MidnightInk-epub

by MI

“Oh, sure. Says the person who’s going to be poking me with needles in a few minutes. Nothing at all to be nervous about there.”

  Declan’s eyes twinkled at that. “As I recall, you always enjoyed a little pain play.”

  “Not helping,” Sophie replied sternly. Although, really, it was. That was true. And the fact that Declan would be the one dishing it out was even better. She took a deep breath and unbuckled the belt she had fastened over her shirt. She glanced around again. “Where should I put this?”

  Declan held out a hand. “Give it here.” He took it in both hands and snapped it a couple of times, smiling wickedly as he did. The sharp crack of the leather caused an odd sort of quietness to settle in Sophie’s gut. Her skin flushed—her mind going exactly where he wanted it to—and she had to look away. She pulled the shirt over her head and handed that to him as well.

  Now she was down to just a camisole. Static electricity had messed up her hair, so she took a moment to smooth her hands over her head, patting everything back in place, not thinking about the next step. And trying very hard not to think of the fact that, even though he hadn’t seen the worst of it yet, there was no more disguising the fact that her breasts were gone. He couldn’t possibly have missed that fact, not now that she was dressed in only a single layer of thin silk. She hated the thought of him seeing her like this.

  She wrapped her arms around herself as though she could hide from him. She hated that the simple act or crossing her arms was so easy now. Her arms should not be able to reach so far around her waist. Her breasts should be there, getting in the way, plumped up by her arms, swelling over the top of her cami, drawing his attention.

  When her gaze met Declan’s once again, he shook his head and said, even more gently, “Honey, you’re gonna have to lose the tank as well.”

  “I’m getting there.” Sophie fought down another wave of nausea. She had to turn her back to him before she could strip the shirt off over her head. In that first moment when he saw her, it was important that her eyes not be obscured. If she could, she wouldn’t do this at all. But since she was doing it, she was damn well going to witness his reaction. She knew he’d flinch. She really hoped he wouldn’t, but she knew he would. And if he did, when he did… She didn’t really know if she could go through with this.

  She took another deep breath and turned back around to face him, holding her top against her chest. When she dropped it, he showed almost no reaction. His eyes narrowed briefly, then he gazed dispassionately at her body for a long, long moment, tilting his head from side to side, gaze flicking from her to the stencils in his hand and back again. Finally, he nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah, okay. I think that will work. Let’s do this.”

  Talk about anticlimactic! Sophie felt her temper spike. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say about it?”

  Declan shrugged. “What do you want me to say? It’s not as bad as I was expecting?”

  Oh, was that so? “Well, maybe you should try viewing it from this angle.”

  “But if I did that, how would I tattoo you?”

  “Funny.” She knew she was being unreasonable. She hadn’t wanted him to flinch, and he hadn’t. But she still wasn’t happy with his reaction. She would have probably felt better if he’d called her on her bratty attitude, but they were talking about her breasts. She missed them. She wanted them back. As for Declan… Well, she’d kind of thought that he might’ve missed them too, at least a little bit.

  Or maybe not. In all likelihood, one set was pretty much the same as another to him.

  “C’mon, bébé. I’ve got a busy night ahead of me, so let’s get started. This is going to be beautiful. Hop up on the table and let me get these stencils in place.”

  Sophie eyed the table with a worried glance. “I might need a little help with that,” she finally admitted reluctantly. “It’s kind of high.”

  Declan seemed to freeze for an instant. A stricken expression flashed across his face, and then he sighed and shook his head. “Girl, I see right through you. You really have to stop making up such flimsy excuses.”

  “What excuses?” Sophie glared at him as he took a step closer. “I told you last night, I don’t have the upper body strength I used to.”

  Declan’s hands settled around her waist, fingers lightly caressing her skin. “I call bullshit. I’m thinking you’ll just use any old excuse to get my hands on you again.”

