Forged with Ink (London Inked Boys Book 3) Read online

  He turned back to the computer and pulled up her image. “This is the one, right?”

  She smiled and nodded. “That’s right. Chikara,” she said in Japanese. “The symbol means strength.”

  “And where do you want it?”

  “On the outside of my right ankle, about this big.” She held up her fingers to show an inch space between them.

  “That’s no problem. It won’t take long. The ankle can hurt, though.”

  “I have a high pain threshold.” She’d needed to have, over the years.

  “Hop up on the bed, then.”

  Chapter Three

  He tried not to stare as Sophia pulled up her long skirt to reveal a smooth calf and a delicate, shapely ankle. It almost seemed a shame to mark that skin with ink, but then he realised it meant she would always have something he’d created with her.

  He was going to have to touch her, he knew that. There was no way he was going to be able to tattoo her skin without placing his hands on her. Even though he wore gloves, he’d still be able to feel her body heat through his fingertips, and he felt himself responding to the thought alone. Fucking hell, he couldn’t get turned on simply by thinking about touching her ankle. That was insane. But just being near her took him back to being a teenager again, how obsessed he was with her. No, not obsessed. He’d been in love with her. A crazy, perfect love that had stemmed from two people knowing each other as deeply as they knew themselves, and who had grown up together to discover all the things that teenagers eventually learned about themselves. They’d been each other’s first kiss at age eleven, both awkward and shy, telling each other that they were friends so this was the best way of getting it out of the way. That had been it for a long time, but then they’d hit fourteen and a new kind of tension had sprung up between them. All it had taken was some stolen alcohol and a night sitting in a park, and that first kiss had become the first of too many to count. And how they’d kissed. They’d been able to kiss for hours without stopping for air, leaving them hot and panting, and Rocco with an erection that sprung to attention at even the thought of Sophia.

  And here he was now, ten years later, and it seemed she still had exactly the same effect on him.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  He’d just been standing there, staring at her ankle. Jesus. He needed to get a grip on himself.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, just making sure I get the positioning right.”

  She was watching him, too—he could feel her gaze on his face, her pale-blue eyes exactly the same colour as he’d always seen in his dreams.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she said, as though plucking the thoughts from his head. “Seeing each other like this again.”

  He nodded. “I’m not sure my brain has processed it. I feel like I’ve jumped back in time.”

  “Like a wormhole opened up in the studio and we both dropped through it.”

  He grinned. “Exactly.”

  “I missed you, you know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back.”

  He turned his face to look at her. “Why didn’t you?”

  “It was complicated. We were young.”

  “I worried about you, for a really long time. And then I got angry.”

  She glanced away. “I can understand that. I’m sorry, Ri—Rocco.”

  He noted how she’d gone to call him his old name—the name he shared with his father and that he no longer used—but she’d stopped herself in time.

  Rocco shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “It was a long time ago now.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “It was.”

  It was impossible for him to explain to her how much he’d hurt all those years ago. How abandoned he’d felt, how he’d tortured himself with the idea of her having found someone else, and that was why she’d never returned to him.

  That night, when she’d run over to his house in tears to tell him she was leaving, he’d wanted more than anything to tell her she should stay with him, to ask her to come and live with him rather than leave with her parents, but how could he? His dad was a drinker and his only parent, and he didn’t want anyone else to see that. His dad wasn’t a bad man, but when he’d had too many, he shouted and had tried to take a few swipes at Rocco. Rocco had been as big as him by that point, and had held him off, but he had no intention of exposing Sophia to that. Not his Sophia. Not the girl who was sunshine and light and everything good in the world. He didn’t even want her to know that such behaviour existed. Her parents had always seemed so perfect to him—a mother who stayed at home to take care of Sophia, and a father with a respectable job. His family of two people had been quite the opposite. If he’d been able to see into the future, however, and had known saying goodbye to her that evening would have been the last time he’d see her in ten years, he would have done things differently. Every day that went by where he hadn’t heard from her, he’d wished he’d just grabbed her and told her they were leaving, together.

  Still lost in memories, he did his best to focus on the reason she’d come here—for a tattoo. He put the transfer onto her skin and then got the ink ready.

  She lay back on the bed, and it was all he could do to stop himself covering her body with his, kissing her beautiful mouth and lacing his fingers in her gorgeous red hair, just like he’d done all those years ago. But she wasn’t a seventeen-year-old girl who was madly in love with him anymore. She was a woman, who, for all he knew, was married with children by now.

  “Just shout out if you want to stop,” he told her. “It shouldn’t take long. The outline is always the worst—especially on the ankle.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Was she feeling the same way as him? Was she conscious of his fingers pressed against her skin, the wave of memories sweeping over her like a dam that had been opened and now couldn’t be shut? The buzz of the needle filled the room as he switched it on and got on with his work. He still hadn’t got his head around the idea that this really was Sophia here. Her skin he was touching. His heart raced, his mind spinning. No other woman had affected him the way she did, and he’d had plenty of women over the past ten years. None of them had made him feel as though the entire universe had shrunk down to one tiny spot, and now she was all that existed for him.

