Hot Ink (Paranormal Erotic Romance): Book I (A Walsh Jackson Novel 1) Read online

  Hot Ink

  A Walsh Jackson Novel

  Book I

  By L.E. Joyce

  Copyright 2014 by L.E. Joyce

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author(s).

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues in this book are from the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, including ex-boyfriends, is completely coincidental.

  Published by Midnight Heat Books, http://www.midnightheatbooks.com

  Edited by Jodi Sh. Doff, [email protected]

  Cover by Mind Fire Creative, [email protected]

  Warning: This title contains explicit sexual encounters between consenting adults. It is intended for 18+ audiences. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

  About Hot Ink

  When troubled tattoo artist, Walsh Jackson, finds himself the prime suspect in the gruesome double murder of his ex-wife and shop rival Bob Grim, he sets out to clear his own name. He follows a trail of dead tattoo artists to the underbelly of the Hungarian mafia, and they want one thing from him: The exact location he found the vial of ink he wears around his neck. They tell Walsh that tattoo artists will continue to die if he doesn't take them to the source. But Walsh can't take them, he can't tell them anything about the vial. Wherever it came from, Walsh knows one thing for certain: the vial of ink comes from the part of his life he can't remember. Alone and out of options, he turns to FBI Special Agent Bridget Ash, lead investigator of the tattoo parlor deaths, and a hot one-night stand he was hoping to run into again. Blonde, long-legged, and aloof, Walsh can't keep his mind off her, but something gnaws at him, telling him she may not be what she seems.

  Excerpt

  Walsh's cock throbbed. The way she said it, then kiss me, burned through him. Without hesitation, he grabbed her around the waist and yanked their bodies together. He crushed his lips against hers and breathed in her scent. He hungrily explored her nakedness until his hands found purchase around her smooth, tight ass. He squeezed and she let out a long, heavy sigh, encouraging him. She gasped between short darts of tongue, teasing him with her mouth. Her hand then slid from his chest to rest on his crotch. She stroked him outside his jeans, taking in his shape and size. He moaned in her ear as she shoved her hand inside his jeans and pumped his length. If she kept that up, she was going to undo him before too long, and that wouldn’t have made a good first impression, he was sure of it.

  “Let’s go my office,” he whispered.

  Her hand stopped. She backed up until her naked ass touched the tattoo chair. “This will do fine,” she said as a sultry smile washed across her face. Her silky blonde hair hung tasseled, falling just below her ample breasts, and it drove him wild.

  “My lucky day.” Walsh undid his jeans and stepped out of the denim heap that slid to the floor. He then gathered that long hair of hers in a loose grip at the back of her head. She sighed with approval. His other hand trailed down her breasts. He squeezed one nipple, then the other, both responding to his touch. His hand then slid down her flat navel until he reached the moistened folds between her legs. He found her most sensitive spot with ease and massaged it with soft circles. She moaned and hissed with pleasure. He watched her beautiful face as she writhed against his hard working fingers. Then decidedly, as if taking control, she smacked his hand away.

  “Not yet,” she said.

  She backed him up, and spun around so that he was now leaning against the chair. She then fell to her knees.

  She licked his swollen head and a deep gasp filled the air. She looked up at him and smiled before she drank the entire length of his throbbing shaft. She plunged her head deep on to his cock. One. Two. Three, he counted. So deep that Walsh feared for her. She released him and teased the swollen head before stroking him, like a piston, with her eager mouth.

  “Feel so good,” he hissed.

  Bridget stood, her green eyes boring into him: raw, hot, and very much in control. “Tell me,” she said, and took to her knees again. One hand rested on his rock hard abs while the other stroked his cock. “Tell me how it feels, Walsh.”

  He gathered her hair in his fist and watched as his cock slowly disappeared into her hot mouth. “Watching you suck me off,” Walsh said, throaty and low-pitched. “It makes me want to knock the bottom out of you.”

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  Contents

  Hot Ink: A Walsh Jackson Novel Book I

  About the Author

  Other Works by L.E. Joyce

  More from Midnight Heat Books

  Hot Ink

  One

  If Walsh Jackson hadn’t walked into Zeek’s Bar and started a fight with Bob Grim, he would have missed the girl in the pencil skirt and stiletto heels standing outside his tattoo shop.

  He hadn’t wanted to hit Grim. It wasn’t his fault that Walsh’s wife was now Grim’s; Walsh had fucked that up all on his own. But salt gets thrown on old wounds when there’s whisky involved, or so it goes when Walsh and Grim throw down in the same bar. Grim threw the first punch, and Walsh the last. Now his hand needed the fifth of Jack he kept in his shop office just for emergencies like these. Even though he had already sobered up, getting drunk all over again was the best idea he had all night. There would be no going home to a cold bed. Walsh didn’t want to remember that Grim had everything that used to be his: a kick ass house and a gorgeous wife who loved him.

