BLACK CRIMSON (Fairy Tale Quartet #4)

14. Camille

14

Camille

I paused in the middle of shutting the door and blinked at him. “What, really?”

“Wait.” Lifting a hand, he blinked and shook his head as if trying to clear the desperation from his senses. Then he said, “Remind me again what I just offered you.”

“You said I could go tag something with you.” Taking his arm, I dragged him back into the apartment and shut the door behind him. Then I looked up into his wary eyes and squeaked with elation. “Like one of your murals? Can I watch you make one of those? Ooh, I could play lookout girl.”

His lips spread with a nervous laugh before he lifted a hand in front of my face and sobered. “No. No way in hell would you come with me for a blockbuster piece, even if I had an idea ready for a new one. Which I don’t.”

“Then a small, quick tag,” I offered, hopping excitedly on the balls of my feet as I gripped his arm. “I mean, I’ve never seen you tag anything, but you can do that, right? I just want to see Black Crimson in action.”

“Look.” He lifted both hands. “I said that in the heat of the moment and didn’t really think things through. But honestly, you can’t tag anything with me either, sorry. Kaitlynn and Gabby would skin me alive if—”

“Then we won’t tell them. I swear. Come on, Brick, it’ll be fun.”

One side of his lips quirked as he mulled that suggestion over. “Yeah,” he murmured almost dreamily. “It’d be a lot of fun, but…” A moment later, he sobered and straightened, clearing his throat. “It’s dangerous. And not legal. We could get arrested. Or jumped by some friendly neighborhood gang. Or—”

“I’ll let you call all the shots,” I offered eagerly. “I’ll do everything you tell me.”

He paused and blinked at me before slowly saying, “Like...in bed?”

“What?” I blinked before slapping him in the arm. “No! I’m not going to sleep with you. Get your mind out of the gutter. I meant, out there! In the streets. You can be, like, the wise, Yoda master. And I’ll be your young, hungry apprentice that you make wax cars for a month or something.”

Shaking his head quickly as if to clear the confusion, he said, “You just mixed two totally different movie analogies there.”

“The point is, I want to learn. Just let me see you in action. For one night. Please, please, please…”

He huffed out a frustrated breath before muttering mostly to himself, “This is so bizarre. Women are usually on their knees and attacking my belt buckle whenever they’re saying the triple-please to me.”

I had to smack him on the other arm for that line. “Mind. Gutter,” I reminded him.

He scowled. “You know, you should be nicer to me if you want me to say yes.”

I sighed. “Think about it. You can either do this. Or go home. Alone. With only the sound of your own breathing to keep you company.”

His eyes narrowed slightly before his shoulders slumped. “Fine.” He pointed at my nose. “But you’ve been warned of the consequences. And if you end up in jail or lose your job because of this, I don’t want you blaming me.”

I lifted one hand solemnly. “I won’t, I swear.”

“Jesus,” he muttered to himself. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Then he looked me over and shook his head, sighing in disgust. “Seriously, if you’re going out there with me, you’re going to have to change into something a hell of a lot less sexy than that. I gotta be able to focus on keeping us alive, not wondering what color your panties are, or if you’re wearing panties at all. Damn, are you wearing panties?”

“Yes! I’m wearing underwear.” I blinked down at my outfit. “But how is this even remotely sexy?”

He sent me an incredulous glance. “Really? That skirt’s short enough to show me London and France every time you bend over.”

“Which is why I’m wearing dark capri tights under it,” I argued, “like I’m in some kind of pop band for preschoolers.”

No one in their right mind would call this sexy.

Except, apparently, Brick, who shrugged. “Capris that are skintight enough to show me every curve, yeah. And it just so happens that short and tight are my two favorite descriptors when applied to ladies’ apparel.”

“Well, what about the shoes?” I asked, lifting my foot to show off my sneakers with the white ankle socks. “They totally detract from anything short and tight, right?”

He sniffed. “How could I focus on shoes when you’re exposing a single shoulder like that? Makes me want to just slip the rest of that sweater off that other shoulder and see what you’re hiding under there.”

“I’m hiding another shoulder,” I said dryly. “Just like this one.”

“Well, it’s driving my libido crazy,” he muttered irritably. “So it needs to go.”

