Abiding Ink (Inked in the Steel City #4)

by Ranae Rose

  “See ya,” Tyler said as Dustin grabbed a coat and trudged toward the door.

  Tyler followed, taking the stairs quickly and climbing into his car, settling his hands on the wheel, not caring that it was freezing. Memories of last time he’d seen Mallory, just a couple days ago, heated him from the inside out, warding off the chill. He could still see the glow of neon against her cheek, the whiteness of snowflakes against her dark hair and – most of all – the soft double-swells of her lips, swollen from contact with his.

  The images played on a loop inside his mind, a sweet sort of torment as he drove for her apartment. When she met him at her apartment door, the memories paled in comparison to the sight of her – the real thing. She greeted him with a smile and a “hey”.

  Taking her hand as they walked to his car made it feel like Christmas had come two days early.

  * * * * *

  Stepping out of the theater was like stepping out of the shelter of a temporary summer and back into winter. In the warmth and darkness of the theater, Mallory had all but forgotten that Christmas was just two days away. And yeah, Tyler had been a distraction too. All of the holidays’ sparkle and appeal paled in comparison to the hard lines of his body, easily felt as he’d sat with his arm around her, and the tantalizing flashes of his tattoos peeking from beneath the edges of his sleeves.

  “So tell me the truth,” he said as they stepped out of the lobby’s bright lights and onto the sidewalk outside the theater. “This date wasn’t too boring, was it? I mean, I didn’t almost run you over with anything, piss off your boss or make you climb onto any rooftops…”

  She laughed. “No, it wasn’t boring. Actually, it was kind of nice to have a normal date.” Although, truth be told, she kept thinking back to their dinner date on the rooftop of the Hot Ink building. She’d liked that … a lot. “You can’t go wrong with dinner and a movie. I’m pretty sure anyone would agree.”

  “I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” he said, catching up one of her hands in his like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I care what you think. I know we got off to kind of a rough start—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, wincing inwardly as a familiar pang of guilt sailed through her. She still felt bad over how Tyler had been treated by Dr. Anthony. “Even if things at the party were a little rocky, they’re fine now. Besides, every woman secretly fantasizes about having a badass boyfriend who sticks up for her and strikes fear into the heart of her jerk boss.”

  “Badass?” In the pale illumination cast by the parking lot lights, she could see him raise a brow.

  A little heat crept into her cheeks. “Please, you met Wanda. Everyone at my work thinks I’m dating a bad boy. You have lots of tattoos and wear jeans to work. Oh, and your teeth don’t glow in the dark. I’d say that makes you a badass compared to Dr. Anthony.”

  “A Care Bear would be badass compared to Dr. Anthony.”

  “True.”

  She drew up short when they reached his car, casting a glance over her shoulder at the theater. How had the walk gone by so quickly? Yes, the distance had been short, but time seemed to fly when he touched her. Despite the cold, she wished they had to walk farther, maybe even climb onto a roof… Anything to avoid putting an end to their date. It had been perfectly normal, and yet, she felt excited – exhilarated, even.

  The dashboard clock told her that it was a quarter ‘till eleven – later than she’d realized. Not that she had to get up early or anything. Glancing across the console at Tyler, she felt her heart beat faster, marking each precious second.

  “Are you ready to go home?” he asked, locking her in eye contact before she could look away.

  A part of her didn’t mind that she’d been caught staring. “What if I’m not?” She felt brazen, but she didn’t look away.

  He held her gaze for several heart-stopping moments, blue eyes intense, before putting the car in reverse. “Let’s see. I could take you climbing up another icy fire escape so we could freeze together on top of another roof, if you’re into that. Or if you’d rather not get frostbite, we could get some coffee instead. There’s a café just down the street from here. Or we could go to my place.”

  His place. Her heart skipped a beat, and she settled deeper into her seat, trying to think of something smooth to say, like she wasn’t on the verge of blushing like a teenaged girl. “Okay,” was all that came out.

  “Okay to which part?” He looked away from the road to search her face, and the look in his eyes seared something inside her.

