“If you’ve got a prick, don’t look at her.” I pointed with my thumb to my left where I thought Mad was. “If I find out you did, I’ll break your eye too. Did it work?” I mumbled.
She simply swallowed hard.
“Klayton Caldwell?”
Finally. I struggled to my feet and let my tank top fall to see two women waiting for me. But only one of them talked to me. It took two hours to get examined, have my x-rays done and then another hour to determine I had an orbital fracture. Luckily for me, I didn’t need surgery. But I wouldn’t be able to tat for at least two weeks if everything went well. Longer if my eye needed it, and since my tat jobs weren’t simple projects, I suspected longer. The loss Guns & Ink would take could already be felt.
On the drive home, her fingers trembled on the steering wheel. But she still insisted on getting my prescriptions filled at the drug store we’d gone to yesterday. I waited in the car, trying to keep my stomach from spewing. The driver’s side door slammed loudly, and the locks slid down. A bag landed in my lap, and she peeled out of the parking lot.
“Caldwell?” she stated quietly. “Klayton Caldwell.”
I didn’t comment. My rage had a hold of my tongue. My piercing was with her because of the x-ray, so it couldn’t keep me in check. Mad had to touch me for that. She’d unscrewed it, and the entire time I could feel her anger and guilt.
“Don’t lose my piercing,” I ordered, struggling up the stairs. I. Was. So. Pissed.
“I won’t. Go lay down in your room.”
I wasn’t in the mood for her ordering me around. I wanted to work. Working kept me grounded, it gave me a purpose. Not being able to do so for at least two weeks would leave me in a worse mood than I was in now. And it just so happened that my houseguest couldn’t deal with that. I fell onto my bed and propped a pillow behind my head, stewing.
I could feel her in my room. Her energy, her sadness, her body wanting to say something. She’d figured out by now that I didn’t want to hear it.
“Want me to go tell Cat?” her soft voice asked.
In response, I put my tank top over my eyes. I kissed her. The realization of what I did started to settle around me. In my haze, it had made sense. Her lips looked like they were begging for it, or maybe I’d been begging for them.
Once I was alone, I pushed to my feet and went into the kitchen. I filled a bag of ice one-eyed, and then returned to my bed to ice the swelling. My rage simmered in the back of my mind, yearning for a way out. The door closed, and then she was back. Her energy came with her, mixing with mine and creating a dangerous, toxic sensation in the room.
After a minute of silence, I felt her on the bed. Her body heat brushed on my right where she presumably lay. “Klay,” she whispered, voice soggy with tears; a heavy breath left her lungs. “I liked it.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Liked what?”
“The kiss. He never kissed me. Kissing’s still mine.” The shame of my actions overran my anger when she sobbed. “But it’s what it made me feel. It’s the fact that you’re a man, a big man. Kissing and … sex,” she stammered, hiccupping. “Kissing and sex and men. They’re not mine anymore when they’re combined. How I felt reminds me of how I don’t want to feel.” She came closer, but still not touching me. “I don’t want to be touched.”
She liked it? Of course, she liked it. I lifted the ice and fought to focus. Giving up, I closed my right eye and used my left. Her face was red and splotchy. There was terror and regret all over her. “I get it. I won’t touch you again.”
“You said that already.” And then she leaned over my body and pressed her lips to mine. It was a quick knee-jerk reaction. A clear apology, even if deep down I knew she had nothing to be sorry for.
I did.
But I closed my good eye anyway and focused on every part of this kiss while it lasted. She didn’t move her lips, and I wouldn’t either. Her nose brushed mine and her full lips shifted ever-so-slightly to fit between mine. The heat of her this close soothed something inside of me at the same time it kicked up my lust.
She pulled away and covered her face with her hands, rocking. She dropped her hands and looked fearfully into my eyes. “That’s it, okay, Klayton? That’s the last kiss you get.”
My head bobbed dumbly before I understood what I’d agreed to. It wasn’t like I had a choice. That kiss was a repayment for the one I’d suffered for. We were even now. I let that settle over me and then returned the ice to my eye. “What’d Cat say?”
