The thought of having such beautiful artwork on her skin lifted something inside her. It was both exotic and elegant. It made her feel as though she were a more daring type of person than the dull woman approaching middle age, which was how she’d come to think of herself more and more these days.
“You want any changes made?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nope. I want it exactly how you’ve drawn it. Every single detail.”
A smile spread across his face. From her words? The thought made her breath catch. She’d thought he was good-looking when she’d first seen him, but something about his smile made him striking. But he was far too young for her, and besides, she was supposed to be a responsible adult and wasn’t the sort of lithe twenty-one-year-old she imagined guys like Kane went for.
“And you still want it done on your hip?”
She nodded. “Yes, I haven’t changed my mind from the emails I sent you.”
“Hop up on the bed then,” he told her as he turned away to prepare inks in a cart on wheels. He glanced back over his shoulder. “You’ll need to be on your side, and roll down your jeans enough to expose the area where the tattoo is going to go.”
Dammit. She hadn’t considered that she was going to need to roll down her jeans in front of this guy. Okay, she hadn’t considered that the tattoo artist was going to be ridiculously hot, or maybe she would have done.
Shit, shit, shit.
It wasn’t as though she could suddenly change her mind now and decide she wanted the tattoo on her shoulder or something. She’d always been one hundred percent sure she wanted it on her hip.
She didn’t have any choice but to do as he’d instructed. She told herself he was like a doctor, impartial, having seen far too much skin for it to have any effect on him anymore. And besides, he was the kind of guy who probably had nubile twenty-year-olds hanging off his every word. He wouldn’t be bothered about seeing the hip of a thirty-something-year-old woman.
Holly undid the top button of her jeans, wishing she’d worn something a little baggier, and pulled down the material as much as she dared. She didn’t want to flash Kane her knickers, especially as they were one of her more sensible pairs from Marks and Spencer, rather than her sexy ones from a local lingerie shop. He was busy, preoccupied with getting everything ready. This was his job. He was a professional, and she needed to remember that.
That didn’t stop her mortification, however, as he tucked a sheet of white paper into the waistband of her jeans, which were now down past her hips, and his fingers grazed her body. Faint silvery lines of stretch marks, faded now and barely noticeable, scrawled across her skin. Still they embarrassed her, another sign of her imperfection among all his bad-boy sexiness.
She couldn’t keep reacting like that. The tattoo was going to take a couple of hours, and he’d be touching her practically the whole time while it was happening.
Kane pulled his chair up to the bed. It was on wheels, allowing him easy movement around the room without him needing to get up. He’d done some kind of transfer of the tattoo he’d drawn onto a piece of paper, and now he frowned slightly as he concentrated, placing it against her skin on the spot she wanted, before transferring it so he had an outline he could work with.
“How’s that?” he asked, moving away so she could get a better look.
The shape of the fish looked as though it was swimming up over her hip, splashes of water flicking from its tail and fins.
She smiled, trying to stave off her nerves. “Perfect.”
He must have noticed how she’d tried to rub her sweaty palms off on the seat of her jeans. “It’s okay to be nervous,” he told her, his head tilting to one side. He gave a chuckle, and her stomach flipped, but not because of nerves this time. “I’ve had grown men in here who’ve cried and begged me to stop in the middle of getting inked.”
She cocked her eyebrows. “That’s not actually making me feel better.”
He laughed again. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” She gritted her teeth and tensed.
“Try to relax, take some long deep breaths. It won’t hurt as much as you’re expecting, I promise. It would be different if you were having it done on a bony area—like your foot or spine—but the hip has got plenty of padding.”
Plenty of padding! Her cheeks burned. Was that his way of letting her know he thought she was fat? She knew she had curves, but she wasn’t some waifish teenager.
Kane seemed to realise what he’d said. “I mean, not that it’s fat or anything. I mean, it is fat, but you’re not fat. You’re curvy and gorgeous.” His eyes widened, and he smacked his hand—the one not holding the needle—against his forehead. “Okay, I’m just going to stop talking now.”
