His eyes flicked between hers, measuring, weighing, and finally, apparently, deciding she wasn’t bluffing.
He gave in, lowered his chin in a single quick nod, then asked, “Where d’you want me, Doc?”
“Come on back,” she said, trying so hard to sound like the doctor she was, suddenly wishing she hadn’t insisted on seeing him this late, all alone, with her staff long gone.
As she led him to the last exam room on the right, George pretended he was just another patient—an urticaria needing steroid cream, a full-body skin check, or a mole to biopsy. When she turned back at the door, though, and caught him eyeing her bottom or her legs, hidden though they were by her trousers, her body reacted in a way that showed it knew the difference between him and everyone else, even if her mind didn’t care to. Just that look, that slide of his eyes over layers of clothing, dragged her into a morass of sexuality that she’d managed for years to avoid.
His gaze went up to her face, and she saw his eyes change, watched their warm brown darken to black, and the muscle in his jaw tighten. “Didn’t realize they’d got your face so bad.”
“Oh,” she said, her hand flying back to the telltale bruise. “It really is fine. No big deal.”
“You call the cops after I left?”
“No. No, I didn’t.” And then, because she didn’t want to talk about it any longer, she said, “Your eyes look good.”
“You call this good?” He shook his head wryly. “You’re one weird lady.”
“I know it hurts, but it’s doing what it should. Red, blistering. Now, let’s get your shirt off, Mr. Blane,” she said, dodging his gaze. And that sentence—her stupidly chosen words—heightened her body’s fall into unwanted sensuality.
Wonderful. Just great. After all her careful planning and preparation. Rather than look at him as he stripped, George busied herself prepping the already-prepped room, her mind hunting for words that didn’t contain subtext within subtext, with even more subtext lurking beneath.
“Remembered the burning hair last time, Doc.” Behind her came the sound of clothing being removed. “So I shaved my chest.”
Oh, that did it. Her eyes, evil creatures, bypassed her brain’s directives entirely and slithered right to where her body wanted them—on that chest. Good Lord, that chest. She’d spent all weekend thinking about that chest. Below his clavicles, he was so unfeasibly flat and broad, she’d need a half-dozen hands to span it. And strong. Still lower, the muscles curved out, hard and male and sexual in a way that pectorals shouldn’t be—they really shouldn’t. And then the thought of her bare hands, right there, touching his freshly shaven skin…
George swallowed audibly in the quiet room and reached for her gloves. A barrier.
“’S that okay? You hadn’t mentioned body hair last time, but I figured it’d make it easier.”
“Oh, yes, that’s wonderf—” Another attempted swallow over dry, dry throat. “I mean, you did the right thing. In fact, I should have told you.” Her throat clicked again, and before her tongue managed to talk her straight into some sort of absurd 1980s porn scenario, George threw the switches on the machine. It would drown her out. And him, thank God.
* * *
He’d blocked out the memory of that fucking noise. Louder than the sound of Ape’s tattoo machine and just as insistent, like being too close to an airplane right before it takes off.
The doctor put a hand on Clay’s arm, and he sighed.
“Sorry. Kinda forgot about that sound.” The motherfucking sound.
“Need a minute?”
He shook his head. They’d done this just a few days before. He could do it again.
Her hand lingered on his shoulder for another beat, and he willed it to stay there. To touch him, ground him, make him real.
That didn’t happen though. Instead, she moved, handed him a pair of big, dark glasses, which he slipped on, and picked up that laser thingy.
“Okay, so. Chest today.” She sounded as breathless as he felt.
“Yeah.”
“Great.”
The clicking started, and Clay closed his eyes, girding himself for the pain. When it registered, though, he opened them again. He needed to see what was happening. There was nothing worse than being blind to your fate.
She held the metal arm contraption out, focusing the point on his skin, and pulled the trigger mechanism. With her head down, with those glasses on, the woman looked focused, serious, professional.
Fuck, that hurt. And not one big pain, but a series of tiny, minute burns, one after another, like rubber bands snapping, snapping. He watched his skin change in the laser’s wake, a hazy, slightly puffy white frost overlaying his ink. He’d been disappointed to see from his last session that the white disappeared eventually. False hope that the process would be faster than expected. But no. Once the white burn faded, the ink was still there, only—
