Surrender of a Tattooist: Obsessive Dark Romance Alpha Bad Boy (Tattooist Series Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

courtly, and it hit her just how hard she could fall for him.
    And that was utterly dangerous.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    Pixie finally managed to speak after they walked through the bird sanctuary and rescue buildings. “That was the best thing I’ve gotten to see in years.”
    Cliff smiled down at her as they headed to the car. “I’m glad you liked it.”
    “I loved it!” Her feet danced along the grass and hard-packed earth, and she clapped her hands together. “Thank you so much, so very much!” Her face was alight with her joy and her spirits were higher than they had been in a very long time. Cliff had given her something nobody else ever had and she was ecstatic over it. She was giddy with excitement and didn’t care. This high was better than any alcohol binge or probably any drug could ever give. She wouldn’t know, as she’d never tried one.
    They climbed into the car and started back down the mountain. She turned in her seat so she could watch him drive. The sunlight drifted through the trees, haloing his face, and his slender, capable hands rested on the gearshift and steering wheel; she flushed as she wondered what those hands would feel like on her body.
    She drew breath. She’d avoided dating for a long time, choosing to try to work out the baggage left behind by her ex before trying to make something work with someone else, and she knew she had not yet recovered much of the self-esteem she’d lost in that relationship.
    It was pretty ironic, her avoiding dating, especially given that she had all but thrown Joy at Hawk and insisted that Joy needed to get back out there.
    But Joy’s breakup, while hurtful, had been vastly different from the one she had gone through.
    James had shattered her ever-fragile confidence to a degree she had never known it could be. With his actions and words, he had reduced her to the plain geeky girl who was the target of schoolyard bullies, and she’d had to fight really hard to get herself back together after that.
    Cliff spoke, bringing her back to the present, “So tell me about you, Pixie.”
    She blinked, “What’s there to tell? I work as a vet assistant sometimes and at a nail salon sometimes. I get fired a lot.”
    He chuckled and said, “Do tell. Why do you get fired a lot?”
    She shrugged. “Well, it depends. I got fired from a waitressing job a few weeks ago because this guy came in, and first he ordered a rib plate and fries…”
    “You didn’t tell him how pigs are killed for food, did you?”
    She shook her head. “No. But I should have. Basically I took him his plate, and he ate the ribs then said they were tough and wanted a different rack. I took them back to the kitchen, and got cussed out by the cooks who said I should have brought it back quicker. Never mind he didn’t complain quicker. I got his new plate and took it back, then he said the fries were cold and he sent them back. Now, mind you, he had eaten about half of them before he complained about the ribs, again.”
    “Oh shit,” Cliff said, “I know that type. We used to get them into the store back when we still had the lunch counter. They just want free food.”
    Pixie was grateful he got it. “Exactly. Only at that place, if the food keeps going back, the server and the cook get docked. So when he told me about the fries, I went to the manager, who cursed me out for taking the plate with the fries on it instead of just bringing out new ribs.”
    “That’s not very fair.”
    It wasn’t, and it had been that injustice that had fueled her next move. “Exactly. So I went back to his table. He’d eaten all the fries by then, and most of the new ribs. I told him he wasn’t getting anything else. He started yelling, and so I sort of lost my temper and told him he was probably going to die from eating so much pork and that pork’s known to have parasites…and then the couple next to him freaked out because they thought I said the pork at the restaurant had parasites