The Strongest Steel (29 page)

Drea was right behind her. “What the fuck?” her best friend gasped.

She watched Trent wrestle Red Barbie away from him.

Marching straight over, she grabbed the woman’s upper arm, digging in her nails so hard that she wasn’t sure she hadn’t drawn blood.

“Get your hands off my boyfriend,” she said with a calmness she didn’t really feel.

“Harper, seriously, this is not what it looks like.” Trent hadn’t moved, his eyebrows raised and his arm up in front of him in surrender. “Seriously darlin’, it’s not.”

“Your boyfriend?” the woman snarled, looking Harper up and down with a look that said she found Harper lacking. “Really?” The word oozed with sarcasm.

Harper tried not to take it to heart, but it was a thought she herself used to have every day.

The visual of Trent with Red was staggering. They looked made for each other, a thought that hurt her.

“I suggest you get out of here before I break your fingers,” Harper said.

“Listen. He and I are sleeping together, so unless you want to join us…”

“Once Harper, before we met.” His eyes focused on hers.

Red turned her attention back to Trent. “You can’t really be serious, honey.”

His gaze left Harper’s for a moment as he turned to Red. “Listen. I appreciate the offer, but there’s only one girl for me and she’s standing right there.” He nodded toward Harper.

Red’s face hardened. “Your loss,” the woman spat, turning around and looking for her friend. She grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the club.

Cujo deliberately adjusted his jeans. “Wow, Harper, you’re quite the cockblocker.”

“Did you seriously just say that?” Drea was frowning. “You have the sensitivity of a rock, you asshole.”

“Jealous, shortcake?” Cujo stared at her, his pierced eyebrow raised.

“In your dreams.” Drea walked over to Harper. “You okay, hon?” “No, I’m not. I need a minute.” She walked back to her drink, and downed it quickly. Her hands shook from the confrontation, and seeing Trent with another woman squeezed her heart painfully.

“Harper, darlin’. Wait,” Trent shouted, running after her. “Look, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry. Are you fucking kidding me? Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it, you ass.”

“I didn’t plan this. She just showed up, caught me off guard. I get that it looks bad, and I’m sorry. Please. Stay here with me. She’s gone. I don’t want her here, I only want you. I promise.”

Harper wavered. The anger she felt was unnerving her. “Fine,” she snapped, trying to get her raging emotions under control.

Harper took the hand Trent offered and followed him back toward their table. “How many more women am I likely to see make out with you?”

Trent wiped his mouth with a cocktail napkin. “Christ, Harper, I didn’t ask the woman to come here and throw herself at me. It was my birthday weekend, the one before you walked into my studio and turned my world on its head.”

“You don’t do things like that when you are with someone else, Trent. I’m going to have an image in my head of you kissing another woman, and I won’t be able to get rid of it. Imagine how you’d feel if the tables were reversed.”

Trent pressed his lips flat against each other, and crossed his arms. “I’d punch the fucker’s lights out.”

Harper held her hands out to her side and bunched her shoulders. “Perhaps a little extreme, but exactly.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “Point taken. I wouldn’t want the tables reversed. Ever. So I’ll say it again. I’m sorry, darlin’.”

Harper looked away. Trent pulled her over to him slowly, sliding his hands onto her hips.

“It’s true, what I said,” he murmured, his nose sliding along her jaw toward the back of her ear. “You’ve rocked my world since the day you walked into it, and all she did just now was confirm how superficial my choice in women used to be.”

Harper shook her head and put her hands on his arms.

“Tell me you’re still my darlin’?” he whispered. Harper remained silent. “You know I don’t want her. I want you. And I know you want me. So tell me. Are you still my girl?”

“You stink of drugstore perfume, but yes, I’m still your girl.”

Trent whooped and picked her up, twirling her around and planting a huge kiss on her with a loud smack.

“Now that we’re friends, can I tell you something without you getting mad at me? I wouldn’t want you dropping the F-bomb on me again.” He looked at her expectantly, laughing as she smacked his arm.

“What?”

“You’re kind of sexy when you’re jealous.”

