Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I followed his instructions, awkward as I uneasily settled on the edge of the seat.
He pulled up a rolling stool close to me and sat on it.
It left him eye-level with me, and his massive shoulders drew up as he rubbed his hands together like he needed to press the energy out of them. His voice was low when he muttered, “Name’s River.”
“I’m Charleigh.”
His nod was slow. “Want you to be comfortable.”
I choked a small laugh, and I tried to put some lightness into my voice. “Says the purveyor of pain.”
He blanched in surprise before the smallest grin tweaked the edge of his mouth. “Don’t you know there’s beauty in pain?”
“I think I’ve heard it a time or two.”
He looked like the poster child of it.
He cleared his throat. “So, where’s this tattoo going to go?”
I gulped around the thickness in my throat, and I twisted out of my jean jacket, trying not to meet his gaze as I did, then I lifted my left arm and ran my right index finger along the lower inner portion of my bicep. “Right here.”
His nod was appraising. “And I take it you have something in mind?”
“Just a phrase,” I whispered.
A dark brow arched, and the stars on his hairline danced. “Yeah? And what’s that?”
“I have a drawing of what I want.” My hand was trembling as I unzipped my purse and pulled out the folded piece of paper where I’d written it, and I was sure he could feel my insides quaking when he took it from my hold.
He glanced at me once as he unfolded it, and I swore my throat closed off as I imagined what he would think reading the phrase. I felt raw and brittle, like I’d peeled myself back to expose what was inside.
It was something I never did.
But I knew coming here would make me vulnerable.
I thought I saw his muscles flinch as he studied the words, or maybe he just thought me cliché and dramatic.
In grief we must live.
But they were my words. My truth. And he might be the one marking them on me, but I was the one who had to carry them. The one who had to believe them.
In an hour, I’d walk out of here and I’d likely never see him again, so it didn’t matter what he thought.
He stared down at the paper for the longest time before he reached up and scratched his cheek with a tattooed finger. “You know what font you want?”
“If you can leave it hand drawn like that?” I wanted it in my handwriting.
His eyes flashed to mine, and it was then I noticed there were sooty grays mixed with the black, like the sky during a monsoon. A shiver ripped down my spine.
“Yeah, we can definitely do that. Give me a minute to get a stencil printed up. Fill out this information while I do.”
He spun around and grabbed a tablet from the counter behind him and passed it to me so I could fill out my information and waiver, while he turned the stool and wheeled himself over on the heels of his boots to a lower section used as a desk.
His back was to me as he worked, a baited silence all around us.
After a few minutes, a printer whirred to life, and then he was back, spinning around and using his heels to glide himself close as he held out the stencil.
I could hardly breathe.
“Lay back and lift your arm above your head.”
Shaking, I did, and he leaned in close, setting the stencil against my skin in the exact spot where I’d indicated. He glanced at me with those stormy eyes. “Good?”
I gave him a jerky nod. “Yeah.”
He carefully pressed it against my arm, meticulous as he transferred the design before he pulled on another pair of black gloves. He already had a tray set with inks, and he moved some things around, squeezing the darkest black into a tiny pot, then he flicked on a machine.
He leaned in close, his mouth nearly brushing the lobe of my ear, his potency swallowing me whole.
Coarse words muttered there, hitting me in a way they shouldn’t. “Last chance, gorgeous, before I mark up this bare, perfect skin.”
But I was already scarred. He just couldn’t see it.
So, I murmured, “Do it.”
THREE
RIVER
I let the needle brush her skin, my stroke as fuckin’ light as I could get it.
She gasped a throaty, bottled cry at the contact, body arching as a lick of pain whispered across her flesh.
“You okay?” I asked, barely able to get the words off my tongue as I struggled to grip whatever the fuck it was that I was feeling.
This stranger had me twisted.
Was bad enough the way I’d reacted when she’d first come through the door. It was an entirely different thing when I’d read the statement she’d had written in her pretty handwriting on the piece of paper.