Tyler & Stella (Tattoo Thief) (10 page)

I shake him away. I can’t take this kind of tenderness. “Cut it out. I can do this myself.” I lather fast and scratch the shampoo into my skull, trying to un-feel the gritty press of people and fence above me.

Tyler backs off. He soaps and rinses himself, then steps away from the spray. I rinse my hair and feel the cold draft as he exits the shower enclosure. I peek at him as he dries his hair and shoulders roughly, his underwear dripping on the floor.

Tyler looks up and I’m caught staring. “No peeking, Stella. Turn around.” An impish grin lights his face and I’m thankful that a lighter mood is back.

I turn my back to him as he shucks off his underwear and wraps himself in a towel. “I’m going to my room to get dressed. I left a T-shirt on the counter if you want to wear it while I work on your knees. Come out when you’re ready.”

TWELVE

I hoped Tyler would declare my wounds clean and ready for dressing after the pounding they took in the shower.

I was wrong.

I steel myself for the next round of torture as I dry myself with a fluffy green towel that seems too domestic for Tyler. Did a girlfriend buy it? The thought sours my mood.

Tyler must have a pretty decent black book. Considering how many beautiful women probably throw themselves at him, I’m sure he has plenty of possibilities.

Is that what I am to him? A possibility? Or maybe just a convenience? I die a little at that thought. We haven’t talked about what happened between us when I was here two nights ago and I still sting from his mistrust.

If only my body didn’t betray me. I can want him. I can even get lucky with him. But I have to guard my heart against getting
involved.
That would ruin me.

I step out of my soaked underwear and pull on Tyler’s soft green T-shirt, which hangs longer than the skirt I wore earlier tonight. I sneak out of the bathroom to the kitchen, hoping he won’t see me if he’s in his bedroom loft.

I keep a pair of panties in my purse for, well,
emergencies,
and I hide behind the kitchen bar as I pull them on. My legs are still damp and I catch my toe on the elastic around the crotch.

I hear Tyler’s footsteps down the stairs and I’m beyond mortified that he might see me doing a one-legged hop into my panties in his kitchen. I crash into one of the cupboards as I hop but I manage to get everything in the right place—feet on the floor, panties on my ass, Tyler’s shirt covering all my essential bits.

Tyler grins at me and I just
know
he saw something, but he doesn’t comment. He pulls a sheaf of delivery menus out of a kitchen drawer and hands them to me.

“I’m starving. But I’ve got to get the rest of the gravel out of you before your knees dry up, so get over here.” I clutch the menus and follow Tyler to the couch where he pulls my feet over his lap. My knees are bent up toward him and he inspects them closely.

“Move that light closer, OK? And figure out what you want to eat.” I swivel a gooseneck lamp to point right at my knees.

“Do you want a scalpel, doctor?” I tease.

“The wound is severe. We may have to amputate.” Tyler’s tone is mock-serious but I think he’s trying to distract me from the pain when his tweezers dig for the last few pieces of gravel.

I hold my breath until he gets one, then let it out in a whoosh of relief. He scrapes and digs and I inhale. He holds another shard up triumphantly and I exhale. In and out. I can handle this. The pain makes my skin tingle and I wish I had more vodka.

“Did you pick dinner?” Tyler asks.

I don’t answer immediately because I’m in a breath-holding stage, but I flip through the menus and choose Chinese. Once Tyler lifts the tweezers again, I can talk. “How does ten-ingredient Chow Mein sound? Medium spicy?”

“Good. And get broccoli beef. Extra spicy.”

“What do you want for your side? Noodles or fried rice?”

“Neither. But get extra fortune cookies.”

“You want steamed rice to soak up your sauce?”

“Too many carbs.” Tyler focuses on picking another piece of grit from my knee but a bubble of laughter bursts from my chest.

“Ty, I hate to tell you this, but with your body, the last thing you have to do is worry about carbs.”

Tyler’s brow furrows and his expression darkens. “I always worry,” he mutters. It’s a strange comment coming from someone who’s known for his killer abs. Or maybe worrying about food is how he got this way.

Whatever. I grab Tyler’s phone from the coffee table and dial for delivery. They don’t ask for an address or a credit card—I don’t even have to ask them to make his broccoli beef extra spicy.