“Goodie for you.”
I smirked. “Princess Prick.”
“I can’t breathe.”
I sighed, burrowing down into my sheets. Admittedly, it felt better being in my own bed than being on the couch. “I won’t touch you again. I got the message loud and clear, Mad. Relax. It’s cool.” It wasn’t cool. I understood her emotions, but I didn’t want to be grouped into the same category as the men she feared.
“I feel so bad,” she confessed. Her heavy breathing serenaded my irritation. “I can’t believe I hit you.”
Join the club.
“I broke your eye.”
“Go downstairs,” I snapped. I removed the ice to look at her one-eyed. “I’m not in the mood right now. You hit me. It’s done.”
She flinched away from me and wrapped her arms around her legs, looking down at my pale blue sheets. “I don’t want to leave you.” Her defiant tone didn’t help my mood. “I’m not leaving.”
“Suit yourself.” My anger wanted free, to lash out. Forced to hold my tongue—she’d broken my eye, but parts of her were far more damaged—I swallowed what I wanted to say and sought out sleep while her anxious presence stewed beside me.
When I woke in the dark, she was sleeping as far from me as possible. There was a barrier with my blanket between us. The clock on my bedside table said it was a little before nine p.m. The shop should still be open. The guys had set hours, but Cat and I didn’t. I got out of bed and found the prescription on the counter. I read the labels and then knocked back two painkillers, chasing them down with the glass of lukewarm orange juice I’d given Mad that morning. What was her problem? Drinking from the tap? Was I such an ornery bastard that she thought she had to tread lightly?
With a quiet growl, I dropped the cup unceremoniously into the sink. Then I headed downstairs, keeping my right eye closed to stop the headache in the front of my skull. The pain was still shitty, but it was easier after a nap.
Rock music blared when I went downstairs. I passed a back room with the door closed, which meant someone was in there tattooing. I entered the shop to find Cat bent over some guy’s back and Wayne working on another guy’s leg. The buzz of their guns made me envious. They were vibing, in the zone. There were two people in the waiting area flipping through the portfolio binders.
I went over to the front and looked in the book. The two waiting wanted consultations. I could do that.
“Rick?” I called, and the guy with dreadlocks looked up. So did Wayne and Cat, but Wayne looked back down immediately, and Cat did once she gave me a wink with her right eye. Snatch.
“Yeah, that’s me.” Rick came over.
I nodded for him to follow me to my station. “What are you looking for?”
He looked at my closed eye and then moved on to my tats. “Nice ink. You do that all yourself?”
“I drew them. Other artists did the ink. I’m never happy with my own ink if I do it myself.” I cleared my throat and grabbed my sketchbook. “What are you thinking?”
He lifted his sleeve. It was naked, unlike his forearms, which were covered in watercolor images of wolves and animals. “I wanted a watercolor bear right here.” He smacked his upper arm, which was ten shades whiter than the rest of his skin. “I want him to be peaceful, though. No teeth, you know? Just love.”
I didn’t mention that watercolor wasn’t my first choice. Instead, I sketched with one eye, only opening my right when I needed it. Rick murmured corrections here and th
ere, but for the most part, he seemed more interested in my ink and pussy painting Mad had focused on the first night we met. When I finished, I left him to consult Wayne.
He pulled one of his earphones out, his own rock music blaring. He was into heavy metal. We couldn’t have that shit playing all day and night without pissing everyone else on the street off.
“This look okay to you?”
He took it and looked it over. “Go take a break, man.” He motioned at his customer, who looked glad to be free of the needle. “You’re not going to ink it, are you?”
“Did I ask you that? Answer my damn question.”
“It’s cool, I guess. I’d shade it in more.”
“He wants it in watercolor.”
