Innocent Ink (13 page)

A weight tumbled from somewhere in his throat to the pit of his gut as a sense of the inevitable settled over him. “Okay. What is it?” He could handle this – he had to. She deserved New York; she deserved the best of everything, including the best possible chance for her career.

CHAPTER 8

“I want you to tattoo me.”

It took a few moments for her words to settle in. “You do?” He searched her face, meeting her unblinking eyes and examining them for any trace of a joke, any evidence that he’d misheard.

“Yes.” She stood with her hands clasped together, her eyes wide. “Will you?”

“Of course.” A fierce wave of emotion flashed through him at the thought of his gloved hands against her uninked skin, his needle poised to leave a permanent mark.

She breathed a sigh, her shoulders relaxing. “Oh, good. I thought you’d laugh at me.”

“Why would I?”

“Because, you know, I’m afraid of needles, and I’ve always said there was no way I could get a tattoo.”

He knew that, of course, and the knowledge only made it that much more gratifying that she apparently trusted him to tattoo her. “I’m not going to laugh. What made you change your mind?”

“I want a tattoo to honor my grandmother. When I was in that frame gallery in SoHo, I found a frame she would’ve loved. It had lilies worked into the design – stargazer lilies were her favorite flower. She loved them. She used to pick up a little bunch from the florist every week and display them in a vase in her kitchen, and I would always give her a huge bouquet of them on her birthday.”

“So you want a tattoo of those flowers?”

She nodded. “I thought of it a little while after I left the frame place. I know that was only yesterday, but I’m sure I want it.” She exhaled, eyes flashing. “Even if that means I have to voluntarily come into contact with a needle.”

“And you need a design?”

She nodded again.

“Do you have a piece of paper and a pencil I can use?”

“Yeah.” She retrieved both items and surrendered them, looking curious.

“Can you bring up a picture of a stargazer lily on your phone?”

“Sure.” She brought one up, and he took the phone, studied the image for a few seconds and then laid the device on the table where he could see the screen easily.

“Where do you want the tattoo?”

“On my shoulder. Here.” She crossed her left arm over her body and touched her fingertips to her back, running them over the area just above her shoulder blade.

“Okay. Now explain to me what you have in mind for the design.”

As she spoke, he sketched, doing his best to translate what she was describing into an illustration. Two lilies and a delicate swirling design behind them, darker than the flower petals, which would be carefully shaded in tones of pink and white. For now, he used the flat side of his pencil to color in shades of grey where the pink would go.

Karen watched with a bright smile as he used the tip of the pencil to add dots to the petals, a freckling pattern like the one belonging to the real-life flower displayed by her phone.

“That looks amazing,” she said when he was done. “Like I imagined, only even better.”

“It’s just a rough sketch. I can take this home and draw up something neater.”

“Really? Thank you. I love it.”

“We can do the tattoo whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be. Whenever you have time will be fine.”

“Tomorrow night, if you’re sure.”

She nodded. “Thank you. And … how much?”

He did laugh then – he couldn’t help it. “I’m not charging you anything.”

“I don’t expect you to do it for free. I’ll pay whatever you’d charge any other client.”

He shook his head. “No way. It’ll be a gift.”

Maybe she sensed his resolve, because she nodded, thanking him again.

And then, with the preliminary sketch lying on the table before him, there was nothing to do but address what had been eating away at him for over a week. “Karen, did your trip change how you view your career – do you plan to go back to New York?”

She raised her gaze from the sketch, blinking. “I’m sure I’ll return at some point.”

“I mean, do you plan to move there to pursue your photography?”

Her eyes widened, but she shook her head. “No, why?”

“I’m no photographer, but I know New York is where all that stuff happens with fashion. I figured if models go there to try to make it big, photographers must too, right? After getting a break with a famous designer there, I thought you might decide to stick around for any other opportunities that might bring.”

“New York definitely supplies the lifeblood of the country’s fashion industry. And Miranda, the photographer I spent yesterday with, did offer to rent me partial use of her studio if I move to the city.”