I lean back on the couch and continue my breath-holding technique, my eyes squeezed tightly shut against the pain and bright light. Tyler rests his left hand on my thigh and steadies his right arm against my shin as he keeps picking at my knee.

His face is scrunched in concentration, yet all I can think about is how warm his hand feels on my thigh. I wish he would inch it higher on my leg, but it’s anchored in place.

Tyler shifts and I open my eyes at the new movement. “Hands.”

I sit up on the couch and hold out my hands. He inspects my palms closely and picks at a few specks before he nods, confirming they are clean.

Tyler shifts his body on the couch and grasps my face the way he did on the bridge, his thumbs on my cheekbones and his fingers threaded through the hair just behind my ears.

My pulse quickens.

He tips up my chin, bringing my mouth closer to his and I smell citrus on his breath.

This is what I came here for. Not heart-wrenching gentleness, but chemistry, spark and passion.

Tyler’s face is inches from mine as he tilts my face toward the light of the gooseneck lamp and peers at the scrape on my chin.

I deflate.

“I don’t think your chin’s as bad as it looked. The cuts are not nearly as deep as the rest.” Tyler releases my face and disappointment floods me. I
wanted
him to make more of that moment.

Tyler smears antibiotic ointment on my hands, knees and chin and applies bandages. The way he’s fixed completely on me is intoxicating.

The thrum of a guitar ringtone prompts Tyler to dive for his phone. “I’m on my way down,” he says and ends the call.

He jumps up from the couch and stuffs his feet into shoes, grabbing his wallet. “Food’s here. I’ll be right back.”

I nod and he’s out the door. I pull my raw knees to my chest and hug them close, drained from everything that’s happened tonight. He kissed me on the bridge, kissed me like he wanted to know every part of me, and then when he had me stripped to nearly nothing in the shower, he kept me at arm’s length.

I don’t understand him.

Tyler returns with a bag of fragrant food and rummages in his kitchen for utensils. We spread our feast on the coffee table and I try some of his broccoli beef. It’s painfully spicy and I stick out my tongue and fan my face in pain.

“Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough, Tyler?”

He laughs and tickles my side. “You knew it was spicy. I’d say you did that to yourself.” I go to the kitchen and pour us glasses of water, bringing them back to the couch where he’s sitting.

“Water doesn’t work, you know. It only makes the heat more intense.”

My brain returns to the shower, the scalding water on my knees, the heat between my legs as I felt him stroke my feet. Water
did
make the heat between us more intense.

I think Tyler understands the double meaning I pull from his words because he clears his throat and focuses on the food. I let silence fill the space between us and it feels like snow falling, each moment quieter than the last.

Finally, I break it. “Tyler? I wrote the story about your practice space.”

He nods, his mouth full.

“I didn’t write anything bad about you or the band. I know you and Gavin and Beryl don’t trust me right now—and I know I don’t deserve it—but I want you to see that I’m trying to earn it back. That trust.”

“Stella. Stop beating yourself up. I know you’re trying to make things right.” He gestures to me to look around. “I trust you.”

“You do?” I realize he means that he trusts me to be in his home, even though I’m not officially reporting a story.

I put my half-empty carton of chow mein on the coffee table and hesitate, but the other question pounding in my head needs to be asked. “You kissed me—”

Tyler nods his head seriously but a smile plays on his lips. “I did. I had a beautiful woman in my arms on a perfect summer night under the fireworks. Who could resist?”

He called me beautiful.
This derails my train of thought but I force myself to focus. “Why’d you stop?”

He shakes his head and runs his hands through his hair. I’m beginning to recognize this nervous gesture. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

I scoot closer to him on the couch, emboldened by his smile, by the
beautiful
he saw when I was at my absolute worst. “You didn’t have to stop.”

I nuzzle closer to him and his hand glides up the back of my neck into my damp hair. He fists my hair and tips my face upward, bringing my mouth inches from his.

“I didn’t
want
to stop,” Tyler whispers, his breath on my lips. “I
wanted
you.” He presses his lips to mine and pulls me against his chest roughly. I answer every question in that kiss with
yes
, and ask him for more with my tongue.

