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.
Chapter Twenty-Two ~Maddox~
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.