The Strongest Steel

by Scarlett Cole

  Lia saw her and waved, causing Trent to turn to see who was there. Lia whispered something in his ear and smiled at Harper as she turned to go back into the studio.

  Hoping she could say the right thing, Harper looked up at Trent. “I screwed up. I got frightened and I ran. I’m sorry.” It all came out on one long breath. Despite the fancy words she’d thought about while walking on the beach, that’s what it boiled down to. She’d panicked, and rather than face her fears, she’d fled.

  The admission was exhausting, but Trent still had a look of disappointment. “Let’s not talk about this on the street where everyone can see us, darlin’.”

  He’d called her darlin’. That had to count for something, right? She followed him through the studio and he held the door to the office open for her, closing it behind them.

  He still hadn’t touched her. And wasn’t it ironic that another person’s touch would actually be a good thing right now? Nor had he smiled at her or given her any other signal that this was going to be okay.

  Sitting down on the sofa, he continued to study her. He was waiting for more, clearly, but Harper wasn’t sure what else there was. The silence was awkward.

  “I’m sorry again. I just wanted to tell you that. And hopefully you’ll still be okay to finish my tattoo.”

  His silence was starting to get to her. She walked toward the door. “I guess I should go.”

  “Don’t run again. Come sit next to me. Why didn’t you just put the brakes on and talk to me?”

  Harper turned to walk around the office. The question had been bugging her since the early hours of the morning. She lifted the hair off the back of her neck and twirled it into a bun before letting it go again.

  “I don’t know.” She paused to look at him. “I just panicked, I guess. And all I seem to do around you is freak out. I’m fed up with it. I hate that it controls me. I hate feeling like I did in the car last night. I fucking hate it! You must think I’m a freaking nut job.”

  He didn’t answer immediately, not a great sign. “Not quite. Answer me this. Do you feel something for me? Did you want me to touch you in the car?”

  “YES! That’s the whole point. I do … I mean, I did. It was the first time I’d felt something in forever. I’d been thinking about it all day.” Finally a smile. A self-satisfied and slightly smug, male smile, but a smile nonetheless.

  “I was worried that maybe I’d overstepped the line. I was as mad at myself for manhandling you as I was at you for running. I would never force myself on you, Harper. You know that much, right?”

  Finally working up the courage, she joined him on the sofa, her hands clasped together in her lap. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara.

  “You didn’t. I’m the queen of mixed messages. Seriously, I suck at this.”

  Tears clung to her lashes, but she willed them to stay there, tired of falling apart in front of him.

  His hand was warm and comforting as he took hold of hers. “You know what I think?”

  “What’s that?” she sniffed.

  “That we’ll do this. You and me. It’ll be in your time, but we will do this. And to make it easier on both of us, you need to talk to me.”

  Trent lifted her onto his lap, circling his arms around her.

  “I’ll try. I haven’t told you everything yet, and I don’t know if I can.”

  “So tell me when you’re ready. If you’re not ready, just tell me. I’m a patient man.”

  She nodded in agreement and placed her head in the crook of his neck, letting the warmth of his strong arms soothe her.

  “There’s one other thing,” he said, “and I don’t want you to take offense.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You seriously need to lighten up and have more fun.”

  She delivered a swift elbow to his ribs before looking up again and laughing.

  “I mean it. Sure, you’ve gone through some seriously fucked-up shit, but merely existing isn’t the same as living. It’s okay to laugh, to let go, and have some fun. That’s the biggest fuck-you you can give to the guy who did this to you. I just want to get to know you. All parts. But especially the hot, funny, sexy ones.”

  A sense of relief washed over her, bringing a smile as he stroked her hair.

  “There it is,” Trent said, leaning in to kiss her mouth gently. “Happy is by far your best look.”

  Sitting on his lap in the safety of his office, she was beginning to believe it.

  Chapter Nine

  There was something very different about Harper when she walked through the studio door. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He wasn’t particularly poetic, but she looked even more … shit, something. There was a different kind of quiet confidence about her.

  A smile lit up her face after she saw him. She even waved to Cujo as she walked over.

  “How comfortable are you with PDA?” she asked.

  “Unless it involves nudity, very.” He wasn’t really. He usually hated it, thought it lacked finesse. But for Harper, he’d get okay with it. If he grinned any harder, he was going to break his own jaw.

  She stood up on her toes and placed his arms around her back before wrapping her own arms around his neck.

  “Good,” she whispered against his mouth as she kissed him. She laughed as he lifted her just enough to take her toes off the floor and carried her into the private tattooing room.

  He wondered what country music delights he would be subjected to this time. Nails down a chalkboard sounded better to him than high-pitched twang. But anything to make her more relaxed.

  This was going to be a huge appointment for her. Afterward, her scar would likely be unrecognizable. The tattoo would still be a long way from finished, but enough of the outline, detail, and shading would be in place to distract the eye.

  He couldn’t wait to see her in something backless, or a bikini, or nothing at all. Now there was a thought to distract him from the drivel that had started to flow out of the speakers. Yeah. Thoughts of Harper naked could definitely distract him from the hell of banjo-accompanied crooning.

