Seemingly Innocent and Strangely Sexy [Chapter One]

She fell off the bed landing hard on the floor, waking from her nightmare that had seemed so real. Her alarm was buzzing, a resounding ring going off in her head. Standing up to shut it off she stretched, and walked through her dreary apartment. She was the owner of a tattoo parlor in the darker parts of England. She'd opened up Slightly Scandalous--her tattoo parlor-- two years after she'd finished college. She'd graduated with her bachelor’s degree in art. She walked out of her bedroom and down the hall into her bathroom. Turning on the water she thought about her high school years.

She may have been her high schools pep teen queen. She may have dated the schools good boy. But she'd harbored a secret crush for the schools bad boy Daniel Crone, and had a secret talent for art. She remembered on her sixteenth birthday when her and her closest cousin had gone and gotten there first tattoos. She'd wanted one so badly that she'd designed her own. Black angel wings on her back, with intricate designs and patters that filtered through the wings and at the tips in a blood red color. The wings end had wrapped around her waist coming to rest on either side of her belly button. Blood red vines shot out of the ends and circled the rest of her belly button in a spiral. She'd been in love with it from the first sight of its complete piece. Even the guy at the tattoo parlor had been impressed by her drawing. He'd offered her a job on designing pictures, patterns, objects, script, and anything else to be placed on a body. She'd accepted it immediately.

When she'd gone back to school the next week, no one had noticed her tattoo until after cheerleading practice that Friday. When she'd been walking out of the girls’ athletic changing room and was pulling her shirt down. Daniel Crone and some of his friends had been walking behind her when she'd lifted the back of her shirt up to reach an itch on her middle back. They'd been cursing off and on while talking animatedly and had all of a sudden just stopped. When she'd turned her head to look at them they'd stopped dead in their tracks and were just staring at her.

"What?" she'd asked

No one had apparently been able to answer her so she'd turned around and started walking again. Suddenly she'd been lifted off the ground and turned around to face Daniel.

"What's that you got on your back?" He'd asked her

"Oh... um nothing important." she'd answered him, because it hadn't been--to him.

"A first tattoo is a very important thing." one of his friends--maybe Clearance Stanford--had answered.

She'd struggled with an answer trying to come up with something witty, but all that had come out was "Oh... do you want to see it?"

The boys had looked at each other, back at her, and then shrugged. She'd lifted up the back of her shirt and had only been answered with silence. She'd gotten nervous and started babbling, "I know it's sort of cheesy, but I spent three weeks designing it and when brad--the tattoo guy-- started etching it into my body it was too late to change my idea. The wings come around to the front and stop at the edges of my belly button." She'd paused for a breath and then started talking again.

"The tattoo parlor where I work Devilishly Easy is where I got my tattoo. Jane--the owner--said I can start learning how to use the ink and marker tomorrow. I know it may not sound cool but I'm totally excited. Maybe you guys might want to come by and--" she'd faltered when she heard them laughing and turned around to look at them, all her hope falling out of her eyes.

"Do you expect us to believe," Daniel said shaking his head laughing, "That you designed this kick ass tattoo, and that you work at a tattoo parlor. I doubt it. You're the schools princess, you don’t do bad girl stuff. You wear pink and shop at Nordstrom.

Her defenses had gone right back up again and her anger had sputtered to life. "If you don’t believe it fine," She'd begun opening up her backpack intending to show them up. She'd grabbed out her art folder and handed it to Daniel. "If you don't believe me take a look for yourself," She'd childishly thrown the folder at him. It'd hit him in his stomach falling onto the ground and spilling open, exposing all her drawings that had come from her heart. She'd walked down the hall and out the front doors leaving them staring in awe at the drawings that she'd made.

Stepping out of the shower she dried off and pulled on the clothes that she'd chosen for the day. Gray skinny jeans, and her Marilyn Manson eat me drink me shirt. Her thoughts were still straying to that year and she remembered when her drawings had shown up posted all over the school walls with phrases reading 'school princess, doesn't live in fairy land' or 'Does this look ugly because I think it is' She hadn't been able to grasp what had happened. Her drawings had been beautiful to her; she'd poured her heart out into them, her dreams. She just couldn't believe someone could be so cruel.

She'd walked down the hallways hearing people laughing over her shoulder, and speaking in whispers. During gym class she'd been changing and girls had come up behind her pointing at her tattoo like it was some hideous monstrosity. She'd thrown her close on and silently but quickly walked out of the changing room. She would walk past the cafeteria and people would stop talking and just stare.

One day while she'd been walking home she'd gone past the park and Daniel and his gang had been there. All feelings she'd harbored for him had disappeared on sight, only hatred had remained. When Daniel had looked up she'd quickly looked away, but she could hear him saying something to his friends and then heard the crunch of gravel as he'd walked quickly and steadily toward her. She'd sped her pace up but he'd caught her hand and turned her around looking deep into her eyes.

"Jasmine--" he'd started

"Save it," she answered "I don't want to hear what you have to say. You already posted my drawings everywhere, discriminated my talent, made people say my body was ugly for what's drawn on my back, and you expect me to listen to you?" She'd jerked her hand free and begun walking away but he'd run to stand in front of her, making her stop in her tracks.

