The Harder He Falls: 2 (So Inked) Read Online Free PDF

his gaze caressing her, a constant reminder of his interest, and she couldn’t reciprocate. It wasn’t fair, but that was how it was.
    “How many people do you see in here with kanji that doesn’t mean what they think it does?”
    Kellie chuckled. “Considering I can’t read Japanese, fuck if I know. I’m not Japanese, I’m Korean.”
    “Oh shit, sorry.” He had the grace to appear abashed by the assumption.
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “So uh, a Korean chick doing Japanese tattoos?”
    “How many people do you hear asking for a Korean tattoo?”
    He paused before shrugging as she got more ink on the needle. “None.”
    “Exactly. A lot of the Asian imagery is similar enough I can do something stylistic, but the Japanese style is where I earn my money. It’s all tattooing to me—Japanese, American, Chinese, Korean—who cares?” She’d never seen the point in turning her nose up at excelling at another culture’s art. Just because people wanted a Japanese dragon or geisha, she wasn’t going to turn them down. “Outline’s done. Do you want to look at it?” She squirted a sanitary liquid called green soap onto a rag and cleaned off his arm. The skin around the lines flared an angry red. He was tan enough she was going to have to get creative about her use of color to make the end result really pop, but she could do it.
    He twisted his arm this way and that, surveying her handiwork. Instead of getting up and going to the mirror, he relaxed back into the chair and gave her a wink. “Looking good, doll.”
    She gritted her teeth and mentally scrubbed away any thoughts of him being anything other than annoying. She dipped the needle in the ink and took a deep breath. Her grouchiness knew no bounds today.
    Before she could start shading the piece, Quin’s phone rang.
    “Hello?” His lips set into a hard line and a vein on his forehead slowly rose to prominence as he listened.
    Kellie rolled back and picked up a bottle of water she’d left on the counter. She needed to watch how she handled clients. Quin clearly had patience or else he’d have walked out of the shop. Her talent was worth only so much. She made the painful choice to knock a little off what she would charge him. He wasn’t a bad guy, hell, he’d even offered her support in the Autumn mess and he’d really only flirted with her. She should be flattered, not pissed off.
    Every few moments Quin grunted a “Huh,” or uttered, “All right.” After a few moments he hung up, a dark scowl pulling on his features. “I’m going to have to come back later. Something’s come up.”
    The quiet anger rolling off him was palpable. Quin was a man she never wanted to see angry. An intangible yet deadly quality cloaked him. If Kellie had met him on the street at night in this mood, she would get away from him in all haste.
    “Let me bandage you up.” She made quick work cleaning up the tattoo, slathering it with ointment and wrapping his entire arm in plastic wrap, then taped it in place with medical tape. “I have your number on the paperwork, and I’ll get you a business card on the way out so you can call and make an appointment when you’re ready.”
    “Thanks,” he said in a clipped voice.
    As suddenly as he’d swept into the shop, Quin left without a backward glance. She sat in her chair, watching him disappear through the glass window front, a strange feeling of loss settling in the pit of her stomach.
    “You get all the beefcake,” Mary said.
    Kellie wheeled around, a hand flying to her chest. “Fuck, warn a girl before you scare the shit out of her.” Mary quirked a brow at her and kicked her legs. How long she’d been sitting on the table behind her, Kellie didn’t know.
    “Sorry. Who’s your new boyfriend?”
    She would have glared at Mary, but her friend was impervious to such expressions. Mary had a teenager after all. “No one special.”
    “He looks like your type.”
    “Boneheaded idiots are my type?” she