Page 41 of Devilish Ink

“It is,” I said with an indignant sniff. “It’s easy to get addicted to the ink.”

My gaze trailing over the tattoos that covered my fingers, my hands, that twisted up my arms.

“To crave the pain,” I continued. “To miss that flood of numbness when your body responds to the pain, endorphins soaring, adrenaline making every one of your cells come to life. It’s likecoming.”

The word caught in my throat like a forbidden curse.

Lee placed his palms on the wall on either side of my head and leaned in closer, as close as he could possibly get without touching me.

His heat hovering just above my skin like an aura. His gaze tracing my cheeks down to my lips then back to my eyes. He looked like he was holding himself back through sheer willpower alone from crashing into me. Consuming me.

Heat pooled between my thighs. My eyes fluttered closed.

I hadn’t had a man’s touch in so long. I did my best on myown. But there was only so much strength in my hand. It was never enough. Never what I longed for. Never took me where I wanted to go.

A shiver ran down my spine because I knew that Lee, with those callused hands, with the rippling muscles along his tanned forearms, he,hecould give it to me. He would be strong enough to totally dominate me.

“You should try a different tattoo style,” I said, grasping for straws, the wild shots of a desperate opponent, one who already knew she had lost.

“Conor or Mason,” I continued, pretending that I didn’t understand that the only reason he even cared about tattoos was to be close tome, “they can give you what you’re looking for.”

“I’ve already found what I want,” he said, his lips brushing my ear, his husky voice sending shivers down my spine. “I want…you.”

Lee kept his word. Week after week, he came back to Dublin Ink.

Maybe if I hadn’t been so eager to see him again, I’d have noticed he only ever showed up when I was alone.

He’d stand way too close to me as he unbuttoned his shirt, as my fingers flinched toward him.

But to my utter frustration, he didn’t make a move on me physically. No crowding me against walls, no demanding I let him into my heart.

He just lay down on his stomach on the tattoo table and turned his face toward me, his head on his forearms.

“What do you want tattooed on you today?” I’d ask, even though his answer was always the same.

“Something meaningful to you.”

I’d ignore the tightness in my chest and take my time,readying my inks, as if I didn’t already know which piece of my soul I was going to mark him with.

I added ivy to the door on his back and the brick walls of my childhood home. I added the oak tree with its tire swing out the back that I used to swing in. A sunset view between the mountains of Glendalough where we’d vacation when both my parents had been alive.

Sunflowers because they were my ma’s favourite, nestled around a bowl of black pudding that she’d always make Sunday mornings. I added two angels, my ma and my da, with outstretched hands as they rose up to the sky, robes billowing.

Once all the pieces of my childhood covered his back, I had no choice but to move to the back of his thighs.

I gave him the art piece that landed me a full ride scholarship to the Limerick Art School. I added the real paw prints of my childhood dog, Marley, a mirror of the ones I had on my inner ankle.

Each piece of me, he bore without protest, asking gentle questions, coaxing their stories from me.

And I shared them with him. Every piece I handed him felt like a piece I couldn’t get back, but…I didn’t want them back anymore.

I didn’t want to carry them alone.

I only realised partway through my latest addition to the back of his right thigh that I was tattooing a shadowy face, shattered like glass. Unrecognisable save one uncracked eye. That one eye was drawn with such real-life detail that I expected it to blink. To search my face out in the mirror. To lock onto my gaze and never let go.

I hadn’t meant to give him this part of me.

But once I’d started I had to finish it.

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