Give It All (34 page)

“Casey? Casey Grossier?”

“Yes. We want to take over Benji’s from you, and do our best to respect your father’s plans, without turning it into a memorial to him.”

She was shaking her head, more incredulous than angry, he hoped.

“That bar changed my life,” he went on, “and I want to see it thriving beside the competition the casino might bring. I want to preserve something from the town I came here
planning to renovate. I want the people who live here to have a place to drink that still belongs to them.”

A pause. “Any other reasons?”

“No, none like those you worried about, when I said I wanted to give you that money yesterday. It’s not a shackle to keep the two of us attached. Whatever may happen with you and me, whether you decide to stay here or not, I want this. For myself. You’ll get any say you want, of course—you want to hang on to the building and just sell me the bar, that’s fine. You want to move away one day . . . ? Your choice. The property or just the business—whichever entity you might wish to part with. Whichever would give you the freedom you’re after, that’s what I’ll buy.”

“And how on earth did Casey get sucked into this madness?”

“I want a local involved, for authenticity. And because I have no clue how to run a bar.”

“And Casey’s going to sit still long enough to make this all happen?”

“He says he will. If he runs off after something shiny next week, I’ll find a way to make it work. Tell me, would this make you feel better or worse—knowing the bar’s staying?”

“Run by you and Casey? Better. Bought and bastardized by some cheesy chain outfit . . . ? I’d rather see it burned to the ground. Though I know that’s who most of the potential buyers are likely to be.”

He rubbed her knuckles with his thumbs. “That settles it, then. I want to buy your father’s bar. Your bar. I’ll buy it and run it to the best of my abilities. And I’ll change the name. I’d never claim I know your father’s wants enough to make it what he imagined—”

“You’ll change the name over my dead body.”

Duncan smiled at that, just as Astrid arrived to head-butt his thigh. “All right. Benji’s it stays.”

Raina sighed softly, dropping her head, smiling when she raised her chin and met his eyes again. “When he was dying, my dad told me that bar’s the best tombstone a man could ask for. His name up there, lit for everyone to see, dozens of well-wishers visiting him every night. You want to keep it going, you have at it. But don’t you dare change the name over that door.”

“I won’t. So, do we have a deal?”

“Not yet. I haven’t decided what I want to do, aside from make tattooing my full-time focus. Maybe I
would
like to hang
on to the building. Maybe . . . maybe I’d like to keep a little stake in this place myself. Like a silent partner.”

Duncan felt light as air. “Anything you like. I merely want it to stay open, and to succeed.”

“On that we agree.”

“I’ve a fair bit of savings, and I’ll have more soon enough, once I sell my place in San Diego. I doubt I’ve purchased the last three-thousand-dollar suit of my life, but I’m ready to start investing in things more substantive than my self-image. Plus, I’ll be saving quite a lot on therapy.”

She laughed softly, squeezed his hands. “You’re so goddamn weird.”

“And goddamn exhausted.” Though there was one thing he still needed to say tonight. He toyed with her fingers. “I’m worried you’ll write this off again, because it’s impulsive, or because I’m falling asleep, or any other reason. But I need to tell you again, I’m in love with you.”

She didn’t say a word, just held his stare.

“I’m
so
in love with you,” he said. “So deeply it hurts. More deeply than I’ve ever felt anything . . . Any nice emotion, anyhow. As intensely as I’ve ever suffered panic, or anxiety—I want and need and love you.”

She laughed, looking shy. “Thank you, I think.”

“I want to be with you. For as long as this is supposed to last.”

“I want that, too. It’ll take me longer to say those words, but I want those things. I want
you
.”

He smiled, feeling the best kind of drunk. “Come here.” He urged her to come close, to scissor her legs with his. He took her face in his hands. He studied her eyes, lips, skin, fascinated by this woman he loved. By the vulnerable, frightening, dizzying height of these feelings . . . and by the view they afforded, so worth the risk of falling.

“You’ve seen the worst of me,” he murmured, thoughts breaking free, rushing out as though a dam inside his heart had burst. “I never thought I’d let anyone see that. I never believed anyone would like that man.”

“Smile,” she said softly, and he did. He let her trace the lines beside his mouth and eyes, the contact warming him more than any sexual touch could. She took pleasure in these details, or perhaps in the gesture, to judge by the way her thumbs stroked his rounded cheeks.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“A happy man. With a face that gives away every last thing he feels.”

“I used to fancy myself as having quite the poker face.”

“Nope.” She rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. “This pinches together when you’re annoyed.”

He put on his best irritated expression, and she laughed.

