Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15)(26)

Her suicide scars were something I refused to hide completely. They’re part of her and she got through it, so I felt like it was important for them to stay there. I turned her suicide scars into clouds in a sunset sky. The jagged edges form the edges of the clouds. To an outsider who doesn’t know her story, one might think it is a perfect sunset. But it’s not. It’s a sunset fraught with challenges. But the thing to remember is at the end of the day, the sunset will always happen and it will always be beautiful. It’s one’s perception of it that matters. Do you see the scars or do you see the sunset? Some days, you need to see the scars. Some days, all you’ll see is the sunset, the perfect end to the perfect day. But to get to the perfect end, you had to face your challenges all along. We all do, and I wanted her tattoo to depict that.

I turned her small spatter scars into tiny seashells that litter the beach. They’re colorful and playful and she grins as she counts them. There are twenty-four in all.

When you look at the tattoo as a whole, it’s like a painting. But there are so many parts to it that I can’t even imagine anyone who looks at it would understand. But Lark understands all of them.

I watch her face as she takes in the tattoo. “Do you like it?” I ask.

“No.”

My heart stops. “I can cover it up with something else. Maybe in a few weeks,” I rush to say.

She catches my hands and stops them from moving, then lets them go.

“I don’t just like it,” she says. “I love it. It’s perfect. You put everything that’s important to me in it, and I’ll never stop looking at it. It’s wonderful.”

“Really?” I stare at her face.

She takes a step closer to me. “Really.”

Then she surprises the hell out of me when she grabs my shirt and jerks me to her, steps up onto her tiptoes, and presses her mouth against mine. I vaguely recognize that her dad leaves the curtained area where we’ve been working, but I’m not sure I care. She kisses me, and heat shoots straight to the center of me. I’ve kissed quite a few girls, and done a whole lot more than that with some, but I’ve never had someone kiss me the way she does.

Her lips crash against mine, and she opens her mouth, inviting my tongue to tangle with hers. Her arms lift and wrap around my shoulders, and she presses her chest against mine, her nipples hard and tight against her shirt. I can feel every curve of her, and I can taste the raw emotion in her right now fighting to get out. I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her tighter, drawing her so close to me that we’re like one person. She moans against my lips; I can feel it in the vibration of her chest.

The curtain shakes and catches my attention, and I lift my head to look up. Friday sticks her head around the curtain and looks at us. We must look a sight. Lark’s cheeks are pink and my breaths are heaving from my chest.

“You know her dad is right outside the curtain, right?” Friday asks, sending furtive glances to the other side of the partition.

“Yes. I know.” I look down at Lark and brush a lock of hair from her sweaty forehead.

“I’m willing to bet you got a good tattoo,” Friday says with a smile.

Lark grins, and holds her arm out so Friday can take a look. “I did.”

I see Friday’s eyes narrow when she notices the suicide attempt scars, but she doesn’t say anything. She does tattoos all day, and she has an eye for art. Of course she would notice. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “Some of your best work. Ever. I love the shells and how they’re all different. I loved the birds the other day when you did them, but this…this is magical.”

I find myself blushing at her praise. “It turned out okay.”

“It’s more than okay,” Lark tells me. “My parents would love it.”

“No more gloves?” I say, arching a brow in question.

She looks at her other arm. “Well, once I get this one done, yes.”

“You want to do it now?”

Her eyes light up. “You have time?”

“I’ll cancel your next appointment,” Friday says with a smirk as she flounces out of the room.

“Thank you,” I call to her, using my voice.

“Do you already have something drawn up?”

“Yes. Do you want to see it?”

“No.” She looks into my eyes. She sits back down in my chair and my heart swells with pride because she trusts me to do this.

She starts to roll her glove down and all the blood in my body shoots straight to my dick. Kissing her was amazing, but having her undress in front of me is shocking and amazing and enthralling. I adjust my junk, because the bite of my zipper is making me wince.

“Something wrong?” she asks with a cheeky grin as I move my chair to the other side of the table, and then pull my table-on-wheels that holds my ink around too.

“My dick’s hard. Sorry.”

Her brow arches. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Does your dick usually get hard when you finish a tattoo?” She narrows her eyes at me.

“My dick has never gotten hard in this building before,” I admit. “Give him a second. He’ll stop trying to get to you in a minute.”

“He’s trying to get to me?” She grins.

“Yes. Like a sporting dog who spots a bird. He wants to go get it. Sorry.”