And I need to stay away, at least as much as possible, since her brother is always trying to get me to be social. Fucking his sister into the ground while her hands are bound isn’t what he meant by ‘Come meet my sister.’ I can still hear the frustration in his voice when she would kowtow to the monster who fathered her. She doesn’t need to trade one monster for another. And that’s what I am, a monster. I wouldn’t do anything sweet to her. No sweet words. I’m a savage who embraces pain, finding it pleasurable. I walk past, forcing my mind to dismiss her and the sight of her plump pussy in her bathing suit bottom. Steppingthrough the door, I wish I had a glass of whiskey and not the beer that’s been flowing all night.
Spotting the same beautiful woman in yellow, sporting the tattoos all over her body, I head over to her. I need to do something, anything, to get my mind offher. Heading to the woman in yellow, I sit next to her on the bench, studying her tattoos. “Can I?”
At her nod, I pick up her arm, turning it back and forth in the light of the firelight and citronella candles that Jace lit around the seating area to keep the mosquitoes away. “It’s good work, but I can add some shading.” I touch the vines on her collarbone and shoulder, thinking about the changes I would make.
“I was thinking of doing it some time in the fall. I want to add some color to the one on my hip.”
Unbidden, I touch her sternum tattoo. “This is the best I’ve seen in a while.” I lean closer and read the dates. “The lines are incredible.”
When she says, “Imprint Tattoo in Chicago,” something in me relaxes. Talking about Anna and Frank is easy. Memories of that early time in my life, when things were complicated, but the dark secrets of what my stepfather was doing weren’t in my consciousness yet. “Anna,” I murmur.
“How’d you know?”
Anna Delacourt is famous in the Chicago area. At almost six feet tall, with pink hair, you couldn’t miss Anna. She’d tattoo many members of the Legion Lords, including Onyx and Riggs, when we were teenagers. She was an honorary member of the Legion Lords; her brother Chaca, a runner for the gang, was a considerable influence on me. He taught me how to dismember a body. He was the one who named me El Búho when I was 17 and had just killed my stepfather.
We all grew up around Anna as a result of Chaca’s role in the gang. “I’ve known Anna for years. I interned therefor six months. A long time ago.” Right before I murdered my stepfather and joined the Legion Lords, learning how to tattoo helped satisfy the craving in me to escape the desperate, drudgery of my home life. The need to be creative and find solitude in the soothing sound of the tattoo gun. “Her husband Frank taught me when I was an asshole kid.” Like his wife, Frank Delacourt was also a brilliant tattoo artist. They made an odd pair. Frank was about 5’4 “, round and bubbly, with long hair that he always wore in a bun. “My shop is opening around October. Brooklyn. I’d love to have you come in. I can add shading and color to your hips if you’d like. I’ll give you my number.”
“She won’t be needing it.”
The violent tone has me looking up at the pissed off man from earlier. He’s looking daggers at me, but it doesn’t intimidate me. Standing, I step closer, widening my stance, wanting to feel his punch, wanting to return it and test his strength against my own. It would be a bloody fight, and right now, with lust for Jace’s sister still riding me hard, a brawl would help soothe the beast inside me. Looking into his hard eyes, I see what others might not recognize. Horror, pain. I wonder what he’s done that gives him that brutal look. A level of respect worms its way through a cloud of aggression between us.
“If she accepts my number, that’s all there is to it,” I utter, staying calm. My knife isn’t far away, but murder wasn’t on the menu tonight.
Silas moves even closer. His eyes are trained on me. “Get your fucking hands off her.”
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to do with my hands unless she tells me differently.”
Silas’s jaw ticks rhythmically. He moves even closer, leaving only millimeters between our chests.
“Move away from him, Dru.” His words are quiet, but I feel the rage in every syllable.
“Silas, cut it out,” the woman who is clearly his hisses, moving away from me.
“Cool off, Silas,” Jace barks, putting his hand on Silas’s chest. It seems to break some of the tension. I turn and spot Camryn staring at me. The worry on her face is clear; the horror is evident. Pulling my eyes away from her, I stare down at the woman named Drusilla.
