Despite her somberness, their bed hadn’t grown cold. Whenever she’d led him there, he followed, feeling his way through her mood. Since the morning he’d feinted choking her, she refused pain or any semblance of it. Knowing how that impacted her, he wanted to refuse her. But she’d pull him close and he’d sink into her, his intentions scuttling.
So for four days, he’d had orgasms and she had no-gasms. She claimed the comfort he gave her was all she wanted, but it rubbed at the back of his mind, a persistent and consuming thing.
“These are for you.” He reached behind him and offered her the largest box. “But I’ll reap the benefits, so I’m pretty fucking excited about them.”
Her eyes blurred as she sat back. She blinked at the package, once, twice, and tore it open. Bubble wrap and box discarded, she balanced three tattoo machines on her thighs. One hand pressed against her mouth. Fingers of the other fluttered over every detail.
Flames engraved the steel frames. In his e-mail to the artist, he’d tried to convey the design Charlee had outlined on his back. Given her shining smile as she stared at him in amazement, he figured he’d succeeded.
“The black steel is the liner machine.” He picked it up and tested the one-pound weight. “The red one is the shader. Blue is the cut-back shader. Each has been tuned, tweaked, and set-up to do what it’s supposed to.”
She turned the cut-back shader over. “I’ve always used one machine. Had to jack with the tension in the rear spring to adjust the gaping from front coil to arm bar. You know, to switch between outlining and shading? Could never get the precision right. It was a poor man’s way to do it, but three irons? This is…How’d you even know what I’d need? And custom crafted so quickly?”
Money and fame had its benefits. “The artist was very accommodating.”
She lifted the liner machine from his hand. “All hand crafted and the engravings match your tat. My God, Jay, they must have cost…I don’t even want to know.” She glanced up, eyes clear and bright. “I don’t know what to say.”
The wonder in her voice filled him with pride. He stole a kiss from her curved lips. “Say ‘thank you’.”
She set the machines on the cushion beside her and stared at them, lashes fluttering rapidly. In the next thump of his heart, she tackled him, hands in his hair, mouth crushing his. She smothered kisses over his face, sparking every happy receptor in his body, and rested her forehead against his. “Thank you.”
“It’s full on double rainbow time.” Wil reached into one of the boxes behind Jay and pulled out several bottles of ink.
The boxes should’ve held every color available, along with needles, tubes, stencil stuff, and anything else the supplier thought she might or might not want.
Wil dropped the bottles in the box and scooped up her sketchbook. “Hell yeah. We’re so doing this tattoodle.”
His bassist might’ve been hippie, but a rainbow tattoo? “Seriously?”
She grabbed the book. “It’s not for Wil. Since inking Laz’s dick is a sensitive subject—”
“It’s not a subject, because it’s not happening.”
“—Wil settled on an alternative tat.” She tapped the cartoon rainbow.
Jay cocked one eyebrow and glared at Wil. “The issue isn’t the design. It’s the placement.”
“Lose the bitchbrow, man.” Wil returned one of his own. “Laz is getting a tramp stamp.”
Nice. Jay could live with that, though he wasn’t sure Laz could.
Wil cupped his hands around his mouth and angled toward the patio. “Laz! Get in here!”
Two hours later, Jay forced himself to recline in the chair across the room in a guise of cool collection. His jealousy would’ve shattered the morale Charlee had so effectively lifted.
Laz lay face down on the couch, arms bent above his head, expression a picture of tranquility. She knelt beside him, hands low on his bare back, tattoo machine vibrating the air.
His bandmates and some of the security staff had gathered to watch, and a heady buzz bounced around them. Even Nathan hovered, a smile floating on his face.
As Laz’s rainbow-shaped embarrassment arced from the rise of one ass cheek to the other, the tiny movements of her machine held the room captivated. Humming her out-of-tune melodies, she brushed the needle over the cartoon of colors with a vivacity that put everyone in a lively mood.
His shoulder blades tingled. He wished it was him on the stabbing end, but when she’d snagged his gaze before she began, the silent question arching her brow, he shook his head. He hadn’t wanted to quash the excitement whirring between his friends. And when the time came to complete his tattoo, it would be an intimate session. Momentous. Just like the night he met her.
A groan drifted from the couch.
Jay’s graciousness slipped, his face heating. “Laz, if you’re trapping a hard-on under there, so help me God, I will break it off. With a sledgehammer.”
He groaned again. Louder. “Cool story, bro.”