“No.”
The woman’s brows rose.
“Pro bono?”
“I…” George swallowed, wondering when she’d ever been this conflicted about a patient. Never. Never was the answer. “Yes,” she finally whispered.
Uma popped into her head. She was the only other patient she’d had come in like that, off the street, looking like a victim. No, not a victim. A survivor, maybe.
And not weak at all. Andrew Blane was strong, frightening, compelling.
So compelling I can’t get him out of my head.
“Tattoos,” she said, a little ashamed at how curt she must sound but unwilling to feed the obvious curiosity in her employee’s eyes. “He needs them removed.”
Purnima nodded slowly, twice, before lowering her eyes to the screen. “Interesting” was all she said. As always, a mistress of subtlety.
As she continued down the hall to close herself in her office, George looked deep down inside and recognized an embarrassing truth: she didn’t want to discuss Andrew Blane with her nurse or with anyone. She wanted to hide her new patient away, to keep him all to herself in a way that felt shameful. There was something else warring with the shame, however: a thread of titillation or excitement or whatever buzzy spark of interest this was, vibrating through her body.
She had patients to see, but all her wayward brain could think about was that man. This wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t right, but George couldn’t seem to stop counting the minutes until Andrew Blane walked through her door again. She glanced at the clock.
Maybe he wouldn’t come back at all.
* * *
Too many hours spent hunkered down in the motel room, trying hard not to drink, with only the shitty-ass TV to distract him, was more than Clay could bear. After weeks in the hospital, then months of PT and brain-numbing television, he’d developed a hatred for the device—especially shows that glorified the bad guys. Those were the worst. He’d destroyed his television the first time he’d come across one particular show on bikers.
That had led to his new rule: no vodka during the day, and no TV ever.
Breathing hard and still sore from running the past couple nights—that and beating the shit out of those two kids—he grabbed his keys and headed out the door, needing air, space, anything to distract from the new set of memories working through his mind on repeat.
The doc on the ground, rolled into a protective little ball, those fucks kicking her. He’d wanted to kill them, had barely held himself back. Because, yeah, if he killed a couple of tweakers right now, he’d sure screw the hell out of the Sultans case.
But he was a Sultan, now, wasn’t he? More Sultan than cop, that was for damned sure. He’d seen the way everyone looked at him back at the field office after his discharge from the hospital. Jesus, his colleagues had eyed him like he was scum.
Course then Tyler’d caught sight of him, and everything had changed. What a shock it had been when they’d eventually stopped typing and set down their phones, and stood up for him. A few of them had even clapped. A huge case. With him at its center.
Didn’t matter that he didn’t feel like a hero.
In his truck, he looked both ways before pulling away from the downtown area, where traffic had thickened only slightly during what passed for rush hour in Blackwood.
Ahead of him stood the first small foothills before the slightly grander line of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He knew, looking at the beauty of their bluish-purple crests, that he should feel something. He’d spent so much time in slums and projects, filthy biker clubhouses and run-down police stations that he hardly recognized the power of beauty anymore. Maybe it was gone forever—that ability to see the good in things.
He drove on, unsure where this road led, and enjoying the lack of control. Well, not entirely that, maybe, because lack of control was something he’d felt time and again in situations where some psychopath held the reins. That wasn’t what he sought.
No, what he needed right then was to feel like anything was possible.
Up he drove, over asphalt, then gravel, then just dual, overgrown tracks in the dirt leading higher and higher.
Finally, long past the End State Maintenance sign, he parked, truck facing back the way he’d come, and got out. Up a path he walked, ignoring the way his steel-toed boots rubbed his feet with every step, until the trees thinned, the trail grew rockier, and finally, finally, he emerged.
It was high here—the top of a mountain. The air had lost a little of its oppressive humidity and some of its heat, and here…oh, here, he could breathe.
And the view… Jesus Christ. He turned around 360 degrees, an action that forced him to take it all in until he couldn’t do it anymore and had to bend, drop his hands to his knees, and breathe.
Just breathe.
Survive.
The polygraph had been about survival. Animal instinct and training had gotten him through that. Later, they’d given him his colors, the Sultans patch sewn onto the sleeveless leather cut he and the other guys wore every single day of their lives. He remembered the feel of Handles’s arm around him—fatherly, welcoming, warm. Jesus, that was almost the worst part, how good it had been to have brothers—a family. The only thing that had come close in years had been finishing Special Agent Basic Training with Tyler. They’d been like family back then, too.
Nothing like Handles and the club’s acceptance, though. The cut, the rides, the way he could do no wrong with them, now that he’d beaten the box, survived the hazing, accepted his patch with tears in his fucking eyes, gotten his ink, and been proud—truly proud—of it.
Jam had hugged him, hard, and Clay had felt it deep in his soul. Brothers. Family.
He remembered Ape’s scowl when the asshole had taken him in back for his club tat—the big one on his back. But while the dude had always hated him, he sure as fuck had enjoyed tattooing him. Jesus, Ape loved that shit, didn’t he? The light in his eye confirming he was one hundred percent sadist.
Ape, who’d disappeared the night of the raid—one of a handful of guys they hadn’t managed to pin down. How the hell had he known?
On a deep sigh, Clay pulled his brain back out, let himself see the mountains instead of memories.
He wasn’t sure how long he stayed up there, ignoring the majesty of his surroundings and just trying to locate a new well, a new vein of hope he could tap into. It took some time for him to realize he’d just about used it all up. He was all dried out. It would take one hell of a dowsing rod at this point to locate unplumbed depths he was pretty sure he didn’t have.
