Clipped Wings (22 page)

“You stayed at Tenley’s?” Lisa asked, her surprise genuine.

“Uh-huh. And I was all set for Round Three this morning, but she had a meeting with her advisor and almost ended up being late, so I drove her to school instead.” My chest felt tight, so I rubbed it.

“I don’t even know what to do with that information.
Three times?
Is she okay?”

“It was only twice, and why wouldn’t she be okay?”

“Hayden, remember who put that piercing in your special place?” She pointed at herself.

Like I could forget that experience.

“I’m far too well aware of what kind of damage you could do with that thing,” she added.

“I’m not that big.” It should have been weird to talk about, but it wasn’t. Probably since she’d stuck a needle through my junk.

She gave me a patronizing look. “Yes. You are. And I don’t get the impression Tenley’s the kind of girl who has a plethora of experience in that area.”

I frowned at the implication. “I was careful with her.” In hindsight, she’d mentioned I was a lot to handle. Maybe I hadn’t been careful enough. I dropped into the chair and waited for Lisa to lose it on me. She didn’t. She either felt sorry for me or thought I was the stupidest person alive, or maybe a bit of both.

“It’s not like any of it matters now anyway. I told her we can’t have sex again until the back piece is finished, so there really isn’t a problem.”

“You told her
what
?”

When I said it aloud, it didn’t sound quite as logical as it did when I heard it in my head. “I told her—”

She put a hand up to stop me. “Oh, I heard you. I can’t believe you’re serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”

She shook her head and took a deep breath. “Look at the rule you’ve created. Remember why you created it in the first place and tell me if you think it still applies where Tenley is concerned.”

“This isn’t anything like the situation with Sienna,” I snapped, irked by the reminder. If Chris hadn’t started fucking Sienna when I’d taken a pause, the damn rule wouldn’t even exist.

“No, it’s not, thank God. This is about more than that, and you know it. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with Tenley alone in the near future, and she’ll be partially unclothed.”

“I’m aware.”

“And she’s going to be vulnerable.”

“I won’t take advantage of her.”

“I’m not saying you would. But come on, Hayden, you know as well as I do how heightened emotions can be after a session. The process is intimate, even more so when you’re into the person you’re inking.”

“So?” I rubbed at my lip, which was tender from Tenley nipping at it last night.

“Would you be able to deny her when she’s emotionally fragile?”

I didn’t want to admit she already was. The postcoital buzz had worn off, replaced by a nagging worry. Lisa had a valid point, and I hadn’t even told her about the scars or Tenley’s near breakdown over her advisor. Spending hours with her alone in a private room, putting art on her skin, would be consuming. I would want to take care of her in whatever capacity she needed me, well beyond what would fall within the boundaries of what was professional. Keeping the two sides of our relationship separate would be difficult at best.

“I don’t want anyone else to put that design on her.”

“I’m not saying anyone else should.” Lisa sat on the armrest, looking at me with a practiced patience I didn’t have or understand. Despite all the stupid things I did, Lisa always forgave me. “You’re missing the point. Everything doesn’t have to be black-and-white, Hayden.”

I didn’t work well in shades. I wanted to be able to go back to last night and do things over so I didn’t have to contend with this shit. “Being with her takes away that empty feeling, you know?”

“I get that, Hayden, but you can’t go back to the way things were before you had sex with Tenley. You need to be careful with her. She’s broken.”

“Worse than me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? That tattoo she wants is so dark.” She settled a hand on my shoulder.

“She has a lot of scars.” I touched the bleeding heart on my forearm. It covered the claw marks Mischief left behind the night my parents died.

“Physical or emotional?” Lisa asked. She was always so perceptive.

“Physical. There are some on her back; they’re pretty bad.” I knew all about scars. They served as a visual reminder of physical pain, but like tattoos, scars could also hold a whole world of emotional strife.

“How did she get them?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t want whatever happened to her to be too big for me to handle. “Maybe I can fix her. Jamie fixed you, right? So maybe I can do that for Tenley.”

