“You ride one!” She grabs the paper from me.
“Motorcycle. Not a bicycle.” Then I’m laughing again and it feels kind of good. There’s this rumble in my chest and usually the only vibrations inside me are anger or lust.
“Where’s my shirt?” Of course she had my piercing in there, too, but it’s oversized as well. “You hinting you want to see me without it again?”
“I’m sure any girl would like that and you know it.”
Her words send a sort of jolt through me because they’re so honest. She’s not shy about anything and she says whatever she feels, whatever she thinks. It’s crazy and the urge to ask her questions just to see what she’ll say hits me.
“Gimme that.” I pull the pencil out of her hand before grabbing a piece of paper. “Now go away.” Turning slightly, I bend over the table and wrap my arm around the paper so she can’t see.
Bee sits forward and grabs me, trying to pull me away from the table. “Lemme see.”
I nudge her back. “Don’t be scared, baby. I’ll draw you exactly how you look. I promise.”
A fist squeezes around my throat because of what came out of my mouth. I’ve never called someone baby in my life. Sure I was only giving her shit but—
“If you can. Let’s see how good your art skills really are.” The way she rolls right over it like it’s nothing makes me want to do the same thing. It should be that fucking easy, so I’m going to make it.
“You’ve never doubted any of my skills before, so why would you start now?”
She looks at me and rolls her eyes before picking up another pencil from the table. “We’ll see who has the best kills, Scratch.”
When she huddles over her paper to start drawing, I do the same. My fingers easily sketch her out without having to look at her. It’s as though she’s been embedded into my brain.
This is different. I make the diamond in her nose bigger, put a big tattoo gun in her hand, and make it so her tongue is out of her mouth.
“What the hell ever!” She peeks over my shoulder, but then Bee drops her head back and she laughs. It slips between the cracks and crevices until it finds its way inside me. I concentrate on the column of her throat, which I really fucking want my mouth on right now, but then she’s showing her newest picture of me and I’m laughing again.
On and on we keep drawing pictures of each other. Each time I want to make her laugh more because I love the sound and it makes me feel amazing that I’m the one making her sound so happy. We draw each other for two hours before she tosses her pencil to the table and says, “I’m done. I won.”
For some reason, I don’t argue with her.
“It’s getting late.” Bee stands and stretches, her shirt lifting to show her flat stomach and belly button piercing. My fingers itch to play with it.
Instead, I stand too. “You can take my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Before I finish getting all the words out, she’s already shaking her head. “No. That’s not fair.”
“And I don’t work that way. You’re not sleeping on the couch while I sleep in a bed.” I’m used to sleeping on couches anyway. After Dad went to prison, I didn’t have my own room anymore. Mom got pissed but I always gave the extra bedroom to Laney.
“I can go home—”
“No. It’s late. You’re here.” My pulse is speeding.
“Then we’ll share the bed. I can handle keeping my hands to myself. Can you?”
No. “Yes.”
She’s right behind me as I turn everything off. I could be a gentleman. Maybe I fucking should but the thought of being next to someone like that, the thought of being next to her, fills me up a little when I’ve been used to being empty for so long.
My stomach is in knots, but I ignore it. I show Bee the bathroom and give her a pair of my sweats and a T-shirt. She lets me in the bathroom first to clean up and then she goes in. I’m in my room when she steps in. My clothes drown her, but my cock instantly gets hard. There’s something sexy as hell about seeing a woman in your clothes. I want to savor it and strip her out of them at the same time.
“It’s not much,” finds its way out of my mouth even though it has nothing to do with how gorgeous she looks. “My room.”
It smells slightly of cigarettes. There’s no headboard on the bed, just a queen mattress, dresser, side table, and more art stuff.
“Who said something has to be extravagant to be something?”
There’s this strange thump in my chest and this urge to grab her and pull her to me that has nothing to do with how beautiful she is. I want to hold her and I’ve never wanted to fucking hold anyone in my life.
Speak, say something. Like they so often are, my words are lost, so Bee fills the space with hers.
Her eyes dart around, suddenly looking a little insecure. You wouldn’t be able to tell by the sound of her voice, which doesn’t waiver as she speaks. “On my ninth birthday, Rex and Melody forgot. They were both busy working on a painting. I knew it wasn’t because they didn’t care. They were just like that sometimes. They got in the zone and everything else left their heads. To make it up to me, Melody made really shitty chocolate chip cookies and we put up a tent in the backyard. The cookies were so bad we built a fire and made s’mores and looked at the stars all night. It was so simple, Maddox, but it was perfect.”
Simple. Perfect. That’s what I want. Not to stress about shit or have my mom try to kill herself or my sister who’s always been so emotional. I love her but it’s hard, so fucking hard when I’m the only one to deal with it, especially when I know it’s my fault.
Suddenly, I really wish I could see those stars on her side again. Wish I could make s’mores with her and sit outside all night. “Who are Rex and Melody?”
Bee shakes her head. “Not tonight. Maybe… I don’t know but not tonight. Okay?”
I nod and walk over to my bed. “I get it. I’ll never push you to talk.” And then I pull the blanket back. Bee crawls into my bed. My bed. After pulling off my T-shirt, I toss it to the floor.
“Did you clean your piercing?”
“Yes.” The light flickers out with the push of a button and then I am in my bed with a woman. With Bee, in nothing except a pair of sweats, knowing I’ll stay in them.
We’re both quiet in the dark for what feels like forever.
“It feels good… to have someone,” she whispers. “Someone who doesn’t push or expect me to be anyone I’m not. Just Bee…”
Without replying, I reach for her and pull her against me. My arm around her waist as the back of her molds to the front of me. She tenses for a second before it melts away.
Bee lets me hold her all night, and I don’t let go.
Chapter Nineteen ~Bee~
It’s been almost a week since I woke up in Maddox’s bed. Since I woke up in his arms after talking to him about Rex and Melody and telling him my name.
Even though those things are small in some ways, I still can’t believe I told him.
And he hasn’t brought it up since. I’m not sure what I would do if he did. Probably be a bitch because that’s easy for me. But he hasn’t and I wish I could thank him for it—wish I would have the next day when we got up, got dressed, and he drove me to Masquerade like nothing happened.
Nothing did happen, I remind myself. It feels like it did and that has me slightly stressed out.
Glancing toward my computer, I look at the time. My next tattoo will be here in ten minutes, so I pull out a piece of paper and start the sketch. It’s nothing big, just a name, so it doesn’t take me long to come up with a couple ideas while I’m waiting for the girl to show.