“Oh,” he said, cringing, feeling the same way I did about it. When watercolor was done right, it was epic. Get it wrong and it looked like a mess. “In that case, I’d give it a green light. Still don’t think you should do it with one eye though, boss.” He handed the sketch off and then put his music back in, nodding as he waited for his customer to come back.
“Dickhead.” I started stomping away.
“Let me see,” Cat said, grabbing it as I passed her. She looked it over, and then grabbed a pencil off her messy table and started adding lines around his eyes and details in his face. I squinted, thinking I’d added them already. But with one eye, I was off on every line and detail judging by her additions. “I can do him after I’m done here.”
“How long?”
She popped her gum, eyeing her piece. “Forty-five?”
After checking with Rick, he returned to the waiting area to wait it out. I decided to leave the other customer for Corey when he finally emerged with his last piece. The chick looked on the edge of tears, but she smiled proudly at the ink on her inner forearm. Feathers wrapped around smoke. I had to admit it was good work. When she saw me looking, she paused, glancing at my body. Which was about the time I recalled I wasn’t wearing a shirt.
All that time Mad had been around me without a shirt. She’d built a wall with the covers, but she’d done it.
I had a feeling that the moment she broke my eye, I was no longer a threat.
I hung out in the shop until it closed, and then joined Cat in the back to go over the books. At one point she whistled, pocketing her cut with a grin and a wink my way. I let the bills go. She earned it.
“You give the guys their cut this morning?”
“Mhm.” She zipped up the deposit bag and bent to unlock the safe. “I’ll bring this to the bank tomorrow.”
“You’re going to be working a lot more while I’m out. Probably another two weeks.”
“My bank account doesn’t mind.” She settled in the push stool I kept in the corner, and started spinning in circles. “Why’d you kiss her, Klay?”
I stared at my monitor, giving my reflection a dangerous look. “I don’t know.”
“You going to try again?”
I gave my squinted reflection a sigh. “No. I was pissed, that’s all. I wasn’t thinking straight. She pisses me off acting like she’s a burden. She’s got more reign in my place than you or me, and yet she acts like she’s got to starve to exist.” I was pissed again. I needed to go to the gym, but that wasn’t happening any time soon. “What more do I have to do to make her see she deserves to have what everyone else does?”
Cat stopped spinning and touched my arm. “I felt the same way, remember? You tried cooking for me, tried getting me out of bed. You put up with my shit until I did. After that, I felt guilty for all that you did. She feels what I felt. There’s no way we can pay you back. You don’t want anything. Eventually, she’ll start telling you where to go like I did.” She punched my arm. “Promise.”
“What happened?” I met her eyes.
She shook her head. “I don’t know if she wants me to tell you.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s not my place, Klay. Just know that it wasn’t all that different than what I went through, but my rapist let me go after one night. Hers didn’t.” She got to her feet, leaning down to press a kiss to my temple. “Go easy on her. Want me to open tomorrow?”
I cleared my throat, mumbling, “Yeah,” once I found my voice. “You’re not staying?”
“No.” She didn’t explain further, and after what she said, I wasn’t going to ask.
“Be safe, Catherine.”
She kept on walking out of my room. I heard the door to my place close, and then a few minutes later, the back door did as well. I closed up shop as best I could, and then I went upstairs, finding Madison sitting at the top of the stairs with the door open.
When I got to the top, I didn’t stop. I stepped easily over her head and went straight to the pills, tossing a couple back with a beer I plucked from the fridge. My houseguest followed me right up to the hall bathroom, where I pissed with the door open.
“Go to bed.” The sound of my piss answered me. “You gonna follow me around until I can see again?” I washed my hands, getting water all over my stomach before snapping off the light and brushing past her.
I grabbed a shirt out of my top drawer, which was the moment I saw all her clothes lined up on the floor. Neatly out of the way, folded piles balanced precariously along the wall by the dresser. I swayed from the amount of rage that went through me. I had never bit my tongue harder than I did then. I spoke as I put my shirt on, hoping the action would muffle my anger. “You’re going to put all your clothes in my drawers and the closet, Mad. Now, please,” I ordered quietly.