  “Okay to the last part – your place.” Her voice came out steady – smooth, even – despite the fact that she wasn’t prone to casually going home with men after their first dinner-and-movie date. Since she’d graduated from college and begun work as a nurse, her dating life had been sparse, to say the least. But this … it didn’t feel casual.

  It felt serious. Which probably should have scared her. Instead, it excited her, made her want it even more. Yes, she wanted to spend more time with Tyler, wanted to feel his hard body and soft lips against hers again. Despite the bad boy reputation he’d garnered among her co-workers, he’d been too much of a gentleman to kiss her at the restaurant or movie theater. Instead, he’d restrained himself to light touches at the small of her back, handholding…

  After a couple hours of those seemingly innocent things, she was burning for more.

  “My apartment’s only about 10 minutes from here,” he said, and she thought his voice sounded a little deeper than before – a little rougher.

  Maybe she was only imagining it, but it was still sexy as hell to think that her acceptance of his invitation had brought on a change in him that she could hear. For several moments, she reveled in mingled satisfaction and excitement, until realization stopped her cold. “Wait a minute… You said you have a family member staying with you for the holidays, right? I won’t be intruding, will I?”

  The thought dealt a blow to her excitement. The look he’d given her a minute ago hadn’t been the sort of look you gave someone you planned to actually have coffee – and just coffee – with, all while in the presence of a third party. At least, she hadn’t thought so. Beneath her jeans, sweater and coat, she was already tingling in places that ached at the thought of her having misinterpreted his invitation.

  “My brother,” Tyler said. “He’s not at my place tonight – he went to visit my parents a couple hours ago and I got a text from him during the movie. Apparently he got into the eggnog and won’t be driving anywhere, so he’s out of my hair until tomorrow.”

  Her heart went right back to speeding. “Oh, okay.”

  The drive went by quickly, and when they arrived at his apartment, he actually did start a pot of coffee. As he shoveled grounds into the coffee maker, she cast her gaze around the kitchen and living room, feeling unnaturally interested in every little detail.

  The dark brown microfiber couch, a tall, square dining table that could seat four if it had to and the big TV… Ordinary as it all was, she found herself staring at the things just because they were Tyler’s. Every few seconds, she glanced back at him, unable to resist.

  He’d shed his jacket and pushed his sleeves up, as if he was planning on getting his hands dirty. The thought sent a thrill, half serious and half bemused, through Mallory. “Nice magnet,” she said, afraid that if the silence went on any longer, he’d hear her steadily increasing heartbeat.

  He looked up and at the fridge. There were several magnets, but his gaze immediately settled on the only one that glittered – a cartoon Hershey’s Kiss with a big grin and the name Tyler spelled out beneath its dancing feet. “Yeah. That. My sister Kassie bought it for me as a joke years ago, in a gift shop at Hershey Park.”

  “It suits you,” she teased, not even trying to fight a smile.

  “I know. That’s why I had it tattooed. I figured the magnet might crap out or get lost at some point, but ink is forever.” He turned, his full lips resting in a straight, sober line as
the coffee maker began to gurgle behind him. There was no teasing light in his blue eyes, no spark of amusement.

  “You have a dancing Hershey’s Kiss tattooed on your chest?” Surely not… Or did he? She tried to picture the cartoonish chocolate emblazoned on one of his pecs and couldn’t decide if the idea was cute, bizarre or both.

  “Yeah. I didn’t think to mention it before. I have a lot of tattoos, you know, and they all have meaning… Still, the chocolate is the one that means the most to me.” He tapped himself lightly on the chest, just over his heart.

  Mallory’s own heart flip-flopped, doing a little dance beneath her ribs, and in that moment, she knew: she had it bad. She had to, if the idea of a dancing chocolate tattoo was giving her heart palpitations. And as goofy as the image was, her mouth watered a little at the thought of Tyler’s chest and whatever ink decorated it. “Why would that—” she tipped her head toward the magnet clinging to the fridge “—mean so much to you?”