She was watching his rambling in confused horror, unsure who was more mortified, her or him. Did he really mean he thought she was curvy and gorgeous? No, he’d only said that to hide the comment about her having fat hips. Jesus Christ. Why the hell had she thought this was a good idea?
“Let’s just get on with this, yeah?” he said, trying to recover.
“Yes, please,” she replied, her voice a little more terse than she would have liked. Still, she couldn’t get the thought of him saying she had fat hips out of her head. Dammit. She’d thought she looked pretty damn good when she’d left the house this morning, too. Even her sister, Laura, who she’d spoken to on Skype, had told her so, and her sister never complimented her on anything. Of course, she hadn’t told Laura where she was going either. This was supposed to be her little secret—her way of taking a piece of herself back again after everything—and she wasn’t going to let some twenty-year-old with a big mouth spoil things for her. And besides, he might not be able to control his tongue, but he was an excellent artist, and that was all that mattered. After today, she’d never need to see him again.
Kane rolled his chair back towards her, and she fixed her gaze on some of the drawings framed and hung around the walls. They were beautiful works—cherry blossom, and dragons, lotus flowers, and geishas—all with an oriental theme. It was clear he specialised in this kind of artwork, and she reminded herself that she was in good hands.
“You ready?” he asked from lower down the bed, where her waist was positioned.
She didn’t think she’d ever been in a more awkward position in her life, and she’d been in plenty of awkward positions.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“Here we go then.”
She tried not to look at the needle in his hand as he leaned over her body, and she took a deep breath.
Chapter Four
Kane tried to concentrate on his art rather than run over in his mind about how he’d just managed to call this stunning, sexy woman fat while she was lying on his table, her jeans half pulled down. If she hadn’t been in the room, he’d have taken himself over to the nearest wall and bashed his head against it.
At least she hadn’t made her excuses and run from the room. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. He must look like a rough, uncouth idiot in her eyes. Thank God he knew he was good at the one thing she’d come here for. Ink.
Kane focused on what he was doing, working with black ink initially to create the outline he’d imprinted on her skin. Beads of blood popped from her creamy flesh, and he wiped the blood, mixing the red with the black ink in a way that was almost beautiful in itself.
So far, she was taking it like a pro. He’d heard a couple of sharp intakes of breath, and watched her jaw clench, and her fingers tighten into fists on certain parts, but she hadn’t told him to stop or made any kind of a fuss.
He checked in with her. “Everything all right? Just shout if you need to take a break.”
But she just gave a tight smile and nodded. “I’m fine. Keep going.”
So he did.
He wasn’t one to make small talk with a client while he worked, preferring to concentrate and listen to the music which played through the whole of the tattoo studio via connected speakers.
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“The outline is all done,” he said finally. “That’s the hardest part. The colour is always easier. Sure you don’t want a break now? Ten minutes. Let you stretch out a bit, but don’t let anything touch the ink, okay.”
She nodded. “Okay, thanks.”
“Cool. I’m just gonna grab a drink. You want anything?”
“Just some water, if you’ve got it.”
He grinned. “I think I can manage that.”
Kane left her in the room to head out to reception. They had a staff room at the back of the building, which contained a fridge and kettle, and a small couch for them to hang out, if they needed to.
“How’s it going in there?” Tess asked as he passed her to get to the staffroom.
“Yeah, great.” He tried not to roll his eyes and failed.
“What did you do now?”
“I may have implied that I thought she had fat hips.”
Tess snorted laughter through her nose. “Oh my God, Kane. You didn’t?”
He glanced down at the floor. “Yeah, I kind of did.”
“Why? I saw how you were staring at those hips. I’m surprised you didn’t try to dry hump her against the wall before you’d even said anything.”
He lifted his gaze to her in horror. “I wasn’t that obvious, was I?”
