Masquerade (15 page)

And my heart breaks for him.

“Why? Why should I stay, Bee? So we can keep fucking around? So we can draw pictures again or sleep in the same bed? Why do we keep playing these games?”

He’s right. We are playing games but I don’t know how to stop them. I also don’t know how to let him go and I don’t think I want to. I want to give him something. Want him close to me in a way I’ve never wanted anyone close to me before. If I could, I’d cure that ache inside him. I don’t know how to tell him that. Don’t know how to show him or even what the hell it all means.

“I don’t know,” I admit, at a loss for words.

His eyes bore into me. “Tell me about your parents, Bee. You wanna talk all of a sudden, tell me that. Is that why you want me to come inside?” His words are angry lashes across my skin.

I think about his sister and her friends. How much they care about each other and how they made me feel like I fit. How I feel like that with him, too, and Maddox has given me both those things.

How he came to me and let me pierce him because he knew that was all he had to offer. It was his way to say he kind of trusted me and I want him to know the same thing about me. That I trust him.
I’m falling for him…
Or maybe I’m already there.

When I open my mouth, those aren’t the words that come out. “No, those aren’t the reasons I want you to come in. I want you to mark me.”

His eyes fill with fire and I know he understands exactly what I mean.

I want you to mark me.

I’m cemented in place. My feet nailed to the ground and my eyes glued to her. There is no doubt in my mind what she’s saying. She wants me to give her ink—to put something into her skin and it’s the biggest fucking honor to even have her say it but also scares the hell out of me. This is huge. This is
Bee
and the last thing I want is to screw something up that’s this big.

She straight up told me she hasn’t let anyone except the Professor give her ink but she’s asking for it from me—someone who’s never put needle to flesh before.

There’s no fucking way I will walk away from this either. I want my mark on her. Want her to have a piece of me with her for the rest of her life.

“Here?” Cocking my head, I nod toward her house.

“I have everything we need.”

As if my body has a mind of its own, I reach for her. Wrap an arm around her shoulder and pull her close. I like having her near, like the way she feels and how she makes me feel. My body molds to hers as though we’re supposed to fit together.

We walk to her house and she unlocks the door. Bee steps in first and hits a light. Words are trapped in my throat as I look around her house. It’s… perfect. Her furniture is white and there are dried flowers on the entertainment center and paintings on the walls that you can tell cost more than all the secondhand shit in my house put together. It’s not her.

“Mom did it for me as a surprise.” She looks at me. “Surprise! It’s a very grown-up house, I’m told. My sister helped.”

There’s so much history behind her words that I hear it coating them—dripping off but still leaving residue behind.

Bee doesn’t give me time to ask, though. Honestly I’m not sure if I would. My hands itch too much to tattoo her to think of anything else.

“Drink?” she asks.

“Water. Where can I leave my jacket? I don’t want to fuck anything up.”

Her back is to me as she walks into the kitchen. “Put it anywhere, Maddox.”

A couple seconds later she comes out with two bottles of water. Instead of moving toward the living room, she heads to a hallway and I go right behind her. Four closed doors line the hall, two on each side. Bee picks the last one on the right. When she turns on the light, I see the room is full of tattoo supplies but it looks like an art room too. There’s a desk with a lamp and a light board for drawing. Pencils are in a cup.

In the corner there’s a chair. Not a tattoo chair but one that will definitely serve the purpose. A cabinet is in the other corner, with no doors on the front and stocked full of brand-new supplies.

Bee grabs something from against the wall and I see it’s a foldout table. After helping her set it up, she nods toward the table. “You going to start drawing?”

Her words send electricity shooting through me. She could easily draw whatever she wants, exactly how she wants it. Instead she’s asking me.

Trust. She fucking trusts me.

“What do you want?” My mouth feels dry, so I open the bottle and take a drink. Fuck, this girl does something to me. She ties me in knots and makes me feel free at the same time.

“Leaves, on my shoulder blade.” Her eyes dart to the desk and back at me. “Everything you need to get started is right there. I’ll be right back. I’m going to change.”

And then she’s gone and I’m at the desk. After taking off my jacket, I toss it in the corner. Leaves. What the hell? A little flash of memory hits me. Seeing the leaf fall on her shoulder. Watching her pick it up, then another one.

