Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4) (65 page)

I pushed up and took her in my embrace as we made love, her arms tightening around me, her gasps in my ear. My own harsh breath jammed in my lungs.

“I love you. I love you,” she murmured to me, to herself, to the world.

I held her tightly and thrust inside her, taking her with me.

Into
us
.

I HADN’T SEEN BUTLER
in almost a week. Things had gotten very busy at the store, and he was heavily involved in club business as well as preparing for the go-kart race with Wes and the Jacks. We talked on the phone a lot, texted, sexted, but I missed him. I missed him badly.

However, it had given me a perfect opportunity to get another item on my wish list done. Something special for Butler. For me.

“There is nothing like smoky eyes. Nothing. There. Just right.” Jill’s eyes scanned my face, her hand at my chin while Grace adjusted the light the photographer had let us use.

Jill, Grace, Lenore and I had spent the morning blocking the glass windows of the Rusted Heart with cardboard, and then we’d set up the “stage” for my photo shoot.

“Ah, Jill! Natural but va-voom-boom all at the same time,” said Lenore, who stood behind her, both of them studying me. “Tania, you’ve got to start wearing it like that every day. Seriously.”

“I tell her that all the time. She won’t listen,” Jill said, crossing her eyes at me.

I blinked at Jill’s handheld mirror. They were right. “I think I’ll take your advice from here on out, smart-ass.”

“Woo!” Jill laughed.

“And your tat healed really well. It’s perfect,” murmured Lenore.

“I love it,” I said.

With Butler away, I’d taken the opportunity to make the appointment with Ronny for the day Butler had left in order to get our design started and have that heal before he saw it.

“Ian’s the photographer you use for your ads, right?” Grace asked.

“Yes. He’s very good, very professional,” replied Lenore. “He does a lot of boudoir shoots, too, if you and Jill are ever interested.”

“I only pose for my husband, honey,” said Grace. “And his drawings of me would make even you blush.”

“Aw, heavy sigh,” said Jill. “I get dirty poems written in my honor. If I got a boudoir shot done and gave it to my old man, I can only imagine what raunchy wordsmithery that would inspire.”

“I think you should find out, don’t you?” I said, laughing.

“Boner’s birthday is coming up,” murmured Jill, chewing on her lip as she packed up her makeup collection. “Hey, Lenore, I’ve been meaning to ask you—I love that you pose for your own ads, but you never show your gorgeous face. Why? You’re certainly not shy.”

“She’s all about the mystery,” I piped in.

“Yeah.” Lenore raised her chin at me, a slight smile on her lips. “Sexy lingerie is all about the mystery and intrigue.”

“This is a terrific idea you had.” Grace took my arm in hers. “You need a shot of liquid courage, or are you okay?”

“I feel a bit nervous, but I’m excited mostly.”

“Good, because I want you to enjoy this. You need to enjoy this. You’re gorgeous. A knockout,” said Grace, releasing me.

“Thank you. I feel really good about this.”

“These photos are going to be amazing,” said Lenore. “I might have to use a couple for my next ad.”

“Oh, stop!”

“I’m not kidding, Tania,” said Lenore. “You can count on Ian’s assistant, Alison to help you through the shoot. She’s experienced. You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“Really, you all can go.” I wanted this moment for me.

“Okay then,” said Lenore as she, Grace, and Jill exchanged glances. “Let’s go!”

“Thank you, guys, for helping me out.”

Jill kissed me on the cheek as she squeezed my arms. “Gorgeous.”

“Kill it, babe,” said Grace, a hand on my shoulder.

“I intend to,” I replied.

“Okay, Ian, we’re off.” Lenore gave the photographer a wave of her hand from across the room. “Take care of my girl.”

“You know I will.” He winked at Lenore, and his gaze darted back at his light meter. “Let’s do this, ladies. We ready?”

Alison led me around the obstacle course of cables, the light stands, and filters toward the tableau we had set up earlier. My new tall black leather boots made a distinctive clicking sound against the floor.

Ian settled onto his knees in front of us, his camera in his hands.

Alison placed the brass crown carefully on my head, and we adjusted it together. Ian glanced up at me.

I undid the belt on my robe. “I’m ready.”

TONIGHT, FRED WAS OUT OF TOWN
on business, so Penny and her boys were camping at the house to spend the night with Grandma Rae. Therefore, I arranged to have my own sleepover at Butler’s house. I’d prepared a dinner of broiled salmon, steamed cauliflower, wild rice, and an olive oil vinaigrette with pistachio nuts, packaged it, and brought it with me to his house. I also brought him my gift.

Butler opened the door of his apartment, wearing only athletic shorts that hung low on his lean hips, his feet bare, the skin of his sculpted chest shining with perspiration. His weights were out on the floor behind him. He took one look at me, and that know-it-all self-satisfied smirk slid over his handsome face, uncoiling a shiver of heat over my skin. I took in a tiny breath, savoring the rush.

