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.

Chapter Fifteen ~Bee~

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.