I think of the stars going down her side and the story she told me about camping. Her Gemini, the mask like someone would wear at a masquerade on the back of her neck and I know. I fucking know what she does. Those things are important to her and the leaves from today are too.

This burst of pride like I haven’t felt in so long fills me. I brought her today and it was important to her. She trusts me to put this piece of her life into her skin forever.

I’m not sure anything has ever been so special to me.

My hands actually shake a little as I sit at the desk. As soon as I put the pencil to paper, it’s like something takes me over. This need and desire to create something incredible for her possesses me and it starts to flow: one leaf on top, another floating below it, and a third under that. The second two are both bent whichever way the wind chooses to fold them. With the side of the pencil I shade some curving lines for the wind. I draw little spidery lines in each leaf, smearing some of the lines. What happens next is automatic. In each of the leaves is a letter, spelling her name.

Not Leila. Not Coral. Even if she goes back to either of those names, she needs to know she gets to decide who she is. And she chose Bee.

By the time I finish, I know it’s been at least forty-five minutes. Bee isn’t back yet but then I didn’t expect her to be. She’s waiting for me. I don’t let myself overthink how I know that.

Sticking my head out the door, I call, “We’re good.”

It’s not five seconds later she’s coming out of the room across the hall wearing short-shorts and a tank top with a thin strap. Her hair is up and all I can think about is how much I want to taste her neck. To put my hands through her hair and kiss the skin I’m about to mark to show it some sweetness before the pain.

“What’cha got for me, Scratch?” She walks in the room and I follow. Bee heads straight over to the desk, her back to me as she studies the drawing. My heart kicks up as I crack my knuckles.

“If you want something else—”

“It’s perfect.” She turns. “It’s beautiful.”

I think about that sunflower on the back of her calf, I know her stars, her Gemini, the mask, and her leaves but I don’t know that.

“Are you sure you want me to do this?” It fucking kills me to ask but I have to. I can do it. I’ll make it fucking beautiful but I need her to be sure.

“I wouldn’t let anyone else.”

Christ I want to kiss her so bad. I know if I do, we won’t stop. And I want to do this tattoo for her. “This is going to get in the way.” I run my finger down the strap on her tank top.

She looks up at me, all strength and honesty. “Then take it off.”

I slide my hands down—down her shoulders and her arms to her waist. Bee shivers when I reach my destination but I start going back up, this time with the bottom of her shirt in my grasp. She raises her arms and I pull the fabric off her before tossing it to the floor.

I swear it’s like my fucking insides are shaking. My tongue traces my lips and I wish I was licking hers instead. Or a tattoo, or each peak of her perfect breasts as she stands in front of me naked from the waist up.

“You’re fucking killing me here.”

She grins. “Then we better get started. I’d hate for something to get in the way of getting my ink.”

My hand slides around her side. “Just worrying about yourself, huh?”

“It’s a great tattoo.”

Her compliment only reignites the wildfire burning me up. “You’ll be the perfect canvas.”

She gasps, my words shocking her the same way they do me. She recovers quickly. “There’s antibacterial soap in the bathroom down the hall. Wash up. I’ll get everything set up.”

Before I lose the strength to do it, I head out of the room. It doesn’t take me long to wash my hands and she’s almost finished with the setup when I get back into the room. The supplies, towels, gun, and ink are all laid out on the table. After grabbing the saran wrap, I put some Vaseline on it.

“Sit down.” My voice comes out scratchy.

Bee does as I say, leaning forward so her back is to me, her breasts up against the back of the chair. Laying the paper against the smooth skin of her shoulder blade, I watch as the hairs on the back of her neck move with my breath.

“Do you have a mirror so I can make sure you like the placement?”

“It’s perfect.” She doesn’t even turn around.

“Bee—”

“I know what I’m doing, Maddox. I can feel where it is. I saw the drawing. We’re good, okay?”

Without a reply, I slip the gloves on and find the right speed on the machine. Goose bumps travel down her arms when I rub a light layer of Vaseline on her shoulder. All inked up and ready, with no hesitation, I touch the needle to her skin. Bee doesn’t flinch—doesn’t move at all as I move down the first line.