I lay on my side of the bed and watched. She pushed my boxers out of the way in the top drawer and added her panties and bras to the pile. She did the same with her shirts and pants, and then hung her jeans in my closet once the room ran out. Then she scampered into the bathroom with a pair of my shorts in her hand. A moment later, she emerged in them, and her makeup was gone, leaving her bruises free.
She turned the light off and then crawled into bed behind her barrier, and curled up on her side, staring up at me from her lashes. “You’re really mad.”
She was really fucking cute. Her hair was in a bun, and her eyes looked younger without the eyeliner in the way. And her damn lips. Her lips were smooth and full, with a slight sheen on the bottom one, like she’d licked it before she came out.
Before she could panic, I returned my gaze to hers, making sure I looked as disinterested as she wanted me to be. “I get mad sometimes. It doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt you. But,” I added because that wasn’t her problem. “I’m trying to tone it down for you. For you,” I stressed because I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.
“You get mad a lot more than sometimes.” She got more comfortable, burrowing in my blankets.
Too comfortable. “You mind if we sleep together? The couch isn’t going to work. And I don’t want you on it,” I ground out when she clearly was about to go there. “You’ve got that barrier. Do you want anything else to feel comfortable?”
That was a test. I’d suffered a broken eye to get her to see that she could desire things and have them the way she wanted it. She didn’t have to be a burden.
“Stay where you are.”
I put my hand up, palm facing her in promise. “Won’t move a muscle.”
“And I’d like the blanket between us. You move a lot in bed.”
I tossed and turned a lot. My mind didn’t rest quite as well as my body. “You’re not the first woman to say that.”
She snorted.
My anger had faded to background noise. Finally. In its absence, my eye didn’t hurt so badly, and my jaw didn’t need to tense.
I watched as she gathered my blanket between us, separating my body from hers. My shorts rose up her thighs, revealing the pale, supple flesh. She had great legs too. I imagined them wrapped around my waist and thought the barrier was a good idea. And maybe a call to my kitten. In the back of my mind, the idea of being with Lynda felt empty and purely physical—the way it was with every single woman I’d ev
er been with. I couldn’t remember ever feeling anything past physical attraction, and I wasn’t sure it was different with Madison either, but I’d never thought so hard about it.
Silence settled around us. I grew tired enough to sleep.
“Are you sleeping?”
My eyes shot open. Clearing my throat, I rolled over, turning my back to her. “Go to sleep.”
“Sleeping is hard.”
“Count cardigans in your head. One cardigan. Two cardigans … are you growing tired?”
She did something that made my back straighten, and my heart crash into my dick. She giggled. Giggled. My eyes flashed open. I stared at the wall as she laughed behind me quietly in the dark. Shit, I thought fearfully. I liked the sound of that way too much.
“I never should’ve told Cat that.”
“Never tell her anything. She doesn’t forget it either. She saves it for later. And then she attacks. Like a hornet.” Conversation lulled again, and I made the mistake of nodding off.
“Klay?” When I didn’t respond, she sighed, her body moving in the sheets. At one point, she got up and closed my door, locking it securely. I pretended to sleep, to be unaware as she did her best to protect herself. When she got back into bed, she tossed and turned.
Finally, I heard her breathing slow, and her body got comfortable. I turned my head.
She lay on her side in a ball facing my back. She looked frail and small, her eyes closed tightly even in sleep. I turned over without disrupting her. Her lips were smooth; the sheen was gone. Her nose was petite and turned up ever so slightly. When I caught myself smiling, I wiped it away, wanting to break my other eye. I felt a second of panic. It wasn’t familiar. It wasn’t me. It was her fault. I fell to my back and forbade myself from looking at her again. At least not longer than I had to.
There was no point. I couldn’t get comfortable checking her out. She didn’t want it. I shouldn’t want it. My broken eye was all the proof I needed. Her terror made me disgusted with myself beyond what I usually felt.
Mad Love (Guns & Ink Book 1) Page 9