Inked in the Steel City Series (36 page)

She leaned forward, reaching for him, and pulled him close with her arms wrapped around his waist and her temple against his heart. “Want to take this back to the bedroom?” she asked after a silent minute, “or…” She tucked a thumb into the waistband of his jeans, looking up at him with slightly hazy eyes.

He slipped a hand behind her head, cradling the curve of her skull and sweeping a lock of hair out of her eyes. “I can’t stay.”

She blinked. “You can’t?”

He shook his head. “I’ve got some things I need to do. You’ll see tomorrow.”

“Okay.” She eased back a little. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah.” He’d have to live with the agony of unsatisfied desire for the night, but he couldn’t resist kissing her deeply, giving it a sharper edge. “We’ll do your tattoo as soon as the shop closes tomorrow night, all right? That way we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

She nodded, and he picked up her jeans and panties, handing them to her before leaving. Outside, the night air cooled his skin by a few degrees but did nothing for his aching hard-on.

As he made his way to his car, he dialed Hot Ink’s number. “You’re still there – good,” he said when Eric picked up. The studio was closing – Zoe was probably already gone, and he was lucky he’d caught Eric before he closed up for the night. “Would you mind staying a while longer? I need you to do something for me.”

* * * * *

Karen slipped beneath the sheets, a dull ache present in the pit of her chest, just beside her heart. It sharpened when she thought of Jed, remembering the look in his eyes when he’d thought she was going to relocate her business and life to New York.

How could he have thought that, and how could she not have realized that the possibility had been eating away at him? The thought of him spending lonely nights in the Allegheny West house was triply-saddening when the revelation of his thoughts came into play. And still…

Excitement sizzled and crackled through her when she thought of the next night. The sketch Jed had drawn up for her tattoo was every bit as amazing as he was. She wanted something to remember her grandmother by, something as unfading as the impression Helen had left on her life. The ink would be just that, beauty that would live and die with her.

And she trusted Jed to make it beautiful. That was the other aspect of the tattoo that had her looking forward to the following night – being tattooed by Jed. The idea made her skin tingle and all her internal muscles draw up tight, much as they had an hour ago when she’d been perched on the edge of the kitchen table. Needles still set her teeth on edge, but if she was going to be tattooed – and she was determined to be – it was going to be by Jed.

He’d shown so much concern and selflessness when it came to her future; there was no one she’d trust more to mark her permanently.

* * * * *

Jed settled onto the bed, his right side aching as his left side met the sheets. The physical pain was dull, not enough to distract him from his real purpose in spending the night alone in the Allegheny West house again.

Memories of Alice sailed through the dark and across the surface of his mind, sending ripples and echoes of the past through his consciousness. Then came memories of Karen, and eventually both at once. Was it strange that he could think of Alice and Karen almost at the same time?

They both anchored his thoughts, tying him to memories that ran deep. Alice was like ivy clinging and blossoming in every nook and cranny of his memory; she’d been the center of his existence for over a decade, since he’d started dating her at nineteen, married her at twenty and lost her at thirty.

She was still with him, a presence in his mind, his heart, his skin. She was a part of who he was – how could he have lived out some of the most defining years of his life with her and that not be the case?

Losing her had been like losing a limb. He’d gone on without her – he’d had little choice – but his progression through life had been slowed, often painful and at times downright fucking awkward as he’d struggled to limp forward, always missing that absent part of himself.

There was no recovering a lost limb, and likewise, there was no replacing Alice, and no forgetting her. Which was exactly why he’d figured he’d never be serious with anyone else.

Over the years since Alice’s death, he’d had a few encounters with other women. They’d been short-lived, disappointing and were half-shameful in retrospect. Nothing more than attempts at escape from reality, they’d all failed. After a while, he’d stopped paying attention to any woman who’d seemed interested, stopped giving a damn about anything except Hot Ink.

That, at least, had been a safe harbor for his passion, even after Alice’s death. Hot Ink had been her dream too; they’d started the shop together with just him tattooing and her working reception during every open hour. She’d handled the accounting and many of the day-to-day business matters, and she’d been good at it.

During her dying months, she’d forced him to take little lessons from her, to learn to do it all himself. He clung to those tasks, cherishing the numbers, the tax forms … everything she’d passed down to him, as unromantic as it all was.

Karen was not Alice, and not a replacement for her, by any means. No one could be that; love couldn’t be replicated, and every relationship was unique. Karen and Alice weren’t much alike, anyway. And still, he felt happier with Karen in his life than he’d been since before Alice’s cancer diagnosis.

Being with Karen felt right, like new life had been blown into his lungs. Still, the feeling didn’t dispel the pain of losing Alice. That fact was exactly what gave him confidence in what was growing between him and Karen. Karen wasn’t a crutch, wasn’t a distraction – she was much more than that. She was someone he could love without fooling himself, without abusing his feelings for her like a drug, using them to numb his negative emotions.