  “What have you been up to all these years?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. He didn’t want to come right out and ask her if she’d got married.

  She gave a strange kind of laugh, and he looked up with a frown. “Not as much as I would have liked. My parents are still around. They live in Windsor now. I’m staying with them at the moment.”

  “With your parents?”

  Why was a woman like her still living with her parents at the age of twenty-seven?

  “Yeah, it’s embarrassing, I know. I’ve had some stuff going on, and I needed to get easy access to London, so it made sense. What about you?” she asked, turning the conversation from herself.

  He desperately wanted to ask her what kind of stuff, but he knew he would be prying. She would have just told him if she wanted him to know. “I went to Art College. Got a degree.”

  Her face brightened. “Yeah? That’s great. You always did love your art, though you used to say it was only because it was better than maths and English.”

  He chuckled at the memory. “I’d never have admitted actually liking a school subject back then. That would have ruined my street cred.”

  “What street cred?” she teased him, and they grinned at each other, caught in the moment.

  Rocco was surprised he couldn’t see the electricity darting between them like one of those electrical balls they used to have in science class.

  He forced himself to look away and concentrate on filling in her tattoo now the outline was done, though his pulse was racing. How had this happened? He’d woken up that morning thinking he was going to spend the day hanging out, maybe play some Xbox, and have a few beers down the pub, and instead his past had collided with hi
s present. A horrific thought came into his head. What if Kane hadn’t fallen ill, and Rocco had never been asked into work that morning? Sophia would have come into the place where he worked almost every day, and then left again, and he’d never have known about it. Their paths would have crossed so closely, but they might never have met.

  “How does that look?” he asked her when he was done.

  She peered down at the symbol and smiled. “It’s great. Thanks so much.”

  He wondered what she’d needed the symbol for strength for—what had she needed to be strong about?

  He covered the tattoo and then handed her a leaflet on aftercare.

  “Thanks, Rocco,” she said, swinging her legs from the bed, the long skirt falling to cover her skin. She was dressed demurely in a long-sleeved t-shirt as well as the long skirt. That was a change for her—when they’d been younger she’d lived in cut-off vests and short-shorts.

  “Hey, I’d hate for us to lose touch again.” He felt nervous asking her. Dumb of him. This was Sophia, the girl he’d grown up with. “Can we exchange numbers?”

  “Oh, I—”

  She glanced away, and his stomach sank. Was that a no? Why would she say no?

  “Just as old friends,” he added hurriedly. “I mean, if there’s a boyfriend on the scene or something, I’m not trying to step on any toes.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.” A smile was fixed on her face. “Sure, why not?”

  He didn’t understand her hesitation. If anyone should be hesitant in exchanging numbers, it should be him. She was the one who’d left him all those years ago. Maybe it hadn’t been her choice, but he hadn’t known where she’d gone, while he’d stayed in the same place, at least at first. She could easily have come back to him, or even called his house, but she’d vanished off the face of the earth.

  Chapter Four

  Sophia left the tattoo studio with her emotions in a whirl. The past hour had felt like a dream. Had she really bumped into the boy from her childhood? Not just bumped into him, but had his hands on her skin?

  The guilt she felt for not contacting him again after she’d moved swept over her as fresh as it had been back then. She’d thought it had been the right thing at the time—and it had been, as he’d gone to university and got a degree and lived his life—but nothing had changed. All the things that held her back all those years ago were still with her. If anything, they were even worse now. She didn’t want him to feel tied to her out of obligation and guilt. Yes, they’d grown up together, but they’d been kids back then. How could anyone not have fallen in love during those magical summers on the beach? But life was cruel and it was messy, and her parents had moved away. Maybe if they hadn’t things would also be different, but she couldn’t have asked him to give his youth to a long-distance relationship with a girl who was sick.

  She pressed her fingers to where the long sleeves of her top hid her arm. That was where she’d be spending the afternoon, and was the reason she’d moved back in with her parents. She’d be at the hospital three days a week from now on. At least it would give her plenty of time to read. That was the only silver lining she could find in this whole situation. She tried not to be bitter about things, knowing some people had it even worse, but staying positive all the time was hard.

  She’d been so humiliated when Rich—Rocco, she had to start thinking of him as Rocco—had asked what she’d been up to all these years. He’d accomplished so much, especially as he hadn’t exactly come from the best upbringing with his dad, but he hadn’t let it hold him back. What had she been able to tell him? That she had no job to speak of, having moved from position to position, but needing to leave each time her illness got worse, and she lived with her parents. Christ. He must think she was a total loser and was probably thanking God for his lucky escape.

  Would he contact her again? Her phone had suddenly taken on a new form—a device which held the potential for either elated joy or heartbreak. She wasn’t sure how she felt about either situation. If he did contact her, what would she do? The same reasons why she’d allowed him to get on with his life all those years ago still applied. True, he was a grown man now and able to make his own decisions, but the obligation still remained.

