Chapter One
River
The sound of the tattoo machine whirred in my shop. The day had long since set, and darkness closed in at the windows. The light in my station shined bright, illuminating the enclosed area as I worked a fucking immaculate piece onto my client’s shoulder.
It was close to ten, but I tended to make my appointments late when it was quiet out and there were fewer people loitering around.
I leaned in close and concentrated on getting the shading just right. It just so happened my client was also one of my oldest friends, Trent Lawson. He was on his fourth session where we were working on covering an old skull with a portrait of his wife.
“Piece is going to be fuckin’ sweet,” I told him as I paused for a second to wipe up the excess ink and blood seeping from the design.
He tossed me an arrogant grin from where he sat in my chair. “That’s because my Eden is fuckin’ sweet. Couldn’t turn out any other way…” He arched a flippant brow. “Unless your ass jacks up her pretty face.”
A rough chuckle skated out of me as I leaned back in and started sweeping the needle across his skin. “Think you wouldn’t be sitting in my chair if you thought there was a chance of that.” I’d been tattooing Trent for years. Since all the way back when we were both running the streets of LA.
Dude was covered now, head to toe, and almost every tattoo on his body was compliments of me.
He was a few years older than me, and me and a couple of my crew had ridden with his MC back in the day.
He’d saved my ass a time or two, same as I’d saved his. It was the way of that life, and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t owe him mine, and he was one of the few I trusted with it.
He was also one of the few outside my inner circle who knew the true details about who I and my crew had become. What we did.
My shop, River of Ink, was little more than a cover for it, even though I had a two-year waitlist for someone to get the chance to sit in my chair.
I loved my work and took pride in the fact people came from all around the world for a chance to get inked by me. Tattooing was my peace. The only time when my mind would drift and some of the anxiety that knotted my guts would drain away. When the ghosts didn’t scream so loud.
Somehow, the constant flow of the needle bringing art to life gave me a moment of reprieve.
Completely unearned considering I deserved none of that.
Peace.
Not when I was a purveyor of destruction. An agent of ruin.
Sometimes I wondered what kind of person it made me that I didn’t feel an ounce of shame over the blood on my hands. My soul tainted and my heart stained.
When I’d confided in Trent what was going down, he’d encouraged us to make our way up here to Northern California where we could live low. Hide out and fly under the radar.
Moonlit Ridge was a small town about an hour outside of Redemption Hills where Trent and his family lived.
Angling my head, I focused on a deeper pass as I worked to get a lock of her hair just right.
Eden was a fucking knockout and a sweetheart to boot. Didn’t blame him a bit for immortalizing her on his skin.
Trent winced.
“You goin’ soft on me?” I razzed.
Ridiculous since the guy was intimidating as fuck. There wasn’t a goddamn thing soft about him.
He grunted. “You fuckin’ wish, man. Think you’re just getting a little aggressive with that heavy hand.”
Amusement had me shaking my head.
“Don’t know, brother…you are getting old.”
He grunted again. “As long as I’m doing it with Eden, Gage, and Kate at my side, then you won’t find me complaining.”
“Have to admit, family life looks good on you,” I said, meaning it. Dude had been nothing but a beast before he’d met his wife.
Air huffed from his nose. “Blows my mind every day that I got lucky enough to call them that, so you can bet your ass I’ll never squander it.”
He hesitated before his tone shifted. “What about you? How are you guys…handling things?”
Unease rippled through my consciousness. Made me fuckin’ itchy when it was brought up in a setting like this, but Trent would always have my back, dude more like family than anything else.
Betrayal wasn’t in his vocabulary.
“Otto is delivering a package as we speak,” I told him.
There were five in my crew. Years ago, we’d become brothers, even though we didn’t have the same blood running through our veins.
The five of us had made a pact. We lived on that pact, and we’d die on it, too. Each of us with different responsibilities although the mission was the same.
Strange how it could be the one good part of me, and it still made me wholly corrupt.
Trent hesitated before he pushed, “Shit’s dangerous, man.”
“You wouldn’t expect us to do anything else, would you?”
Once we knew? Once we got started? There was no going back.
A sigh pilfered out of him. “Guess I can’t, but you have to know you have more important things to worry about.”
My chest clutched. There was no question what he was referring to.
I warred, pausing the pass, before I leaned back in and started sweeping the needle over his skin again.
“You know I’m careful, brother,” I muttered under my breath.
He started to respond, except we both stilled when the security system dinged when the front door opened.
It was late, but it wasn’t like it was rare for one of my brothers to come sauntering in at this hour.
I leaned back in my stool so I could see out through the opening of my station to the front door of the lobby.
Only it wasn’t one of my crew.
It was a woman.
A woman I’d peg to be in her mid-twenties, nervous as all hell as she glanced around and fiddled with her fingers, clearly feeling ill-at-ease and out of place.
Pin-straight chestnut hair cut in a long bob and parted in the middle. She had this heart-shaped face that made her look so fuckin’ innocent I felt guilty just looking at her.
She was tall and all goddamn leg, wearing a pair of white shorts and a white jean jacket with a red tank underneath, white tennis shoes on her feet.
She kept gnawing at a plump, cherry-kissed bottom lip that even in the distance I was sure was ripe for sucking. A bolt of lust hit me from out of nowhere, my dick kicking at the tantalizing sight.
Fuck me, she was delicious.
A lost little lamb who’d stumbled into a demon’s den.
The last thing she needed was to be hanging around here, so I didn’t take the time to stand when I called, “We’re closed.”
I started to turn back to the task at hand when a sultry, breathy voice hit the air, and in my periphery, I caught her lifting her phone and waving it in front of her. “It says you’re open until ten. And the door was unlocked.”
