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?”
It’s so close to what I said to her not long before. Words are trapped in my throat, clogged in my brain as I try to figure out how to reply to her. Instead, I do the only thing I can think of—try to take care of her.
She doesn’t say a word as I slip out of the bathroom. I grab the saran wrap and find some medical tape in the cabinet. Bee is right where she was when I left her, only again she’s looking at the tattoo.
“Let me wrap it for you.”
She nods. The plastic wrap sticks to her tattoo because of the Vaseline. I tape it down to be safe. It’s a short distance to bend forward and press my lips to the back of her neck, where it meets her shoulder. This time, it’s Bee who turns to face me, looking up at me with a look in her eyes I’ve never seen from her.
This frenzied need explodes inside me. Nothing can keep me from tasting her. My lips cover hers, soft, pleading for her to let me have her. To give herself to me the way I want to give myself to her.