Deep Burn (Burned Duet 2)

I had to take her word for it, so I turned the engine off and got out of my truck. I’d planned to spend the entire Sunday in bed with her pressed against me, but Elodie had her mind set when she’d woken up a couple of hours ago. She wanted a tattoo but done in the shop like a regular paying client. My instincts told me to talk her out of it as soon as she’d vocalized what she wanted to do. She hadn’t been in the building since that night, and not knowing how she would react had me on edge. What if she walked inside and it all came flooding back to her? What if she broke down and I couldn’t pick up all of the pieces?

But I knew all she needed was me to be there. She needed my silent support and my arms to catch her if she fell. So, I was determined not to fail. I’d be there every step of the way, no matter how much I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and keep her safe from the rest of the world.

Elodie kept her gaze right in front of her as I pushed the key into the lock of the main door. The alarm system beeped, and I ushered her inside and then entered the code into the concealed box under the front counter.

“You blocked it off?” Elodie asked, her voice a mere whisper.

I knew what she was talking about without having to look up. “I…yeah.” I stood to my full height, not sure if I should go to her or let her process it on her own? “I didn’t want to look at it all day, so Mav blocked it off and created a new entrance for…upstairs.”

“Oh.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to make sure she knew I was here for her. She had to know she wasn’t alone. “I hadn’t realized.” She glanced up at me as I halted in front of her. “What’s upstairs now?”

“I rented it out to an art major from the local college.” He hadn’t asked any questions about the apartment, and I’d had the old carpet ripped up and a new one installed, so the evidence of what had happened up there wasn’t visible. Not to anyone else anyway. But to Elodie, it would always be there—a memory trapped between the walls.

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Elodie murmured, taking a step back. “I should have—”

“No.” I grasped her hand and held it just tight enough to stop her from moving away. “You’ve got this, sweetheart. The tattoo you want won’t take more than twenty minutes.” Her gaze slid to the blocked-off area and her muscles locked in place. I hadn’t been sure when she’d first told me what she wanted to do, but now that we were here and I’d witnessed her determination all the way up to this point, I couldn’t let her walk back out. If she did, she’d build it up even more in her head and it would be even harder for her to overcome. “You can do this.”

She inhaled a breath, held it for several seconds, then nodded. “You’re right. I can do this.”

“Hell yeah, you can.” I planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Let me get my station set up.” I’d never worked so fast in my entire life to get everything prepared, but within minutes I was ready and back at the counter where she hadn’t moved from. She’d already shown me what she wanted inked on her skin—a small outline of a lotus peeking behind a dotwork moon. The moon symbolized protection, and the lotus new beginnings. It was perfect for her, and small enough so she could hide it if she wanted to.

“Ready?” I asked, holding my hand out to her. She placed her palm in mi

ne, and I led her over to my station. “I’m gonna freehand it, okay?”

“Okay.” She pulled off her tennis shoe and sock, exposing the inside of her ankle. I cleaned the area with alcohol solution, then grabbed a couple different colored Sharpie pens. It only took a couple of minutes to get the basic outline down.

“Will it hurt?” she asked, grimacing as I turned my machine on and made sure my needle was in the right place.

“A little.” I poured some black ink into a small cup, dipped my needle in it, then swirled it in the beaker of water, preparing the needle. “It’s like a sharp scratch. Shading hurts the most because the skin is worked over and over again to get the right effect, but this is all outline.” I widened my legs on the stool to roll closer to her, dipped the needle into the black ink, and haloed the skin I was tattooing with my thumb and finger. “Don’t jerk away or make any sudden movements, okay?”

“Okay,” she breathed out, and I pressed the needle against her skin. I followed the first petal of the lotus, then glanced up to see how she was doing, but other than her eyes being closed, she gave no indication on how she felt.

“Going in again,” I warned her as I dipped the needle a second time. This time I didn’t stop at one petal, but I continued over to another one. She groaned as I went over the bony part where her ankle met her foot. “You good?”

“Yeah, just…that bit hurt.”

“Only be a couple more minutes,” I murmured, dipping the needle into the ink again. I didn’t like to tattoo these kinds of images because I preferred more realistic art, but when it came to Elodie and the meaning behind them, I would have covered her entire body if she’d asked me to. It took strength to go through what she did and start to come out on the other side. She was an inspiration to more people than she’d ever realize.

I got engrossed in the tattoo, making sure the dotwork on the moon was just right and wouldn’t drop out of her skin. By the time I was finished, she was relaxed back in the chair, her gaze focused on me. “You know you’re superhot when you’re tattooing, right?”

“Only superhot?” I asked, turning my machine off and spraying her skin to get rid of the errant ink left behind.

“Fine.” She chuckled and slid forward on the chair as I wrapped the tattoo in clear wrap. “Super, superhot.”

“That’s a more accurate view.” I smirked, wanting nothing more than to pounce on her there and now, but I couldn’t. She’d sat there for longer than I thought she realized, and I was afraid doing anything else would push her over the edge.

Her stomach rumbled right next to my ear as I packed my kit away, and I paused. “Hungry?”

“Starving.” She grasped her stomach. “For waffles.”

“Waffles specifically?”

“Yep.” She grabbed her tennis shoe and sock, then slid them both on. “I haven’t had waffles for breakfast since I was a kid.” She groaned. “Oh, man, I can already taste them in my mouth.”

I laughed as I stood. “Then we must feed you waffles.” I used the stiffest tone I could. “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

“A milkshake too, then?”