I want him like air, like water, like sleep and sunshine. I want him to break free of whatever’s holding him back, to just live this moment with abandon.

But Tyler breaks off our kiss and shakes his head, still holding me tightly against him. “I want you, Stella, but we have to stop this. Now. I can’t have a relationship with you.”

I’m stunned, maybe more because he said the R word when we barely know each other, than because he’s rejecting me. Again.

Rejection. Another R word I hate.

I’m too fearful to ask why, so instead I try to rationalize this. (Another R word! Fuck!) “You don’t have to have a relationship with me. Have you considered the possibility that maybe I’m not gunning for a relationship, either?”

Tyler looks confused and I trace my fingers along his ink-stained bicep, making my meaning clear. I shift closer to him, trying to fit our bodies together the way they interlocked so perfectly on the bridge.

“You don’t have to give me roses and promises, Tyler. This can just be about us, our chemistry, the way we connect. I can feel the way your body reacts to mine.”

I’m going for broke, but sometimes a little daring works better than a lot of patience. What was it Tyler said at the restaurant?
Life is about being brave.

Yeah. That.

I trail my hands across his chest, feeling his nipple piercings beneath his shirt. I’ve never touched a man with pierced nipples before but I’ve heard it’s an erotic stimulus, so I imagine Tyler can’t be too hesitant to jump in the sack.

I feel Tyler’s energy shift and his mouth leans down to cover mine again. I lean into the kiss, but it’s not the raw desire I tasted just a minute ago. It’s sweet and soft and pleading. He breaks away before I’m ready.

“Stella, listen to me. I
can’t
have a relationship with you right now. I can’t, and you have to respect that.”

I blink, tears stinging my eyes from the rejection and the implication that boldly taking the lead was somehow disrespecting his choices.

“You can’t have a relationship, or you can’t have sex?” I’m angry and I’m lashing out at him and Tyler looks horrified. “Which is it, Tyler? Because I’m sick of this little mindfuck, the kissing and touching and then pushing me away.”

“Seriously, Stella?” Tyler’s hoarse with surprised anger. “You never just kissed someone to kiss them? Because they smelled good and tasted good and felt amazing in your arms? You never just kissed without expectation?”

I freeze, knowing Tyler is right. I can’t remember the last time I kissed someone just because I wanted to, without expecting to get laid within the hour. It’s a painful truth and it makes me feel easy. Trashy. Cheap.

Tyler doesn’t know he’s already won our argument so he fires another shot, and this one’s a fatal blow. “Or is kissing just an item to check off your foreplay list?”

“Enough.” I push away from Tyler and stand. I’m all out of words and all out of tears. “I’ve heard enough. I’m going home.”

I rush to the bathroom where I strip off Tyler’s shirt and pull on my soiled skirt and top. I stuff my feet in my shoes and pick up my bag from the kitchen bar.

Tyler waits for me at the door, his phone in his hand, a war of emotions on his face as if
I
rejected
him
. “I didn’t want our night to end like this,” he says quietly.

Our night.
I don’t respond. I let him open the door and I walk down the stairs, his soft tread echoing behind me. We get to the bottom landing and he shoves the stubborn lock open.

“I called you a cab. It should be here soon.” Tyler takes my hand and turns it palm-up before I can pull away. He drops a fortune cookie inside.

I close my fingers over the cookie. “Thank you.” My eyes won’t leave the floor.

There’s nothing more he can say and he finally releases me, opening the door into the cool night. I hear the distant crackle of fireworks, but even the ones that burn bright eventually become ash.

THIRTEEN

“What are you doing Wednesday?” Beryl’s voice is far too chipper for a Monday morning but it lifts some of the funk that’s settled on me.

It’s not pretty. After I filed my Indie Day story Friday—including a few lines about Tyler’s guest appearance—I hightailed it out of my newsroom and into my pajamas, with a bottle of Absolut and a remote control to keep me company.

When Neil came home late that night I was wicked drunk and crying over
Sweet Home Alabama
. The chick flick, not the song. Neil announced that I had six days to move out because his roommate Violet is coming home on Thursday.

More tears. More shots. More of the hopelessness that pooled like lead in my gut.

“Stella?” Beryl’s voice pulls me back to the present.