  As Walsh rounded the corner to his shop, INK, he saw her–slim, long legged and blonde–the trifecta of his tastes. She wore a blue skirt suit and a thin white blouse untucked and lightly fluttering in the heavy Miami summer air. She looked end-of-the-day disheveled, but in an intensely classic way. Looking at her Walsh knew one thing for certain: it was too late for a girl like that to be outside in a neighborhood like this. Nobody was safe in Richmond Heights after dark.

  Walsh approached slowly. He didn’t want to startle her, yet something told him that this girl wouldn’t scare easily. As he drew near, he saw on her face a frayed sadness as if she was fighting hard to keep something at bay. Her eyes burned on a sketch in the front window, one of his own–The Blue Woman–as Walsh affectionately named it. The girl in the suit stared at it in the same inquisitive manner as he often did himself.

  What was it about this sketch? Was it the woman’s dark hair flowing in the invisible breeze? Was it how the pale moon shined down and made her black hair seem blue? Was it the way her sheer white gown billowed in waves? Was it the two swords she crossed at her chest? Or was it the blindfold, and the way in which a slight smile creased her lips telling the viewer how much she liked it. Walsh believed that when he could answer these questions, he would finally find a way to stop drawing The Blue Woman. He would finally stop seeing her every night in his dr
eams and every day in his waking world, and everything he didn’t know, like the life before he was found naked in this sweltering city with no memory of who he was or how he got there, would be revealed.

  The blonde standing at the window of Walsh’s shop looked at the sketch so intently that she didn’t hear him behind her.

  “She’s something, isn’t she?” he said.

  The blonde jumped and turned around, and that’s when he saw how truly beautiful she was. Bright green eyes, milky skin, and lips he wanted to sink into. But there was something else. There was the same sadness he saw from afar, but up close, he could see a desperation, an eagerness to live outside one’s own skin.

  “What?” she asked.

  Walsh collected himself. “The sketch,” he said.

  The girl glanced back to it. “Yes. It’s really amazing. Can you tattoo it on my back?”

  This shocked Walsh; the girl didn’t look the tattoo type.

  “I could pay you double if you do it,” she said as if sensing his hesitation.

  “This tats not for sale,” he said flatly. He did not elaborate. He did not tell her that he had already tried on several occasions to ink it but failed. It was if The Blue Woman somehow wouldn’t allow it.

  “What about something like this then?” she said, and handed Walsh a sketch she clutched in her hand.

  Walsh unfolded the paper and found cascading thorns and thickets and vines.

  “Can you do it?” she asked with a hint of strain in her voice.

  He inspected the design. “No color, soft lines. Sure, I can do it. No problem.” Walsh fished his keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door of his shop. “Come on in and we’ll set you an appointment.”

  The girl stood fixed on her spot. “Triple if you do it right now,” she said.

  “It’s 1:00AM. My shop’s closed, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart,” she warned.

  “Sorry, you didn’t tell me your name. Usually when a woman offers me money, I at least know her name.”

  “My name is Bridget,” she said, “and I’ll pay three times your normal rate if you do this tattoo for me right now.”

  Walsh never sweated over a customer walking out of his shop before. This one–he didn’t want to let her go. He could tell that this girl wasn’t messing around. She could walk away and find an artist to do it for her at this time of night, no problem. He thought of Bob Grim and how he probably went straight to his tattoo shop across town instead of heading home to Gina. Walsh didn’t want to give Grim the chance to snake yet another woman away. He quickly surveyed his right hand, deciding the fifth of Jack would have to wait a little while longer.

  “All right, Bridget,” he said. “Let’s talk more inside.”

  As Bridget cross the threshold of the shop, Walsh could see a sudden moment of anxiety pass over her.

  “You’re not right-handed are you?” she asked, as if suddenly worried that her decision to buy off a tattoo artist in the middle of the night was the worst thing she had done in her life.

  “No,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Her stilettos clicked along the wooden floorboards as she followed him inside.

  “My name’s Walsh,” he said turning on a few lights. “Walsh Jackson. Have a seat on the couch and we’ll go over the paperwork before we get started.”

  “Paperwork?” she asked.

  Walsh could hear the tension in her voice. She did not sit down.

  “Yes. Paperwork. Consent forms, ID check, etcetera.”

  “I don’t have any ID on me,” she said.

  Walsh could tell she was lying. The way she carried herself, like a deer about to flee, told him that she would dart if he pressed further.

  “I’d prefer to keep this below ground,” she said. “Isn’t that worth the triple price?”

  Walsh eyed her. “Fine. But you need to at least sign the consent. I don’t want you waking up tomorrow with buyer’s remorse and sue me.”

  “It’s a deal,” she said. “Turn around.”