“You good?” The woman, Dru, nods, and I smile at the fire in her eyes. He’s a lucky man; all the fire in a woman can be an aphrodisiac. To piss him off further, I add, “You can get my number from, Jace.” The growl behind shouldn’t make me like him more, but it does. I look at the man one last time. He wants to kill me, and I don’t blame him, but he has no clue that the last thing I want is his woman. No, my thirst isn’t for the fierce woman in yellow, but for her friend, standing off to the side, watching my every move. I want to look at her one last time, but I resist the urge. “Good night,” I manage to say, despite wanting to rip his head off. My mother would be proud.
An instant later, I walk off into the darkness to my bike parked on the side of the house. Settling into my seat, I turn on the engine, opening the throttle, and enjoy the strong vibration between my legs. I lean my head back, enjoying the sensation of the vibration through my hard cock. A cock that is hard for her.
Fuck it.
I’m not going to let her go that easily. I may not be able to touch her the way I want, but after tonight, I’m going to enjoy the chase from afar. I may not be able to hunt her the way I crave, but I can still watch.
Chapter 5
I watch him walk off into the darkness and want to follow him. The tension between him and Silas was something I’ve never seen before. Two men are well over six feet and heavily muscled. Silas has always been intense, borderline antisocial, with dark, sadness-filled eyes. I’ve grown accustomed to his gruffness. For a long time, I couldn’t understand my extroverted brother’s friendship with the reclusive boy who was being raised by his grandmother.
And now there’s another man with whom Jace is friends who feels even more distant and antagonistic. He does not like me; that much is clear.
Not that I expect men to fawn all over me. Yes, it happens because of my wealth, but I can tell when it’s artificial and grasping. I’ve been around those types of men all my life. Sons of my father’s friends who want to get close to me because it benefits them to do so, or because they feel obligated due to our parents’ association. But the look he gave me across the pool wasn’t because of who I was. It was the look a man gives a woman he wants to have sex with. I’ve seen it countless timesbefore, but it’s the first time I wanted to give it back. The first time, I wanted to meet the challenge and have sex for sex.
I still can’t stop thinking about what happened in the bathroom. The moment I barged in and practically fell into Stone’s chest. The sight of his wet face, the drops of water falling off his lip. The silver hoop at the bottom. The way he held onto my hips, digging his fingers into my muscles, bringing me close enough that I could see the small heart tattoo under his eye, that I missed when he was wearing his shades. I catalogued every centimeter of his face. His scar. The skulls and designs on his neck. The two gray hairs in one eyebrow. The dark scruff on his jaw and cheek. He smelled like my soap and him--a mix of smoke and something sweet. The three men of my past never smelled like that, and even now, I remember the way my body reacted. My nipples felt tighter, and that heaviness was in my lower tummy. The one I get when I masturbate.
His black eyes lowered to my mouth, and I swore he was going to kiss me, and lewd thoughts barreled through my brain, of him kissing me, eating at my mouth while he lifted me and pushed me against the wall, pulling my bathing suit bottoms to the side. Squeezing my legs together, the earlier fantasy comes back. Of him fingering me, before he hoisted me up, propping me on the sink the same way the main character in my last romance book did. I pictured us fucking, me holding onto his back while he fucking me. Maybe even holding his hand over my mouth so I didn’t make a noise. Then he would cum inside me and force me to walk outside with his ejaculate dripping out of me. There was something in his eyes, something I didn’t, couldn’t understand. Whatever it was, it made me feel scorched, on fire to have sex with a man I just met.
But instead of a sexy bathroom moment, he thrust me away from him like I had leprosy, scowling and curling the lips I wanted to be pressed against mine. And did he say I calledhim a thief? His question was mocking. Clearly, he thought of me as some sort of rich bitch, and I was embarrassed that he might have thought of me that way. When he scanned my body contemptuously, I felt dismissed, tongue-tied. I hauled ass and ran to the kitchen, pushing my face into the freezer, hoping to cool off my libido and irritation. I grabbed the plate of fruit I brought, hoping to hurry back outside and avoid him, only to see him again moments later. We stood watching each other until he turned away and walked back outside, not saying one word to me.
Now, I listen to the sound of his bike in the distance, which makes me wonder where he’s going. Where does he live? And I shouldn’t care. He obviously finds me lacking, and I need to stop thinking about him.
