17. Jackson
JACKSON
The cherry blossoms paint her skin beautifully, weaving down one trim arm.
Stone tells the stylist as much as she snips and clips his hair in a swank hipster barbershop in the basement of the hotel.
It’s closed right now. Or, really, it’s open only for him. Being a celebrity has its privileges.
She shifts around to bring the scissors to his other side, revealing her left arm now. Calligraphy dances down it too—ink that reads “I believe . . . in me.”
Stone glances from one arm to the next. “Damn, woman, you have some empowering ink.”
“Thank you,” she says, as she continues to work her magic on his hair.
On the leather couch a few feet away from them, I flip through a National Geographic magazine.
“They mean a lot to me,” she adds. “But then, that’s how ink should be, don’t you think?”
“Hell yeah. That’s how mine are.”
As I try to read an article on a new mutant hornet, I’m too distracted by this conversation to focus on the words.
“Why did you get the cherry blossoms?” Stone asks.
As she slides the scissors across a lock of his hair, she answers, “I lost my partner of eleven years. He died of a freak heart attack. He was only thirty-six.”
Stone’s hand goes to his heart over his smock. “Oh, Lola,” he says, and it registers that he knows her name already. “I’m so sorry for your loss. When did it happen? How are you doing?”
“I’m doing okay. Thanks for asking. It was three years ago. I got the cherry blossoms a year ago for hope. Not so much hope for new love, but hope for . . . not hurting.”
I stop pretending that I’m reading anything. I listen to every word.
“Do you hurt?” Stone asks.
She shakes her head. “Not every day. Not most days.”
My heart squeezes with sympathy pain, but the pain disappears quickly, and I want to say to her, “I know the feeling. I understand you completely.”
But I don’t need to say anything, because Stone has this covered. He gets this innately, I’m learning. “I’m glad you’re starting to heal. That’s a good thing.”
“Thank you. Now what about you?” With her free hand, she taps his arm. “Your ink is all over.”
He glances at his arms, as if he only just noticed that he has tattoos, matching circular swirls, all over his skin. “That’s a symbol for humility. This one is for grace. Another is for inspiration. You and me, we’re artists, right? We always need to be grateful for inspiration.”
She laughs, a sweet, pretty sound, like bells. “I’m an artist for hair.”
“Damn right you are,” he says.
“And I love those symbols. Those are good reminders.”
“Also, I have stars right here.” He points to his hip. I lower my face, fighting a grin. I’ve touched those stars. I’ve run my thumb over them. “They remind me that the world is big. The universe, the galaxy—we need to be aware of all of it.”
They talk more about ink as he names all the other ones on his body.
But he never once mentions the musical notes.
I try not to let my heart gallop away from me, but I love that he kept that one secret.
That I’m the only other person in this room who knows about it.
She finishes snipping his hair, and he looks good.
Sexy as hell, just like I predicted.
She stretches for the clippers on her counter to smooth over the ends. When she’s done, she turns off the clippers and reaches for a soft brush, the kind used to swipe off hair on the neck.
Before she can start, her phone beeps.
She glances at it on the counter. “Sorry, sweetie. That’s my daughter. She’s eight. I need to grab this right now. Is that okay?”
He gestures for her to go ahead. “Of course. I’m good.”
Setting down the brush, she holds up a finger, answers the phone, listens, then whispers, “Give me two minutes. I’ll clean you up then.”
She steps around the corner into a back room of the barbershop.
It’s just us.
Stone glances at me in the mirror like he’s waiting for a verdict.
I rise from the couch. “Haircut looks good.”
Green eyes twinkle at me from his reflection. “You like it?”
“I do. A lot,” I say, my throat going dry again. I eye the brush she left in front of the mirror. That’s hardly a risk. I can handle that. So can he. “Let me finish that up for you.”
His lips curve into a crooked grin. “Yeah?”
I move by his side, reach for the brush, then walk behind him. “Yes.”
I swipe the brush across the back of his neck, dusting off the fine hairs.
He laughs lightly.
“Are you ticklish?”
“A little.”
“Where else?”
“Belly.”
“Good to know,” I say, meeting his gaze in the mirror, giving him a watch out look.
“Are you going to tickle me sometime?”
“You never know.”
“I’ll consider this my warning.”
I brush the last strands of hair from his neck. There’s nothing left for me to clean up, but I don’t stop. I clear my throat. “If you ever need the hairline cleaned up, like right here,” I say, swiping along the ends of his hair, “I can do it.”
“You cut hair?”
“I was a Marine. I know my way around clippers.”
“You’d do that?”
“If you wanted,” I say softly.
“I would.” In the mirror, I glance at his reflection. He sighs and closes his eyes, looking serene.
Stone Zenith is beautiful, and it steals my breath.
I set my other hand on his shoulder to steady myself.
Slowly, barely thinking, just moving, I swipe the soft bristles along his neck, under his ear. “Just making sure I get it all.”
“It’s good to be thorough with a haircut.”
It’s so intimate, touching him this way. Makes me feel like I’m taking care of him.
Something I like to do. It fits who I am.
But with him, that’s a dangerous feeling.
Because it’s not going to happen. Even when he raises his arm and slides his fingers through mine. My gaze drifts down. He clasps my fingers, and my chest flips. Warmth spreads through me as he squeezes and I squeeze back.
I stop swiping. I’m done with his hair, was done a while ago. I’m touching him because I can. Because this is my one chance. My God, I wish I were the one who’d cut his hair, the one who’d stop by his room to give him a massage before a show, the one who’d tie his tie if he wore one.
I wish I could do all that.
I curl my hand tighter into his shoulder. I’m tempted, so damn tempted to brush my lips against his neck, to inhale him, to run my hand across this short hair that is so damn sexy, so very him.
But this is already enough for today. Especially when the click-clack of shoes sounds on the tiled floor, and I release him instantly before Lola turns the corner.
I step away, snagging some necessary distance, setting the brush on the counter.
“You finished the cleanup,” Lola says with surprise, but also delight.
“Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I appreciate the help.” She surveys his neck. “Nice work.”
“He does good work,” Stone weighs in, catching my gaze in the mirror, holding it, making it impossible for me to look elsewhere when his piercing green eyes pin mine. “He has very good hands.”
The warmth disappears.
In its place is heat.
Need.
Longing.
But it’s a longing that won’t be satisfied.
This will be the hardest few weeks of my life.
Because I do have good hands, and I want them all over him, and nothing has changed that.
Not his bet. Not this day. Not the last week.
Fact is, in the last hour, my need for him has only intensified.
I want him more than I did before.
I want him in a deeper way.
The only thing that’s going to get me through this concert series is knowing that I’m taking a few days off when it ends.
I need to get away from him.
Need it for my sanity—sanity that’s hanging by a thread.