  Sophie walked down the high street, weaving between all the students, business people, and mothers with prams. Her gaze caught the eye of one chubby little baby waving her fists in the air as her mother pushed her along, and the baby gave Sophia a wide, toothy grin. Sophia’s heart clenched, her eyes pricking with tears and a painful lump tightening her throat. There was never going to be a baby in her future.

  She knew she was jumping well ahead of herself, but these were the things she needed to consider. He had been everything to her back when they’d been seventeen, and before that, too, for as long as she remembered. It would be easy to convince herself the two of them could just be friends again, but she’d felt the way sparks had jumped between them when he’d touched her ankle, had watched his brown eyes darken with desire. She’d lain back on the bed while he’d tattooed her skin, and in her mind she imagined him laying down the needle and pressing kisses to her ankle, working his way up her calf and to her thigh, before settling between her legs. Her core pulsed at the image. He’d been a beautiful boy—all tousled hair and chocolate-brown eyes and long limbs—but he’d become a striking man. The beard, shaved head, and tattoos made him appear hard, but his lips were soft and full, and his eyes soulful. There was no doubting that she was just as attracted to him as she had been ten years ago, maybe even more so now. Did he feel the same way about her? Did he see the years on her face, the changes in her body? Time hadn’t been kind to her, and though she was still relatively young, she certainly didn’t look the way she had when she was seventeen.

  Sophia reached the Tube station and trotted down the stairs to take her to the tunnels below. She swiped her Oyster card at the gate and slipped through to join the thousands of other passengers waiting to catch trains. She waited on the platform and, within minutes, the roar of the train signalled its arrival, followed by a blast of hot air, and then everyone was moving, bodies streaming out, while others piled in.

  She looked around for a seat, but there were none. She’d been lucky to escape some of the side effects of her treatment, but fatigue was an issue for her when she got this close to the next session. Sometimes she wished she could wear a badge that told people she was ill so she could do things like claim a seat on the train when she felt like her legs were going to give out from under her, and other times she was happy no one could tell what was wrong with her.

  Eventually, someone who’d occupied one of the seats got off the train, and she was able to slide into the person’s spot. She breathed a sigh of relief. As well as the fatigue, she often got hit with bouts of dizziness as well, and she could never quite tell when it was going to hit. The Tube got cramped and hot and stuffy, too, which was never a good combination for her. Her parents had offered to drive her, but she couldn’t stand the idea of giving up her last little bit of independence of being able to get around on her own. Maybe she was silly, but she’d lost everything else.

  The train arrived at the stop for the hospital, and she left the station with numerous other passengers, many of which seemed to be heading the same way. She’d done this routine enough times now, she probably could have made it to the ward with her eyes shut.

  “Hi, Linda,” she said to the staff nurse as she approached the reception desk.

  Linda was a slightly overweight woman in her late forties, who was one of Sophia’s favourites. Some of the other nurses could be a bit snappish and impatient, but Linda never failed to take time to come and sit with her and make her laugh during the long, boring stints.

  “Hi, Sophia. All ready for today?”

  “I guess I have to be. I’d rather be outside in the sunshine, though.”

  “Wouldn’t we all.” She smiled, flashing a couple of matching dimples in each cheek.

  “True.”
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  Sophia pulled off her long-sleeved top, revealing the tank top she’d deliberately worn beneath for this purpose. Over the last few months, she’d discovered it was easier and more comfortable to wear short sleeves rather than have longer sleeves rolled up for hours. But she wouldn’t leave the house in a short-sleeved top, no matter how warm it was outside. She knew she’d get too many questioning stares at the state of her arm.

  She got everything she’d need ready and within arm’s reach—her phone, her book, music on her iPod. She had drinks and snacks if needed, too. Then she took a seat in the comfortable, padded chair, and sat with her arm out to allow Linda to thread two needles into the special blood vessel—the fistula—that had been created to allow easier blood flow between her and the machine she was connected to.

  There were several other people sitting around the room, and she recognised a couple of them, exchanging nods and smiles. Some people struck up friendships during the long hours here, but Sophia tended to keep to herself. She knew it was her own issues that prevented her from starting conversations, but they always seemed to go the same way and revolve around their illnesses. She’d rather forget that she was sick than have to talk about it all the time. It already took up such a huge part of her life.

  “So, how have the side effects been since last time?” Linda asked her as she set up the machine that would clean Sophia’s blood.

  She shrugged. “Not too bad, I guess. I get a bit of itching sometimes, but I can handle it.” The itching got worse the closer she got to the next dialysis session. Her non-functioning remaining kidney couldn’t filter out the toxins in her blood, and that was what caused the itchy skin.

  “We can always get you a topical cream to help, if you need it.”

  “I know, but I’m fine for the moment, I promise.”

  The nurse caught sight of the cling film wrapping around her ankle and lifted her eyebrows. “And what’s that, young lady?”