“You really asking me to draw a heart on you, Addison?” I say.

Her teeth scrape against her top lip, and after a moment she releases me. She shakes her head. “Do what you want, Rush.”

It’s the first time she’s used my name, and every goddamn memory of her whispering it, calling it out, moaning it in my ear, comes at me like a fucking firing squad.

I lift an eyebrow at her. “Wherever I want?”

She nods.

My body is stoked up and I know I’d better cool down if I’m going to be holding a needle to her skin.

I lean in and whisper, “You trust me, Addison?”

She shivers instantly. “Trust has nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with why I’m here.”

“Yeah, I know,” I tell her. Because I do. The reason was in every email I never opened, every letter I sent back unread, every phone call I ignored. “You want something from me I’ll never give you.”

Her eyes hold me captive. They always did.

“You have to,” she says, her voice reed-thin.

I shake my head. Around us the crowd is getting restless. I don’t give a shit about them, and I know I should.

“You have to, Rush,” she says again, more impassioned this time. “I can’t…” She stops, looks away.

I hate that I care. I fucking hate it. And yet I ask, “You can’t what?”

It was her turn to shake her head. “Nothing. I’m ready. For you, for whatever you choose.” She lifts her chin. “For my first ink.”

The crowd explodes into hoots and catcalls. They’ve waited long enough. Maybe I have, too. Getting her skin under me again. Not for pleasure, but for pain.

I back up and motion to my chair. “Fine. Take off your shirt and lie down.”

I stare at him, watch him as he goes over to Ms. Pin-Up and whispers something in her ear. I have no idea what he’s saying, but when he’s done she glances up and gives me a strange look. Kind of like I just stepped out of a toilet, and she doesn’t know whether to be disgusted by me or pity me. I wonder if she’s his girlfriend. This beautiful, vibrant, tatted-up sex kitten. A girlfriend. It’s a thought I hadn’t entertained in years, if ever. But it’s a thought that makes me unbearably sad.

Heading over to his station, Rush thrusts his hands inside a pair of thin, black latex gloves, then lifts an eyebrow at me. “Are we doing this?”

“Yes,” I tell him, praying to god I don’t lose my nerve. Lisa was right. This could be the way to talk with him. Even if it is in front of hundreds of people.

Taking in my moment’s hesitation, his eyes move down my body. “You’re still wearing that shirt, and your ass is nowhere near my table.”

Wait, I think, with a sudden drop of my heart into my shoes. He was serious about that? “Do you really need my top off? Or is this just a way to humiliate me?”

“Why would that humiliate you, Addison? If I remember things right you have one extraordinarily beautiful body.” He shrugged. “Course in that blue pillowcase you’re wearing it’s hard to tell.”

My face goes hot, and his eyes flash with amusement like he’s really enjoying seeing me squirm.

“Take it off already,” some guy yells from the crowd.

I look around and catch Lisa’s gaze. From her spot in the front row, she looks guilty and worried, and she mouths the words, “Do you want to go?” followed by a grimace.

I quickly shake my head.

“No one’s here to see your tits, honey,” the same guy calls out. “Get someone else, Rush. This bitch is off.”

Rush walks past me without a word. His face is tight, so’s his body, but it’s his eyes that really freak me out. They’re dark and deadly, and ice-cold. He dips into the crowd. I don’t know how he knows where the guy is, but he does.

“Get the fuck out of here, dude,” he says with absolute calm.

The guy sniffs. He’s probably somewhere in his mid-thirties, and nearly the same height as Rush, but thicker around the middle. “I just want to watch, man. What’s the big deal? Shit.”

“Big deal is you don’t talk to a lady like that. It’s not cool, and it’s not tolerated.”

“Fuck you,” the guy says, then gives Rush a shove.

Rush sends his fist into the guy’s gut, then grabs him by the back of the head and slams his knee into the man’s stunned face.

“I really hate these conventions,” I hear Rush say.

As I watch dumbfounded, the guy goes down on his knees and remains there, intermittently wheezing and moaning. As the crowd falls quiet, Rush gestures to someone near the back, and in seconds two guys dressed in black haul Mr. Charming away.

Eyes as cool as twin emeralds, Rush heads back my way, pulling off his gloves. The knuckles on his right hand are bleeding. “Keep your bra on, baby. No one’ll see a thing.”

I turn, my eyes following him, my heart pounding fast and sick. He’s such a frighteningly, deliciously volatile creature, and I just want to know what it feels like to be taken over by him again.

As he washes up in the sink, I unbutton my shirt. My fingers shake as I work off each small, silver circle like it’s a puzzle piece. My brain isn’t working right. It wants to work out other answers to other puzzles like, why did he do that? Why did he challenge that guy? Knock him down when he hates me so much?

Rush slips on a clean pair of gloves, then looks up, locks eyes with me. He motions for me to come to him. My skin instantly reacts to the command by going hot and tight. I walk over, shrug out of my shirt and place it on the back of an empty chair. Cool air moves over my hot skin, but it’s Rush’s gaze moving over my skin that truly brings out the goose bumps. It’s hungry and dark, and I can’t help but get a little thrill that I still affect him in some way.

“Lie down,” he says, his tone as tight as his jaw.

I climb onto the table and stretch out, rest my cheek on my hands so I can watch him. Rush pushes his black swivel stool close to my shoulder blades and checks his materials all set out on a metal table by Ms. Pin-Up. Then he looks down at me.

“You okay?” he asks.

I take a deep breath and wonder again why I’m doing this. This—as in, letting him permanently ink my skin with a design of his own choosing. Is it just to get him to talk to me? Listen to me? Or is there more? Do I want him to touch me? Be forced to touch me?

“I don’t like pain,” I say.

His eyes flash as he reaches across my back to unhook my bra. “No one does, baby. No one does.”

As I try not to obsess over his words and their obvious meaning, I watch him pick up a razor from the table and lean over me. I feel his hard stomach press against my arm as he runs the thing over my upper back a few times. Next, I feel a cool, wet cloth dragging gently across my skin. Then what feels like paper, about the size of an orange, pressing firmly into the area, then lifting away.

He reappears in my eyeline and asks, “Ready?”

My mouth is so damn dry I just nod, then brace myself.

As the needle touches my skin, and Rush draws the first line of whatever image he’s chosen, I close my eyes and breathe. It doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would, but I know it’s going to be a long process and I have to prepare myself for what’s coming.

Over the next ten minutes, I let the sound of the machine lull me into a strange sense of calm. As I continue to rest my cheek on my hands, I vacillate between eyes closed and eyes open, and trying to figure out what he’s drawing by the movements of the needle. But so far, I’ve got nothing.

From what I can see, Rush is concentrating really hard, his eyes pinned to my skin, his face tight with tension. It’s incredibly hot, and I wish I had a better view.

“Rush,” I say in a quiet voice, not wanting to jolt him from his focus. “Can I talk while you work?”

“Depends on what you have to say.”

“Just…thanks.”

His nostrils flare, but his hand is shockingly steady. “You can thank me after you see it.”