Page 39 of London Inked Boys: The Complete Trilogy
Excitement pulses through my veins, but I try to rein myself in. I might get to her house and discover she has a boyfriend. Of course a woman like her has a boyfriend. Even so, that doesn’t stop me feeling eager about the prospect of seeing her again. How will she react? Will she be pleased to see the phone, maybe throw her arms around me in a hug of relief, press thosebeautiful tits up against my chest and squeeze me tight? That in itself would be enough.
“Okay, I’m outta here,” I say, grabbing my jacket.
Tess grins. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“And ask the girl out!” Her voice chases me as I let myself out of the door.
I’m not someone who normally gets nervous around women. I’m the cocky one, the one who’s so sure of himself, yet somehow this particular woman has disrupted all of that. I have her address scrawled on a piece of paper, folded up in the pocket of my jeans, and I find myself constantly reaching back in, making sure it’s still there, fingering the corners until they’re worn and soft. I consider getting the Tube, but end up flagging down a black cab instead, and telling the driver the home address of this woman who’s affected me so badly.
I’ve had plenty of women—women whose names I can’t even remember now. There had even been the occasional relationship, but they’d never made it past a few months. The relationships always fizzled out, so there hadn’t even been dramatic breakups, just longer times between phone calls and hookups, until eventually neither of us bothered calling each other to set up another date. None of them had sent my heart racing the way Holly has, though, or turned me into a tongue-tied mess. I still want to hit my head against the wall for implying she has fat hips. They aren’t fat. They’re voluptuous and creamy and now have my artwork imprinted on one of them. The scent of her skin while I’d been tattooing her made my mouth water, the heat of her soaking through my skin whenever I’d needed to rest my forearm against her to get the right position affecting me.
Yeah, I want her physically, but it isn’t just that. Most girls who come into the studio chat constantly about themselves—what bands they’ve seen, where they like to eat, gossip about random people I don’t even know—but Holly had been quiet. It hadn’t come across as shyness, though. No, it was more that she hadn’t felt the need to fill in the silence with inane chatter. She’d been content just to lie there and let me get on with my work.
The taxi driver pulls up, and I crane my neck to take in the sight of the modest, terraced row of houses. They have bay windows and high ceilings with cornices. I know these types of houses. I grew up in one on the other side of the city in East London. Stupidly, I relax a little at the sight of the house, and that it isn’t some three million pound mansion. But what if she isn’t in? She might not have gone straight home after the tattoo, and gone out somewhere, or met someone else. Will I need to put the phone through her letterbox or something? Doing so would mean I’ve lost my only opportunity.
There’s no point in trying to predict the future. I throw twenty quid at the driver and then face Holly’s house. It’s impossible to see if anyone’s in. Wooden slatted blinds cover the downstairs windows, angled just enough to let some light in, while keep peering eyes out.
Nerves jangle my insides. This is stupid. I’m a grown man returning a phone. I need to remember I have some balls.
I take a breath and march up to her front door and ring the bell before I get the chance to chicken out. I stand, anxiously, trying not to shuffle from foot to foot, but instead look as though I’m supposed to be here. Me, with my long hair, and tats, and cut off t-shirt. The imposter feeling sinks in again, the idea this woman is way out of my league.
For a moment, I don’t think she’s going to answer the door, and my thoughts about her being out are correct, but then I sense movement on the other side. I catch a glimpse of a shape in the frosted glass panel, and to my surprise, the door opens.
Holly has changed out of her jeans into a dress, so she doesn’t have the waistband rubbing the new tattoo. I wonder if that might have been a better outfit to get the tattoo done in the first palace but then I realise I’d have needed to pull the dress right up, exposing the full length of her curvy thigh, her panties, and hip. The image flashes in my mind, and blood rushes to my cock in a sudden tingle.
Her mouth drops, her blue eyes widening even further at the sight of me. “Kane?”
“Err, hi. Sorry to drop by on you like this, but you left something at the studio.”
“My phone,” she says instantly, and her shoulders drop with relief. “I’ve just been turning my bag upside down trying to find it.”
I remember and pull the phone out of my jeans pocket before handing it to her. “I would have called and let you know where it was, but the only number we had was your mobile, so...”
She glances down at the phone now in her hand and then laughs—a deep laugh, one that comes from right inside her chest—and surprises me. “Yeah, of course. You’d have been calling yourself.”
I grin at her response. “Exactly.”
We stand, staring at each other again, exactly the same way as we’d done when we’d first come face to face in the studio. In my head, I can hear Tess’s voice.Ask her out! Ask her out!
“So, err…” I scuff my foot along the ground, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my jeans, feeling fifteen years old and about to ask the hottest girl at school out. “I wondered what you were doing for the rest of the day. I mean, if you wanted to get a drink, or something to eat, or ... something...” I finish lamely.
Her eyes widen again, and a flush of pink appears high in her cheeks, so she appears even more beguiling. “A drink? Like out? With people?”
“Well, just the two of us, but in public, so yeah, I guess there will be other people there.”
“Like, now?”
I flap a hand in the direction of the street. “Only if you want to. I mean, I’m free, but we can rearrange...”
She lifts a finger in a ‘one minute’ gesture. “Can you just give me a sec?”
“Yeah, ‘course.”
“Okay. I’ll be back.”
And the door shuts in my face, leaving me blinking at the wood, not totally sure what happened.
