Masquerade (9 page)

It’s as though all the air has been sucked out of the room. Everyone is deadly quiet. Even though I’m obviously the only person in the room who doesn’t know the history of that, even my own pulse pounds in my ears. What have they been through together? Who is Ash?

I’m surprised when Maddox steps back and gives Adrian a small nod.

“You’re okay?” he asks his sister.

“Yeah, I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about and Bee was great too. She came down, picked me up, and helped me get home.”

Maddox turns and acknowledges me with the briefest glance before he gives her another nod.

“Thanks for that. I owe you one,” Adrian tells me. I shake my head, all my attention on Maddox.

“I’m gonna go. I’m supposed to go back to work. I’m glad you’re okay.” And then he looks at Adrian. In typical male fashion, they don’t speak, only nod at each other again.

Instinct makes me follow Maddox out. He doesn’t say a word to me as he takes the stairs quickly. It’s not until we get to the parking lot that I speak. “Hey. Good to see you too.”

“I gotta go,” is all he says. Then he gets onto his motorcycle and he’s gone, leaving me alone.

No
. He’s not leaving
me
; he has no responsibility to stay. I don’t want him to either. I need to start remembering that.

I get into my car and head back to Masquerade. It’s more a home than my house is. It’s where I always go when I need to be reminded of who I am. Of Bee.

I don’t turn on the
OPEN
sign and I lock the door behind me. There are new blinds I just put on the glass door, so I close those too.

Hours later, I’m still sitting in Masquerade, thinking about what went down at Laney’s house today and wondering all sorts of things that I usually don’t let myself get close enough to anyone to think about. I jump when a clap of thunder sounds. It’s dark outside, nothing but the sound of the sudden rain slapping against Masquerade and the ground and me.

That’s when I hear it. That familiar rumble. And then I see the lights. Without looking through the blinds, I unlock and open the door. My breath catches in my throat when I see Maddox standing on the other side. His midnight hair flat against his head and rainwater pouring down him.

In this moment, he’s sexier than he’s ever been. He’s beautiful.

I rode around for hours, trying not to let myself think about much of anything, except thinking ended up to be all I did.

Christ, Adrian is right. Who the fuck do I think I am? She’s my little sister and she has her shit together more than I do. She doesn’t need me. And him? If the fact that he’s with her at all doesn’t prove how much he loves her, nothing else will.

I swore when it started raining that I was going home, yet here I am, standing in front of Masquerade—in front of Bee, the girl who took care of my sister.

“Are you going to let me in?”

Without a word, she steps aside and I walk in. I hear the door close and the lock click into place behind me. I’m soaking wet, a pool of water beneath me on the floor.

“I think I have some towels in the back,” she tells me. When she walks by, I reach out and grab her wrist. It surprises me when she stops so easily.

“You took care of my sister twice. The first time it was your job. The second time, you didn’t have to but you did. You closed your shop and you picked her up when I was being an asshole and ignoring her calls.”

I wait for her to pull her hand away. She doesn’t. Instead, she stands there and looks straight at me.

“All I did was give her a ride. It’s not a big deal.”

“I wasn’t there. I told her I would always be, and I wasn’t. You were. That…” I close my eyes.
Means something to me
. When I open them again, I grab the bottom of my shirt and pull it over my head. Tossing it into the sink, I open the cabinet and pull out the piercing supplies and set them down. Then I walk over to the display of barbells and pull one out. Behind me, Bee hasn’t moved or spoken yet.

There’s a voice in my head that tells me how fucking ridiculous I am. How hard is it to say
thank you
? Words have never been easy for me. Actions speak louder and this is the only thing I can think of. I told her I wouldn’t let her pierce me because I didn’t trust her, but she was there for my sister. That’s the best kind of trust I can think of.

“A simple thank you would work.” Her voice cracks slightly. I’ve never heard it from her. She’s always calm and in control. Not now.