“And these here— You get crow’s-feet when you smile, and a little roll under each eye. You’ve got three lines across your forehead from that judgy face you’re always making at commoners. And when you laugh, it shows all your perfect top teeth.”

“Not all perfect,” he said.

“Perfect to anyone who didn’t know. And I
do
know.” When she ran her thumb over that tooth, he remembered her crouching before him, pressing the bottom of her shirt to his bleeding mouth. She’d held his head that day. And though the moment had been nothing but confusion and bright scarlet pain, he remembered being struck by the contact. Soothed. Maybe his body had known all along that this woman was essential to him.

For a long time they sat in silence, studying each other’s faces, fingers flirting. Finally Duncan sighed and said, “I’m going to get ready for bed. I’m exhausted.”

She held his hands tight, not letting him go just yet. “How exhausted?”

“Quite,” he said carefully, studying the glint in her eyes. “But perhaps not completely . . . ?”

“I hope not.”

“Why? Whatever do you want with me, Raina?”

“That’s Ms. Harper,” she teased. “Now go get cleaned up, and I’ll show you.”

Three weeks later found October looming, the air as dry as ever but the bite in the midmorning breeze markedly sharper. Duncan squinted against the sun as he fumbled with the bar’s mailbox key, then smiled at the sight of manila amid the assorted catalogs and bills.

Back upstairs, he called, “Mail’s here,” pulling the stairwell door shut behind him.

Raina rushed in from the den, grinning. “Did it come?”

He frowned, holding out a stack of junk mail.

“Aw man. I thought today was—”

He whipped the fat envelope out from behind his back.

She snatched it and whapped his arm. “Shithead.” He watched with pleasure as she tore at the closure and pulled out the papers—the documents officially outlining the joint ownership of Benji’s. She scanned the pages, then read the bit pertaining to her own role aloud: “‘...limited partnership, functioning in a consulting capacity, with no involvement in the daily operations and management of the business . . .’” She sighed, head dropping back.

“How about that?” Duncan teased. “All of the power, nearly none of the responsibility. And you deny being a savvy businesswoman?”

She looked back to the page, smiling as she scanned the words one more time.

“You’re free,” Duncan said, and took the papers from her. “How does it feel?”

“Kinda fucking amazing. And with none of the guilt I’d imagined I’d feel when I assumed I’d have to shut that place
down. Or the dread, thinking I’d have to move out of my home.”

Duncan glanced at the microwave clock. “I’d suggest a toast, but it’s barely ten a.m.”

“We have to wait for Case, anyway,” she said. Casey’s interest in the bar had evolved and grown since he had first agreed to act as manager, and ultimately he and Duncan had gone in equally, with Raina retaining a token stake.

“We’ll have our toast downstairs, tonight,” Duncan agreed. “I can’t think of a more appropriate setting.”

“Speaking of propriety . . .” Raina crossed her arms, leaning against the counter. “Casey is officially Abilene’s boss now.”

He laughed. “Yes, we may need to have a discussion regarding our sexual harassment policy . . . Though if I’m not mistaken, his flirtation’s been mellowing, the closer her due date looms.”

“True. Nothing like impending birth to scare a man out of his infatuation. Plus, Casey’s basically harmless. It’s actually Abilene you’ll probably want to have a serious talk with. And soon.”

“What about? Maternity leave?” he asked.

“No. Do you know who that baby’s father is?”

“I hadn’t wanted to ask, since she’s never once mentioned him.”

“And normally I’d say you’re smart to butt out, but not in this case. He’s incarcerated.”

“Oh my. What for?”

“Gunrunning,” she said. “Vince knows him, from one of his stints downstate.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“To Abilene? I couldn’t say. But he doesn’t sound like the most levelheaded, gentle guy, and he’s up for parole this winter. And apparently he doesn’t know about the baby.”

Duncan frowned.

“I don’t know what kind of terms they broke up on,” Raina continued, “but I think you better find out. Vince has been trying to get Abilene’s permission to talk to the guy for her, which only makes me worry she’s afraid to do it herself. If he’s about to get out, and there’s any chance he’s going to show up downstairs with an ax to grind . . .”

Duncan nodded. “I’ll talk to Vince. Maybe he and Casey and I can meet with her together. Get a plan in place, if we
need one.” Duncan had once asked Vince if he’d slept his way into in-law status with their little club. But now that he was so deeply, and legally, enmeshed with the bar, his membership was beginning to feel rather official, whether he liked it or not. Then again, he hadn’t driven his car in two weeks or more. The bike was his now—paid in full, plated, and his new license would be arriving any day now, complete with Class M designation.

