LITMIR.BIZ

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hell? Tell me you didn’t mess it up. Am I going to have a crooked line on my back for the rest of my life?”

      “I, um… No.” She bit her lip and backed up until she felt the solid metal of the filing cabinet behind her.

      “Talk, Lissa.” The low growl wasn’t menacing so much as it was commanding, making parts of her tingle that absolutely, under no circumstances, should ever tingle when she was around Jackson. Especially since his voice was coming from thin air—or what appeared to be thin air. Holy crap!

      “I’m not even sure where to start.” She fidgeted with the star ruby ring on her middle finger. He was not going to be happy. Not at all.

      “The beginning is good.”

      How do you tell someone you can’t see them? Sure, she had plenty of experience giving men the brush-off, but this was a whole different level of not seeing. “I’ll be right back.” And she ran to her office, hyperventilating all the way.

      “I’ll be waiting,” he bellowed from the next room. Impatient man.

      After grabbing her worry stone from a bowl on the tiny desk in her office, she headed back into the room, feeling more centered with the stone in one hand and a towel in the other. She could do this. She could tell him she’d accidentally tapped into a latent ability of his they hadn’t known about before, one that she hadn’t detected in his aura.

      He was going to be incredibly pissed.

      “So?” he asked before she had fully made it through the doorway.

      “Don’t be so grumpy.”

      “You swear and then walk out of here without an explanation after poking me God knows how many times with a needle…and I’m not supposed to be grumpy?”

      “Look, you knew poking was part of the process.” Even if she couldn’t see him, she knew he could still see her, so she thrust her hands onto her hips. “And I’m being as gentle as possible.”

      “All beside the point. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

      “I wish you’d stop yelling.” And perhaps reappear. Holy crap! She turned away and put her hand into her pocket, sighing with relief when her hand closed around the worry stone.

      “I’ll stop yelling once you start talking. Now speak.”

      “I’m not a dog, Jackson.”

      “Right. Just tell me already. It’s not such a big deal if you made a mistake. You can fix it. Right?”

      “I did not make a mistake. I’m very proud of all the work I do. Have I ever made a mistake?” Dead silence. She harrumphed. “On a tattoo?”

      “No, but there’s a first time for everything.”

      “Well, this is not it.” She fiddled with the stone again. “It wasn’t a mistake, but you’re not going to be happy.”

      “I’m not happy now, so out with it.”

      “It looks like you have a power after all.” Like ripping off a bandage, it was better to just blurt it out.

      “I what?” The growl was back and this one was kind of menacing, especially since she couldn’t see his face or his body language.

      “You have, um, a power. Something happened when I put the tattoo on you and you have a power.”

      “What exactly happened?”

      Clearing her throat didn’t help this time, so she just came out and said it. “You blinked out. I can’t see you.”

      “Come again?”

      Plopping down into what she had fondly dubbed the “next victim chair,” she rested her chin on her hand. “When I finished the tattoo, you faded under my hand.”

      “What the hell?”

      “Exactly.”

      She heard him rise from the chair and start pacing, his agitation obvious from the sound.

      “How did this happen?” He stalked around the already small space, making it feel miniscule in the process, even though she couldn’t see him. “Did you do something to me when you started the tattoo? Put some mojo into it that you didn’t tell me about?”

      “Now hold the hell on there, cowboy. I did no such thing! I may have tweaked a natural ability or two, but I haven’t ever done anything major without permission. People come to me for special tattoos all the time, sent through a friend of a friend, and I’ve turned down plenty of them. Why on earth would I change all that for you, you big lug?”

      “No, sorry, you’re right. Sorry.”

      But he didn’t sound sorry as he continued his stalking. He sounded pissed. Far more than she had thought possible.

      “Are you sure you didn’t do this on purpose?”

      “I’m positive. Jeez, I can’t just give out abilities like they’re candy, you know. It doesn’t work that way.” She occupied herself with arranging the things on her tray and tried to quiet the alarming fact that her first tattoo in her new shop had gone anything but well.

      And then she felt his hand cover hers while he used his other one to tip her chin up.

      “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.” He toyed with the star ruby on her finger.

      “Okay.” She removed her hand from his before she got those tingles for a second time. But then she didn’t know where he was until he spoke from the far side of the room.

      “I’m invisible?”

      “You and what you’re wearing. Like that Martian Manhunter guy from those comic books you and Garrett pore over.” She thought she might be sick. She’d enhanced him without even realizing it. What if he had to suffer like Garrett did for his powers? Making someone better at painting or enhancing their ability to spin a good yarn was one thing. An honest to goddess superhuman power manifestation was something else entirely…and she had never wanted to be responsible for another one. She had done the first with Garrett, naively thinking his mother was cool for wanting to enhance his ability to be a warrior. Her own mother had always encouraged her gift, wanting her to be the best she could be when it came to enhancing other people’s talents. So Garrett’s mother had come as a shock to her. She’d had no idea that the woman’s real motive was to turn him into a monster, or she never would have touched him the first time.

      “But he’s green.”

      Despite her morose thoughts, she snickered because of course that was the kind of detail he’d focus on right now. “And you’re not. At least he’s a good guy, right?”

      “Well, shit. I guess so. In the Justice League and all…” He trailed off.

      She had no idea what he was doing and could only guess as to where he was. How could this have happened, anyway? How could she have made such a glaring error? But then she realized she had been praying while doing his tattoo. Damn. And she had not tapped into him just to make absolutely sure she wasn’t messing with anything. Double damn. Two mistakes she knew better than to make.

      She always mentally connected with a person’s energy before tattooing them. She’d avoided several bad situations that way. Once a woman had come in for a tattoo and the hate in her aura had been enough to set Lissa back on her butt. She’d taken extra pains not to enhance it in any way—the last thing the world needed was a hate-addled soul who had the power to turn people to stone with a look.

      And to add a cherry to this sundae full of crap, she knew one thing for sure—Jackson her friend was hard enough to resist, but Jackson the superhero might be more than she could turn away from, especially now that they lived in the same town.

       Chapter Two

      Jackson

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