The Strongest Steel

by Scarlett Cole

  “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 curren
t 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.

  “Here we go.”

  The bite of the needle into her skin cut off other thoughts as she adjusted to the pain. It had become an exorcism of sorts. The pain and resulting tattoo were cleansing her of all the bad memories she had, and Trent was helping her replenish her memory with good ones.

  It was scary to admit that Trent was becoming as necessary to her as air and water.

  Trent broke the silence, scattering her thoughts. “What do you know about Celtic symbols?”

  The amount of ink in a very small space was starting to grate on her, the needles moving in such a small area becoming increasingly more painful. She thought back to the sketch of her tattoo, recalling that the handle was made up of predominantly Celtic trinity knots and spirals surrounding precious stones.

  “Not that much,” Harper responded through gritted teeth.

  “Celtic trinity knots or triquetra can mean many different things. Father, Son, Holy Ghost in Christianity. Pagans celebrate the Virgin, Mother, and Crone. Life, death, and rebirth just about anywhere else. I prefer this one. It means the growth of spirit, life that is eternal, and love that never ends.”

  A soothing energy filled the room as Trent described the meaning behind the lines that would be permanently etched on her back. What had started out as being purely a cover-up for something so horrific was becoming a definition of who she was and what she hoped for, way beyond her initial intention.

  “The spirals or Celtic triskelions represent the eternal cycle of life, death, and spiritual rebirth. I woke up the morning after I met you and I knew I had to include them somehow because that’s what I think this tattoo means to you.”

  Harper felt Trent pause to wipe some of the surplus ink off her back. “And I get that a part of you died when it happened.”

  He leaned forward and kissed near the base of her spine, far away from where he was tattooing. “I hope this is a rebirth for you, Harper. That’s what I see when I look at you, darlin’.” Reveling in the power of his words, yet afraid of speaking, of revealing the depth of her true feelings, Harper remained silent.

  Trent explained that the two ends of the handles had embedded stones of moss agate. “It’s the most powerful agate,” he said. “It’s believed to help balance emotional energy by allowing the wearer to let go of anger and bitterness.”

  Harper could feel the needle going into the left of her spine as Trent inked the green stone. She let her mind focus, visualizing the pent-up anger and frustration leaving her body.

  “The center stone is aventurine, red aventurine actually. It could be considered your birthstone. Kit assures me that it supports your root chakra, should you believe in that. Don’t ask me to explain it because it’s not my thing, but she’s a big believer. She says the root chakra ensures your basic needs for safety and health are taken care of. It also helps the wearer see new possibilities and opportunities.”

  And she was. It was all becoming clearer that she was staying. She wanted to be with Trent. Tonight wasn’t the night because she didn’t want to sully the incredibly intimate evening, but tomorrow she was going to sit down and tell him about the messages.

  “Ouch.” The yelp came out by accident as Trent went back over the bumps of her spine. Harper winced. Trent was doing his best to move the needle location around, she could feel that, but it was really starting to hurt.

  She heard Trent put down his equipment and slide the stool around in front of her.

  “This is the worst it’s going to be, Harp. You’re being so incredibly brave. I’ve had grown men cry at this point.”

  He paused for a moment before kissing her gently on the temple. “We have two options. I can stop in a minute and we can pick it up next time, or I can keep going for another twenty minutes and it will be done. The final appointments, then, will be short and sweet. Not to mention a whole lot less painful.”

  Harper took in a deep breath and blew it out harshly. Determined not to cry, she bit down on her lip hard. It stopped the pending deluge, but the tears still threatened.

  “Oh darlin’.” Trent kissed her softly. “I’d switch places with you in a heartbeat if I could. I know it hurts where I’m working.”

  Harper nodded. He understood. “Can you make it fifteen?”

  Trent kissed the side of her eye, where a single tear was making a break for freedom.

  “I’ll do it in ten.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “Hey, Harper, come here,” José whispered when Harper arrived for the start of her shift. His forehead wrinkled as he nodded his head toward a table in the corner. “There’s a fella over there been asking for you. The slick-looking guy in the suit. Is everything okay?”

  Harper shook her head slightly. “I don’t know. Let me go see what he wants.”

  “You were looking for me?” Harper said as she reached his table.

  “Harper Connelly?” he asked, his beady eyes observing her. She nodded. “Well, sit, sit, Ms. Connelly. Can I get you a coffee?”

  “No, thank you. Would you mind just telling me why you’re here?”

  “Of course.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a slim green folder with THE GARDEN OF EVERLASTING LIFE CEMETERY embossed in gold on it. “I’m here for the two o’clock appointment you booked. To discuss the funeral details for your friend…”

  He opened the folder to look at the details, but she already knew.

  “Ah, yes, there it is. For your friend, Taylor Kennedy.”

  Harper pushed back violently from the table and ran from the shop, ignoring José’s shout of concern. Tears streamed down her face, but she ignored the strange looks she was getting as she focused on her destination. Her bag bounced around on her shoulder and her shoes came loose as she ran to the onl
y place she knew she would feel safe.

  Throwing open the door to Second Circle, she scanned the studio and found Trent as he came back into the main area from his office. She ran into his arms and let go.

  * * *

  “I thought you would think I’m crazy. I mean, how many of my issues should you have to deal with?”

  Harper nursed her whiskey while sitting wrapped in a throw on his sofa. Pixie was calling to cancel all his afternoon appointments, and the team was working furiously to wrap up the tattoos in progress.

  He looked down at Harper’s phone one more time, trying his damnedest to control the desire to hit the fucking wall, hard, as he scrolled through the menacing messages she’d been receiving and hadn’t told him about.

  “We can talk about why you didn’t share this with me sooner when we get home. But for now, we’ll focus on dealing with the police.”

  Harper let out a long, shaky sigh. He felt no satisfaction from pushing her to call them, knowing what it cost her to agree with his decision.

  There was a knock on the door and Cujo came in. Trent stood and walked over to him.

  “Cops are here. Anything I can do?” he whispered.

  Trent gave him the keys to his apartment. “Head over to my place? Pick up Frankie on the way. Just make sure we have no surprises when I bring her home.”

  “Got it.” He moved out of the way as Pixie brought the police in.

  “Detectives Lopes and James,” she said by way of introduction before leaving with Cujo.

  He ushered them over to chairs near the sofa and sat down next to Harper, pulling her close to his side.

  “Harper, the detectives are here. You ready for this?” Harper pushed the throw out of the way and reached over to shake their hands.

  “Can you tell us, in as much detail as you can, what’s been going on, Harper? Then we can figure out where to go from there.”

  Trent listened to Harper nervously retell the story to the cops and watched as they scrolled through her phone. She was terrified, holding a cushion with both arms, pulling it tightly toward her, a shield. The desire to do some damage to his office wall had morphed to images of him doing the same thing to Nathan’s face.