“Lex.” She said, putting her hand on my arm and stopping me before I made it out of the room. Instantly I flashed back to my dream and the way her hands felt on my tits. “Thank you for inviting me to be a part of today.” She stared up at me with that pureness in her eyes. “This is the kind of thing that sets you apart from the rest.”
I shook it off because I wasn’t doing anything special. I was doing a piece that was special to my client, just like all the others. But I understood how it was important to a lot of other people, so I just nodded and led her to the reception desk.
Chapter 6 – Hannah
“Is he asleep?” I whispered, leaning over Lex’s shoulder as she bent her head nearly upside down to tattoo the inside elbow of her client, Jack Potter.
“Probably.” She whispered back, sitting up straight and stretching her neck and shoulders out. “He’s slept through other appointments with me.”
“Wild.” I shook my head, backing up to give her space as she turned her head the other way, trying to stretch it further. “Can I get you anything?” I asked quietly.
“A sip of my water would be divine.” She pointed over to her desk where her bottle of water sat. She hadn’t taken a break in hours, working on the tribute piece to K-9 Arlo without stopping while his handler snoozed on and off. He was no doubt still dealing with the fallout of Arlo’s passing and something told me he didn’t find peace often, so neither of us could bring ourselves to disturb him.
I grabbed the mug and went to hand it to her, but realized that she couldn’t take it with her sterile gloves on. “Oh, here.” I tilted it to her and held her straw out.
I’m not exactly sure why, but as she leaned over and wrapped her bright red painted lips around the tip of the silicone straw, I had incredibly indecent images running through my head. She wasn’t doing anything particularly sexual; it was just that natural sensuality to her that made it look seductive and alluring.
Standing next to her also gave me the opportunity to be taller than her, when her warm brown eyes fluttered up at me, with her lips still on the straw, I finally understood why men loved when women looked at them during oral sex.
Like I really got it.
“Thanks.” She sighed, leaning back and licking her lips. “Keep it up, and I’ll make you stay with me for every appointment.” She joked.
“Hmm.” I hummed, overwhelmed with something akin to arousal warming my body.
Jesus, what would the guys say if they knew a woman as alpha as Lex turned me on? Would they truly be shocked by it?
It was one thing for me to be taken seriously in a polyamorous relationship with two men. But add in the fact that for months now I’d been battling random intrusive thoughts leading me to believe I could be bisexual too. God, what would my father say?
“You okay over there?” Lex’s velvet voice brought me back to the present, and I snapped out of my stupor, setting her bottle down on the desk and turning back to her.
“Yeah. Sorry.” I smiled. “Lost in thought.”
“What about?” She asked, focused on her work.
“Uh—” I wracked my brain for an answer that didn’t include, oh, just imagining what it would look like to see you looking up at my boyfriends with your bright red lips wrapped around their cocks as you gave them blow jobs. Or, how freaking hot that idea made me. “The layout for the pictures of this project.” I lied.
“Does your art play out in your mind like mine does?” She asked, bending around Jack’s arm again and getting the work done that was necessary. “Is it like a movie?”
“Yeah,” I rubbed my hands down my pants and sat back down in my chair, “I can feel the flow of the article and the images mentally long before I even write a word down.”
“I think all mediums of art are so cool. I love how different they all are, yet the end goal is always the same. Expression.”
“I’ll be honest, some pieces are more enjoyable than others,” I joked, “They put me in the obituary section when I first started and that kind of sucked.”
She grimaced, glancing over at me. “That sounds brutal.”
“The worst.” I shrugged, “But everyone has to start somewhere.”
“True. I started in my dad’s shop, sweeping floors and running across the street for cheeseburgers.” She laughed. “Looking back, I still believe I learned the most in those years because I learned about the business and the art.”
“That’s fundamental. Have you ever thought about opening your own shop?”
She scoffed lightly and then froze when Jack snorted, “Lex is a lot of things, but organized isn’t one of them.”
“Hey.” Lex cried, sitting up and pulling her hands free of the man. “I thought you were sleeping.”
“Impossible with your heavy hand.” He cracked one eye open and smirked, giving himself away to his lie.
“Anyway.” Lex rolled her eyes and looked over at me. “He’s right, I can’t imagine keeping all the moving parts of a business in line and running smoothly. I manage a lot around here, but Dallin’s mind is always working at hyper speed.” She shuddered, “It’s exhausting just thinking about it.”
“I feel that in my soul.” I relaxed back into my seat, “My boyfriends own a garage, and they primarily work on custom design jobs, and I used to run the books and do the admin stuff when they first opened and my brain literally melted by the end of the day.” I paused when I noticed Lex and Jack both stared at me, silently just blinking for a moment. “What?”
“Did she say boyfriends?” Jack raised one bushy brow as he leaned toward Lex like they were having a private conversation.
“They, to be exact.” Lex added with a wicked smirk on her face. “And now it all makes sense.”
“What does?” I scowled suddenly on edge.
Lex shook her head and then turned back to Jack’s arm. “You’re all done.” She cocked her head, looking down at it. “I think it’s my favorite piece that I’ve done to date.”
“You say that to all the boys.” Jack pursed his lips, joking as he got out of the chair and went to the mirror.
But I knew without a doubt that she was telling the truth, because the piece was so moving and meaningful. There was a large portrait of Arlo, dead center of Jack’s upper arm, and the detail was insane, right down to the reflective light in his eyes from the flash of the camera taking the picture. Then, all around the centerpiece, from his shoulder to his wrist, on all sides of his arm, there were pieces of his life and journey as a police K-9.
Pictures of him as a pup, dragging a toy twice his size. One of him laying upside down sleeping in the middle of a bed. There was one of him riding in a motorcycle sidecar with doggie goggles on and Jack driving, and one of him licking an ice cream cone out of a little boy’s hands as he giggled and grinned back at the pup. Then there was the police badge for his department with a significant black band across the center, symbolizing the loss of an officer. The dates of his first night of duty and his end of watch date, also the date of his death.
“I’m at a loss for words, Lex.” Jack blinked rapidly to keep the moisture in his eyes at bay. “There’s never been a more beautiful tribute to all the different roles Arlo had in his life. He was so much more than just an officer and you really captured that. I’ll cherish this for the rest of my life.”