“What the fuck are words? People put too much stock in them when they don’t mean shit. Anyone can use them. People lie every day. I may not be good with words, but this I can do.”

“Okay.” She walks toward me. “I’m grabbing the towels. I’ll be right back.”

It means a lot to me that she doesn’t ask if I’m sure or doesn’t try to talk me out of it. Most people would. If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be doing it, and I wonder if she knows that about me.

“Take off your pants,” she says when she walks back in the room. “You’re getting water everywhere.”

She tosses me a towel and then begins to lay the other one on the chair before reclining it. My jeans stick to my legs as I pull them off. They go into the sink with my shirt.

I can’t believe my hand actually fucking shakes as I dry myself off. I run the towel over my hair, too, but it doesn’t do much and I toss it and sit in the chair.

“I guess the rain helped one thing—they’re already hard.” She rasps her finger, with black-painted nails, over my nipples. I hiss, suddenly wanting her to touch me somewhere other than my chest.

If I were in the mood to laugh right now, I would. I’m sitting in a tattoo chair, wet, in nothing but a pair of boxer-briefs. When her eyes skate down my body with almost as much heat as a touch, I groan.

“We doing this?” It’s the same thing I asked the first night I met her.

Bee walks to the sink and washes her hands. Then she opens a new needle and the barbell package before grabbing a disinfecting wipe. I close my eyes when she cleans my left nipple.

“One or both?”

“One.”

Bee leans over me with a marker in her hand. She is so fucking sexy, all blond hair and tattoos, that small piercing in her nose, and I suddenly want my teeth tugging gently on the one in her belly button.

She puts a small dot on each side of my nipple, measuring it with her eyes to make sure it’s straight.

“What do you think?” she asks, still looking down. I don’t take my eyes off her.

“You’re the professional.”
I trust you. At least in this I trust you.

“Maddox?”

“Don’t. Don’t ruin it with words. Please.”

“It’s going to hurt like a bitch,” she says.

“Most things do,” I reply. We both know I’m not talking about physically.

She nods before picking up the needle. Her hands are steady. Somehow it doesn’t surprise me. Not with her. The barbell fits on the end of the needle, and then she grabs the piercing forceps and clamps them down on my nipple. Bee lines the point up with the spot from the marker.

“Don’t move. It’ll be quick. You need to stay still. I’ll be careful.”

I nod, start to close my eyes, but then think,
Fuck that
, and watch her instead. I don’t take my eyes off her when a sharp, stinging pain shoots through me. Christ it fucking hurts. My whole body tenses up as the little needle stabs me.
“Fuck!”
I grit out, but then the barbell is in and she’s twisting the balls on each end.

“It takes a long time to heal. Like six months. You have to be really careful. You don’t want it to get infected. Shit, I can’t believe I did this without talking to you about it—Maddox.”

I grab her and pull her onto my lap so she’s straddling me. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and then I pull her mouth to mine. My chest throbs like a bitch. It has nothing on the desire I feel for her right now.

She doesn’t pull back as I take her lips. She shudders and there’s a little bit of pride in me that likes that. She’s rock-steady while working, but I made her shake.

Her legs straddle me in the tattoo chair. My tongue slides in and out of her mouth, taking the kiss as deep as I can. She matches me stroke for stroke, the whole time keeping clear of my piercing.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” She drops her head back so I can kiss her neck.

“Say the word and I’ll stop, but fuck, I want you right now.” I think I might need her.

Her hand slides between us before she pushes it under my boxer-briefs. This time it’s me who shudders when she wraps her hand around me. The same hand that pierced me.

She stills and I’m actually
scared
she’s going to pull away but then she says, “I can’t sleep with you in this tattoo chair. There’s something wrong about that.”

It only takes me a second to push to my feet. “Take your shirt off,” I tell her as I start to work the buttons on her jeans. She does it. Then her bra while I’m stripping her bottom half. The urge to kiss every tattoo hits me again, but I don’t. Instead, I stand. “Please tell me you have condoms.”