Harper hit him again, harder this time. “I was not jealous.” She shook the pain out of her knuckles.

Trent picked up her hand and started to kiss her knuckles one by one.

“Yeah, you were. And it was hot. I thought you ladies were going to get into it right here in the bar. Not sure I’ve ever been fought over before.”

Harper grumbled at his comment.

Leaning in, he whispered, “It proves that you like me and I like that a lot.”

She hit him again, this time lighter and with laughter. “You’re an ass.”

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

Chapter Twenty

Eight o’clock and the studio was silent. Cutting everyone loose early had been a no-brainer. Harper would be arriving soon for another appointment, and Trent wanted the studio all to himself.

Setting up the small ink pots in their holder, he referred to his notes for the colors he needed. The hugely intricate detailing of the sword handle was going to take a couple of hours. It would be slow and painful work, all focused on a very small area of Harper’s back.

Harper’s sessions were likely to get shorter after today, and Trent was counting them down reluctantly. Beyond tightening up some colors and lines, her back would be pretty much complete, and given her views about tattooing in general, he was pretty certain she wouldn’t be getting on his bed again.

A knock at the front door made him smile. His girl. The thought warmed him as he let her in. Lia had flicked the Closed sign over and turned out the main studio lights when she’d left. The studio was bathed in a warm glow from the little lights above the Second Circle logo.

“Hey, darlin’,” he said, sweeping her into his arms for a warm, soft kiss. He loved the feel of her surrendering against him as he held her. She’d come such a long way in the couple of months that he’d known her, since she’d stood, frozen as still as a statue, the single finger on his belt loop her only point of contact.

Breaking away from her, he took the brown bag off her arm. The smell of food filled the studio entrance and his stomach grumbled in appreciation.

“Thought you might be hungry,” she said with a shy smile. “I know you don’t usually get to eat and it’s way past dinner.”

Throwing his arm around her shoulder, he kissed the top of her head. Having someone care about him the way Harper did pulled at his chest. She’d never been out to get something from him, had simply seen and accepted him for who he was. Where he was.

He was excited about the session. And not just because he was spending time with Harper. Of all the work he did, working with scars—undoing their damage—meant the most to him. Without a doubt, Harper’s confidence was growing as a result of the process.

Leading her to his office, he made a quick pit stop in the kitchen to grab some plates and cutlery.

Harper had pulled water from the fridge and handed it to him as he put the bag down. He stepped behind her and ran his fingertip along the length of Harper’s longest scar before kissing it as softly as he could.

Harper shivered at his touch. “They don’t gross you out?” she asked quietly.

“Not at all. Why would they? They are part of who you are.” He turned her, needed to look into her eyes. “I guess I never explained about Kit.” The slight twinge of betrayal stung him. It wasn’t really his place to share Kit’s secrets, but he wanted Harper to understand, to know with certainty that the scars didn’t bother him.

He took a seat on a chair by the table and pulled Harper onto his lap, savoring the way she molded against him.

“Do you know what a cutter is?”

Harper’s mouth opened in surprise and she nodded.

“Kit was a cutter. When she first told me, she’d had about twenty lines around her bicep.” Trent shuddered, reliving the moment she had first shown him. “Her problems were so overwhelmingly painful that the only way she could escape them was to physically cut into her skin, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was her big brother and I couldn’t help.”

It had taken time to understand that it was Kit’s only way of letting the greater pain wash away the noise of what was happening in her life. It was the only thing she’d felt she had any control over.

Harper placed her hand to his cheek, and he leaned into it, welcoming the comfort. “I’m so sorry, Trent.”

“She showed them to me, first. Begged me to help her. We just didn’t know how, so Dad found a place she could get professional help. I promised her if she went, I’d figure out how to cover them for her, if she wanted me to.”

The medical profession was divided on whether people who self-harmed should get tattoos, likening the feeling of the needle to the feel of a blade. Some doctors believed it allowed patients to replace a harmful act with a more socially acceptable one to achieve the same goals—a momentary break from the noise inside their heads as they focused on pain. Trent didn’t agree. In his mind, getting a tattoo to represent something meaningful in your life was not even close to the addiction of cutting as a way to escape the harsh reality of life. Add that to the myriad reasons for
why
people cut, and who was to say it represented the same thing?