  * * *

  “I’ve been thinking about our conversation yesterday,” Harper said, once the shock of the first fifteen minutes of needle time had passed.

  “You think too much, darlin’.” The irritation stopped momentarily, and Harper could feel Trent wipe the surplus ink off her back.

  She winced as the needles started back into her skin. It wasn’t as painful as the first session. Or maybe it was, but she was just more used to it.

  “Ha ha. But seriously, I thought about it a lot this morning. I want to tell you a bit more about what happened to me. Just get it out of the way so you know. If I tell you in here, while you’re doing this, it might be a bit like an exorcism, if you know what I mean.”

  “Whatever you want to tell me, I’ll listen, you know that.”

  “I don’t know that I can talk about it. But I think I can say it. Like a news report.”

  The needles vibrated across her vertebrae, the tiny movements jarring as Trent detailed what felt like the handle of the broadsword. She needed to explain to him, to give him a clearer frame of reference as to why she was such an emotional yo-yo. It was unfair to expect him to simply accept it.

  “For sure, sweetheart. I’m your captive audience.”

  The slow drone of the tattoo machine and rhythmic rubbing of her back actually started to soothe her.

  She focused on the reflection the can lights made on the hardwood floor until the brightness made her eyes water.

  “Nathan had started to hang out with a different crowd, partying more, doing cocaine. I didn’t like it, but I wondered whether I was just being a prude. Maybe he was into harder stuff, too—I never knew for sure. He’d borrow money. Twenty dollars here, fifty there.”

  Harper rubbed a hand across her face. In hindsight it was all so obvious. He’d been able to earn enough to keep up with a coke habit but couldn’t afford the other choices he was making.


  “I accidentally found out he was seeing someone else. A message popped up on his phone while he was in the shower. It wasn’t a huge surprise, as he’d been losing interest in me for a while. I wasn’t as exciting as his new friends—or her, apparently.”

  Her fingers started to flare, but watching them somehow helped her keep focused. This story needed to be told, and she was not going to freak out.

  “I held it together, waiting until he had gone out, and started to pack as much stuff as I could. His temper was getting worse, shorter, anything could set him off. I was going to run home. I thought I had plenty of time—when he went out he was usually gone for hours. But this time he’d run out of cash. He came home, hammered and high, to get some from me and found me stuffing clothes into a suitcase. I had no idea how bad his habit was, so you can add stupid to my list of faults.”

  Trent slowly rubbed her arm as she talked, not interrupting. Swallowing the embarrassment, Harper took a few deep breaths before she could continue.

  “He didn’t really ask me to explain what I was doing before he hit me, breaking my nose.”

  The first tear fell. She felt her bones shattering under the force of Nathan’s fist. She tasted her own blood trickling down the back of her throat as she tried to process the shock and pain.

  “I thought I was choking because I couldn’t breathe. I asked what happened, why he had done that, but he told me to shut up.” Harper’s breath caught. Trent grabbed her hand, and she was never more grateful that she couldn’t see his face.

  “Next he broke my jaw—silencing me. But God, I tried to scream. I tried to shout ‘No!’ but he just wouldn’t listen. He was demented. His eyes were glazed over like he couldn’t focus on anything and he looked crazy. I thought he was going to kill me.”

  Harper pulled her hand away from Trent and wiped the tears from her face. She took a deep breath, and counted to ten on the exhale.

  “When I tried to get up and run, he punched my side, breaking one of my ribs before he tied me to the bed, facedown.”

  The buzz of the tattoo equipment stopped.

  “Don’t stop.” If he did, she’d never finish before falling apart.

  “He was rambling, kept talking about how he could do anything to me. He got a knife from the chopping block in the kitchen…” She gasped, determined not to waste any more tears on Nathan. “Then he told me I would always be his bitch.”

  * * *

  Trent vibrated with rage. There was no way he could keep up the detailed line work on the intricate silver handle of the broadsword. His hands shook, the finesse required to make such small, tight patterns impossible right now. He switched machines. The incredibly fine lines the three needles he’d selected would produce were too important to screw up. And his concentration was shot.

  The fury he felt at hearing the list of her injuries consumed him. He wanted to hold her. He leaned forward and kissed the base of her spine that was being left un-inked, conveying what words couldn’t.

  Picking up his round curve magnum, he shifted to shading the rocks the sword was cleft into, something he could do in his sleep.

  He watched the needles as he circled her skin, pausing to wipe the surplus ink away. He mentally recited the benefits of why a round curve magnum was better than a stacked magnum. Less impact to the skin, better at deflecting the skin, needles that moved more freely over skin. Anything to calm the anger still boiling inside him.

  Harper rested her head on her forearms and shivered. He could see the goose bumps appear on her arms, her fine blond hairs standing up straight.

  Fuck it. Switching his equipment off, he got up and crouched in front of the bed to look up at her.

  When their eyes finally met, hers were wet with tears. He could see the effort it was taking to hold herself together. He admired the control she was starting to show.