  Walsh turned, and Bridget used his back to quickly fill out the form. He inhaled her scent–lavender and rosemary with a hint of Chanel, his favorite. Walsh felt the crotch of his jeans stretch against him.

  “Where do I change?” she asked.

  Walsh pointed to the hallway leading to the back of the shop. “Back there, second door on the right. Take everything off and put on the robe.”

  “Everything?” she asked. “I just want my back done.”

  “If you want your pretty blue skirt ruined, then leave it on.”

  Walsh tracked Bridget as she walked to the changing room, hips swaying with authority. “Damn,” he whispered, as his thoughts turned to what she was wearing underneath that business chic suit of hers.

  Two

  Bridget emerged from the dressing room more confused than when she happened upon INK in the middle of the night. Why was she here? What had driven her to leave the FBI field office at midnight and roam Richmond Heights, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Miami, alone? She didn’t even have her badge and gun on her, and that wasn’t like her. Yet something told her that she could trust Walsh; she didn’t need to run his name through the bureau’s database to know that. He seemed removed, yet had a strange sweetness about him. And boy did she like the way he looked: six feet tall, muscles that went on and on, and ruby red hair–her favorite. She always had a soft spot for the gingers. He was covered in tattoos, the exact opposite of her type, but had a kindness to him and an unsettledness she could see in his eyes.

  “Where do you want me?” she asked.

  Walsh pointed to the chair. Bridget noticed how he took her in, scanning the length of her with his eyes, and she felt warmness spread between her legs. She liked the way he looked at her.

  “Here,” he said, pointing to what looked like belonged in a dentist’s office.

  Bridget sat down, and the coolness of the leather made her nipples peak. She noticed how Walsh tried not to look.

  With foot controls under the chair, he lowered her horizontal. “Turn over, please,” he said with professionalism.

  Bridget turned onto her stomach. She felt Walsh slide the robe away from her shoulders, letting it rest along her waistline. He adjusted the overhead light so that it was away from her face. Then he spoke to her.

  “This is an intricate design. It will be best to handle it in chunks starting with the small of the back and branching upward. How does that sound?”

  She could feel his hot breath over her skin. “Sounds fine.”

  “Good.”

  She heard the slap of latex and felt him place a gloved hand between her shoulder blades. His other hand held the tattoo gun to her flesh. She exhaled a nervous breath when he turned it on and a humming buzz filled her ears.

  “This is going to hurt a bit. Breathe through it, OK?”

  “Fine. Come on. Let’s go.” Bridget could have done without all the handholding. Of course she knew that it was going to hurt. That was why she was here; she wanted to feel something, anything. Emptiness didn’t suit her. She hated it, and no matter how she tried to fill it, with booze, or running, or work, her insides remained hollow.

  With the needle piercing her skin, Walsh got to work. She gasped as the pain hit her like a hundred bee stings at once, and held her breath and waited for it to abate.

  “Don’t hold your breath. Breathe through it, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Walsh laughed.

  “Something funny?” she asked.

  “If you’re mad, you can’t hold your breath, right?”

  Bridget nodded. He was right to trick her because she wouldn’t have listened to him otherwise. She breathed deep, in through her nose and out through her mouth, just like in all those pricey yoga classes that didn’t work.

  “That’s it. Good.” Walsh’s voice trailed off in concentration. “Keep breathing.”

  Time slowed
. Walsh wiped his brow more than once. Tiny stings from the gun pierced her skin over and over. Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, the gun broke contact and Walsh ventured on to a new patch of flesh.

  “Doing OK?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  She found his voice soothing and distracting from the pain. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and saw the thin vial he wore on a leather string around his neck sway with his movements.

  “Can you keep talking to me? It takes my mind off of it.”

  “Sure,” Walsh said. “What should I talk about?”

  “How long have you had this shop?” she asked through clenched teeth.

  “About six years.”

  “And what did you do before this?”

  “That’s a tough question, one I’d rather not go into right now.”

  “You were in jail, weren’t you? Please don’t tell me you were in jail for murdering girls in blue skirts.”

  He laughed, and shook his head playfully. “No,” he said. “At least I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so? That’s not very encouraging.”

  A sharp line of heat went from the small of her back to her right side. “Ow!” she cried.

  “Sorry. That was the bottom of the vine. Keep breathing,” he said. “Here comes another one. Ready?”

  “No. I mean, yes.” Bridget braced herself as the gun scorched her skin. And then it stopped; the pain, the buzzing, the burning, all of it ceased.

  “Wanna see it?” Walsh asked.

  “You’re finished already?” Bridget asked.

  “The first part, yes.”

  He eased the robe back over her shoulders and helped her sit up. He got behind her and waited until she lifted the fabric to expose the small of her back. He then held a large oval mirror so that she could examine his handy-work.