  Sophie gaped at him as he lifted her onto the table. Her heart hammered as he leaned in close to whisper, “And that’s exactly what you’ll be getting in another couple of minutes. My hands. All over you. Just like they were last night.” Then he tilted her chin up and kissed her, soft and sweet. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he straightened away from her. He tapped the tip of her nose with his finger and smiled. “So relax, okay? ’Cause you know you’re in good hands.”

  When he’d turned away to get the stencils, Sophie cleared her throat. “So. Do you always sexually harass your customers?”

  Declan shook his head. “Not always, no. Mostly it’s just the ones I like.” He turned back again, papers in hand. “Okay, you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.” She took a couple of deep, calming breaths as Declan smoothed the stencils into place. Positioning each one just so. When he lifted them away, faint traces of purple ink remained. He repositioned the mirror so she could see them.

  “That look all right?” he asked.

  The déjà vu was back. Visions of skin being marked for surgery flooded Sophie’s mind. She glanced away quickly. “It’s great. Let’s do it.”

  Declan cupped her cheek. “It’s just a guide. The actual tattoo won’t look like this, you know. It’s going to be beautiful. I promise.”

  Sophie allowed herself a moment to just luxuriate in his touch. “I know.” That was the one thing she wasn’t worried about. Declan never did anything halfway.

  The vinyl of the table was cold against Sophie’s skin as she lay on her back and tried to get comfortable. Declan tested out his equipment. The buzz of his machine was reassuringly familiar, reminding her that this was not the first tattoo he’d given her. But the first line burned like fire, which was not at all what she’d expected. Sophie gasped in surprise. She hadn’t remembered it feeling like this.

  Declan grimaced apologetically. “These thin little needles can really sting. But don’t worry. This is only for the fine details—the ones you did in pen and ink.”

  Sophie groaned. “Oh, good. I’m glad there weren’t a lot of those.”

  “Exactly.”

  If she’d had any idea what it would lead to, she’d have left all the details off altogether.

  “Just try and relax, all right? It will hurt less.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Yes it is,” Declan replied somewhat absently, his eyes focused once more on his work. “But it’s also true.”

  Sophie tried her best to follow his suggestions, but it all went to hell when Declan’s needle skated over her ribcage, drawing a grunt of pain from her lips. Relaxing was impossible. She sucked in a quick breath and just barely refrained from cursing out loud—not that anyone would have heard her above the music pounding out over the shop’s speakers, no doubt exactly the reason they played it so loud.

  “I know. Sorry. Ribs are a bitch.”

  “So I’ve heard.” It seemed like the kind of thing he said at least once in almost every episode. “Honestly, I think I’ve lost track of how many times you’ve said that.”

  Declan nodded absently. “Yeah, no kidding. Me too.” Then he paused. A silly smile broke over his face. He glanced up at her. “Aha! You do watch. I knew it.”

  “Shut up, you jerk. Stop gloating.” She wasn’t so sure it was her ribs that were the problem, and, if she were honest, she doubted it would be over soon. After all this time, she hadn’t expected that it would still freak her out this much to have someone touch her there, even now, so long after her surgery.

  She was just so thankful it was
Declan. How could she ever have imagined she could handle this with anyone else?

  “Everything all right?” he asked as he paused to wipe down the area he’d been working on.

  Sophie nodded. “I’m just glad it’s you.”

  Declan glanced up at her questioningly. “What’s that?”

  “Doing this. I don’t think I could have gone through with it otherwise.”

  Declan’s gaze softened. “I’m glad too.” Then he switched machines and dipped his needle into a small cup of red ink. “Now comes the fun part,” he said with a smile.

  Within minutes, bright splashes of color had begun to make their appearance. Sophie caught glimpses in the mirror, amazed at how closely it paralleled her initial vision. There was only one problem with “the fun part”. It took time.

  “How are you doing?” Declan asked an eternity later, eyes focused on his work. “You still okay?”