He’d been claimed by this town, as surely as he had been by Raina, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. To think how much he’d been missing his condo, before everything had fallen apart . . . He’d gone back to San Diego last week to collect a few things, and had been shocked by how suffocating his former sanctuary had felt. Stifling, and cold, and lonely in its perfection. It had been with relief, not uncertainty, that he’d signed the papers giving a real estate agency permission to list it. God knew it didn’t need staging—it was in showroom condition, looking as though no human being had ever made a real home of it. And that was true, sadly.

The man he was now was different. Scarred and callused. Imperfect in many, many ways, but also more accessible than he’d ever imagined he could be. Vulnerable. Known. A mess, but a whole one. And he liked this man. He could breathe again, with his old costume finally shed for good. He felt exposed, and he wanted more of that scary sensation. Wanted to follow it to the next level of surrender.

Raina eyed him. He’d fallen silent, pensive. She came close, and her nail traced a line from his collar to his belly. “You look sad.”

He kissed her forehead. “Quite the opposite. Merely thoughtful.”

“What about?”

After a long moment’s hesitation, Duncan finally mustered the courage to say, “I’ve a special request . . . if you’ve got the time. When is your client due?”

“Not until four.”

He swallowed, and she laughed at how scared he surely looked.

“What? We survived both death threats and Braceletgate, so I bet I can take it.”

“Would you . . . Would you tattoo me?”

She stared. “For real?”

He nodded.

“Like, today? Right now?”

“Preferably.”

He’d been fixated on the idea for three weeks—from nearly the exact moment he and Raina had gone back to sharing a bed. The notion had come to him in the wake of the make-up sex, in fact, and the urgency of the impulse had never faded.

Impulse had never held much sway over Duncan, not until he’d met this woman. And now that he had, he wanted to keep making the acquaintance of his more reckless instincts. Impulse had gotten him on a bike, and it had made him a bar owner. Impulse had awakened him, freed him . . . Let it brand him as well.

“Well, of course I would,” she said. “Nothing would make me happier. What do you want? And where?”

“You choose. Whatever suits me. And anywhere that won’t show with a dress shirt on.”

“I choose? Wow, no pressure.”

He took her hands in his, lacing their fingers. “You said something to me last night,” he murmured, lost in those brown eyes, just as he had been when she spoke the words. Words he’d never been gifted with before, not by a guardian or friend or lover, ever in his life. They’d been standing in the empty bar just after close, the world feeling dark and calm and quiet. Raina had taken his hands, just as they stood now.

She nodded. Swallowed. Smiled, and said it again. “I love you.”

“Perhaps a hundredth as deeply as I love you.”

“I beg to differ.”

“I want a souvenir of this moment in my life,” he said. “Of the woman who tore me completely apart, only so I could put myself back together, better. More human. More . . .”

“Lovable?”

His face warmed. “Perhaps.”

She took a mighty breath, looking daunted but determined. “Guess I should get sketching. More human, you say . . . ?”

He nodded.

Inspiration seemed to strike her. “A heart,” she said.

“A heart?”

“An anatomical one, like in an old medical illustration. Here, give me your phone.”

He did, watching over her shoulder as she looked up
antique engravings and illustrations. The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. It really did feel as though it had taken her eyes to see the humanity in him; only fitting it be her hands that drew such proof across his skin.

“Yes, I like those. A lot. Just black?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

She set his phone aside and laid her palm on his chest, above the actual flesh-and-blood heart she’d excavated from his stony façade. “Here, of course.”

He nodded. Apt, and private. A valentine he needn’t share with the entire world. “Do it.”

“I won’t tattoo anyone who’s drunk or high,” she teased. “You sure you’re in your right mind?”

“Not at all. I’m in love for the first time in my life. No man’s ever felt half so intoxicated as this.”

“Oh, very smooth.”

He smiled. “Very true. And yes, I’m sure.”

“Make us an early lunch while I draw, and in an hour we’ll get you all shaved and vandalized.”

“I don’t have the highest pain threshold. Will it hurt badly?”

“On the chest? No, not too bad. This,” she said, tapping the lace design draped along her clavicle and shoulder, “was an unholy bitch. Anything right over a bone is rough, but you should be fine. It feels nothing like a needle, incidentally. More like a hot, scraping sensation. Should take two hours, probably.”

She stood, pressing a kiss to the top of his head before excusing herself to collect her sketching supplies. Duncan went to the kitchen, feeling giddy and exhilarated. He made toast and poached eggs, and after they ate she perfected the design, showing him a version outlined precisely in pen. No color, no gray—all black, the heart’s contours shaded with hatch marks. An antiquated look, yet there was something modern in the precision of her style.