Lisa’s smile was sad. “It’s not that simple, Hayden. We’re not machines. We don’t have replacement parts. I love Jamie, he’s my world and he always will be, but he didn’t fix me. He gave me a reason to fix myself.”

“Do you think I’m too broken to be fixed?” The question evoked more fear than I wanted to admit.

“No. I don’t think you’re too broken.”

She put her arm around me and rested her cheek on top of my head. I wanted to hate how close I felt to her. I couldn’t. She was one of the few people who got me. “What about Tenley?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Hayden, only time will tell, I guess.”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“I know. Maybe now you don’t have to be.”

* * *

Chris didn’t talk to me for the rest of the morning. Not that I expected anything different, considering the tension between us lately. I was sure he thought I’d betrayed him in some way by breaking the rule, even if the situations were vastly different. I would have felt bad if I wasn’t so preoccupied with Tenley. It might have been easier if sex with her was about getting off and nothing else. But it wasn’t.

At three thirty I finished with my client. I checked my phone, but Tenley hadn’t called. When I’d tried to reach her earlier to see how things were going, I’d gotten her voice mail. I hadn’t bothered with a message.

I arrived at Northwestern shortly before four and parked in a lot as close to her building as I could get, which turned out to be pretty damn far away. The curious glances as I crossed campus suggested tattoos and piercings were a rarity at top-ranked colleges.

The sociology building, a massive renovated house, wasn’t difficult to find. It reminded me in some ways of a much larger version of the home I grew up in. I opened the door and stepped into the foyer. To the right was a library of sorts, to the left was a lounge reminiscent of the type found in a movie, with stiff-looking douches sitting in high-back, leather chairs. The conversations closest to me lulled when I walked into the room, though the only ink showing was on my forearms. The majority of the gawkers went back to their discussions without a second glance.

A girl in a too-short skirt and lipstick the color of blood sashayed over. “You look lost.”

“I’m meeting someone.” I gave her a polite smile and scanned the room for Tenley.

An arched doorway separated the lounge from a large, open space beyond. There were several tables spaced at even intervals, all with groups of people seated around them, books and papers strewn all over the place. It was a nightmare of clutter.

“You’d make an interesting research project,” she said, her fingers trailing over my exposed ink.

I looked down at her hand. Her nails were painted silver, with tiny diamonds glued to the tips. They looked like bedazzled talons.

“Oh? How’s that?”

“Your tattoos, and all those piercings . . .” She reached up, like she was going to touch my face.

I stepped away, recognizing her inability to read social cues. Just because I was different didn’t mean I wanted some painted-up stranger putting her hands on me. I spotted Tenley and her group. Her hair gave her away. She’d taken it down, and it hung in a curtain over the back of the chair.

“I’ve found who I’m looking for.” I walked away from the attention seeker and headed for Tenley.

Four people sat at the round table with Tenley, their focus on her. It wasn’t a surprise to discover every other person in her group was male. For some women beautiful and intelligent was viewed as a threat, at least from what I observed. Social ostracism was often a result of such petty jealousy.

I held in a snort as I got closer. The guys, most dressed in a variety of polo shirts and khakis, could have been part of a GAP advertisement. They seemed harmless, except for one; he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I came up behind Tenley and dropped a kiss on the side of her neck.

She startled, and her face went a telling shade of red after my lips made contact. “Hayden!” Her head turned in my direction. I didn’t move away, my mouth inches from hers. I waited to see what she would do. Her teeth pressed into her bottom lip as her eyes met mine, the sexual tension between us alive and well. “I thought I was supposed to call,” she said in a sultry whisper.

“Sorry.” I wasn’t. “I’m a little early. I tried to reach you before I left, but you must have been busy.” I gestured to her group.

All four of them looked from Tenley, to me, and back again. I almost expected a sign to drop from the ceiling that read DISAPPOINTED.

She lowered her eyes and rooted around in her bag, checking for her phone. My number came up as a missed call. “Sorry. We were just wrapping up.”

I could sense her nervousness. She’d had plenty of time to replay last night’s events in her head, and I hoped she didn’t regret them. That would throw a real wrench into my plans.