He nodded, resignation stiffening the bones and muscles in his neck, making the motion difficult. What she was saying made sense – why was it so hard to accept, especially when he’d been expecting it? “Pittsburgh is so small compared to New York. When you told me you won that contest, I figured…”

His voice faded, betraying him as he remembered her legs wrapped around his waist, her nails digging into his back. Maybe he could still see her even if she moved to New York.

Hell, no, that was just wishful thinking. The drive was a good seven hours, not even counting city traffic. Way too long to work, way too much to ask. And Pittsburgh, where he’d built Hot Ink from the ground up, was his home, for good. The idea of a long-distance relationship was ridiculous, and a sinking part of him knew it.

“You thought I’d want to stay in New York?” She arched a brow. “Then this will sound crazy, but… Jed, I don’t want to be a fashion photographer. I realized that when I was shooting for Marc St. Pierre.”

“You don’t want to be a fashion photographer?” The words felt alien on the tip of his tongue, false. Was his disappointment so obvious that she was lying to him, denying her dream to try to spare his feelings? The thought made his head ache as a wave of faint nausea washed over him.

“I know what you must be thinking. I almost feel bad saying it, after being granted such an awesome opportunity. I enjoyed the shoot and I’ll be showing the catalog off every chance I get when it comes out this winter, but I’m just not interested in pursuing fashion photography as a career. I want to focus on other areas.”

“Other areas?” He looked around at the many black and whites hanging on her apartment walls, his gaze lingering on the beautiful photographs of his work. Her tattoo portraits were amazing, and they may have given her the boost she needed to go full-time with her photography, but tattoo photography alone couldn’t sustain a career. Surely she realized that.

“Shooting for Marc St. Pierre was fun, but it’s just so different than what I really love shooting – people, their stories, their tattoos, the important moments in their lives… I love taking photos that people will cherish or admire for the rest of their lives, not advertisements that will be thrown out after a few weeks. Does that make any sense?”

He nodded, slowly. “Still, couldn’t you continue to take the sort of photos you love most on the side, in addition to fashion photography?” He was no expert, but advertisements sounded a hell of a lot more lucrative than portrait and personal photography.

“I guess. I mean, that’s basically what I’m doing now – I’ve done commercial shoots for quite a few businesses here in Pittsburgh. But if I relocated to New York to pursue fashion photography… I think it would be sink or swim, you know?

“It’s a hard business to make it in, and a hard city to afford. Miranda’s studio is state of the art, but I’d have to work my butt off to have a chance at being able to afford the rent, not to mention my living expenses. And frankly, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to struggle for a chance to make it in an industry my heart isn’t really in. I like what I have here – I want to continue to grow my business in Pittsburgh, and spend as much time as possible on the projects that are meaningful to me.”

“Are you sure?” He had to ask – had to. Because what she was saying was almost too good to be true, and not making sure it was really, truly what she wanted most would’ve been selfish.

She laughed softly. “You almost sound like you want to get rid of me, Jed. You’re not going to force me onto a one-way flight back to New York, are you?”

“No. I just need to make sure that you’re telling me the truth – that you’re not just saying all this because we’ve been seeing each other.” It seemed kind of egotistical to say it out loud, but if the attraction she felt to him was anything like what he felt for her … well, it was a powerful fucking thing.

She looked directly into his eyes, unblinking. “Pittsburgh – my life and my work here – is really what I want. I’m not being dishonest. Not even a little bit. And maybe if we’d been seeing each other a little longer, you’d know me well enough to realize that if I was lying, I’d be blushing really badly right now. I don’t have a poker face, Jed, so I usually don’t even try to deceive people.” She grinned.

He drummed his fingertips on the table, mulling the situation over, mentally exploring every facet as best he could. He wanted to stand up and sweep her right off her feet, but only if he wouldn’t be pulling her future out from under her by doing so. “Okay.” What she’d said was pretty thorough, and if that was what she wanted, who was he to tell her what to do?