I thought I looked like I’d just stepped off an eighties workout video with the baggy cropped sweatshirt over a black tank top, but I had to admit it was nice to know he appreciated my style.

I liked my quirky fashion sense too.

Glad he appreciated what he saw, I gave a single nod. “Alright, then. Let’s go find something better suited for some illegal tagging activity.”

When I held out a hand toward him, he quirked up a curious brow, making me realize how silly I appeared. You’d think I’d just invited him to walk me to church instead of to my bedroom so we could break some laws together. It was just so surreal. Yet I felt alive enough that my blood was practically buzzing with excitement.

Glancing from my extended hand up to my eyes, his gaze warmed significantly, and his voice lowered when he murmured, “Let’s.”

Then he interlaced his fingers with mine and followed me from the kitchen and into the living room, where I abruptly realized I had not yet cleaned up the mess I’d made from my frenzied research to connect Broderick Carmichael to Black Crimson.

Slowing to a stop, he blinked at everything before gaping the longest at my crime wall. “Holy s**t. Can we say obsessed much, Mayhem?”

I flushed. “What? It helped me organize my research.”

“I guess,” he murmured in awe, letting go of my hand in order to drift toward the wall and study all my notes. “No wonder you figured everything out. You’re a freaking bloodhound when you get the scent of a story in your nose, aren’t you?”

I preened, adoring the compliment. But clearing my throat to move past it, I started for the doorway that led into my bedroom, asking, “So what do I need to wear out there?”

“Something that blends in with the dark and you’re okay with possibly getting dirty. Wait.”

He took my arm, stalling me, and gaped into my bedroom, tightening his grip as if he saw something dangerous inside and was trying to protect me out here.

“Oh damn.” Peering into my bedroom with an expression of absolute shock, he repeated, “Oh holy damn.”

“What?” I furrowed my brow and peered past him into the room, immediately thinking there had to be a huge spider or the like. But I couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary.

“In here,” he said, pointing insistently into my room. “You gotta seduce me in here first. This room f*****g smells like you. Jesus.” He lifted his brows and shook his head before backing from the doorway and letting out a breath. “Yeah. It’s gotta happen in there. At least at some point, if not the first time. Although, my fingers are crossed for the first time.”

“Oh my God,” I groaned. “You have issues, you know that, right?”

“If my issues involve constantly craving you, then I don’t want the cure.”

He went straight to my bed where he plopped onto the mattress, chest-down, and stretched out with his face buried in my pillow and only his shoes hanging over the side. After issuing a deep groan, as if he’d just inhaled my sheets and liked the scent, he shifted onto his side and propped up his elbow to rest his face on his hand as he regarded me.

“You sure you don’t want to just stay in tonight?”

“What about this black hoodie?” I asked, ignoring his question as I moved to my closet and took the article in question off its hanger.

“Hmm?” His voice sounded muffled and uninterested from behind me as if he’d gone back to sniffing my pillow. “Whatever.”

I shrugged too, whipping off my off-the-shoulder sweater before tossing it toward my laundry hamper in the corner.

“Don’t you need something dark to wear too?” I asked as I shimmied the hoodie on over my tank top. It was big and long enough to fall down to mid-thigh.

“I’ll take care of me,” Brick said as I peeled down the skirt I’d been wearing and let the dark capris I already had on stay where they were. “You take care of…you.”

When his voice faltered, I turned around to check on him, only to find him still lounging exactly where I’d last seen him, watching me.

Lifting my hands, I announced, “Okay! I’m ready.”

He blinked at me, and I suddenly wished I had a camera. The sexiest man who would ever lie on my bed was nestled among my rumpled sheets, looking like a freaking s*x god and staring at me as if he wanted to consume me whole. My stomach quivered and my mouth watered.

Then he frowned irritably, ruining the moment. “I said less sexy.”

I dropped my arms. “How in the hell is this sexier than what I was just wearing?”

“You just stripped off clothes in front of me. I had to lie here and watch you arch your back and lift your arms before sliding all that cloth up, over your breasts, exposing their pert roundness. And when the sweater briefly got caught in your hair before all those flaming red locks came tumbling free and falling down your back…” He let out a groan and bit his knuckles. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you? And don’t even get me started on the moment you skimmed the skirt over your hips. You might as well not have been wearing anything at all under it.” He shook his head and whistled. “f*****g diabolical.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you’re just hilarious. Now come on. Let’s get out there! I want to see how Black Crimson lives.”