Neither of us talk for the longest time. No words are needed right now as I make something that’s important to her, a piece of her forever.

I do the first leaf and then move to the second. Time passes but I don’t know how much. It doesn’t matter. All that does is the art. The whole time I don’t let myself wonder if I’m ready for this. She thinks I am, and I trust her. Christ, I fucking do.

I’ve never felt as connected to another person as I do in this moment with her.

And I know it wouldn’t be the same with anyone else.

“You good?” I ask her before I start the third leaf. Each of the lines is clean and how they’re supposed to be. The skin of her shoulder is red and puffy but it doesn’t take away from the beauty of the ink.

“You have a steady hand. I can tell.”

“Thanks but I asked how you are.” I lift the needle from her shoulder and she turns to look at me.

“Rock steady up here.”

Fuck she gets to me. I wonder if there’s anyone like her in the world but know there’s not.

Once I’m working on the third leaf, I say, “You have stars because of that night on your birthday. The Gemini because you feel like two people. Your mask because you hide… I saw you.” After wiping more Vaseline on her skin, I continue, knowing this is the one place where she can’t pull away. It’s fucking crazy. I want to talk to her, want her to talk to me, push her to open up. “I saw you with the leaves at the party, Bee, and now you want them in your skin. Your tattoos are about what’s important to you, aren’t they?”

She’s silent for what feels like forever. Anger at myself sneaks in, singeing my edges when I’m not sure they have a right to. We said from the beginning what this was about and telling each other about our past wasn’t included.

Neither was this…

But fuck… I want to know, need to know more about her. “If you don’t want to tell me, you can say it.”

“I always want to be able to take the good things with me. I want a reminder because you never know when everything will change. When you won’t be able to tell what’s good and bad or right and wrong, so I make sure the good is with me.”

It’s a struggle not to pull the tattoo gun from her but I keep going, don’t break the contact so she can’t pull away and so I can’t either. She wants to keep the good with her. I fight through my angry memories and try to think of the good. I blocked it out, not wanting to hold on to it because I didn’t know which parts of it were real or not.

“That’s good. There’s strength in making sure you remember, Bee.”

She lets out a deep breath. “You think?”

It takes me a minute to reply. I’m working on the hidden
e
in her last leaf, wishing I could wipe away the angry red skin so it will be perfect the first time she sees it. “Yeah… you’re kind of incredible. Has anyone told you that?” Closing down my thoughts, I focus on the muscle in my chest for the first time in forever.

“No.” Her voice is soft… sweet in a way I’ve never heard it. “It scares me that you did, only not as much as it should. That freaks me out even more.”

“It’s not like you’re the only one who’s nervous here.” Because I’m falling for her. Really fucking falling for her. I think I’ve known it for a while but it hasn’t been as real as it is right now.

“This is different, isn’t it?” She drops her head and I really wish I could see her face. She’s voicing what I’ve been feeling.

“You know the answer to that.” It’s all I can think of to say and I know she’ll appreciate me for it. Because that’s how we work. We don’t need words.

So we don’t use them. She stays bent forward as I continue to tattoo her. Soon I’m changing the tip so I can do the shading of the wind. Bee hardly moves, just trusts me with her body.

When I finally finish, I have no idea how late it is. After turning the gun off, I set it to the table. “Done.” Obviously but she doesn’t call me on it. It feels wrong to completely study it before she gets the chance, so I pull my eyes away and stand. “Let’s go.”

Grabbing her wrist, I help her stand. When she turns, I remember she’s half naked, and for the second time in the past few seconds, I have to rip my eyes away from her.

Bee lets me lead her to the bathroom. I stand against the wall as she leans forward, her back toward the mirror, neck turned so she can peek over her shoulder.

It’s the most incredible fucking sight I’ve ever seen. Her breasts, her flat stomach with the piercing. Those stars that go up her side, and then my mark in the middle of the puffy skin on her shoulder.

Knots form in my stomach as I watch her, as I wait for her. This is her memory, this is the way she wants to take this day with her wherever she goes and it’d kill me if I fucked that up.

Our eyes meet in the mirror and then she turns her head to face me. “It’s even more amazing than I thought it would be… Maddox… you’re incredible. Do you know that?”