“Err, yeah, just a bit. But she was looking at you in exactly the same way, so I wouldn’t sweat it.”
“Fucking hell.”
Tess laughed. “Ask her out.”
“No, she’ll think it’s like a pity date or something.”
She shrugged. “Or don’t. Seems a shame to let those hips go to waste, though.”
Kane groaned. It really did. The woman he’d been tattooing for the last hour looked as though she was built for sex, her breasts straining against her top, her curves spilling out of her jeans. It had been all he could do to stop himself grabbing handfuls and burying his face between her breasts. Okay, that would have been completely inappropriate, and she probably would have kicked him in the balls if he even attempted such a thing, but that didn’t stop him thinking about it.
“Where’s Art and Rocco?” he asked, asking after his boss and his colleague respectively.
“Art’s had to go into the city to meet up with a supplier, and Rocco’s in with his afternoon client, too.”
“Oh, right.” He wished one of them was around. He appreciated Tess giving him her opinion, but he’d have rather bounced things off the guys. Art had always had a rule about them not dating clients—at least not more than once—but since Art had hooked up with Tess, he’d relaxed those rules.
He made his way into the staffroom and opened the fridge to take out two bottles of water. He was always aware of being at such close proximity to his clients. The guys didn’t matter so much, but he didn’t want to be breathing coffee breath or smelling of anything less than just-out-of-the-shower body wash and deodorant when he was working on a female client. So he stuck to the water as well, even though he’d have killed for a coffee. It would have to wait until he was finished.
Did Holly drink coffee? He took her for more of a tea drinker. Maybe he could ask her out when they’d finished? No, she’d want to escape and get home. Some people found themselves shaky and lightheaded after getting inked. It was because of all the endorphins the body released to combat the pain, thinking it was being attacked. A similar thing happened when you ate spicy food, but obviously getting tattooed lasted for a lot longer.
Carrying the two bottles of water back to his studio, he ignored Tess’s hiss of “Ask her out!” as he passed by.
He went back into the room to find Holly half propped up on the bed. She smiled at him as he walked in, and he felt himself falling into those big blue eyes. Dammit.
“Everything okay?” he asked, trying to hide his feelings. He cracked open the lid of the bottle of water and handed it to her.
“Of course.” She took a sip.
“Ready for round two? This is the easy part.”
She smiled, and the room lit up around her. “Absolutely.”
To his relief, the awkwardness from earlier had dissipated. He set about mixing up the ink colour palate, while she took little sips from her bottle of water. When he was ready, she lay back down on her side, and he got to work, filling in the colour and bringing the tattoo to life.
Chapter Five
“There,” Kane proclaimed, giving her brand-new tattoo a final wipe and sitting back from the bed she’d been lying on for the past couple of hours. “What do you think?”
Holly sat up and glanced down at her now decorated hip. She took a gasp of air, her mouth dropping open. The finished artwork was beautiful.
“Oh, my God. I love it. It’s even more beautiful than I imagined.”
He gestured to the full-length mirror. “Go and take a look.”
She hopped off the bed and walked over to the mirror, holding her top up, her jeans still part rolled down to exposed the hip. She no longer felt self-conscious—after all, this man had been poring over her skin for the whole afternoon, and it wasn’t as though she was exposing any part of herself he hadn’t already seen. She twisted in different angles to get a view of the tattoo from every direction.
She locked eyes with Kane in the mirror—God, that green gaze, flecked with those iridescent sparks of gold—and something in her chest stuttered. He had such intensity about him, as though he was constantly trying to work her out. It had been a long time since a man had looked at her like that, but she told herself it was only because he now saw her as a piece of his artwork. Maybe it meant something more to him than her just being a client. He’d imprinted a little bit of his soul onto her skin, binding them together in a strange way.
Kane caught her looking, focusing on him rather than the koi fish on her hip, and a smile quirked one side of his lips. “So you’re happy with it?” he asked. He blew a strand of blond hair out of his face. He still wore the gloves he’d had on for hygiene while he’d been tattooing her, so he wasn’t able to tug his hand through his hair like he’d done before.