He groaned out a pout and laid his head back down on my pillow. “But I’m comfy here,” he protested, curling back into my bed as if I were going to have to manually drag him away.

“Don’t flake out on me now, B.C.,” I ordered. “You made the offer, now hold up your end of the deal.”

“That was before I learned how soft your bed was. I mean, it might be small, but we could still have all kinds of fun. Right here.” Shifting his face enough so that I could see one begging eye peering up at me as he tipped his lips into a slow grin, he taunted, “You know you want to.”

I really did. He looked so sexy and snuggly, I just wanted to crawl onto the covers next to him and wrap around him like an extra sheet. As I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him, shaking my head slowly, he extended an arm toward me.

I focused on the tattoo printed on the back of his forearm.

He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt tonight. It was the first time I’d ever seen him in short sleeves. Sculpted biceps bulged through the black cloth of his T-shirt. But below that, both his forearms were covered with tattoos.

The one on the right consisted of twisty, thorned vines. But the details on the left side were magnificent. There was an ink-splattered face of a wolf solemnly watching me. He was crafted completely in black except for the eyes which were a golden, yellow-brown. There was just something wise and knowing about his expression.

But under that, he melted into a moon-lit forest scene where a hooded figure walked among the trees.

“Mayhem?” Brick asked softly as if he could read the temptation on my face.

I glanced up at the owner of the tattoos. “Aren’t you even a little worried about how similar that tattoo is to the last wall you tagged?”

He looked down at his ink, twisting his arm a bit to study the tattoo, only to lift his gaze again, unconcerned. “It’s common enough not to stir questions,” he finally answered.

“It’s so detailed,” I murmured, leaning in to see better.

You could tell which direction the wind was moving, from the flow of the cloak’s hem and the leaning bend of the branches. I could practically feel the warm night air on my cheeks right now.

And was that a bird sitting up in one of the trees?

I reached out to touch the spot, realizing, yeah, it was a raven, I think. And what the heck was that leaning against the base of one tree? An ax?

Sliding my fingers that way, I jumped when warm muscles flexed under my touch.

Realizing that I was practically petting him right now, I jerked my hand back and sat up abruptly before slipping off the bed to stand again. “Sorry.”

But wow, that was embarrassing.

He lifted an eyebrow and lifted his head, propping it up with a hand. “You didn’t have to stop there.”

I cleared my throat and glanced toward the doorway of the room. I knew I should nudge us along and get him to vacate my room before I was tempted into something I couldn’t take back. But I kind of didn’t want to leave this moment. Reaching up to rub the back of my neck self-consciously in the hopes he didn’t catch on to how much I wanted to jump him right now, I cleared my throat. “So, uh, why wolves, anyway?”

When I was finally able to lift my gaze again, I found him frowning in confusion. “Hmm?” he asked, tilting his head curiously.

I circled out a hand. “You know, because most of your murals depict wolves. I mean, you’re obviously the most fascinated with them. Right?”

His eyes squinted as if he had to think that one through. Then he finally told me, “No, all my pictures depict fairy-tale stories, and most fairy tales just happen to have wolves in them, so you need to ask the Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault why they had such a fascination with wolves. Not me.”

“Wolves mate for life, you know,” I said, the words spilling from my lips like vomit.

But oh my God, why had I just blurted that out there?

He lifted one eyebrow. “And… Our conversation has circled back around to s*x. Again. Why is that, you think? Maybe because I bring out the mating instinct in you, perhaps?”

I looked up into his eyes, ignoring the racing of my heart. “So you don’t have any special interest in wolves beyond their popularity in fables?”

His eyes glittered with amusement. “Pretty weak subject change, but I’ll allow it. Unless you’re trying to sneak interview questions in on me because I won’t fall for that.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “No. I was just curious. And besides… I’d ask way better questions than that if I were actually interviewing you.”

“Oh, really? Like what?”

“Like…” Moving closer, I bit my lip and grinned, lowering my lashes briefly as my gaze fell to his forearm. “I see you have a tattoo of a wolf on you. And you depict them a lot in your pieces. So obviously you feel some kind of affinity or kinship with them. Except they’re always the villain in the fairy tales you paint. So does this mean you feel like the antagonist in your own life? Or maybe like an antihero?”