  “I really want to do normal with you, Trent. I want to look forward to wearing a bikini on the beach. I want to enjoy going dancing again. I want to anticipate the first night you sleep over at my place and the first time we, you know … assuming those aren’t the same.” She smiled at him, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Now that you have an idea of what happened, do you still want to be normal with me?”

  Words choked him. Until he could find his voice, he took her hand, turned it over, and kissed her palm. He wanted to protect her for the rest of her life.

  “More than you know. We can absolutely try normal because I want you to look forward to all those things. Hell, I want to look forward to all those things too, especially the sex part.” He laughed softly.

  She smiled at that and blushed. “After everything I said, the sex part is what you pick up on.”

  “I’m a guy. We always pick up on the sex part, even if you don’t mention a sex part. And it made you smile.”

  He grabbed a tissue and wiped her tears. “So from today, you and me and normal, right? I know enough about what happened, and you know it doesn’t affect what I think of you. And if something we do triggers memories, we’ll talk about it before you run. Deal?”

  She shook his hand with the one he’d just kissed.

  “Deal,” she said. And this time when she smiled, it reached her eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  Shit. Trent switched his coffee cup to the other hand and tried to shake himself free of the drips of scalding liquid that were currently burning his arm and falling onto the bench seat of his car.

  Harper walked toward him in tiny little denim shorts that showcased her toned, runner’s legs and a white tank top with a little black bikini top underneath. He’d never seen her in so little clothing, and she looked positively delicious. Yes, it was probably bad for business to close the studio on a Friday in May, but it was great for morale and came with the added bonus of spending the day with Harper. The guys had been talking about the beach music festival for weeks and it was a great excuse to take a day off.

  He got out of the car, placed his coffee on the roof, reached over and took the bags from her, landing a quick kiss on her lips.

  “Morning, darlin’. You look amazing. How’d you sleep?”

  “Like a baby. My back feels so much better today. It’s unreal the difference a few days make.”

  Trent dropped the bags in the trunk before slamming it down. “Let me see,” he said turning her to lift her tank.

  “Mmm.”

  “What do you mean ‘mmm’?” Harper asked impatiently.

  “Nothing … just … Mmm.”

  “Is something wrong? Did I not put the cream on right or something?” She tried to look over her shoulder.

  Trent ran his finger down the edge of the sword before curling up the outlines for the flames, enjoying the way she shivered in response.

  “Nope. It’s freakin’ hot is all,” he said appreciatively, continuing to stroke her back. “Told you … hot chick with bad-ass tattoo … actually, a bad-ass tattoo, done by me on my hot chick … works for me.”

  He laughed when she turned around and smacked him in the ribs.

  “You’re a jackass, Trent Andrews.”

  “So I’ve been told, Ms. Connelly. So I’ve been told.”

  It was a glorious day, and the temperature was supposed to reach the mid-eighties by the afternoon. It was still early enough in May that the beach wouldn’t be as manic as it would be come July.

  The drive to the beach was filled with loud, vintage 80s hair rock and a whole lot of laughter. They found the rest of the guys close to the water and set up blankets next to theirs. Cujo was already lying prone on a huge beach towel. Eric and Pixie were swimming, and Lia was sitting in a low beach chair reading a steamy paperback novel, if the front cover was anything to go by.

  There was a stage area set up farther down the beach and even though it was still reasonably early, a local radio station was broadcasting live, an irritatingly catchy pop song blasting from the speakers.

  Trent grabbed Harper’s hand and pulled h
er toward him for a longer kiss good morning. The feel of her small hands gripping onto his biceps made him groan.

  “Hey,” he grumbled as she pushed him away. “I was enjoying that.”

  “I’m starting to sizzle,” she said, smiling.

  “So was I.”

  “No, in a third-degree-burn kind of way.” He watched as she rummaged around in her bag. “Could you put some of this on my back, please?”

  Visions of rubbing the warm cream into her soft skin passed through his head, making their way down to his shorts. He read the label on the sunscreen and laughed.

  “SPF ninety? Harper, baby. Really?”

  “What’s wrong with that? I don’t want skin cancer.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t go on looking like a ghost either! You’re the palest person I know,” Trent said, lifting up onto his elbows. “Look around, Harp. Everyone here has some color.”

  He did have a point—all she could see were golden tans.

  “Here.” Trent dug around in his own bag. “SPF thirty. It’s got all the UVA type stuff in it. You won’t fry.”

  “No, I’ll just broil in my own juices.”

  Laughing, he squirted some of the cream onto his hand. “Where do you want it?” he said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

  “I can do it myself, you know. I’m not twelve.” Flustered. Just how he liked her.

  “And where would the fun be in that?” Taking the initiative, he grabbed her leg as she giggled, smoothing the cream slowly up and down her long limbs.

  Bad idea. He was going to be harder than granite within minutes.

  He rubbed the cream into her soft, smooth calves, taking his time to massage the firm muscles she had from running. Reaching over her knees and stroking softly around the back of them, he moved up her thighs toward the hem of her shorts. Her perfect skin was warm from the hot sun.

  Man, if she got some color on those whiter-than-white legs then she was going to look even more stunning than she already did.