She said it timidly and with full of question, but with a fierceness that lingered underneath.
Trent angled his head toward the lobby like he didn’t mind the interruption.
“What?” I mumbled at him.
His eyes widened in emphasis. “Why always such a dick?” He muttered it low enough that there was no chance she could hear. “Wouldn’t hurt you to see what she wants, yeah?”
I knew Trent wasn’t going to let it go, so I blew out a sigh, mouthing, fine, as I stood, and I took two steps to stand in the opening of my station.
Unfortunately for me, it only brought her into better view.
Eyes the color of melted caramel and dappled with cinnamon widened when she got a good look at me, and I could feel a fragment of fear roll through her system, anxiety radiating from her and riding on the air that had grown heavy.
She looked behind her at the door like she was contemplating walking right back out of it.
Yeah, she probably should run.
I hitched my shoulder on the jamb. “You want to schedule an appointment with one of my artists?”
She kept chewing on that damned lip, though she subtly lifted her chin. “I was hoping to get a tattoo tonight.”
There was nothing I could do to keep my attention from roaming over her tight little body, searching every inch of exposed flesh, and my mouth was suddenly salivating because even though I couldn’t see much, I was getting the hunch that this girl had virgin skin.
Not a trace of ink.
I was the twisted fuck whose fingers itched at the idea of marking her for the first time.
I needed to get her the hell out of there. Put fucking five miles between us and do it fast. Knew better than to even consider letting myself get near a girl like that.
A girl who oozed vulnerability.
A sweetness that I could scent and wanted to eat up like it was mine to take.
But there I was, opening my mouth and issuing an invitation I knew better than to speak. “I’m with a client right now. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Nah. I didn’t mention that I had a two-year waitlist.
Disappointment flashed across her face. A face that was too fucking soft, delicate to the extreme, though there was something harrowed that underscored her features and left me antsy. Maybe that was what had me anxious to look closer. What made me want to concede and tell her I’d do any-fucking-thing she needed.
But I didn’t fucking do close, and I goddamned needed to remember that.
Before she had a chance to respond, I felt the stirring behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to find Trent pushing to standing, all six feet of him filling the confined space, though he was still two inches shorter than me.
He snagged his tee from where he had it tossed on the back of a chair and dragged it over his head.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? We’re in the middle of a session.”
He shrugged the same shoulder I’d been tatting, paying no mind that it was oozing ink and blood. Dude never would take care of that shit no matter how many times I’d threatened him that I wouldn’t do his work any longer if he didn’t.
“Seems someone needs this spot a little more than I do. Besides, my arm’s on fuckin’ fire. Need a break. I’ll text you next week to set another time.”
He gave me a look like he was doing me a favor.
I sent him a scowl because the last fuckin’ thing I needed was to be boxed in this space alone with this girl.
“Yeah, and that’s going to be two years from now,” I grumbled at him, part of me wanting to argue him leaving and the other part sure I couldn’t get him out of there fast enough.
Chuckling, he clapped me on the back. “Ah, I think you’ll make time for me.”
“You’ve got to at least let me wrap that,” I told him, and he sat back down, lifting the sleeve of his shirt. I did it quickly while he sat there grinning like the asshole knew something I didn’t, and the second I had the piece covered, he wound around me and sauntered all kinds of casual across the lobby of my shop.
Uncertainty swirled around the girl, her gaze swinging between the two of us, no doubt thinking twice about traipsing around town so late by herself.
Didn’t matter that Moonlit Ridge was tucked in the mountains by itself. That the area was secluded and gave off the vibe of being safe.
Bad shit happened everywhere.
No one knew it as well as me.
“He’s all yours, sweetheart,” Trent said, punting me a knowing look before he tossed open the door and strode out.
The door clattered shut behind him.
The second it did, the atmosphere glowed, taking on a hazy aura as I stared across at this girl who stood there staring back, toiling brown eyes doing wild things.
That gaze ran down my body like she was trying to discern every element about me, and I could tell she was reconsidering what the hell she thought she was doing here.
Though there was something that kept her pinned, shifting on her feet, an energy that struck in the space that separated us. It was something that shouldn’t be tangible, but even from across the room, I saw it skitter across her flesh.
Alive and palpable.
Didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me because I liked my women hard and fast and one-hundred-percent without strings, and she was clearly not any one of those things, but my fingers tingled with the urge to peel her out of her clothes to find out exactly how bare that flesh really was.
Hungry and depraved, knowing I would tear right through her.
She watched me like she was both terrified and intrigued.
“You been tattooed before?” I asked, voice low.
The shake of her head was slow. “No.”
My back teeth ground. Just like I thought. Virgin skin.
“And you want to change that tonight?” My voice was grit.
“That’s what I’m here for.”
I peeled the gloves from my hands and tossed them into the trash, pushed from the jamb, and strolled across the lapping wisps of light that played through the lobby.
Those wild eyes got wider the closer I got, her breaths coming short.
When I was within a foot of her, I got smacked in the face by the decadent scent coming off her flesh.
It wasn’t floral or feminine.
It was warm—cinnamon and clove—just like those eyes—and it hit my tongue like the first sip of an old fashioned.
I forced myself to keep the foot between us. “What happens in here, you can’t take back. You sure you want to stay?”
Something intense filled her caramel gaze, and her response nearly knocked me on my ass. “Every choice we make is one we can’t take back.”
“Which is why we should consider them carefully.” I wasn’t sure which of us I was warning.
Her nod was short. “I know…and this is one I need.”
“Alright then, gorgeous, it will be my pleasure to give it to you.”
Then I reached over to the door and turned the lock.
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