“Hmm,” he murmured, watching me closely as if trying to figure me out. “Very clever and leading question, my lady interrogator. But to answer you, nah, I wouldn’t call me the bad guy. Even though I can recognize that others out there might see me as such. I know the police have been trying to find me, and not just so they can get my autograph. So it does make me wonder if maybe that poor big bad wolf in all those fairy tales isn’t so awful after all, either. You know? Maybe he’s just…” He hissed out a long sigh before finishing with, “Misunderstood.”

Wondering if he thought that about everyone, I played devil’s advocate and countered with, “Do you think your mother’s misunderstood?”

Face draining of all color, his expression went immediately blank, and he pushed up from the bed, done playing flirty and fun. My stomach plummeted, realizing I’d just said the wrong thing as he slipped off the mattress and landed on his feet before straightening to send me a hard stare.

“My mother’s not misunderstood. She’s just pure, f*****g evil. End of story.”

“I...” Clearing my throat, I dropped my gaze guiltily before uncomfortably shoving my hands into the front pocket of my hoodie. Then I blew out a long breath and lifted my face, admitting, “I’m sorry. I forgot that she was a no-go zone for you.”

He paused and squinted at me, then tipped his head thoughtfully and answered, “You know what? It’s okay. For some reason, it feels different coming from you. You don’t seem judgey but more like you’re seeking deeper understanding with your questions.”

Nodding, I said, “I am. And I was more curious about how her role in your life affected you, not so much what she was like personally.”

He sniffed. “How do you think her role affected me? It royally f****d me up. She killed every father figure in my life, tried to abandon me and my brother in a foreign country when we were young, stole a company from my sister and bullied her most of her life, and that would’ve just been a Monday for her. I’m sure you’ve read most of her highlights.”

“Yeah.” I bobbed my head once. “I have.”

He fluttered out a hand and muttered, “Then, you know.”

“I know,” I whispered. “But you still seem like you came out very well adjusted to me.”

“Do I?” he murmured thoughtfully before he drifted to the window and looked out at the darkening night. “Well, that’s something, I guess.”

Feeling crappy, I approached slowly and then paused beside him so I could peer out the window as well. A couple of streetlights sprayed down on the empty sidewalks.

The scene looked...lonely.

“It must be hard,” I finally said, “knowing you came from someone like that. I mean, how could you not question yourself, worried if you carried any of her evil around inside you.” Glancing over at him, I gulped. “Is that why you feel f****d up?”

“Only every damn day.” He met my gaze and sighed heavily. “So yeah, I can relate to the wolf. I mean, he wasn’t that bad of a guy, right? He just got stuck in a shitty situation.”

I nodded solemnly, only to shrug and teasingly add, “I mean, he did eat a little girl. No one made him do that one.”

A grin flashed, quick and flirty, before he volleyed back, “Hey, come on, is it really that big of a crime to want to eat out a pretty girl?” With a shrug, he added, “I can’t actually blame him for that one.”

I snorted and lightly shoved at his shoulder. “Of course, you don’t.”

He leaned away, pretending to topple from the gentle tap before he swayed back and bumped his shoulder back into mine. “And I seriously think cutting the poor sap open and filling him with stones just because he had a couple of kinky proclivities was kind of extreme.”

“You really can’t just stop with the over-the-top suggestive talk, can you?”

“Hey.” He lifted his hand as if disclaiming all responsibility for the way he was. “Why haven’t you figured out by now that I only do it so much with you because I like the way it makes you blush.”

I narrowed my eyes.

His grin deepened. “The glare is cute too.” Then he reached for my hand. “So tell me seriously. You don’t actually want me to stop, do you?”

I looked up at him and melted. “No,” I reluctantly admitted. “I guess I don’t.”

Winking at me, he squeezed my fingers. “That’s what I thought. Now, let’s go learn the ropes of graffiti art.”

“Let’s,” I answered, squeezing back as I added, “and for the record, I think you’re a miracle who turned out better than anyone could’ve expected after living through what you did. You’re not f****d up at all.”

He blinked at me in perplexation, then smiled and shook his head. “You are definitely something else. What am I going to do with you, Mayhem?”

I had plenty of ideas, but most of them ended with me getting my heart broken, so I grinned and answered, “You’re going to show me how Black Crimson lives.”