  “I could use a little distraction,” Sophie admitted. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him so quiet before. She was beginning to regret having told him to shut up. Had he finally learned to follow directions? Who knew!

  “There was something I wanted to tell you last night,” Declan began, after another long pause. “You left before I had the chance. I wanted to say that I would have come back, if you’d asked me to. I know you think I wouldn’t, but I would’ve.”

  Sophie cringed as she recalled their conversation last night and some of the things she’d said. But who was he kidding? “Good to know. I promise I’ll keep that in mind next time it comes up.”

  Declan shut off his machine and stared at her. “Next time?”

  “Kidding.”

  “So there’s no chance… You aren’t expecting a…a reoccurrence, are you?”

  “Well, not in my breasts, that’s for sure. I think I’m pretty much in the clear on that front.”

  “Sophie.” Declan’s voice was grim. He didn’t even react to her pun. That really pissed her off.

  She glared at him. How dare he act so serious when she was struggling to keep things light? “How do you want me to answer that, Dec? How does anyone know what the future holds? Life is just one surprise after another sometimes. Hell, you know that!”

  Declan nodded. Yeah. He knew all right. “Story of my life,” he said, because it sort of was…

  After his father’s death, Declan and his brother had gone to live with their grandfather. Mama had been having a hard enough time dealing with them even before her husband offed himself. Declan didn’t blame her too much for that. He and Dev had been a handful—that was no lie. She’d eventually moved to Texas and gotten remarried. Pretty much the only thing she’d left her sons was the title to their father’s Camaro.

  They’d had big plans for that car back in the summer of ’05. The twentieth Burning Man Festival was taking place at the tail end of August; they were going to drive out there and be a part of history.

  Until Pappaw fell and broke his hip just a few weeks before they were set to leave. Obviously, someone would have to stay and take care of him. Declan and his brother settled the question of who in the same way the Ross men had always settled important matters. Over a game of darts.

  Declan had won. A lucky throw. He’d taken their car and headed west. And at just about the same time that he’d come rolling into Black Rock City, Hurricane Katrina had rolled over New Orleans.

  He’d never really learned all the details of what had happened; he never would. He could guess a lot of it though. Pappaw was a stubborn old man. He wouldn’t have been keen on evacuating his home—even if he could have walked. If Declan had been there, he and Dev probably could have succeeded in manhandling their grandfather into the Camaro’s front seat, but it wouldn’t have been easy. On his own and without a vehicle? Devlin wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  The old man’s body was found floating in the street. Devlin survived long enough to end up in the Superdome, where he’d taken a knife to the ribs in the course of some stupid-ass brawl and bled out in the mud.

  By all accounts, his brother had gone a little crazy, even before the fight. Declan never doubted it. He’d gone pretty crazy himself in the months that followed.

  He was the last of the Ross men. He was the last of the Rosses altogether, unless you counted his mama, which he didn’t. He had lost his tribe, his family, and a large part of his own identity. With so little left, he was no longer sure who he was—only who he wasn’t. He wasn’t a twin anymore, and he’d never been anything else.

  It was a tattoo that saved his sanity—or at least some part of it. Somehow, having an ever-present reminder of his loss, right there on his shoulder, where he could reach back and touch it, gave shape to his grief. It kept the pain in his heart from completely taking over his mind.

  He’d found solace in designing his tattoo with its intricate Celtic interwoven style; he’d thought about those he’d lost the whole time he was drawing it. His father, his grandfather, his brother, his memories of them bled into every line. The initial pain as their memorial was etched into his skin, the ache that lingered for days afterward while his torn skin knitted itself back together, gave him closure. As the tattoo healed, so had his heart.

  He was left with an unshakable belief in the power of tattoos to transform and heal. When Shep commented favorably on the quality of his artwork, it was as though a beam of light had shined down from the heavens. Declan knew he had found his path in life. Tattooing had provided him with an outlet for his creativity, a focus for his attention. It gave him a way to bring beauty to the world’s ugliness. The fact that it had also given him a damn good income was not completely inconsequential either.