“Do you want me to wait for you outside?”

“What? Oh, no. You don’t need to do that. Guys, this is my . . . um . . . friend, Hayden.” I wasn’t too excited about the whole friend business introduction. “Hayden, this is Brad, Patrick, Eugene, and Ian.”

I pulled up a chair beside Tenley and dropped into it with a smile plastered on my face. It wasn’t even close to friendly, because they all seemed to like that Tenley had called me her friend when clearly I was more than that. I slipped my hand under her hair and rested my arm on the back of her chair. I was rewarded with four sets of eyes drilling holes into my head.

“Do you work at Elbo?” I asked the overly-gelled blond guy. I thought he might be Ian, but I didn’t particularly care about his name. If I was right, I would put bets on him being the one who lived close enough to Tenley to drive her home. I had no desire to allow him the opportunity to be alone with her in an enclosed space for an extended period of time, thank you very much.

Recognition finally set in. He smacked the table, several pieces of paper fluttering to the floor. “I knew I’d seen you somewhere before. You’re a hard guy to miss.”

“Yeah. I don’t exactly blend in.”

One of the other guys coughed and his friends shifted in their seats, focused intently on the open textbooks before them. Tenley broke the awkward silence by getting back down to business. She was sexy, but even more so when she was assertive. I understood why those guys wanted to work with her; not only was she gorgeous, she was intelligent and efficient while still coming across as sweet. When they finished I helped Tenley pack up her things.

“How was the meeting with your advisor?” I asked when we were alone.

“It was fine. Better than last week.”

“So he wasn’t a douche this time?” I asked, hoping to find out once and for all if her advisor was male or female.

“I still have work to do, but he gave me lots of feedback.”

She evaded one question but at least I had confirmation, although not the kind I wanted. Next time I dropped her off at school I would check this guy out. She was too sketchy about offering up information for me to be comfortable.

“When’s your next meeting?” I asked.

“In two weeks. Do you mind if we make a stop before we head back?”

“Whatever you want, kitten.” We reached my car and I unlocked the doors, opening hers to help her in. I couldn’t tell if the change of topic was inadvertent or purposeful. I left it alone, intent on staying away from unpleasant discussions for now. I’d already filled my quota this morning with Lisa.

“Where to?” I asked after I took my place behind the wheel.

Tenley directed me to a line of shops west of campus. I parked on the street, and we went into a little café similar to the one adjoining Serendipity. She grabbed my arm, bouncing excitedly as she pulled me over to a clear glass case. It was full of cupcakes. Not just chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, either, but every kind imaginable. There were regular-sized cupcakes and bite-sized ones. Some were white with white icing, chocolate with white, white with chocolate, chocolate with chocolate. Others had mango or strawberry icing, some were topped with shredded coconut, and my personal favorite, the ones with Oreo cookies sticking out of them. It was cupcake heaven.

“Pick whatever you want, it’s my treat,” she said, her smile genuine.

I wanted to usher every person out of the store. Then I wanted to rid Tenley of her clothes so I could eat the small ones off her body in a trail down to the sweet spot between her thighs. Maybe Lisa had a point about things not always being black-and-white.

I couldn’t decide, so Tenley bought two of each variety and a separate box filled with mini cupcakes. She also ordered coffees and sandwiches, which I had no intention of eating. The cupcakes were more than sufficient.

On the way back to Chicago, Tenley fed me the bite-sized cakes. When she got icing on her finger, she held it up to my mouth so I could suck it off. When I took a break from eating cupcakes, Tenley picked at one. I spent the rest of the drive dividing my attention between the road and watching Tenley lick the icing off. It was sickeningly hot and hinted at what she might look like giving me a blow job. Which I shouldn’t have been thinking about but couldn’t stop once the image was in my head. My lust for cupcakes had been taken to a whole new level.

I cleared my throat. “What are you doing later tonight?”

She looked at me as her tongue swirled around the top of the cake, removing another thin layer of icing. She stopped torturing me long enough to answer. “Working on my group project, I guess.” Tenley daintily licked icing off her fingers.