Caught in Flames Read online

  Caligula broke into her thoughts with, “Brian’s a prick.”

  Pixie howled with laughter.

  Joy sighed, unable to find the parrot funny. “How can a bird have better sense than me?”

  Pixie stood and played with her gorgeous blue-dyed hair. “He’s used to regarding people as the enemy. You aren’t. Thank goodness! Or you were until after Brian, and I know he was the latest in string of guys who wanted you for what they thought you could give them instead of who you are, and that sucks; but hiding out here in the apartment all day isn’t going to help you feel any better.”

  Joy retorted, “I’m not hiding.”

  Pixie shot back, “You aren’t exactly out in plain sight either, and a day out of here would do you some good.”

  Joy crossed her arms and glared at Pixie. “I go out. I have client meetings and lunch dates with my folks, and I go shopping for groceries and...”

  Pixie snorted. “That’s not living, Joy. That’s running errands. Besides, the pizza delivery guy is starting to get a crush on you. So you should probably get out and do something besides sit here and order pizza before he decides to fashion a wedding ring out of a garlic knot and propose or something.”

  Pixie had a point, as much as Joy didn’t like to admit it. Brian hadn’t been the first to leave her feeling used and with her self-esteem blown to bits, but she’d always managed to bounce back before.

  And going to a tattoo shop wasn’t the same as actually agreeing to a tattoo. She sighed. “Okay, I’ll go. I’ll even go to that restaurant you like.”

  Pixie clapped her hands and spun in a circle, sending the fluffed and floating layers of her skirt upward. “Yay! Now I don’t have to kidnap you. Phew! I’m enough trouble over that hog thing.”

  Joy bit her lips. The day before, Pixie had climbed up on a semi hauling a load of live pigs and written “Help! Victims aboard!” in bright red letters across the rear end of it.

  Joy ending up having to bail her out of jail, and while Pixie had been unrepentant, she’d also said that she wouldn’t do it again.

  Joy doubted that was true. “So what does one wear to a tattoo shop?”

  Pixie ran her eyes over Joy’s figure. Today she wore a soft white blouse with a neat little collar, blue jeans, and ballet flats. Her long blond hair was in a pretty fishtail braid and not a trace of makeup marred her fresh, creamy skin. “What you’re wearing.”

  “Great. So I guess...um...what time?”

  “Six,” Pixie said as she smiled and jumped up and down. “And you can’t try to wriggle out of it. You already promised.” She vanished in the direction of her bedroom.

  Caligula gave Joy a long stare and said, “Pixie’s insane.”

  “Who you telling?” Joy countered. She shook her head and went to the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee before heading to her desk and the designs laid out across it.

  She was an architect, and a damn good one. She didn’t want to design fancy McMansions, or skyscrapers. She didn’t want to design incredibly expensive shops either, although she did all those things so she could earn the money that would let her see her real dreams come true. She wanted to build eco-friendly homes for people who couldn’t afford the homes that so many of her peers built.

  She wanted to build earthquake-proof homes that would let in light and air and revitalize crumbling neighborhoods. The secret to it was finding materials she could use that would be less costly than the ones already in use, but still efficient, and ways to keep the costs down so the people in the neighborhoods she wanted to build in could actually afford them.

  She’d seen revitalization price way too many right out of the homes they’d always known. She lived in a city, hell a whole state, where people were being priced out of middle-class neighborhoods and into unsafe ones because the upper-middle-class rents and house prices had soared beyond the reach of the people who lived there.

  It was causing a major calamity, and people were being forced to leave their homes and schools and take on longer commutes as those with higher incomes started bidding wars in neighborhoods they would never have considered before, and the landlords, fueled by greed and the rising tides, gleefully charged in with rent increases and minor cosmetic renovations to bring those people into the neighborhoods whose people were being forced to vacate.

  It was a shitty mess as far as Joy was concerned, and it hit her that the answer was to revitalize the lower-income neighborhoods while keeping the prices down, so those who’d been priced out of their own neighborhoods could find decent and safe housing, while those already in those neighborhoods could take part in rebuilding it.