“They’re in my purse.” She grabs one, her tight little ass on display, while I kick out of my underwear. When she hands it to me, I rip it open and sheathe myself.

As I lift her, she wraps her legs around my waist. I take her mouth before holding her up between a wall and myself.
Take her to the couch. At least take her somewhere to lay her down
. I feel like an animal, the way I come at her, but she’s rotating her hips against me and digging her nails in my shoulders.

“Maddox… please.”

It’s all I need. I take her nipple between my teeth before pushing inside her. We both cry out as I pull back and push forward again. It’s fast and furious, like every time we’ve been together.

And yet, it feels like more too—as though there’s something here that wasn’t there before. I quicken my thrusts, needing this to be about what she makes me feel physically. Telling myself that’s what it is.

I rasp my tongue over her nipple before pulling back slightly and wondering how it would feel if she could do the same to my pierced one.

My thumb brushes over the stars on her side as I push in, harder… faster.

I feel her stiffen before she cries out in completion and I’m right behind her. Her body squeezing everything out of me.

“Oh my God. I don’t know if I can stand,” she says, so I carry her to the back room and lay her on the couch. I take a quick trip to the bathroom to get rid of the condom, clean up, and grab a washcloth for her.

“Ummm… here.” I hand it to her awkwardly.

“I am so going to sleep well tonight.” A lazy smile tilts her mouth and I have the strange urge to kiss it. I never kiss someone after sex.

“Are you staying here?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Okay… yeah…”

Then as if she realizes what we did and who we are, she opens her eyes and says, “You can stay. Though I don’t know if you want to and honestly I don’t know if we should.”

I love her honesty.

Yes
. “We shouldn’t.”

“Yeah.” She nods. “I guess you’re right.”

I go to the closet she has back here and pull out the blanket and pillow I know she keeps. I hand her the pillow and then lay the blanket over her.

“I’ll lock up.”
Thank you. Not just for grounding me tonight, but also for caring for my family.

The honesty in those thoughts scares the hell out of me. It’s exactly what I feel. Grounded.

“Thanks. Read the aftercare instructions for your piercing, okay? You need to clean it a few times a day, and I want to see it tomorrow, okay? I really fucked up tonight, Maddox. I didn’t even have you sign a consent.”

“I’ll sign one. And it wasn’t your fault. I sprung it on you. I needed it. It was all me.”

“Still. I don’t lose my head like that. It’s… I don’t like that I did.”

My mouth wants to close up. The words try to bury themselves so they won’t come out, but I owe her something too. Tit for tat. “It wasn’t just you. I lost my head too.”

She nods.

“It’s… it’s too much. I’m going. You’re okay here? You sure?”

“I stay here all the time, Maddox. I don’t need to be taken care of, remember? I’m not that girl.”

“I know.” I turn for the door, really wishing I didn’t have to go out there and put on wet clothes again. I make it halfway down the hall before I turn and go back. Quickly, before I change my mind, I kiss her forehead. “Thanks.”

Before she can reply, I walk out, fight my wet clothes back on, sign the consent and leave it on the desk for her, and grab the aftercare instructions. It’s not until I’m on my bike driving away that her words play back.
I don’t need to be taken care of, remember? I’m not that girl.

For years I’ve avoided that. I’ve never wanted to take care of a woman. I’ve had my hands full with Mom and Laney, but for once I find myself wishing someone needed me, maybe even just a little bit.

I’m determined to act completely normal around Maddox today.

No
, I tell myself. What’s that? There’s no reason to act normal because what happened between us last night is what I’ve done with him before and what he’s done with other women before as well. We enjoyed each other. End of story. Today we go back to him watching me tattoo.

I have one little tattoo and a piercing before he comes in. Right on time I hear his motorcycle pull up in front of Masquerade. The shop’s empty when he comes in a minute later in a pair of jeans and a black shirt. It’s a little windy out today, even though it’s supposed to be like sixty-five degrees. Something makes me wonder if he’s cold, though.

