Page 44

Laz rolled him into the bed facedown, and Jay bounced with a moan. Then he kicked a trash can with his foot until it bumped the bedside. “No, this is a Jay thing.”

A Jay thing?He’s been in a three-year walking coma.

With his hands hooked under Jay’s armpits, he pulled until Jay’s chin hung off the side of the bed and over the can. That done, he stepped back and stared down at her. “Be patient with him, and please,please, wait till he wakes up. Talk to him.” He softened his eyes, put the meaning of his words there. “It would kill him to learn you were alive without seeing you for himself.”

Despite the drama, there wasn’t a chance in hell she would leave without talking to Jay. She crawled across the bed, settled beside him, and hovered a hand over his shirt-covered back. “Can I touch?”

“Only when he’s comatose.” He studied her as if a sudden move might scare her off.

“I’ll stay with him. Go help Nathan with the leaking vaginas.”

A laugh burst out of him. “Jesus, you’re a hell of a woman.” His laughter cut off, and he stared at her, resolute in his stillness. “I see it now. I totally get what he saw in you.”

He didn’t see shit. Neither of them did.

She lowered her hand, tested the feel of his back with a finger, right over the ink. “Have you seen the tattoo?”

He shook his head, watching her. “No one has.”

“You think he wants me to finish it?”

“More than anything.”

She was too stunned to respond. It wasn’t shock. It was the echo of her longing. She saw her drawings. The sketches of charred skin made to look like it was curling away. The flames. The steel plates and rivets beneath the hurt.

She wanted to finish the tattoo, but it wasn’t all. There was something deeper, something vibrating beneath, begging her to unveil. It was the strength of the man that had kept her alive during those long two months with Roy.

Footsteps approached, sped up, and one of the piano girls skidded into the room, flippant in her nudity. “We’re staying in here tonight. Jay invitedus. Not her.”

Nathan charged in after her dragging the other woman by the arm. “Laz?”

Laz scooped up the one on the loose, tossed her over his shoulder, and smacked her butt. “Party’s over ladies. Let’s go.”

The woman pounded on his back. “Nooo. It’s not your decision. He didn’t fuck us yet. He promised this time.” Her voice faded as Nathan and Laz moved them through the suite.

Nathan left her alone? Apparently, he just needed a woman to protect and control, any woman—or two—would do. Not that she cared. It was a rare moment to be out of his watchful gaze.

She leaned over Jay’s back.Please, wake up.Thick lashes fanned his sculptured cheekbones.

If he hadn’t fucked the women, what was the white shit between their legs? A shudder barreled through her. Roy loved to jerk off on her and watch his come drip down her pussy. But why did the notion of Jay stroking offonthem rather thaninthem soothe some of boiling in her blood?

She fell on her back with a sigh. How often did this kind of thing happen in his life? Jealousy surged anew, gripping her insides. She hated the feeling. It was a needy weakness, and she wasn’t weak.

She stretched out on the bed beside him while he slept and wondered how he felt about her, wonderedifhe felt anything. Maybe the only way he thought of her was in some bondage fantasy that he jerked off to?

What about his songCharlee? The title was convincing with twoe’s, its passionate lyrics aching with love and regret. Was it written for her? If it was, she wanted the opportunity to try to free him from the pain woven into those words.

She rolled to her side and studied his face, where it cocked awkwardly over the side of the bed. A shadow of whiskers darkened his jaw. The curves of his lips looked as though they had been drawn on, every crease sketched to perfection. He was so devastatingly handsome, it hurt to look at him. No wonder he was the ladies’ first pick.

The masculine angles of his face begged to be gentled. Would his taut tanned skin be warm?

She crawled off the bed and crouched beneath his face. Reaching out tentative fingers, she brushed his eyelid. It was soft and twitchy. Yes, there was life in there. She traced the arch of one cheek, stroked through the thick brown hair that curled over the tip of his ear, and followed the sinews in his neck. Could she lift his shirt and peek at his back without waking him?

He opened his eyes. Glazed and dark, they blinked at her. And blinked again. “Emb I dea…iiidth?”

She jerked her hand back. “Are you dead? No, but you’re headed there at the rate you’re going.”

He swallowed. “I muth be dead. You’re…you’re…” His jaw stretched open, his chest heaved, and he reared back.