  “When I was a kid, we used to go to Hershey as a family every summer. It was our tradition, and the park was where I first fell in love.” Still no change in his facial expression. He looked sober as a judge, and – God help her – sexy as hell.

  “In love with…?” Her mind filled with visions of a cherubic little boy and girl riding side by side on a roller coaster. A day-long puppy love romance, maybe?

  “Chocolate.” He stood against the counter, hands gripping its edge, at ease as she eyed his tattooed forearms. “I love chocolate. Maybe I should’ve mentioned it before… It’s a pretty big part of my life, actually.”

  “Okay.” She laughed, unable to resist any longer. “Ha ha. What’s really tattooed on your chest?” No way was she going to let the opportunity to find out slip away.

  “You don’t believe me?” He arched a brow and turned slowly. “I guess I’d better show you, then.”

  Despite her certainty that she was being teased, she held her breath as he opened a cabinet door above the stove.

  “Oh my God,” she said, eyeing the bounty that gleamed from within. Bags, boxes and bars – the cabinet was loaded with chocolate. Milk, dark and caramel-filled … those varieties were just the tip of the iceberg. It was like a chocolate-hoarding dragon lived in the apartment, instead of a man. “You’re serious.”

  His raised brow crept a little higher, and he shrugged. “I told you.”

  “I’m sorry I laughed. I thought you were joking. Do you really have the tattoo, too?”

  He glanced down at his chest, eyeing his shirt like he expected it to magically disappear … and then he raised his gaze, begging the silent question. “You want to see that for yourself too?”

  “Yes. And I’ll … I’ll try not to laugh. Really.”

  “You won’t hurt my feelings if you laugh,” he said, gripping the hem of his shirt. “I’m a badass, remember?”

  She barely choked back a giggle, even as a distinct thrill raced down her spine, causing her to tingle from head to toe with expectation. This was what Tyler had reduced her to: a would-be giggler standing with her hands clasped, practically bouncing on her toes as she relished the idea of eyeing his chocoholic tattoo.

  She didn’t even know herself anymore.

  “Don’t be a tease,” she said, catching a glimmer of amusement in his eyes for the first time. It must be obvious how badly she wanted to see the ink that normally remained hidden by his shirt.

  “All right.”

  He pulled his shirt over his head, and she sucked in a breath.

  He worked out, definitely – that was the first thing she noticed. The second was that he hadn’t been lying – his chest was tattooed. Barely remembering to breathe, she scanned his bare torso for any sign of a dancing chocolate.

  It was hard to focus on any single area or tattoo when there was so much to look at. Below his broad shoulders, there was a tattoo over the left one, extending down onto his chest, where he’d indicated. It wasn’t a chocolate, though. It was a bird of prey – an eagle, maybe – elaborately done in a dark and detailed black and grey design. Below it was a line of script. November 9, it read, bold and simple, a mystery to her.

  And below … farther down, his torso wasn’t inked, but God, did it draw the eye. His abs rippled, begging to be touched, and two slashing lines of muscle formed a tempting V that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  “You!” she managed to say after staring for way too long. “You were teasing. God, I can’t believe I believed you!” She laughed, figuring her promise was off.

  Slowly, his full lips cracked, spreading into a broad grin that reached the corners of his eyes. “I can’t believe you believed me, either.”

  She huffed, laughing again and crossing her arms. “I didn’t believe you at first. Not really. Then I saw your chocolate stash…”

  “It’s not mine – it’s my sister’s. She lives in this same complex and says she can’t keep chocolate at her place because her roommates take it. So I let her stash it here. She’s the chocoholic in the family.”

  “Oh. So I guess you didn’t fall in love at Hershey, then. Was everything you told me a lie?” His grin was infectious – she couldn’t help but return it as she stood, trying and failing to glare at him.

  “I prefer to think of them as excuses, not lies.”

  “Excuses to what?”

  He raised his hands in a gesture that drew her gaze back to all the perfect skin he had on display. “To take off my clothes, obviously.”