"It wasn't like that I didn't do--" he'd began

"Right! You didn't do what you did! Lies!" she turned around and started walking away, but he'd yelled "Damn it Jasmine listen to me!" and she'd had to turn around. "I didn't post your drawings, I didn't right those things, and I didn't say those things about your tattoo. God! I think your drawings are beautiful and your tattoo is gorgeous! How can you doubt it? Why did you listen to what people said? I thought you were different, I thought," he'd said taking a step toward her, making her instinctively step back "You wouldn't care what people said." He'd started walking towards her, reached a hand out to her but she'd side stepped him and begun walking forward again.

"I'd thought that about you too. But obviously since you think it's so funny to laugh at me, and then lie to my face... I guess I don't know you at all." She'd walked away from him leaving him standing there staring at her. "Good bye Daniel!" she'd called over her shoulder.

The rest of the school year, she'd changed going from preppy to dark. Changing Skirts and blouses to skinny jeans and Band T-shirts. She'd become reckless, started hanging out with the band and art geeks. Finding something wonderful in a crowd that accepted her. She'd gotten more tattoos and had shown them off to the world not caring this time if anyone saw them, because she was who she was. Daniel had seen them, he'd commented and tried to speak to her but she'd rushed away. Daniel'd tried talking to her for two weeks after she'd told him good bye but she'd ignore him or her new friends would tell him to go away.

When he'd finally given up she'd stopped being skittish around him and instead of feeling nervous around him when they'd had to sit next to each other in free period she'd ignored him completely and lost herself in her drawings. He'd always commented her new ones and she'd always given him silence in return. When the school year had ended she'd shipped herself off to a pristine art school, and had forgotten Daniel Crone completely, forgotten the man that had made her heart race fiercely, and the man who'd broken her heart.

Looking in the bathroom mirror she gaped at the marks on her neck. Not noticing until then how pail she was and how red her hair was. Those marks had never been there. What the hell had bloody bitten her? There were two pin prick marks on the joint of her neck, and from where she stood you could see them as clearly as day.

+++

When Jasmine entered her work that morning she found her best friend from high school Clarissa, and her best friend from college James engrossed in some lively conversation. When they heard the bell chime they turned their smiling faces on her and beamed even brighter engrossing her in the conversation, they'd just been sharing.

She walked over to the cash register and checked the names and times for appointments today. Eying the list her eyes stopped on a familiar name, needing to balance herself. She reminded herself that there could be over one hundred Daniel Crones in England and that this wasn't the same one she'd been thinking about that morning. Well I guess she'd just find out in twenty minutes.

+++

Daniel Crone was hungry. He hadn't gone hunting the night before but that wasn't his fault. Being the Alfa of the pack he'd had to deal with a pack fight, and that had taken all of the night leaving him no time to feed. He couldn't go out this morning because he'd scheduled an appointment at a tattoo parlor Slightly Scandalous the owner his only crush in high school. Jasmine Hunter. God! She probably hated him, and he couldn't blame her. What he'd done to her had made him hate himself. He'd done it thinking that maybe she'd notice him finally, but all he'd been able to do was make her hate him. He hadn't added the nasty sayings to the drawings that had been all Clearance, but he hadn't stopped him like he knew he should have.

He'd made everyone in the school laugh at her. Judge her beautiful tattoo that she'd spent three weeks designing and the thought of her tattoo still made his body pulse. He looked down at the drawings in his hand and knew he shouldn't even bring them, knowing they would stir up old memories, but she needed to get them back.

Feeling the air stir behind him he turned to see Clearance coming up behind him in low cut blue jeans, a black silk color shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of red converse on his feet. Then he looked down at his outfit and sighed. Blue jeans, White V' necked shirt, and a pair of loafers.

"Thinking' about her?" Clearance asked him.

"Yea," he answered honestly "I still hate myself for what we did to her. God! All I'd wanted was for her to notice me. I'd been 230 years old and had just figured out she was my mate and what did I do? I fricken insulted her!"

"We were young," Clearance said "And from what I remember, I think she'd already liked you just was afraid to show it because you were always laughing at her and calling her names." He laughed at a memory "You once called her the ice queen; and she threw a bowl of spaghetti in your face!

"Ha ha, very funny," Daniel said also remembering the memory "Shut up, I'm so nervous I'm about to pea my pants. You coming with?" he asked anxiously

"Most definitely," Clearance answered "I wouldn't miss this shit for the world"

+++

Jasmine lounged behind the counter drawing. She knew she shouldn't be drawing the face that she was drawing, but she couldn't help it. She let the soft led pencil trace the circular shape of his eyes, darkening them slightly. She began to trace his high cheekbones remembering the refined shape of them easily in her mind. She drew his lips into a soft seductive smile, one of the ones he remembered he gave all the girls at the school. She went back to the eyes and drew the pupil, softening the pressure she gave her pencil as she went.

The door opened, and the bell dinged.

She looked up into the eyes she'd been doodling on the paper.

The eyes of Daniel Chrome.

Putting on a sweet smile she said, "Hello what can I do for you today? Other then show you the bloody dammed door?" she murmured the rest under her breath, but she knew by the look on Daniels face, the pain in his eyes that she'd hit the mark.