  Nobody believed she could pull any of it off.

  She loved Earthcraft homes, but they were horrendously expensive to build, and she was researching materials that would give the same kind of tight building envelope while having a lower cost when Pixie swept back out.

  “Hey there, you ready to go?”

  Joy looked up, blinking. “Huh?”

  “The tattoo shop.”

  “Oh, right. Um, yeah. Let me just close this down.” She rubbed her eyes and shut the laptop off and neatly stacked her designs.

  “How’s it going?” She’d freshened her makeup and done something with her hair to make it even prettier.

  Joy rubbed her neck with one hand. “Meh. I don’t know. I know there’s a simple solution somewhere; I just have to find it.”

  “You will,” Pixie said reassuringly.

  Joy wasn’t so sure, but she was glad Pixie at least had some faith in her.

  * *

  The tattoo shop settled in between a small strip of stores and it looked packed. Joy, getting out of the car, paused for a moment, her forehead wrinkling. She hated big crowds, as she always felt awkward in them.

  Pixie headed for the shop and Joy followed slowly. She caught sight of her reflection in the tinted windows of a sex store and sighed inwardly.

  In a sea of bone-thin women who practiced yoga and juicing, she stuck out like a plump thumb.

  She had wide shoulders thanks to years of swimming, rounded arms and legs, and stubborn curves of hip and breasts that, no matter how many crash diets her mother had tried out on her, just wouldn’t slim down or vanish.

  When she’d been young she’d been forced into dance classes, aerobics, and every other workout class under the sun. She’d done Pilates, yoga, water aerobics, and run for miles on treadmills, but her thighs stayed thick and her hips stayed wide, to her mother’s utter despair.

  The plant-based, low-fat, sugar-free, low-calorie diet that her mother, Megan, a former model and actress, ate kept her and Joy’s father lean and fit, and she was sure that it was all her growing daughter needed for her body to suddenly go from thick and wide to tall and elegant. It hadn’t worked.

  Joy would eat the meager meals they offered her, and go to bed with her stomach growling and her head aching. Thankfully by the time she was in junior high school, she’d discovered she could actually throw away the sprouted grain and bean sprout sandwiches Megan stuffed into her lunch box in favor of food bought at the school cafeteria, and she had.

  She knew a size twelve wasn’t obese. She knew her size was actually average everywhere else in the country but in L.A., the land of film and money, it was unacceptable, and she was often the brunt of body- shaming jokes that left her feeling exposed and hurt.

  She set aside those thoughts as they entered the building. The first thing she noticed was the number of people, and she immediately gravitated toward the nearest wall. She had thought to feign interest in the art displayed up there, but soon found herself fascinated; not by the photographs of tattoos and the flash art, but by the paintings, neatly framed, that hung here and there.

  They weren’t signed, but they were very good. They showed L.A. as it was. Real people on street corners in bad neighborhoods, the crumbling Hollywood sign, a woman running down a street, her face creased in concentration and earbuds dangling.

  A smile
crossed her mouth as she continued to survey the paintings. She was so engrossed she didn’t even notice to the handsome guy coming out of his work station to greet Pixie until she heard Pixie speak.

  She turned and her heart leaped into her throat. Pixie had said he was hot. She hadn’t said he was drop- dead gorgeous, but damn, he was.

  The heavy tattoos on his arms only added to his looks, and his thickly-lashed green eyes slid over to her as Pixie hugged the stranger.

  “Meet Joy. My bestie. She saved my ass yesterday. Made my bail and everything. Joy, this is Hawk: My back-up bail-bond boy.” Pixie grinned and punched Hawk playfully in the ribs.

  Hawk laughed and asked, “What did you do now?”

  Joy stared at him as Pixie began to explain.

  “Hold on a sec,” Joy interrupted Pixie. “You’re telling it wrong.” She shrugged and rolled her eyes at Hawk. “Does she try that on you too?”

  He grinned and nodded. “Truth, Pix. Nothing but the truth.”