“So Kit is why you do it?” Harper lifted his hand and kissed his knuckle, a sweet gesture that spread warmth through him.

“I spent forever learning about scars, the different types, how it affects the layers of skin. I played around with inks and needles to see which would work best. I didn’t want to take any chances that it wouldn’t be perfect for her.” Harper sat up in his arms, looking at him with so much admiration he felt like he could fly or some shit. “And the process? That is the best bit. Tracing the scars to build a design around them, taking the before photo. I researched the crap out of the butterflies and dragonflies she wanted. Could probably tell you the names of them all, in Latin, if you wanted.”

“You’re incredible.” Harper brushed her soft lips against his. “You’re a good man, Trent Andrews.” He pulled her closer and took the kiss deeper for a moment before pulling away.

“So to answer your question, no, they don’t gross me out.”

She felt so good in his arms and he kissed her again. Harper’s stomach rumbled and he laughed at her groan of embarrassment. “Let’s get you some food.”

Looking in the bag, he saw tapas from one of the restaurants a few doors down. He could smell the basil of the fresh bruschetta and the peanut sauce from the chicken satay. She’d gotten him all his favorites.

Trent leaned against his desk and watched her open all of the containers, her slight fingers fighting the lids of the foil containers. He adored the slow curve of her lips and flash of excitement in her eyes.

“What was that thought?” Leaning forward, he grabbed the fingers she was about to wipe on a napkin and sucked them into his mouth, slowly licking between them.

Harper’s eyes flashed wide in response. He loved that he could surprise her.

“I was thinking about the last time we finished up a tattoo.” A pink flush tinted her cheeks.

“Why do you think this place is empty, darlin’? I want you to be able to do whatever you want to do tonight.” He laughed at the look of shock on her face.

Grabbing a piece of the bruschetta out of the container, he took a large bite and groaned. “Mmm, this tastes so good. Not as good as you, but close.”

*   *   *

Shortly before nine, Harper was lying on her front, a mellow puddle on Trent’s bed. He’d seduced her into her current state, kissing her passionately while slowly removing her blouse and bra.

Resting her forehead on her arms and closing her eyes, Harper was surprisingly soothed by the sound of Trent finishing the setup of his station.

It made sense to her now why people would choose to get tattoos. It was hard to not be moved by the tears of a grown man as an image of his newborn son’s foot was tattooed on his shoulder. Or see a veteran have the date he completed his final tour of duty tattooed under his Navy SEAL insignia. People commemorated, celebrated, and simply recognized a moment in time with their ink. There would always be those who came in who were old enough to get tattooed but not mature enough to select something truly meaningful, who would walk away with a stock tattoo from a book. But the majority of those done in Trent’s studio had real stories.

The previous week, Trent had told her, the studio had come to a standstill as a young man from Yonkers told the story of how his grandfather had been liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Nobody had spoken a word as Lia had tearfully re-created his grandfather’s six-digit tattoo on the outer side of his left arm.

They all had stories. Just like her. Just like Kit.

Trent’s passion wasn’t about being the best tattoo artist there was. It was more profoundly personal and her admiration for him grew.

By mutual agreement, neither metal nor country was playing. She’d taken it upon herself to make a playlist unique to the two of them. One Republic was currently talking about secrets, Harper’s acknowledgement that she had them but was building up to sharing everything with him.

“Ready, darlin’?”

Harper turned slightly to watch him turn his baseball hat before pulling on his gloves. He leaned in and kissed her one more time before she could answer.

“Always,” she breathed against his lips.

Trent’s face was ripe with anticipation. He’d told her he wanted the moment he tattooed all the handle details to feel truly symbolic for her, so they’d agreed that he wouldn’t tell her what all the intricate details actually meant until he was tattooing them on her back. Though she’d seen the overall design and colors, she didn’t know what it all meant. But she trusted that Trent knew her well enough by now to pick something perfect.