“Get in here.” He, tugged me into his living room and kissed me. He pulled back, grabbing the tote bags I was carrying. His eyes widened. “What the hell are those boots you’re wearing? Are you my dinner, baby?”

“Dinner is in that blue tote.” I presented him with the gift bag. “And this is for you.”

His brow creased, a frown shadowing his face. “Do we have some sort of anniversary thing?”

“Nope. I’m not one of those girls who takes notes of the first day we kissed or held hands or watched a full moon, then buys a Hallmark card for every occasion, and freaks if you don’t remember every little event.”

“I didn’t think so.” His lips twitched.

“It’s a gift for you. That simple. I had to, wanted to, felt compelled to. Accept it graciously.”

Butler opened the gift bag and removed a large box that I’d wrapped in a beautiful royal blue and purple wrapping paper tied with a thick gold ribbon.

He stared at the present, swallowing, the muscles of his throat moving with the action. “This is the second time, and…”

“Butler, what is it?”

“This is the second time you’ve given me a present. I haven’t seen a present, wrapped or otherwise, for me in…I don’t remember how long.” His voice was quiet, the lines of his face drawn.

My heart squeezed. “Baby, open it,” I murmured.

He pulled the ribbon off the box, scratched at the paper and ripped it open, his lips pursed, as if he were squelching any kind of excitement. He flung the paper scraps to his side and lifted the 8x10 frame from its box. His body stilled, his eyes focusing on the photograph and widening a few degrees.

“Tania—”

“It’s how you make me feel.” My heart beat outside my chest. “Because you see me like this.”

His gaze darted at me and then back to the photo. “Shit, baby. It’s—you’re so fucking beautiful. You’re incredible.”

“I wanted to be your pinup,” I whispered.

He swung an arm around my neck and kissed the top of my head as we both looked at the photo Lenore’s photographer had taken of me, set off in a ridged white border matte and set in a professional thick black frame.

In the photograph, I wore Lenore’s custom-made corset, my black hair long and wavy around my shoulders and down my chest. On my legs were the new high-to-the-knee black leather heeled boots that Grace and I had found in Rapid. Hanging off one shoulder was one of Gerhard and Astrid’s velvet throws, almost as if it were a part of me. On my head was Astrid’s gold crown with the faux black diamond. In my hand was a sunflower, like the ones Butler had given me at the Rusted Heart’s opening parties.

I reigned over a kingdom of pickings—the bone thrones and towers, the gruesome clay masks, the antique Christmas decorations in crystal bowls, Wreck’s candelabra, his vintage Harley engines and headlamps and dented, scratched tanks lying around me—my minions, my secret rusted treasures in my field of dreams, my field of plenty.

A field that Butler had helped me cultivate.

Dreams that Butler understood, dreams that he’d lived with me. Found with me. Encouraged in me.

And there were more dreams to dream, more to realize—
that
, I knew with certainty deep in my soul.

“This is my queen,” he whispered back.

My heart fluttered, my skin heated.

“This is how I see you, Scarlett. And more. So much more.”

Butler’s eyes scrunched up for a second. “What’s that on your chest? On your—”

His eyes tightened as his gaze snapped at me, those icy-blue stones piercing me. “What did you do?” His voice had deepened. “Let me see.”

I licked at my dry lips as I tugged off the thin scarf I had draped around my neck and chest on purpose.

He put down the framed photograph, and his fingers stroked the edges of my new tattoo. “Jesus.”

Ronny had transformed the F scar into a B.

“Ronny’s going to fill it in more in a few weeks,” I said.

He traced the edges of the design on my skin. “And a hummingbird on the side?”

I only nodded.

He bent and planted a kiss over his B on my skin and on the delicate hummingbird entwined in its lines. His lips brushed my throat as his hands cradled my head, tilting it upward. His eyes were shining, the brightest, most breathtaking azure blue. Fresh calm. Startling assurance, clarity.

“The last thing I ever expected was to find you. You’re a total surprise to me, Tania. You’re the greatest gift for me, baby. And I’m going to show you that every fucking day. I’m going to show you what I see.”

A small cry escaped my lips.

He bent and kissed me so very gently. “Love you.”

I sighed, my eyes closed. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Scarlett.”

He picked up the photo. “Baby, these boots with this lingerie number…”

“Hmm?”

“This corset yours, or did you borrow it?”

“Unwrap your other present now.”

“What other—”

His gaze darkened and didn’t roam from mine as he undid the belt on my coat and unbuttoned each button, starting at the top, in swift, precise movements. That dazzling, heady trip of arousal flared through me, liquefying everything in its path.