Page 42 of Tru Blue
“Gemma.” He closed his eyes for a beat, breathing deeply. When he opened them, he moved his fingers over hers. “Those pictures I sent you might seem like nothing, but they’re everything to me. I have nothing to hide anymore. You’ve heard the worst of it.”
“I know how much they mean to you,” she said softly. “Thank you for sharing them.” She looked down at his hand, all that blue ink covering his skin. She wanted to know more. Were his tattoos like his drawings? Did they represent the horrors of his past? “What do they mean?”
“The pictures?”
She shook her head, wanting to know everything there was to know about him. “Your tattoos.” She lifted her gaze to his. Her fingers curled around his. “Is that okay?”
His lips pressed into a straight line. He was breathing so hard his chest inflated with each inhalation, and then he turned his hand under hers and laced their fingers together, holding her tight.
“Everything you do is okay. I’m just so glad you’re here, and you’re speaking to me, and you’re not afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she repeated.
Without a word, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. His scruff tickled her skin, but it was the look in his eyes that made her glad she was already sitting down, because the emotions she saw slayed her.
He guided her fingers over his tattoos, explaining them one by one. “Ace of spades, the death card. A reminder. I got it after I was released from prison.” He moved her finger over the image on his left hand. “The symbol of the Whiskeys’ motorcycle club. They saved me in so many ways. I owe them a lot.”
As he worked his way down one arm and up the other, moving her fingers along his skin, explaining each tattoo, more of his life unfolded before her. Tattoos symbolizing strength to remind him that even at the worst of times he was strong. Hundreds of tiny dots formed an explosion on one hand, coming outward from a camera, depicting the shattering of his world as he’d known it, and a thickly inked tattoo of a net to catch the pieces, because he wasn’t ready to let it all go. These marks she’d initially seen as visual warnings meant to keep people at a distance were a detailed map of the man before her. His ability to overcome his heartache and pain proved his strength. His loyalty to his family and friends spoke to all the lonely parts Gemma had tried to hide, even from herself, for so many years they felt like they’d never fill up.
The emotion in his voice made her heart beat faster, her body grow hotter.
He released her hand and she realized she was shaking. His face was solemn as he reached for the hem of his shirt.
He looked at her with a question in his eyes, and she nodded, wanting to see them all. He lifted off his shirt slowly, as if he wasn’t sure she was really ready to see what she’d asked to, revealing the ink she’d seen the other morning but had failed to notice in detail. She focused on the tattoo across the broad expanse of his chest of the angry, vicious dragon he’d drawn, its spine arched high, its neck stretched low, craned forward, breathing fire—blue, like the rest of his tattoos—onto a gnarled, keening tree, bare of all leaves. On the opposite side of the tree was a man, his arrestingly familiar tattooed arms outstretched, his hands pressed against the tree, straining to hold it up. One leg stretched behind him, the other bent at the knee, his feet curved at the toes as he fought against the dragon.
His pain ran so deep. Tears welled in Gemma’s eyes.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” he said roughly.
She shook her head. “Not sorry for you. Overwhelmed at all you’ve survived. Amazed that you turned out to be the man you are.”
He held her gaze, breathing harder again. “Do you want to see the rest?”
She nodded. “Every one of them.”
His face was solemn as he went for the button on his jeans. She suddenly thought of the pictures Crystal had sent her and added, “Unless you have a tattooed, um…” She glanced at his crotch.
He let out a raspy laugh that made them both smile. “Sorry, but some things aren’t meant to be near needles.”
“Thank God.” She let out a relieved sigh.