  Joy laughed at Pixie’s feigned expression of disappointment. “Let me try,” Joy said and proceeded to explain the whole spray-painting-the-hog-truck debacle. There was a sudden pounding in her chest and a flush of heat running through her body as she watched Hawk. He was muscular but lean, and there was an aura of street tough hanging off him like a mist. She was drawn to it, and to him.

  She swallowed hard as Hawk said, “So your vegetarian leanings got you landed in jail, huh?”

  Pixie glowered at him. “They were innocent little piggies, Hawk. Someone had to speak out. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t go vegetarian. You should try it too; it’s good for you, and the planet.”

  Hawk ran a hand through his sooty hair and grinned. “I would be a vegetarian if I could, but there’s always something standing between me and a vegetarian diet.”

  Pixie asked, “What?”

  “Bacon,” Hawk said. “It’s delicious.”

  Joy burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it. Hawk smiled at her, revealing square white teeth and a small dimple in his right cheek. Her heart pounded even harder, threatening to cause her to crumple to the floor in an embarrassing heap.

  “Sorry,” he said in a voice that said he wasn’t sorry at all. “But bacon is really good.”

  “Oh, I agree. I love bacon. I’d eat bacon wrapped in bacon if you let me.” Immediately her face flushed. She was flirting! And, what was more, she was a big girl talking about food. Thin women could joke about how much they ate, not women who wore a size twelve.

  Hawk grinned at her. “Hell, I have. I once ate—”

  Pixie threw her hands up. “Okay, that’s enough! I’ll have both your hides if you try teasing me.” She pretended to look sternly at both of them, the corners of her mouth giving away her secret. “Hey, Hawk? Do you have time to work on my leg?”

  “I do.” His eyes stayed on Joy’s. Her face grew even hotter. Hawk’s glance trailed down her arms. “Are you interested in a tat?”

  She shook her head. There was a real and physical reason she couldn’t get a tattoo, but she was not about to tell him, or anyone, that. “Oh, no. No thank you. Not for me. I mean...I mean I like them...on other people. They’re nice, I just...” She was just digging herself in even deeper, so she stopped and pointed behind Hawk, then rushed on, “I love these paintings. Do you know the artist? Who did them?”

  “I did.”

  The words made her blink. She looked from him back to the paintings. “They’re fantastic.”

  “Thanks. Most people don’t pay attention to them.”

  “Well I doubt you could tattoo that one on skin with as much success. Photorealism is a hard thing to accomplish on canvas.”

  “This is true.” His voice was a silky caress. It slid across her skin, and left her shivering and even more mute, and embarrassed. The reaction was odd and disconcerting, and she wasn’t sure she hated it, but she was pretty sure she didn’t like it.

  It left her too bared and exposed.

  Pixie chirped up, “Do you have any more of the really pretty violet ink?”

  Hawk turned to look at her and the spell shattered and scattered around Joy, but she still felt a remnant of the shivering and heat low in her belly.

  They went into his work room and Hawk, pointing to a small stool in the corner, said to Joy, “Take a seat over there.”

  Pixie hopped up on the table and stuck her left leg out to reveal the half-finished gorgeous tattoo. Joy watched, fascinated, as Hawk carefully took tools out of an enclave and then opened a pack with a fresh tattoo needle inside.

  He put on latex gloves, and then spurted Hibiclens across Pixie’s leg, wiping it quickly with a disinfectant-laden paper towel. He took a pink razor from a pack, took off the plastic guard, and shaved her leg rapidly then bagged the razor and cap and disposed of it.

  It was a lot more sanitary than she had imagined, and better lit too. She’d imagined some dim and creepy place, garish with neon and rough-looking people all sporting Mohawks or biker gear. She’d seen a few Mohawks and some biker gear, but for the most part they all seemed to be just normal people.

  Pixie sat still while Hawk worked.