Melody and Rex used to tease me about how easily I get cold.

“What’s up?” he asks. His eyes are puffy like he didn’t get much sleep last night and I wonder if it has anything to do with what we did.
Or it could be that his sister got in a car accident
. I don’t know what made me automatically tie it to myself.

“Take off your shirt.” My voice comes out as light as I fight to make it.

“Want more of me already?” He quirks a half-grin, which shocks me, as does the joke.

“Ha-ha. Take off your shirt and let me look at your piercing.”

Maddox stops at the end of my desk and I stand up. He doesn’t take his shirt all the way off, but lifts it so I can see his chest. “Does it hurt?” I ask, letting my finger trace the slightly reddened skin around it.

“Hell yeah it does. I have tats, and I broke my ankle playing football when I was younger and none of them touch this.”

“You played football?” sort of tumbles out of my mouth.

He shrugs. “It was another lifetime ago.”

We both had another life
, floats through my head, but I try to wash it away, with his piercing. “I’m going to put some cream on it.” I run to grab what I’m looking for before going back out to Maddox. After squeezing a little on the tip of my finger, I gently rub it on his nipple.

It’s crazy stupid, but I can’t help myself from watching my finger as it moves against him in a really sexy place.

“It’s not too swollen.”

“Then that’s about the only thing on me that isn’t.”

I think for the first time in my life someone makes me gasp. Looking down, I see a very obvious erection beneath the fly of his jeans.

“I don’t see anything,” I tease, and then Maddox does something I never expected. He lets out the first real laugh I’ve ever heard from him—all throaty and sexy and
scary
because I enjoy the sound.

Then I laugh, too, because he’s right and the bulge is huge and he made a joke, which he doesn’t do very often. Suddenly we’re both laughing together and it’s strange and cool at the same time. It’s then I realize my finger is still on his nipple and then he lets out this sexy moan and I do, too, before we both separate.

Distance. We definitely need distance.

“It looks good. Make sure you keep taking care of it, okay? They’re not the easiest piercings to have. I’d hate it if it got infected or you regretted it… What?” I ask. He’s cocking his head at me, studying me in this way I don’t understand.

“You.” He turns his back to me, walks to the supply cabinet, and looks inside, moving stuff around.

“Me, what?”

He doesn’t answer right away and I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to figure out what to say. He’s mentioned he’s not a fan of words, and I can see that. He doesn’t talk a lot, but the words he does say usually really mean something. They’re not emotional or in depth, yet when he says them, you know they’re important.

“The caretaker bit. It shocked me.” He still has his back to me. His voice is tight, though not like anger… confusion maybe.

“I don’t try to take care of people. I’m doing my job.”

“Are you?” he asks, and I suddenly want to tell him to shut up. He’s always so quiet—words never coming easy for him. It’s strange that suddenly he wants to use them.

“What about you? You’re cracking jokes. Like that’s not different for you?”

“I know.” There’s the anger. It’s found its way to his voice, only it doesn’t feel like it’s directed at me.

Turn around. At least look at me if we’re doing this.

I wait for him to say more. He doesn’t. Nothing comes out of my mouth either, so I sit back at my desk and look at some of the tattoo blogs I visit. I get two more people who come in for piercings, which Maddox watches. It’s obvious he’s not nearly as into those as he is tattooing.

We’re still not talking. Honestly I’m not sure what’s going on or why it’s on my mind. Unfortunately it is. We had this easy conversation this morning, and now it’s as though we took ten steps backward. The space between us isn’t anger, but there’s definitely space.

I like space. He likes space. What’s the big deal?

The longer it goes on, the more it upsets me. The more I upset me. “If you’re going to pout all day, you might as well go home.”

Maddox crosses his arms and stares at me. “I didn’t know I was pouting. I’m taking care of shit, Bee.”

The way my name rolls off his tongue unexpectedly makes me shiver.

“You’re pouting.”

“Why do you care?”

