Abiding Ink (Inked in the Steel City #4) (9 page)

“I’m not mad about what you said to Dr. Anthony. Actually, I’m glad you were there. His behavior was … embarrassing. He’s got a reputation as a ladies’ man and frankly, I’m not interested. I just feel bad that you had to put up with what he said. It was so unfair.”

“He wasn’t very creative with his insults, really. I’ve heard worse. And I’m sure he won’t be the last person to think I’m not good enough for you.” Taking a long sip of his coffee, he tested the waters of what she’d suggested a few minutes ago, about them being perceived as a couple.

It wasn’t that he expected her to throw herself at his feet and declare undying love. But he’d like to think of her as his. The idea of any other man laying hands on her made a vein pop out on his forehead – he could feel it throbbing by his temple when he thought of how her boss had treated her at the holiday party.

“Well, that’s ridiculous. You may be tattooed, but at least your ink is beautiful. I’m the one – or at least I was, until today – with the horrible, embarrassing tattoo. It’s just that people don’t know that.” Her smile was tinged by obvious self-consciousness. It was beautiful anyway.

“Okay. Are you going to tell me what this tattoo was of or what?”

Mallory looked down at her latte, then back up at Tyler. “Promise you won’t judge me. I was only 19. I’m older and wiser now, believe me.”

“You have my word. And I promise you I’ve seen worse. Some of the stuff Abby has covered up…” He shook his head. “She’s a miracle-worker.”

“Okay. It was a simple tattoo, really – just some script. It wasn’t badly done, but it was a guy’s name.” She winced. “An ex-boyfriend’s.”

A spark of jealousy flashed to life inside him, spreading like a fire in his bones. Some guy’s name had been inked on her body? He worked to keep his expression impassive as he silently hated whoever the guy had been.

“Now do you see why I didn’t want you to know?” she asked.

“If it’s any consolation, you’re not the first to come in to have a name covered up. Far from it, actually.”

“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Not only was my tattoo horrible, but it was a total cliché. I’m so relieved to have it gone. I had it for six years, and I regretted it every single day of every single one.” She paused and frowned. “Almost, anyway. I was thrilled for the first two weeks … until my boyfriend and I broke up.”

“I’m sure you’re better off without anyone who’d ask you to have their name tattooed on your body.”

“Believe me, I know that now. But I was young and dumb. You know how it is.” She shot him a glance that held a hint of a question.

If she was looking for reassurance, he had some to give. “As I recall, when I was 19 I had a hopeless crush on a woman who thought of me as an annoying little brother.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. An uncle of mine owned a tattoo studio – I learned by apprenticing to him – and she worked there, tattooing. She was at least ten years older than me and had a boyfriend the size of a brick house. I’m pretty sure he wanted to kick my ass, only she felt sorry for me and didn’t want to piss my uncle off.”

Mallory laughed. “It’s hard for me to imagine a woman thinking of
you
as a little brother. You’re not exactly the boyish type.”

“That was about a decade ago. Back then I was the same height I am now, but twenty-five pounds lighter.” He’d looked a lot like Dustin looked now – lean bordering on skinny, definitely boyish and barely out of high school.

“Well, I’m sure if she saw you now, she’d be sorry to see what she missed out on.”

“You’re just trying to boost my ego. I’m pretty sure she still wouldn’t be interested. Her boyfriend broke her chair once by sitting in it too hard. She liked her men the size of draft horses. Any of them could’ve ground my teenage bones into dust. Now that I look back on it, trying to flirt with her then was like flirting with death. So yeah, I know what it’s like to be young and dumb.”

“Glad I’m not the only one, but I still take the cake. At least you didn’t get her name tattooed in an attempt to impress her.”

“I probably would’ve if I’d thought it would work. I guess deep down, I knew I had no chance.”

She laughed, took a sip of her latte and licked a smudge of cream from her lip.

Abruptly, Tyler forgot all about being 19 and was plunged back into the moment, which meant fighting a growing erection under the table. “About that New Year’s party – what do you say?”

“I’d like to go.”

“What about tonight? Do you have anywhere you need to be?” He threw it out there, not wanting to let her escape when her drink was gone. It wasn’t even eight o’clock, after all. Maybe they could see a movie or something.

“I have work in the morning.” She reached across the table and touched his hand lightly. “I have to get up early. Really early. And I’m going to need all my energy because I don’t have a workday highlight to look forward to anymore.”

“What was your workday highlight?”

“Watching you push your cart into walls.”

“Technically, it was a doorway.” That seemed marginally better.

“I wasn’t paying much attention to the cart, to be honest.” She grinned.

Electricity sparked in his nerve endings, just below the surface of his skin where she touched him. “So no time for a movie – dinner?”

“Well… I have to eat, and getting something with you sounds like more fun than heating up dinner in the microwave when I get home. Just something quick, though.”

“There’s a takeout place just around the corner. Do you like Chinese?”

“Who doesn’t?”

He stood, catching her hand up in his and holding it, never giving her a chance to break contact. “Let’s go.”

They stepped back out into the night together. Tyler’s half-finished coffee kept one of his hands hot while Mallory’s touch warmed the other. The walk was short – soon they were inside the takeout place, breathing in the heavy aromas of a dozen different dishes. They didn’t have to wait long for their food, but when they had it, there was nowhere to sit – it wasn’t a dine-in establishment.

“How cold are you when we’re outside?” Tyler asked, eyeing her thick jacket. “Is it uncomfortable for you?”

Mallory shrugged. “Not really, especially now that I’ve had a hot drink.”