  Joy wanted to talk but she was afraid if she did she would distract him. Instead she watched his steady hand applying the needle, which whirred and spun beneath the gun. She let her gaze shift upwards. His face was set in lines of concentration and his mouth, full and generous, was pressed into a slightly flatter line as he pulled the gun away, examined the work he’d done so far, and then continued.

  Eventually it was finished. Hawk carefully wrapped a bandage around Pixie’s slender leg and said, “There you go.”

  She looked down at the bandage, the white swath of it a bright blot against her skin. “Thanks! Joy and I are going out for dinner at the Green House; you want to go?”

  “No.” His lips twitched. “My body automatically rejects anything even remotely healthy these days.”

  Pixie glared at him.

  Hawks lips trembled, then he burst into laughter. Joy wanted to laugh too but she wasn’t sure if she should. Hawk nodded and ruffled Pixie’s hair. “Yeah, I’ll go. In fact, I’ll pay. It isn’t every day I get to take two women out.”

  Joy doubted that. She could tell he was used to being around women, and he had a kind of smooth and sexy confidence that came naturally to him too. That and his good looks probably made him damn near irresistible.

  For most women.

  Not for her.

  She could definitely resist him.

  Because he was obviously not interested in her anyway.

  Confession of a Tattooist - Ch 3

  Hawk stared; he tried not to, but he couldn’t help himself. The woman in from of him had him slightly rattled. Joy, Pixie’s best bud, was not only beautiful, but she had this sort of innocence and vulnerability literally dripping off her that appealed to him so much it had taken everything he had not to hit on her. Damn!

  She was curvy and lush, her body a perfect hourglass with stunning, sleek skin; the kind of woman so rare in L.A. it was akin to walking out of his work room and seeing a unicorn suddenly appear in the shop.

  She also had this amazing, shy, sweet smile, made even more tempting by her gloriously blue eyes. He wanted to kiss her full bottom lip and nibble on it until she opened her mouth. He bet she knew how to kiss. The kind that took your breath away.

  Joy sat quietly in the chair, not talking, just watching intently as he tattooed Pixie. He was aware of the weight of her gaze in a way he’d never cared about before. It took extra concentration on Pixie’s leg just to get the job done; all the while his mind ran through imaginary scenarios of him and Joy alone, stripping her down and making love to her. That woman sitting in the swivel chair wasn’t made for sex, she was made for love. It terrified and excited him at the same time.

  He was tempted to say no to dinner. Pixie was undoubtedly going to stuff him full of some crazy vegetable-and-soy-laden stuff, and he’d have to sit there trying to
choke down the awful stuff while trying to think of something witty and charming to say to Joy, when all he really wanted to do was stare at her.

  That irritated him a little. Okay, maybe a lot.

  He wasn’t used to being so stricken and smitten, and he also wasn’t used to being confused about whether or not a woman was interested in him. He thought he saw something in her eyes, but her expression was so veiled it was almost impossible to tell. It frustrated him, as did his tongue’s sudden cleaving to the roof of his mouth every time he tried to open his mouth to say something to her while he was tattooing Pixie, who was also suddenly silent, which wasn’t like her at all. He needed her to fill the space with her quirky jabber.

  Joy intrigued him in ways he hadn’t been in a long time, and by the time he met them at the restaurant he was determined to talk to her.

  The restaurant served both vegetarian and meat options, and when Joy ordered a steak, medium-rare, he smiled and closed the menu. “I’ll have the same,” he said.

  Pixie ordered some concoction, and when the server left Pixie asked, “So how was your day, Hawk?”

  He grimaced. “I had to tattoo Jack Monroe.”

  Joy asked, “Who’s that?”

  He grinned. “He’s a pop singer and a giant pain in the ass.”

  “He is? If you didn’t want to work on him, couldn’t you have said no?”

  Hawk smiled, loving the sound of her voice, “I do have a no list and he’s on it, but my new receptionist didn’t know. Totally my fault. I should’ve made sure she did. So, to answer your question, before you came in with Pixie, my work room was taken over by bodyguards and hangers-on, along with a few groupies, one of whom attempted to ease the singer’s pain by offering him a blowjob.”