No. Focus. Find yourself here.
Clay drew in a big breath and opened his eyes to the view and… Whoa. As far as the eye could see, a hazy, blue-and-gray landscape, surreal like some kind of painting. Artsy shit you’d see tattooed on the arms of hipster kids who didn’t know better. Lush, yet almost colorless in the cloud-covered morning. The details smudged out, the edges softened like the view after a couple of beers or that first hit of weed.
Above him, a bird flew—big, dark, huge wingspan. A hawk, he thought for a second and then knew, somehow, that it wasn’t.
A vulture. The perfect addition to this colorless, gray panorama. It landed on a lone, brittle-looking tree fifty yards away and regarded the world around it with quick, unimpressed moves of its head.
A hawk or an eagle, he could have gotten behind. A symbol of hope or something.
But a vulture?
And then it hit him, with an ironic twinge of humor, how right it was.
He stood straighter, like that scavenger on the branch, wanting to feel above it all.
So, fine, Clay Navarro was no eagle. But there were other things he could build on. His strength had always been his ability to see past people’s exteriors and get a line on what it was they really wanted. Not what they showed the world, but the petty litt
le things that made them tick. In recent months, he may have lost that ability, seen it drowned out by the constant white noise in his head, the pain in his body. But it was clearer up here; this high, he could even trick himself into thinking he’d get it back one day.
Like that creature up there, his career had flourished off the flesh of others—on what they’d left behind, untended. So, he’d just have to view himself the same way and live on the bits of rotting meat still clinging to his bones. The shitty bits still left after all the good was torn away—vengeance, hate, anger. Yeah, he had lots of that. Enough to fuel an army, in fact.
And that thought, that realization, sent Clay back down the mountain, into town, with the strength to keep up this charade of a life. For the time being, at least.
* * *
This time, George was ready when he arrived. Sort of.
It had been a busy day spent trying to catch up on Friday’s missed appointments, which was good, since her mind had spent an uncomfortable amount of time going back to him. All day, she’d fended off questions about the bruises and anticipated his arrival with the most unwelcome combination of excitement and apprehension, building it up so that, by the time his form blocked out the low evening sunlight, she had decided more or less how to proceed. No casual talk and no mention of Saturday night, besides a well-deserved thanks. Professional, strict.
That, of course, translated to stiff, which probably only made her seem nervous. A complete failure in bedside manner.
“Evening, Doc.”
George shivered. That voice. Rougher than she was used to, lower, without any hint of local Virginia twang.
“Mr. Blane.” He loitered in the doorway. “Come in, come in.” Great, now she sounded like a little old woman, enticing him with tea and cookies. Or something.
“How you feeling tonight, Doc?”
“Wonderful.”
“That’s quite a shiner you got there.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, tired of explaining the thing all day and not wanting to relive it with him right now, either.
The man moved inside, limping—which reminded her that he’d run back to the motel the other night—and finally pulled off his glasses, baring sharp, assessing eyes beneath two bright red, puffy lids, greased up.
At least he followed directions.
He stepped forward, hand out, and George hesitated, thinking for a second that he might… What? Kiss her? Hug her? Lord, she was messed up.
“I owe you some money, Doc.”
“Oh. No. Thank you,” she said. “You saved me from…from a world of hurt. I can’t accept your money.”
“Look, Doc, I—”
“Mr. Blane. Please,” she said, her breathing loud in her ears.
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 little 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—
Oh, hell, it hurts.
“I’m so sorry. That was your…” The woman cleared her throat. “Your nipple.”
No shit, he thought, pasting on a smile for her benefit.
“The res
t should be easier.” Again she hesitated. “Your stomach and…hips.”
Clay’s eyes stayed glued to the doctor. What the hell she must think of him, this big creep with his contradictory stories scrawled all over his outside—and his one, drunken attempt to rid himself of the worst of the ink.
Yeah, he bet she was impressed by that. Her expression, though, was hidden behind those ugly-ass glasses, so he had no clue. No fucking clue. She bit her lip, leaned in, and went to town on his belly, one hand resting lightly on his. Clay closed his eyes at her touch—soaked in the pain the way his bloodstream would soak up the particles of pigment—and let his mind go away.
Ape, marching him into the back that day, surrounded by their brothers. But what could he do? What could he fucking do, with the entire fucking multi-agency task force poised outside, waiting to descend on the place?
Into the back, the stress of that quick stop in the head, whispering into the wire and those ridiculous Hail Marys as he waited for Ape to pop his eyeball. Because when Ape wanted you in back, you fucking went, and you let him ink you. Brotherhood and all that.
“Mr. Blane? Andrew? Are you okay?”
“Mmm?” Clay shook his head. It was fuzzy, wrong.
He opened his eyes to find that the noise had stopped, which was better, since it meant no more tats. Ape nowhere in sight. Or behind him with a fucking ax.
The quiet left a hollow in his head, a vacuum where he should have found relief, but instead he seemed to have lost sight of himself.
From the hazy depths, he saw a woman’s hand on his. He frowned at it, the way the fingers looked over his dark ones. She was talking to him, and he tried nodding, wanted to smile.
Be a cop, not a biker.
Stuffing the biker deep, deep inside of him, Clay attempted to listen to what she was saying.
Her other hand reached out and touched his shoulder lightly before trying to pull away, but he stopped her, grabbed her, held her against him, hard.
“Stay here,” he slurred. Was he drunk?
“May I…” A thin, white hand hovered close to his face, and he almost flinched before she reached out and removed the foggy layer covering his eyes.
Under Her Skin Page 36
