Page 52 of Ink

Carefully rolling onto my side facing Ink, I study him. His blue eyes that I get lost in every time I look into them are open. No walls are up. He looks so open in the moment, like he would kill to give me anything I asked for. My focus moves down to his lips. His mouth is relaxed, looking almost as inviting as his eyes. The stubble covering his face gives him that extra sexy edge in a way that tells you he doesn’t care but isn’t unkept. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to kiss a guy with facial hair. The soft prick against the skin sounds so enticing.

Zach flat out refused the one time I had the guts to suggest that he grow a beard. He told me if I wanted to be with the scumbags he puts behind bars, then he’ll set me up with one. I never brought it up again.

“Give and take?” I ask.

Ink nods his head.

“I’ll tell you.”

Ink holds my gaze for a long moment. Long enough that I start to wonder if he's actually going to tell me. “Growin’ up, it was just my mom and I. Never met my dad. Don’t even know his name. To be honest, I don’t think my mom knew his name either. I was the product of a one-night stand when she was sixteen. When she found out she was pregnant, her parents kicked her out and she dropped out of school to work. She wasn’t makin’ ends meet at her job she had waitin’ tables so she started turnin’ tricks out of our apartment.”

I sharply inhale at his admission, my hand reaching out and grabbing his in my natural reflex of offering some sort of comfort. Ink’s eyes leave my face and move to where our hands are joined, his inked skin standing out against my virgin skin. His hands feel rough in a good way. In a way that you know he knows how to use them.

Part of me expects him to take his hand back to put any sort of distance between us as he’s flaying himself raw, but he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers lace through mine, squeezing tight.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago,” he assures, his voice rough with emotion. And that sucks. He shouldn’t be the one assuring me. It should be the other way around. “Her… customer base was growing and by the time I hit middle school, she was never home. At the time I didn’t know where she would go, but now that I’ve been around, I have a guess. She’d leave me alone for days on end with nothing in the fridge. That’s around the time when my anxiety attacks started. Not knowing if the only person you cared about in your life was dead or alive did my head in.”

I can’t even begin to imagine what he went through.

“I’m sorry, Ink.” I squeeze his hand just like he did to mine minutes ago. “I know she was trying her best to provide for you in her own way. I know if I was in her position I would do anything for my kid.”

“I know you would.”

“I bet she’s proud of the man you became.”

“I wouldn’t know. When I was sixteen, I came home from school to find her dead on the couch. I thought she had just passed out when she got home since she was gone all night. Turns out her pimp was having her try out some new drug he was wanting her to push on clients. She OD’d.” His tone is void of any emotion.

A silent tear leaks out of the corner of my eye, paving its way down my cheek. Ink notices it, his free hand reaching up and catching it on the tip of his finger. I watch, mesmerized, as he sucks the salty wetness on his finger into his mouth. “I knew your tears would taste as sweet as the promise of you.”

I’m struck speechless.

I can’t help but think that this might be a version of Ink only I get to see.

“The promise of me?”

Ink smiles at me like he knows something I don’t.

“Your turn,” he replies, ignoring my question.

He says it like it’s so simple and easy. Like he’s asking me to tell him my favorite color. I guess a deal is a deal, though.

Sighing, I sink deeper into the pillow beneath my head. “In the beginning, he was so nice and thoughtful. Stupid me thought I had found it on the first try. My first red flag should have been when I turned eighteen. I told my dad I wanted to apply for college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to do something. My dad told me he refused to pay for it because women in this family are meant to run a home. Higher education would just be a waste of money. Zach agreed.”

“What a piece of shit,” Ink comments irritably. His finger lightly tracing random patterns on that soft area of skin between your thumb and pointer finger.

You can say that again.

“It wasn’t until a few years in that I found out my dad had arranged the whole thing. Zach never pursued me because he was actually interested. I was purely a business deal. By the time I figured it out, it felt like I was barely treading above water with no way out. He controlled everything I did at the point. I had no friends because every person that had the guts to try to form any sort of relationship with me was always a bad influence. He isolated me from everyone I knew, and my dad encouraged it.”

I pause, needing a minute to gather my thoughts while I bask in the comfort his little touches are bringing me. Ink doesn’t say anything, sensing I need the silence.

“I got my first burn because I bought the wrong brand of orange juice. He held me down, lifted up my shirt, and placed the cigar he was smoking at the bottom of my spine and held it there.” I can still remember the smell of my skin burning. I still randomly smell it from time to time. I think it’s permanently embedded in my nose.

“What the fuck.” Ink bites out. He’s tense as a board next to me. Turning my head to face him, I find hard, bright blue eyes staring at me. “He’s goin’ to fuckin’ pay for that, bunny. Mark my words, he’ll fuckin’ pay.”

“It’s okay, Ink. I got out.”

“Woman, that is fuckin’ whack. It’s not okay. It’s not even close to being okay. He burned you all the way up your spine,” he roars, making me flinch from the sudden outburst. “You may be out of that house but you’re not out. Look at what he did last night.”