want to talk about it. It doesn’t really matter to me, but it helps me understand him a little more. His quiet, somewhat rigid demeanor, his lack of reaction, his readiness to help me, willingness to go toe-to-toe with a biker. He’s a soldier—or was—minus the brush cut and “ma’am” at the end of every sentence. Or maybe that was just the Texan Marine I picked up one night in San Diego.

“So, about your design . . .”

He reaches into his back pocket and slips out the folded piece of paper, handing it to me again. I can’t help but frown with disdain. Instead of taking it, I grab the sheet I tore out from my sketchbook, waiting on a side table. “I was thinking something like this would look better on you.”

He stares at the sketch I pulled together while watching the waves come in off Ocean Beach this morning, after I’d emptied my soul and mind onto a shitty old brick wall in the Mission District. It’s a risky design and one he may not want on his body. I know that even as I mentally cross my fingers and hope that he’ll say yes, because I really don’t want to ruin his beautiful torso with something as generic and common as what he has suggested.

He stares at the sketch for so long that I start to fidget and backpedal. “You don’t have to go with this. I just thought—”

“It’s incredible.” He shifts his gaze to me, and a flicker of warmth burns in those cold irises of his. “When did you do this?”

I stifle the grin that wants to slip out. He thinks it’s incredible. “This morning. I had some time to kill.”

He looks at me like he knows something I don’t. “I want this one.”

I swallow, the intensity of his gaze and his presence seeming to suck all the air out of the room. “And the size. You want it . . .”

“I’m sure you have an opinion.” He watches me intently.

I rarely give a damn about anyone or what they do with their lives, but I always have an opinion when it comes to body art. And this one, especially, I want to be flawless. “I think we should start it here”—I reach up to tap his skin, my fingertip just a curl away from a solid pectoral muscle—“and end down here, with the bottom of the scythe cutting into your bone right here.” My other hand slides across the base of his waist, at that delicious spot where his abdominal muscles meet his pelvic bone, forming the one side of a V that disappears below his belt.