“Okay as in you’re not going to try to force me into fashion photography?” Her grin stretched a little wider. “Okay as in we can pick up where we left off before I went to New York, and you’ll stop looking like you’re waiting for me to give you a good, sharp kick in the shin?”

His lips twitched at the corners, bowing to an involuntary smile. “Is that what I look like?”

“Pretty much. But for the record, I’ve never seen someone look so sexy while anticipating being hurt.”

“Thanks.” He stood, reaching for her, placing his hands on her hips and pulling her close.

“Did you really think I was going to want to stay in New York? For good?” She leaned into him, her breath warming his chest, even through his t-shirt.

“Yeah.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “How was I supposed to know you’re the one woman in the world who’d rather photograph tattoos in Pittsburgh than designer wedding dresses in New York?”

He could still hardly believe it. Maybe he was just being stupid – Karen wasn’t the average woman; he’d already known that. She was the first woman he’d been genuinely interested in since Alice, the first woman who’d inspired him to look to the future instead of the past.

She tipped her head, her eyes flickering toward the back wall, which bore at least a dozen different framed prints. “The pictures should’ve been a clue.”

“Guess you could say I was distracted by other things whenever I was in here.” He ran a hand down her back, letting his fingertips skim the little valley above her hips before he reached below and grasped one round, perfect half of her ass.

She arched against him, slipping her arms around his sides and tipping her head back to look up at him. “You
feel
distracted right now.”

Yeah, he did – his dick was hard, pressing against the front of his jeans, against her belly. Expectation rippled through his veins like an electric current as he flexed his hips, letting his stiffness press a little harder against her, swelling further beneath the brief friction.

She sucked in a hard breath, then exhaled, letting it rush out against his ear. It tickled, and heat blazed a trail down his spine and into his groin. “Missed you,” she whispered.

He swept her off her feet, just as he’d imagined seconds ago. Briefly, he held her, and then he lowered her onto the kitchen table, barely pausing before popping her jeans button through its hole and making short work of the zipper.

She raised her hips, making it easy for him to shimmy the pants down over her thighs, eventually pulling them free and tossing them aside.

Her panties were wet. A faint shadow of dampness was visible just below her mound, beneath the little bump of her clit. The sight of it made his dick throb and sent a wave of regret washing through him. Peeling off her panties as quickly as he could, he discarded them, afterward sliding his hands up the insides of her thighs and spreading them apart.

She looked, smelled and tasted just like he’d remembered so vividly while she’d been gone. The flavor of her slick skin sparked a burst of bone-deep want inside him, and he applied his tongue to the small swell of her clit with all the fervor he’d kept bottled up during the past several days. When she sighed and a wave of motion raced through her hips, making them buck against the table top, he gripped her thighs more firmly and refused to relent.

She’d missed him
. She’d said so, and he could tell it was true as he ran the tip of his tongue over the seam of her pussy, delving inside. She said his name, the single syllable shattered by several hitching breaths. When he lifted his gaze briefly, he could see that her knuckles were white, her fingers hooked over the edge of the table top.

He’d missed her too, bad. When he’d lain down in bed at the Allegheny West house, thoughts of her had come to him in the dark. For short seconds, he’d almost tasted her, almost smelled the sweet musk of her skin. And a part of him had begun to mourn the loss he’d been anticipating – the loss of true affection and true pleasure so recently rediscovered.

It was amazing, really, that he’d been wrong. He couldn’t fuck things up now, couldn’t slide back into assuming and fearing and thinking he saw her future more clearly than she did. If the past had taught him anything, it was that life was full of twists and turns you just couldn’t see coming. Maybe they weren’t all bad.

“Ahh!” She stopped breathing his name, stopped moving against the table. She was stock-still for a few moments, until a tremor shot through her, making her muscles shift and tighten beneath his hands. He stroked her clit with his tongue, unyielding as he felt the tension in her body rise to a fever-pitch. His heart raced, beating in time with an answering throb that tortured him below the belt.