Alone in the otherwise empty house with the past and the future laid before him in his head, he let the realization wash over him, easing his mind enough that he noticed the ache in his side again.

* * * * *

“These colors are going to look great against your skin.”

A wave of heat shimmered over the curve of Karen’s shoulder as Jed passed his hand over the area, moistening her skin with cleansing alcohol. She raised her gaze to the wall of his half-booth, where a vase full of stargazer lilies rested. They’d been there when he’d welcomed her into the closed tattoo studio.

“Do you think so?” She’d chosen to have the lilies done in true-to-life shades of pink and white because that was what her grandmother’s favorite flowers had looked like. She let her gaze wander over the living blossoms again, studying the play of light on their crisply-colored petals.

Her tattoo would look much like them when it was done; Jed was a master at using color, at creating tattoos that not only looked vibrant when finished, but were designed to stand the test of time, to look good years later. Clients came to him from places far beyond Pittsburgh for those reasons – she’d heard them say so, had seen them show off their older tattoos in the shop while returning for another.

“Yeah. The bright pink, the white and the black – your fair skin is the perfect canvas for this tattoo. I think you’ll be happy with it.”

She studied his reflection in the mirror that took up the booth’s back wall, watching him as he stood bent over her shoulder, carefully preparing the area. “I know I’ll be happy with it.” She didn’t feel the sense of trepidation she’d always imagined she would if she ever decided to be tattooed. She felt a calmness that remained as Jed applied a stencil to her skin.

“Made this earlier today,” he said, and slowly spun her chair so that the mirror reflected her back. “What do you think?”

She peered over her shoulder at the purplish outline of two lilies and the swirling design behind them. “Looks great.” It was just a silhouette, but it conveyed the same promise of beauty she’d sensed as she’d watched him draw the original sketch.

She sat still in the chair as he turned away and prepared his equipment, unpackaging needles, readying the inks and situating everything on a sterile tray. She’d watched him do this before and was familiar with the way he organized things. It was the actual tattooing that she’d preferred not to watch, thanks to the unnerving buzz of the needle.

“Ready?” He met her eyes in the mirror, apparently waiting for her to give her final approval.

Once, in this same shop, she’d sat with Mina, watching Eric tattoo her. She’d been talkative then, and clearly remembered having had no problem making conversation. Now, her own voice shrank away from her. “Yes,” she said after a couple moments, carefully annunciating the simple word.

“Okay.” He stood behind her, equipment in hand, clean and gleaming. In that moment, Karen understood why so many people called the machines tattoo guns – she felt almost as if she were waiting to be shot.

“Take a deep breath,” he said, “I can give you a second. There’s no rush.”

She nodded, drew a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m ready,” she said afterward. “I don’t want to procrastinate like a baby. Just go ahead.”

“All right. It’s important that you hold still. If it gets to be too much and you need a break, just let me know. We’ll do whatever you can handle comfortably. If you decide you want to break this tattoo up into more than one session, we can do that too.”

“Okay.” Inwardly, she resolved that she would make it through the entire tattoo in one session. She could do this. She’d summoned the nerve to admit to herself – and others – that she wasn’t interested in being a fashion photographer, in fully exploiting an opportunity so many others would’ve killed to have. Admitting what she really wanted had been a relief, had left her feeling empowered. So did this. She wanted the tattoo, and she would face her fear of needles to have it.

CHAPTER 9

The first line of the tattoo blazed a stinging trail across her skin, as did the second. In some areas, the pain seemed deeper – almost an ache – while at other times, it was faint.

“You okay?” Jed asked after what had to only have been a minute or so, pressing a clean cloth gently against her shoulder.

When he lowered it, it was stained with black ink.

“Yeah.” When she was in pain, talking seemed less appealing than usual. And she was afraid she’d move, afraid she’d mess up Jed’s work of art. So she sat silently, focusing on the tattoo portraits on the wall – she’d taken them – which showcased some of Jed’s best work.

She studied the lines and shading of the tattoos, remembering the photo sessions she’d captured the images during. She allowed her mind to wander back in time and tried not to think of needles.

It was kind of hard not to do, in a tattoo studio. She felt the piercing pressure of the needle in her flesh, burrowing beneath the surface and planting pain between the layers of her skin. And yet, she’d lost most of the original horror she’d felt at the idea of being tattooed. Now that she was actually facing her fear, the fear seemed smaller. It was a relief, and she sighed.

“Everything all right?” Jed paused, pressing the cloth to her shoulder again.

She nodded, and he went back to work.

It had been late when they’d started, after the end of Hot Ink’s business hours, and it was well past midnight by the time they finished. They’d paused for some relatively short breaks, but Karen had made it through the entire tattoo. The lingering pain took a backseat to a sense of satisfaction, and she felt more accomplished than relieved.