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Disclaimer–I don't own anyone you might recognize from this story. They're their own property. Most of the characters are based on real characters, just the names have been changed to protect the guilty. I also don' t own any song lyrics or anything else I may quote.

Note–Sorry this is a short chapter, stay tuned next week.

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Jesus. Tee sure did have a long memory for random things.

See, a couple years ago her best friend, Misti, developed an insane crush on Jeff Hardy and strong-armed me into watching the Hardy Show. Tee and I had already been wrestling fans for years, so we checked it out. Sure enough, I'd developed a small thing for the Reject. Nothing to compete with Misti's obsession, but I'd still been curious. I'd kept up, too. The internet was a wonderful thing. Add in my love of tattoos and the always present desire for another, and apparently it got me kidnaped and delivered to him.

Anyway, only a few seconds passed before he cocked his head and looked at me questioningly.

"I've never had anyone brought in here quite like that." he said, grinning. Tee piped up from behind me.

"It's an enforced vacation and birthday present. Thanks for all your help with this," she said, finally walking up beside me. The bitch had so set me up. I finally found my tongue and extended my hand.

"Daere Asher." see, even I remembered my name and my manners. His look got more confused.

"Dare?" he asked, making my name a question.

"D-a-e-r-e, but it's pronounced the same. It's Welsh."

"Oh, cool. That's definitely an unusual name. Daere. I like it." Even his voice was sexy. Especially when he was saying my name. He still had ahold of my hand, as a matter of fact.

"C'mon, I'll show you what we've came up with, and if you like it, we'll get started." he said, leading me further into the shop. I gave Tee an evil look and she just smile and got that fake-innocent look that meant I was probably in serious trouble.

However, I forgot any malice when Shannon unfolded the sheet of drawing paper with my design on it. All of my tattoos have been originals, and this one would be no different. My favorite pseudo-brother had drawn out the original idea for me, but the final product took my breath as I studied it.

The design was a complicated, intricate series of scrolling, interwoven lines surrounding a quote. However, that does not even do it justice. The lines themselves were red in the center, shading out to black at the edges and the words, in an equally intricate script, were black and backlit by what looked like a red glow. It was going to look absolutely perfect on my right side, covering it from just below my breast to my hip. I just stared at it for a few minutes, awed. Shannon finally nudged me.

"You like it?" he asked

"I love it. It's actually even more perfect than the idea in my head. Wow." I said, smiling.

"Perfect, you want that on your ribs, right?" he asked. My smile got even wider.

"Yeah"

"You know that's gonna hurt like a sonofbitch, right? And it's going to take a while, if you do it all at once," he said. Aw, he was warning me.

"I know," I said, "If possible, I want to get it all done at once. I know that's a long sitting, but I have no idea when the next time would be I could get away to get it finished and it would drive me crazy if it wasn't."

"Ok, then. Just so you know, I've never seen anyone who could take a rib tattoo this big in one session."

"I can take it, don't worry." I was looking forward to it, actually. Then another though occurred to me. Last I'd heard, he'd been apprenticing to tattoo, and that had been a while. Shit. I didn't know if I could handle hours of him tattooing me. And touching me.

And to add insult to injury, Tee abandoned me. Her phone had rang, and when she came back inside from her conversation, she'd calmly informed me that Misti and Heather were almost there and she was going to go meet them for lunch and shopping. I know my mouth dropped open when she told me. Shannon was across the room, making the transfer for my tattoo.

"You're in good hands," she'd said. I'd reminded her that she had also shanghaied my phone and I had no way of letting her know when I was done. She'd walked over to Shannon and held my red Blackberry out to him. He'd looked at her like she was crazy. She'd told him to keep it away from me and only let me call her from it when we were through. He'd just grinned and stuck it in his back pocket. Like I said, she's an evil bitch.

Sure enough, twenty or so minutes later, I found myself trying to hold my pants up and my shirt out of the way as he placed the stencil on my side. My tank kept slipping down and I was getting frustrated. He was seated in a chair, obviously trying not to laugh at me. Dammit, I was trying to be modest for once in my life. Then, the damn shirt slipped down again and I almost lost my grip on my pants. I swore. He was biting his lip. Fuck it.

"Oh, fuck it." I said, echoing my thoughts.

"Hold on a second." I yanked the damn shirt off, leaving me in nothing but my black bra. Thankfully, the shop was almost empty. He'd stopped trying to place the transfer and sat there, gloved hands resting on his thighs, watching me struggle with my clothes. He was watching my face, not my chest. I was impressed.

"I was wondering when you were going to do that. I was gonna ask, actually, cuz I don't want to get ink on a white shirt. From experience, I know it doesn't come out." He'd turned his had backwards and it looked good.

He rolled closer and finally placed the transfer on my wet skin and smoothed it down. When he pulled it away, a perfect blue outline remained on my skin, perfectly positioned.

I nodded.

"Looks good." I said, turning away to boost myself up on the chair.

"That's pretty sweet." he said as I stretched myself out and got comfortable. I was going to be there a while.

"What is?" I asked, not knowing what he was talking about.

"Your back. Who did it?" Duh. I hadn't exactly been thinking about my back piece. I had to admit, it was sweet, covering my upper back from shoulder to shoulder. I'd started out with two Coop pin-up girls, one on each shoulder and then added a set of crossed pistols in between them.

"Thanks. Brent Black usually does my stuff. He's from Florida."

"I've heard of him. Works at that place up in Tennessee, don't he?"

"Yep. He's always been great to me. I let him do my leg band and was so impressed I went back to him." He nodded in response, finished setting up. He looked up at me.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Yeah." I replied, grinning.

I laid my head back on my arm and closed my eyes as he etched the first line and the familiar, burning pain flowed over me, washing goose bumps over my skin. I must have made an involuntary sound because he stopped and looked up at me questioningly.

Well, shit. I was gonna have to explain it to him.