Page 151 of Beneath the Burn

The bedroom door clicked closed followed by another click of the outer exit.

Jay had demanded total privacy for the remainder of the night. Because their suite was a fraction of the size of the one in New York, it made it easier to convince the protective team to guard from the hallway. In reality, they were only one room away.

She placed the stencil on the desk and moved toward him until her knees brushed his bent ones. “Ready?”

“For three years.” He removed his shirt, tossed it behind him, eyes on her, overflowing with emotion. Was he as anxious as her? Was he having second thoughts?

Her need to touch him, to connect to him, roiled inside her and spread to her fingertips. Her equilibrium wobbled. “We’ll go slowly. Stop me when you need to. If you change your mind, if the memories come—”

“Charlee.” He rose a breath away and rested his hands on her waist. “I want this.” Dipping his head, he opened his mouth and swept his tongue over hers. Pushing past her parted lips, he licked and nipped, sensuously, lovingly, restoring her balance.

She pulled back, breathless. My, how their roles had flipped. The last time she aimed a needle at him, she’d taken the lead, controlled the outcome. “Do you want to see the stencil before I start?” Nervousness cramped her gut.

He turned, lay across the foot of the bed, face down, one arm hanging over the end. “I want you to stop deliberating and finish what you started.” Impatience sharpened his tone, but the gold in his eyes glimmered with amusement.

“Good. I don’t need a stencil anyway since I’m just doing a big ol’ sheet of black.” She diluted a paper towel with Dettol antiseptic and swiped long strokes from shoulder to shoulder.

“Since you inked the first outline freehand, I’m confident you could make even a black square look like art. Can’t wait to see what you do with a stencil.” He turned his head away, and the muscles in his back loosened under the rub of the towel.

It had been a huge risk inking him without a stencil the night she met him, but she’d had little choice in her sneaky offense to defy his wishes.

She squirted a dollop of stencil gel at the top of his spine. “Here come my hands.” She waited for his deep breath and eventually let out her own when his tension never came.

With hesitant fingertips, she spread the gel over the nearest cluster of scars. His back rose and fell with steady breaths, his trigger quiet.

She worked the gel lower, and his skin took on a tougher, more wrinkled texture across a horizontal line from armpit to armpit. Was his back curved and chest tucked in when the burns were inflicted? The bubbles weren’t raised enough to be noticeable, but the discoloration made them impossible to miss. A motley of reds blended into browns and pinks. The damage covered his upper back from just below his neck to under his armpits.

Once the gel covered the areas to be inked, she positioned the stencil on his back and adjusted the ohms on the machine. “You know, I don’t know your full name.”

He twisted his neck to face her, cheek resting on the mattress, eyelids heavy. “James Kristopher Mayard.”

“James? Really?” She removed the stencil and blew on his back.

The arm he dangled off the bed shifted and his hand curled around the back of her bare calf. “I changed it to Jay when I startedThe Burn.”

She tested the machine with a few pulses of the needle. Jay. Laz. Rio. Wil. “All your proportioned names would make charming tattoos. You could wear each other’s names in a matching design.” A smile tugged her lips as she touched the machine to his skin and began the first stroke.

He chuckled. “I love those guys, but not that much.”

She followed the stenciled lines, dwelling on three-lettered names. One in particular tried to scorch her mood. She would not allow Roy to taint this moment. “What are their real names?”

“Lazarus Bromwell.” One dark eyebrow arched.

“Of course.” She moved to the most disfigured section, where a nickel-sized patch of skin had twisted as it melted. Watching his face for distress, she inked a line over it. “And the others?”

“Richard.” A gentle fondness intoned his voice.

“Rio? Richard Ketch?” She laughed. “Catchy. And Wil must be William.”

He shook his head, creasing his smile against the bedding. “Bruce Sima.”

The machine went still as she tried to pair that name with Wil’s young, surfer-boy face. “No way.”

“It’s probably no surprise it was his idea to change our names. I guess Bruce the bassist didn’t have the right ring.”

His scars blazed red beneath the stab of her needle, prompting her next question. “The band’s name was your idea?”

He nodded. “You’re the only one who knows what led to the name.”

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