  It wasn’t the money that he was thinking about right now, however. He was thinking about the comfort and healing he could give Sophie—and the others he’d be tattooing tonight. Along with closure and beauty, bragging rights, or anything else they needed. But, in order to do that, he had to stop thinking about life’s many uncertainties. He had to stop worrying about what the future might hold and focus on what he was doing now, right here, in this very moment.

  He shook off the dark mood that threatened to settle over his spirit and went back to work with renewed energy. “Yeah, this is turning out nice. I’m really liking this a lot.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls,” Sophie said with a sigh.

  Declan laughed. “I think you’re probably right.” He was rarely aware of having spoken out loud. It had always been that way. When he’d seen the first couple of episodes of Inked in O-Town, he’d been mortified and more than a little self-conscious. He’d tried to make himself stop, but the producers swore viewers loved it, so he’d learned to get over his discomfort. “But this is really pretty. I think you’re going to be very happy with how it turns out.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  “Count on it, bébé.”

  Sophie’s artwork was lovely to start with of course. It was no wonder she was able to earn a living selling her sketches to tourists around Jackson Square. But Declan felt more than justified in taking some credit for how the final product was turning out. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her the scars weren’t bad. Two long, somewhat jagged, vaguely pinkish scars had snaked across her chest, with a smaller, rounder mark positioned above. He’d positioned the drawings so that the petals of two full-blown poppies ran along the edges of the longer scars—so that they were incorporated into the picture rather than merely glossed over. And so that they added to the beauty he was creating and became part of it. The smaller scar became part of a bud, tightly furled, but raising its head above the others—a promise for the future. The uncertain future, as she’d insisted on reminding him. Something he couldn’t think about right now.

  When the flowers were finished, Declan stopped to study the effect. He had planned on adding more color to the background, maybe in contrasting shades of blue or even purple. It was a part of his trademark in a way, but it didn’t feel quite right this time.
Sophie’s skin was luminous, but pale. The way the flowers stood out against it, vibrant and warm, might seem a little bit stark, yes, but in a way that caught the eye and made a statement. Anything else would only look garish and detract from the overall effect.

  He put down his machine. Using a little soap, he wiped off the tattoo, still debating.

  “You’re making me nervous,” Sophie said in a very small voice.

  “No need for that. We’re done.” He nodded toward the mirror. “Take a look.”

  Sophie shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, more than a little disappointed.

  Sophie shrugged. “I’m just not ready.”

  “Okay, well…” Declan sighed. He supposed there was no reason she had to. It wasn’t going anywhere, after all. Still, he was anxious for her reaction. “I guess you’re not going to let me take pictures of it yet either, are you?”

  “Please don’t,” Sophie begged. “You’re not angry about that are you?”

  “No, of course not.” Pictures could wait too. Sooner or later, this tattoo would end up in his portfolio. It was too fucking gorgeous not to show off. But he could understand that she might not be ready for that yet. He could give her the time she needed to feel comfortable. This was Sophie, after all. Deep down, beneath the scars and the surgery, she was still the same girl she’d always been—exhibitionist streak and all.

  “All right then,” Declan said. “Why don’t you sit up now? I want to get this plastic wrap on you. You probably won’t be able to get it off by yourself, but I can help you with that later if you come back to my hotel with me. All right?”

  Sophie frowned. “Aren’t you busy tonight?”

  “Yes, but only for a few more hours. Why don’t you hang out here until I’m done? You go have a drink, enjoy the party, have some fun while I’m working, and then we’ll go home. I know it will be late, but if you spend the night, we can walk down to Café du Monde in the morning for beignets.” That was something else he knew about the girl she used to be—the girl he was sure she still was, somewhere deep inside—beignets were an irresistible lure.