I shake my head, knowing I’m being a bitch. He’s not innocent either, though. Maybe that’s what makes things different between us than they are with other people. Neither of us gets close or uses words to show who we are, but we use actions. We both use strength as our defense. I’ve never known someone who was like me before. Who
got
me.

“I’ll be right back.” I’m the one pouting now as I head to the back office. I hear Maddox sigh and then the creak of the chair at my computer desk. I can’t help but glance over my shoulder. He’s leaned back enough that I can see him down the hall. Quickly I turn away.

The sound of the glass door opening drifts through the shop.

“Can I help you?” Maddox asks. The chair moves and I watch him as he pushes to his feet.

“Hello.”

Everything inside me freezes at the voice.
Yep, that’s right. I’m a bitch
.

“I’m looking for L—Bee. I’m looking for Bee.”

I close my eyes, feeling myself shrink until I’m about two inches high. Before I open them, I know Maddox is looking down the hall at me. I give a small shake of my head, open my eyes, and plead with them.

“Um… no. She’s not in today. I’m Maddox. I help her out.”

“Oh,” my mother says. “It’s very nice to meet you. I didn’t know Bee had anyone working with her. I have to admit, I’m glad to hear it.”

Smaller. I’m getting smaller and smaller as I stand hidden.

“I’ve always worried about her being alone all day and night in the shop. It’s a scary world out there.” There’s nothing but sincerity in her voice.

“She’s strong. I think people know not to mess with her. I’m here a lot, though. I mean, not that I think it’s my job to protect her or anything,” Maddox backpedals.

“Yes. She is strong, isn’t she?” I can practically see my mom through the walls. Her perfectly styled blond hair. She’s probably wearing some sort of diamond earrings that most likely came from my father. Flowers I bet and a dress. The opposite of me.

Instead of replying to her question, Maddox asks, “Can I tell her who came by?”

He knows. With one look it’s obvious.

“I’m her mom, Katherine. It’s nice to… what did you say your name is again?”

“Maddox.”

I watch him lean forward and know they’re shaking hands.

“I’m passing through on business. I wanted to stop by and see her. I’ve been trying to call, but I can’t get a hold of her. I know it sounds silly to worry…”

Don’t tell him why. Don’t say anything that will make him question my past.

“I know her phone has been acting up. I think she’s planning on getting a new one.” Silently I thank him for the lie while I continue to get smaller and smaller. I’m a coward for hiding back here. Worse than that because she’s here out of concern for me—she’s always cared about me—but I’m still trying to figure out how to love anyone. Or if I want to.

And like when I was taken, she’s still not giving up on me.

Mom laughs. “See? Perfectly logical explanation. It’s like a mother to worry. I’m sure yours is the same way.”

There’s no reply from Maddox at that.

“Okay. I guess I better head out, then. Can you tell her I stopped by?” she asks.

Go out there. Go out there and say hi.

“Yeah, I’ll tell her.”

Footsteps. Then the door opens. I exhale, thinking I’m in the clear, when she speaks again. “She’s okay? She’s happy?”

I can see Maddox tense from down the hall. The thoughts that must be going through his head right now scare me.

“She’s good. She’s real good at what she does. I’m honored to learn from her.”

I imagine Mom’s smile—part proud, part confusion.

“Thank you. I hope to see you again sometime, Maddox. Tell her I love her.”

And then she’s gone.

Maddox doesn’t come back to me, and I don’t go to him right away either. I give it time—time for Mom to be gone. As I wait, I feel itchy, my feet wanting to run, my brain already checked out. The only thing left is the guilt eating me alive.

Another little flash of a memory flitters through my head. I’m young; I’m crying. Why am I crying?

“She’s gone,” Maddox calls out.

I grab my sweatshirt off the couch and turn off my thoughts.

“Can you take me for a ride on your bike?”

He doesn’t ask where, which is a good thing since I don’t know. Instead he grabs his keys off the desk. “Let’s go.”