“I love it.”

She smiled. “Me, too. And I can’t wait to put you on my Web site . . . You know how some of those old anatomic illustrations have different parts numbered or lettered? Like with footnotes?”

“Yes.”

“How would you feel if I added that, but with my initials? Like a secret signature?”

His chest felt hot and funny and . . . nice. “I’d like that very much.”

She added the letters in, a discreet little R, C, and H scattered across the organ, posing as labels. She handed him the sketchbook for a closer look.

He’d always assumed she was talented, but to witness the process brought it to a new level. “I love it,” he said again.

She bade him to follow her, and in no time she’d scanned the drawing, finessed the size, and printed it on transfer paper.

“Shirt off and get comfortable,” she said. Astrid wandered in and Raina ushered her back out, shutting the door, closing Duncan in the one room in his new home he’d never actually been in before.

He took a seat in the black upholstered chair—not unlike a dentist’s. Raina washed her hands in a little sink and prepped a variety of equipment, the smells of sterilization nostalgic to him, rousing memories of old, outgrown rituals and compulsions—hopefully outgrown forever, now that he’d loosened his death grip on perfection. Deep down, he’d thought perfection was the ticket to being lovable . . . to being worthy of love. But perfection could never have brought him to where he was now—it had only ever kept love at bay.

He eyed her legs as she puttered, their skin bare between her boots and the hem of the skirt, which landed just above her knees. Exactly what had triggered this sudden diversification of her wardrobe, he wasn’t certain. He’d gawked two nights ago when she debuted the item, but she’d blushed and told him, “Don’t make a big thing about it.” So he wouldn’t. Instead he merely enjoyed the view, and hoped perhaps he might have had something to do with the change.

His body went oddly calm as Raina slowly, gently shaved the hair from his left pectoral with a disposable razor and toweled him dry. He winced as she swabbed the spot with an alcohol wipe.

“That size looks just about spot-on,” she murmured, eyeing the transfer. She wet his skin with a washcloth and pressed the paper in place. Once she’d peeled it away she handed Duncan a large hand mirror. “Look good to you? Size, placement?”

He studied himself. Familiar skin, but stained with alien purple lines . . . perhaps to mimic the alien sensations she roused in him. “Perfect.” He laughed softly, a touch hysterical.

She smiled. “What?”

“You’re about to change me forever.”

The smile deepened. “Tell me I already have.”

He sat up and kissed her, humming his happiness, then said, “You have.” Again he eyed her bare legs, hoping the sentiment was mutual.

“Last chance to abort,” she said.

He shook his head. “Do it.”

“It’ll be nice to tattoo somebody I’m sleeping with,” she said, organizing her tools. “I can straddle you for a better angle without it being a breach of decency.”

“Oh, I suspect it would still be that.”

“A welcome one, anyhow.” She donned gloves and arranged pots of ink and the tattooing device itself.

“What’s that called?” he asked. “A gun?”

“A machine.” She unwrapped a gleaming new needle from a sterile sleeve.

“It looks positively medieval.” Industrial, at any rate—as unapologetically mechanical as the guts of an old typewriter, Duncan thought, watching her prep it.

She rubbed a blob of ointment over his skin. “Almost magic time.”

“Do you take pleasure from this?”

She grinned. “Oh, loads.”

And did her clients ever take pleasure from it? Sexual pleasure? Duncan could imagine it. He wasn’t sure he’d get there himself, as his pleasure never normally accompanied a physical surrender—his growing, newfound fondness for receiving oral sex aside—but surely any man with decent pain tolerance and who relished being at a woman’s mercy could find some intrigue in this situation.

All at once she was at his side, machine buzzing. “Just hold still, breathe nice and slow and deep, and tell me when you need a break.”

He nodded once, and shut his eyes.

But a moment later he opened them, wanting to see. Wanting to see purple lines filled in with pure black, wanting to watch those hands—hands that had spoiled him with so much contact, be it sweet or dark or hungry or kind—as they made a canvas of him.

It felt precisely as she’d described—a hot, scraping, tugging sensation. Uncomfortable, but not painful. It eased as the minutes wore on, until Duncan felt all but disembodied—numb
and content. Now and then she wiped away the excess ink, revealing crisp black lines. The overall outline was thickest, and he watched, transfixed, as she moved on to the finer ones that shaped the valves, the cleft between the two lobes. The shading marks came next, giving it depth. Last of all, she traced those three letters, her own initials.