“Then if you’re not opposed, I know somewhere we can sit down to eat that’s better than the inside of a car.” It was more of a summertime retreat than a December-friendly thing, but he had to work with what he had.

“Okay.”

He led her back around the corner, to Hot Ink.

They didn’t go indoors. Instead, he led her around the side, to where the fire escape stood out dark and just barely snow-coated in the brick building’s shadow. The place was only three stories high – Hot Ink took up the first floor, the second was an apartment Jed had lived in until recently and the third was an unused storage space, so far as he knew. The fire escape led all the way to the top and had a ladder that went to the roof.

“Careful,” he said. “The metal might be slick from the snow. Here, let me carry the food.”

They climbed to the top of the escape and he urged her to go up the ladder first, just in case – he’d catch her if she fell. She didn’t even slip, but he watched vigilantly anyway, his gaze glued to her yoga pants. If it’d been daylight out, the sight of her climbing up the side of the building in those probably would’ve stopped traffic.

“Toss up the food,” she said when she reached the top. “I’ll catch it.”

He had a sudden vision of the takeout bag landing on the steel grid beneath his feet and exploding in a burst of duck and soy sauce, but he complied.

She caught it neatly and waited for him to climb up.

“Good,” he said when he reached the roof. “Jed forgot to take the umbrella down. I was counting on that.” Walking to where a round patio table sat in the middle of the flat roof, he opened the umbrella. It sprang open, shedding snow in a violent flurry that took several minutes to settle. Meanwhile, Tyler dusted a light layer of powder from the table and seats.

Mallory set the bag down on the tabletop and began unpacking its contents. “Does everyone eat up here during the summer?” she asked, handing him a pair of chopsticks.

“Having a table up here started as a joke because Jed was always getting on people about eating in the shop. But yeah, it gets used, just not usually while it’s snowing.”

She took a seat, scooting her chair forward so that it was under the shelter of the umbrella, protected from the snowflakes drifting down from the dark sky. The shop sign’s neon glow didn’t reach the roof, but there was enough streetlight to eat by. “I like it. It’s like sitting inside a snow globe.” She opened a container of chicken and broccoli.

“It was either this or invite you back to my car for dinner, and I figured that’d be kinda creepy.”

She laughed.

He liked the sound. It rang in his ears, even after she went back to eating. They talked a little more about Hot Ink – she didn’t seem as embarrassed, now that her secret was out in the open. He tried not to wonder too much about her new tattoo, but he failed. Miserably. When they finished eating and she dropped her chopsticks back into the bag, tidying up the table, he rose.

Snowflakes drifted down, settling in her hair when she strayed out from beneath the umbrella’s shelter. Her breath was misty. Hopefully he hadn’t frozen her with his rooftop dining idea. He could still feel the heat she’d leant him back when she’d touched his hand in the café, when they’d walked down the street with fingers entwined.

He reached for her again, but didn’t settle for holding her hand. Instead, he wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her close, so that nothing could slip between their bodies – not even a snowflake.

It felt natural, like a reflex. Beneath her thick winter coat, he could feel hints of her shape, but not her body heat. That was all right – he felt it when he slipped a hand behind her head and lowered his mouth to hers.

Her lips were soft and when they yielded to his, his dick throbbed against his jeans. Slipping his tongue into her mouth, he went deep, liking the way she kissed him back. As the kiss went on, the air gradually disappeared from his lungs, leaving him as breathless as his first look at her in the hospital hallway had. He had to remember to breathe – with desire for her rushing undiluted through his veins, drawing breath no longer seemed like a strictly vital function.

Other things seemed more important – like getting closer to her. Getting inside her. He hardened some more as she leaned into him, pressing her body more firmly against his. Trapped between them, his cock ached for more than just pressure, for deliberate contact.

By the time their lips parted, his mind had filled with visions of lifting her onto the table and getting between her thighs – feeling her wrapped around him, somehow, as he explored her mouth.

Damn cheap patio furniture – it would never hold up to what he had in mind. Damn December and damn the cold.

Her eyes shone as they met his, and she didn’t pull away from him. If anything, she leaned a little more heavily on him. The added weight and pressure of her body against his was sweet torture. He ached to move against her, to feel some friction against the steel-hard shaft of his cock. Shifting his grip on her, he gave in just a little, rubbing one hand against the curve of her hip and letting the resulting friction warm his palm.

She sucked in a quick breath, and he felt her flinch the tiniest bit.

It took a moment for realization to hit him. “Your tattoo.” Focusing now, he felt the telltale texture of bandages beneath her yoga pants. “Sorry.” He shifted his hand higher, touching bare skin at her waist.

She drew another quick breath, but no flinching this time. No pain.

“It’s okay. It’s just a little sore. No big deal.”

He imagined the tattoo machine implanting color into her skin where he’d touched her, at her hip. She was lean enough that he felt the curve of bone, and knew it must’ve hurt. It hurt him to think about, mostly because the idea of tattooing her there – the idea of her
being
tattooed there – made it feel like his dick was going to burst his jeans zipper.

Hell, he’d settle for just touching her there again, when it healed. “What colors?” he asked, because he couldn’t help himself. “What color ink?”

“Purple,” she said. “Black. Purple and black.”

Her answer sent another bolt of longing straight down his spine, to his groin. He could picture the bold colors against her skin. He didn’t ask about the design. He’d rather see it with his own eyes. If he had to wait a while, he had to wait a while. He was already going to have to go home after this with a set of aching balls. What was a little more torture?

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and the motion sent his hand sliding a little higher against the flat plane and soft skin of her belly.