3. Holly
HOLLY
T he tattoo Kane shows me is absolutely stunning.
A beautiful koi fish in red, orange, and yellow looks as though it’s moving across the screen, droplets of water splashing from its fins and tail. It isn’t a copy of any one of the pictures I’d emailed, but a completely new one all of my own. No one else will have this exact tattoo.
My nerves fall away. “My God, Kane. It’s gorgeous. You drew that?”
He grins and rakes his hand through his hair. A habit of his, I think, just from the small amount of time I’ve spent with him.
“Sure did.”
“It’s incredible. So lifelike. Will it look the same as the tattoo?”
“Pretty much. Some of the colours may appear a little duller over time, but otherwise it will be the same.”
The thought of having such beautiful artwork on my skin lifts something inside me. It’s both exotic and elegant. It makes me feel as though I’m a more daring type of person than the dull woman approaching middle age, which is how I’ve come to think of myself more and more these days.
“You want any changes made?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nope. I want it exactly how you’ve drawn it. Every single detail.”
A smile spreads across his face. From my words?
The thought makes my breath catch. I thought he was good-looking when I first saw him, but something about his smile makes him striking.
But he’s far too young for me, and besides, I’m supposed to be a responsible adult and am not the sort of lithe twenty-one-year-old I imagine guys like Kane go for.
“And you still want it done on your hip?”
I nod. “Yes, I haven’t changed my mind from the emails I sent you.”
“Hop up on the bed then,” he tells me as he turns away to prepare inks in a cart on wheels. He glances back over his shoulder. “You’ll need to be on your side, and roll down your jeans enough to expose the area where the tattoo is going to go.”
Dammit. I hadn’t considered that I’m going to need to roll down my jeans in front of this guy. Okay, I hadn’t considered that the tattoo artist was going to be ridiculously hot, or maybe I would have done.
Shit, shit, shit.
It isn’t as though I can suddenly change my mind now and decide I want the tattoo on my shoulder or something. I’ve always been one hundred percent sure I want it on my hip.
I don’t have any choice but to do as he instructed.
I tell myself he’s like a doctor, impartial, having seen far too much skin for it to have any effect on him anymore.
And besides, he’s the kind of guy who probably has nubile twenty-year-olds hanging off his every word.
He won’t be bothered about seeing the hip of a thirty-something-year-old woman.
I undo the top button of my jeans, wishing I’d worn something a little baggier, and pull down the material as much as I dare.
I don’t want to flash Kane my knickers, especially as they’re one of my more sensible pairs from Marks and Spencer, rather than my sexy ones from a local lingerie shop.
He’s busy, preoccupied with getting everything ready.
This is his job. He’s a professional, and I need to remember that.
That doesn’t stop my mortification, however, as he tucks a sheet of white paper into the waistband of my jeans, which are now down past my hips, and his fingers graze my body.
Faint silvery lines of stretch marks, faded now and barely noticeable, scrawl across my skin.
Still they embarrass me, another sign of my imperfection among all his bad-boy sexiness.
I can’t keep reacting this way. The tattoo is going to take a couple of hours, and he’ll be touching me practically the whole time.
Kane pulls his chair up to the bed. It’s on wheels, allowing him easy movement around the room without him needing to get up.
He’s done some kind of transfer of the tattoo he drew onto a piece of paper, and now he frowns slightly as he concentrates, placing it against my skin on the spot I want, before transferring it so he has an outline he can work with.
“How’s that?” he asks, moving away so I can get a better look.
The shape of the fish looks as though it’s swimming up over my hip, splashes of water flicking from its tail and fins.
I smile, trying to stave off my nerves. “Perfect.”
He must notice how I try to rub my sweaty palms off on the seat of my jeans.
“It’s okay to be nervous,” he tells me, his head tilting to one side. He gives a chuckle, and my stomach flips, but not because of nerves this time. “I’ve had grown men in here who’ve cried and begged me to stop in the middle of getting inked.”
I cock my eyebrows. “That’s not actually making me feel better.”
He laughs again. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I grit my teeth and tense.
“Try to relax, take some long deep breaths. It won’t hurt as much as you’re expecting, I promise. It would be different if you were having it done on a bony area—like your foot or spine—but the hip has got plenty of padding.”
Plenty of padding! My cheeks burn. Is that his way of letting me know he thinks I’m fat? I know I have curves—I’m not some waifish teenager.
Kane seems to realise what he said. “I mean, not that it’s fat or anything. I mean, it is fat, but you’re not fat. You’re curvy and gorgeous.” His eyes widen, and he smacks his hand—the one not holding the needle—against his forehead. “Okay, I’m just going to stop talking now.”
I watch his rambling in confused horror, unsure who’s more mortified, me or him. Does he really mean he thinks I’m curvy and gorgeous? No, he only said that to hide the comment about me having fat hips. Jesus Christ. Why the hell had I thought this was a good idea?
“Let’s just get on with this, yeah?” he says, trying to recover.
“Yes, please,” I reply, my voice a little more terse than I would like.
Still, I can’t get the thought of him saying I have fat hips out of my head.
Dammit. I thought I looked pretty damn good when I left the house this morning, too.
Even my sister, Nicki, who I spoke to on Skype, told me so, and my sister never compliments me on anything.
Of course, I hadn’t told Nicki where I was going either.
This is supposed to be my little secret— my way of taking a piece of myself back again after everything—and I’m going to let some twenty-year-old with a big mouth spoil things for me.
And besides, he might not be able to control his tongue, but he’s an excellent artist, and that’s all that matters.
After today, I’ll never need to see him again.
Kane rolls his chair back towards me, and I fix my gaze on some of the drawings framed and hung around the walls.
They’re beautiful works—cherry blossom, and dragons, lotus flowers, and geishas—all with an oriental theme.
It’s clear he specialises in this kind of artwork, and I remind myself that I’m in good hands.
“You ready?” he asks from where he’s positioned at my waist.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in a more awkward situation in my life, and I’ve been in plenty of awkward situations.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“Here we go then.”
I try not to look at the needle in his hand as he leans over my body, and I take a deep breath.