  “That was quite the scheme.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking about the other night, on the roof, ever since it happened. Now that there’s no danger of frostbite, anything that involves taking off clothing seems like a good idea.”

  He locked her in eye contact again, and her teasing reply died on the tip of her tongue.

  “Yeah, well…” She echoed him lamely, her palms suddenly burning with the desire to be pressed flat against his body. “I’ve been thinking about it too.” She decided not to confess exactly how excited the idea of seeing his Hershey’s Kiss tattoo had made her, mostly because she suspected he already knew. “Frostbite risk or not, I thought it was romantic. Up there. With you.” She bit her tongue before she could burst into full-out babble mode.

  It was hard to resist the urge. Tyler’s hotness radiated across the few scant feet between them, scrambling her thoughts. As she stared, she remembered the magic of being up on the roof with him, the feeling that she’d been trapped inside a snow globe with the sexiest guy she’d met in, well … ever. Despite the snowflakes that had swirled around them, the cold hadn’t touched her while she’d been in his arms.

  “What about now?” he asked, the teasing light fading from his eyes. “Can I kiss you like that again, or was my chocolate scheme too much?”

  The coffee maker gave a hiss that covered up Mallory’s sharp intake of breath. “You can kiss me like that again.”

  Normally, she wasn’t prone to fits of passion, but that was the only way she could describe what she slipped into as Tyler crossed the space between them, pulling her close against his body. It was just like on the roof, only now, there weren’t layers of winter clothing between their bodies. There was just her sweater, and nothing at all between her hands and his skin.

  The muscles in his sides were just as firm to the touch as she’d imagined, and even hotter. Compared to the chill breeze that blew outside, he was as warm as summer. Warmer, even, especially his lips – they burnt against hers, and she could feel the slight scrape of barely-there stubble on his jaw. The smoothness of his tongue stood in stark contrast, and she yielded to him when he slipped it into her mouth, past her lips and teeth.

  He held her with one hand in her hair – she’d worn it down – and the other against the small of her back. The position would’ve been innocent enough, if she hadn’t been able to feel his erection against her belly. As it was, she felt it – every inch of it. His jeans didn’t begin to hide the hardness, or the thickness. Unable to
resist, she leaned into him, letting the stiffness press more firmly against her body.

  As he ran his hand up and down her back, caressing her from hip to shoulder, she was sure: this definitely qualified as a fit of passion, at least by her standards. The realization was fleeting, though – a somewhat bemused thought relegated to the backburner of her mind. It was also the only thing that explained how she ended up on the counter, supported by Tyler as she perched on the edge, her thighs open so that he could stand between them.

  Her hand bumped something and sent it sliding across the counter.

  “Oh, no,” she breathed as the sound of breaking glass shattered the silence and their lips finally parted.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tyler said, glancing down at the floor for the briefest of moments. “It’s just the lid to the sugar jar.”

  Mallory glanced to her right and saw what she’d bumped – a little glass dish that, sure enough, had been full of sugar. Most of its contents had spilled across the counter, forming a mini-avalanche of snowy whiteness. “Careful not to step on the pieces,” she said as he ran a hand up and down her thigh, his eyes locking with hers again.

  “Right.” He leaned in for another kiss, and she let herself explore the exposed planes of his torso, from the place on his chest where his eagle tattoo was to the hard lines that slashed down to his groin. If she moved her hand any farther below, she’d encounter the stiffness straining his jeans. It was a tempting thought – she missed the feel of it pressed up against her body.

  As his tongue delved deep into her mouth, a burst of boldness hit her. She already had her legs wrapped around his waist, and she’d broken the lid to his sugar jar – not that he seemed to care. Clearly, they’d passed the point of timidity, so why not?

  He moaned the instant her fingertips brushed the head of his dick, a blunt curve she could feel just below his jeans button. The sound, combined with the feel of him, made her core draw tight, alerting her to the fact that her panties had grown damp against her skin. When he kissed her harder, she moaned too, letting her fingers follow the hard and straight line of his shaft, feeling him from tip to base through his jeans.