WickedSeduction Read Online Free Page B

her
fragrance, heat and a trace of musk. His testosterone punched up another notch,
making his boys and rod stir in interest.
    “About the security camera…” she said but didn’t continue.
    “Lauren’s the only one who looks at the images. You met her
in the hall. Blonde lady with blue eyes?”
    “She’s your security force?”
    “God, no.” Tor chuckled. “She owns the parlor. You can trust
her.” He wondered why Marnie seemed so wary. “Lauren’s practically family. She
and my brother are getting married in the winter.”
    “Are they happy?”
    There was a question he hadn’t expected. “Disgustingly so.
I’ve never seen two people laugh as much together. They’re always joking around
and teasing. Especially Dante, my brother. He’s easygoing to the extreme.”
    She smiled. “Do you mind closing the door?”
    “Not at all.” He reached over and eased the thing shut.
    “Guess you need to see what I’m talking about,” she said.
“What I want you to tattoo, huh?”
    Must be bad. “Take your time.”
    Marnie didn’t, unbuttoning her right sleeve immediately,
folding back the fabric until she’d reached her biceps. On a heavy sigh, she
held out her arm to him. “Can you make this pretty?”
    Tor didn’t want to stare but couldn’t help himself. The
slash marks on her arm were cruel and numerous, one running into the next, some
quite wide with the scarring raised between the edges. Others had a shallow
appearance, similar to a gulley. The skin was puckered, parts of the scars
darker than Marnie’s natural coloring, other portions white.
    Although Tor wasn’t a wound expert, he could see her
injuries weren’t recent and didn’t seem too accident-related.
    Before he could ask about them, she pulled her skirt up on the
left and straightened her leg. Jagged marks ran down her thigh, stopping at her
knee before continuing to the outside of her calf, as though someone had
slashed her repeatedly with a fucking large knife.
    “Who did this to you?” Tor asked before he could stop
himself.
    Marnie lowered her skirt and sleeve. “Can you make them
pretty?”
    Shaken, he nodded. “Let me show you what I can do.” Tor
hauled two binders off the table, handing one to Marnie and putting the other
on the chair next to her.
    “If you don’t see anything in there you like,” he said, “I
have three more binders.” He gestured to the table. “Or I can create a special
design.”
    “How much more would one of those cost?”
    “Nothing. Comes with the price of the service.” Not true but
Tor wasn’t about to argue money with her. He suddenly understood her caution
the first day when their eyes had met and her reserved behavior now. Either an
attack from a rapist had left her wary of men or an ex-boyfriend, possibly an
ex-husband, had done his number on her.
    Damn. Had the prick gone to jail? Was he still there?
    “You did these?” she asked.
    “What? I mean, yeah. The pretty ones are toward the back,
including those where I inked over scars.”
    As though she were reluctant to get to those photos, Marnie
paged through the unconventional designs first. She made a face at a cobra Tor
had inked on a man’s arm. The reptile’s fangs were exposed, portions of its body
appearing elevated above the guy’s skin. She bit her lip at the image of a
large hook seeming to run through a man’s calf, pulling up his skin. Another photo
showed a large zipper he’d inked on a guy’s shoulder, the unzipped part
exposing bloody muscular tissue beneath. One woman had him design an eyeball on
her chest, the skin around the orb pulled back by hooks, creating a gory look.
    Marnie chuckled at the shot of a guy’s feet Tor had inked to
look as if the man were wearing blue tennis shoes. The next photos showed a
series of large eyes he’d created on men’s biceps, the images frighteningly
real in appearance. One of his designs even had a woman’s face in the iris as
though the eyeball had reflected her features.