She nodded, a smile stretching her face. She’d be carrying that smile around with her all day, and the thought only made her smile harder. “Yeah, I love it. Thank you.”
“Great. Hop back up here, and I’ll put the dressing on it, and then you’re free to go.”
Her stomach sank in disappointment. Yeah, she was free to go. She’d just walk out of this tattoo studio, and, unless she booked in for more ink, that would be the end of her time with Kane.
That’s exactly how it should be, she scolded herself in a voice that sounded very similar to her sister’s. Inappropriate young tattoo artists were not the sort of men a respectable woman in her thirties should be lusting after. And yet, she couldn’t help herself. Something about this guy drew her to him, and she knew she’d feel disappointed when she walked out of the door. She chided herself. She bet every woman who walked through his door felt exactly the same way. No wonder the tattoo studio was so popular and got so many great reviews. No, that was unfair. He was an excellent artist, too. Him being hot, sweet, and a little goofy with it, was just a bonus.
He finished covering the new tattoo. “You might want to leave the jeans undone for a moment,” he said, assessing her waistline. “You don’t want it to rub.”
“Oh, right. Sure.” As he’d pointed out, she had enough hip to keep the jeans up without doing up the button. Her top pulled down would cover the fact while she caught the Tube home again.
Holly grabbed her bag, and Kane saw her out to the reception to pay. The petite brunette was still sitting at the desk, and a look passed between the American and Kane. Realisation sank in. Of course, the two of them must be dating. Why wouldn’t they be? Kane was hot, and she was gorgeous, and they’d be together all the time while they were working. It only made sense that they were dating. Was that what the strange moment had been about when he’d first walked out of his room? Had he felt awkward tattooing her while
his girlfriend had been watching?
Yeah, that must have been it. And to think she’d kidded herself into believing they might have had a bit of a moment. What an idiot she was.
He handed her a leaflet from the other side of the reception desk. “Here’s instructions on how to look after the tattoo. If you’ve got any questions, or anything is worrying you, just pick up the phone or come back in. Okay?”
She made a smile stretch her cheeks, but inside she was no longer feeling it. “Great, thanks,” She took the offered leaflet. “I will do.”
She paid for the tattoo, wondering if she was supposed to leave a tip, but then feeling awkward if it wasn’t the done thing and she made herself look stupid. Damn. It was one of the things she should have asked on the forum beforehand.
“Thanks, then,” she said, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder and giving them one final smile.
“Bye, Holly,” he said. His mouth opened and then closed again.
Did it seem like he was about to say something else but then didn’t? She turned away, sensing another moment between them, but not quite sure where it had come from.
And as she walked toward the front door, in the reflection the American elbowed Kane in the side and he threw his hands up in the air in a ‘What can you do?’ gesture.
Holly didn’t know what was going on there—not that it was any of her business. She stepped out onto the street and took a breath of the not-so-fresh London air. She held herself tall, carrying her new artwork on her hip. She’d got it in that place so she could show it off when she was on holiday on the beach but could also easily hide it if she wanted to. Right now, however, she wished she could tear off the cling film dressing and reveal it to the world.
She didn’t particularly need to get home for once, everything was being taken care of, but she didn’t really have anywhere else to go. It felt good to have a free weekend and be able to do whatever she wanted when she wanted. When she’d been with her ex, Mike, he’d wanted to know exactly what she was doing every minute of the day. Every second had to be accounted for to make sure she was doing something productive—cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping—and not just lying in a hot bubble bath with a good book, which was often all she felt like doing after a long day at work. She wanted to do that now, but Kane had warned her that she wasn’t to be taking any baths for at least a week, at least not until the scabs had all healed up over the tattoo. Still, she could curl up on the couch and read or binge watch something on Netflix.
Bound by Ink (London Inked Boys Book 2) Page 2