I notice his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. With one eyebrow cocked, his gaze drifts down from my face to the puckered skin just below the hem of my purple cotton sundress. A raised scar roughly the size of a dollar and shaped like a fish hook catches his attention. I can see the questions on his face as the room grows silent.

Operation scars look different than violent scars. Violent scars are not methodical or neat. They are erratic, loud, and almost weep with memory. This scar, from the broken window of a four-door sedan eight feet under water tells a story that I don’t want in my book anymore. I want it covered.

I break the silence, luring his eyes back to my face and not my open legs. “I know it’s difficult to tattoo scars, and I’ve done my research, but I want this covered. Is that...possible?” My voice shakes, giving away my nerves.

He clears his throat. “I can do that.”

Then, he leans forward. With just the expression on his face, he asks to touch it. I nod in return. The fingers of his right hand reach forward, and methodically, as if he’s inspecting the spot, he grazes the raised bump between my knees.

Having gone so long without another person’s touch anywhere below my belly button, I jump from the contact. His eyes meet mine. Then, he goes back to rubbing his thumb over the scar, and I feel my pulse quicken, my breath coming out in short spurts as if someone has crushed my lungs and won’t let me breathe.

I know he’s touching it for the purpose of the tattoo, but I watch the way he bites his lip, and I can tell it’s just as unnerving for him as it is for me. He swallows again. The room is deliciously silent, and this chemistry between us has changed. It’s dangerously close to something more than just a tattoo artist and his client.

His hand tightens on my leg as his thumb stills over the spot, but he doesn’t take it away. It’s as if he’s frozen in place, deep in thought.

The air in the room alters in the next blink, and he must sense it because he immediately moves to pull his hand off my leg. My breath echoes through the silence in a shallow gasp as I cover his hand, holding it in place.

This is insane.

His eyes find mine, and I notice they are no longer squinted in scrutiny but shrouded in intrigue. I’m just holding my hand over his without really knowing why other than the contact has me feeling out of sorts and reckless—very fucking reckless.

This is insane, my mind tries to remind me again. But I don’t listen.

I guide his fingers upward until his hand is under my dress. I wait for him to snatch them away or react in disgust, but he doesn’t. It doesn’t even register to me at that moment that this guy could be married or have a girlfriend, and even if it did, I probably would have done the same thing. With his gaze fixed on my face, he slowly rubs his fingers upward, and my legs fall open in response. My mind has stopped working as my body takes over, blinded by this sudden, intense sensation.