A brief frown passed across his face as he rubbed his stubble with one hand before playing with the placement of his hat again.
“I’d like to think I’m really good at everything.”His words oozed confidence, but his self-deprecating laugh stopped them from sounding arrogant.“Hey, a question for you, darlin’, and I’m not asking to rush you.We going to continue this getting-to-know-you—in which case I’ll order in a pizza, because I’m starving—or are you ready to tell me what you’re here for?”
***
She froze.Like totally shut down.Man, she’d been starting to relax.Shit, he’d nearly gotten her to crack a smile with his I’m-great-at-everything comment (which was only eighty percent accurate… he only sucked at things that didn’t matter).
She stood motionless in the middle of the studio.He wasn’t even sure she was still breathing.Everything stopped except her fingers, still frantically flicking in and out to a rapid pulse.
He heard her inhale deeply as she looked back toward the door.She reminded him of the mustang on his grandparents’ ranch in Wyoming, edgy and ready to bolt.With a deep breath, she finally squared her shoulders and returned her gaze to his.
“I want to know if you can tattoo over some scarring on my back,” she said quietly.
“To decide that, I’d have to see it.”
He could sense her indecision.He remained seated on the counter, worried that the slightest movement on his part would send her running.
“This is so fucking hard,” she mumbled.
She slowly reached under the hem of her blouse, lifting it off to reveal a white bikini top.Wow.She really was stunning.Her body was a work of art, and under different circumstances he’d take a while longer to admire it.He didn’t usually react this way to clients—he prided himself on being a professional.But hell, he was only human.
Thinking about her body felt doubly wrong, though, given the vibe she was giving off.He needed to recite the alphabet backward or something, or she was going to see his appreciation too clearly.
Her perfect white teeth bit down on her lower lip.
“Can you tattoo over this?”She turned her back to him.
Holy hell.Though in the dimness he could only just make out the scars of different sizes and depths marring her back, his stomach lurched.He flicked on the light by the cash register, pulled a pair of gloves from the box next to it, and dropped down from the counter to stand behind her.
Shaking slightly, she pulled her shirt to her front, clutching it tightly to her chest.He looked at the red raised areas that had clearly been stitched and the silvery scars that had been left to heal on their own.
What.The.Fuck.Was that writing?He could swear it spelled something.Someone had carved words into Harper’s back.Someone had deliberately taken a knife to her skin.
It all made sense.Her nervousness and agitation.Her need to stay and her need to get out of there quickly.The need to move on and the need to hide.
Normally he’d reach out and feel the scars, gauging the depth of the scar tissue under the skin.If he did, though, she’d run.He could see it in the way she stood on the balls of her feet, shoulders tightly coiled.He leaned in as close as he could to study them, gauge whether the scars were mature enough to tattoo over.
There in the scars, were the words “My Bitch.”
Who could do this to another person?To her?
He could only imagine how hard it must be for her to just stand there in his studio.Her courage blew him away, and he knew he would find a way to cover up the horror for her.
But did she have any idea what this was going to take?It would be months of work and hours of sometimes-painful tattooing, the kind that brought even the toughest of men to their knees.
She’d come to him.Trusted him to fix this for her.He would get her through it.Somehow.
***
Silence was not good.
It was obvious that Trent was just as repulsed as everyone else who had ever seen it.For a brief moment, she was transported back to the trial, the abject look of horror on the jurors’ faces as they’d looked at photographs of her injuries.She hadn’t shown her back to a single person since.
“This was a bad idea,” she murmured, trying to pull on her blouse as fast as she could.She needed to get out of there.
“Wait.”Trent grabbed for her arm to stop her, quickly releasing it when she flinched.“Shit, sweetheart, that was some curveball you just threw at me.Of all the things I was expecting, that was definitely not it.It’s not like anything I’ve seen.I’m not sure anything I can come up with is appropriate for this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she snapped, anxious to get out before the tears she was holding back spilled over and she humiliated herself more.If there was nothing “appropriate” he could do for her, then for the sake of her sanity, she needed to go as quickly as possible.
