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“Yeah, Miss Havisham,” I mutter. “Everyone knows that.”
Maverick steps from behind a curtain with a sexy Latina with flushed cheeks and disheveled hair.
“Butterfly,” he says, a slow smile spreading over his face.
“What?” I ask, nearly choking on the lurch of my heart. Did Colt tell him?
“I gave you the butterfly tat,” he says, nodding to my arm.
“Right,” I say, a nervous laugh escaping.
“Hemi, get this one fixed up,” he says to his sister, tilting his chin toward the Latina before leading me back to his table. “Know what you want?”
“No,” I admit. “Maybe.”
“Another breakup?” he asks.
“Kind of,” I say. Like the last time, this is so much more than a breakup, but what do you say to a guy while he inks your forearm with a masterpiece that means everything and nothing all at once, something infinitely more beautiful than you conjured in your insufficient imagination? The butterfly is perfect, exactly what I wanted even though I couldn’t describe it and didn’t even know it before he did it.
After he cleans the table, I scoot up onto it and watch him tidy up for a minute. I remember asking Harper for his number so she’d be thrown off the scent, in case she suspected anything with Colt. I remember calling him and getting Colt’s number. I remember thinking even though he’s a gangster who works at a tattoo parlour, and probably has more arrests on his record than dollars in his bank account, he would have been a smarterchoice. Somehow I don’t think that’s what Mom had in mind when she told me to play dumb around boys, though.
Maverick pulls the curtain, giving us the illusion of privacy from the gangsters in the chairs and his brother on the other side of the wall of fabric. I can hear the tattoo machine still going just on the other side, where Mad Dog is working.
“What’s your idea, Butterfly? Run it by me, and I’ll take care of the magic.”
I wince at the nickname. It’s bad enough when Colt uses it. Then I swallow hard, staring at the wall behind him, where a bunch of photos are stuck haphazardly in place, people showing off their tattoos and piercings. My eyes fuse to one ofhim, and I can’t breathe, can’t swallow, can’t look away.
In the photo, he’s leaning into the camera, with his arm propped against something above his head, his hand holding the camera. His gorgeous, inked arm and shoulder frame one edge of the picture, and his face smiles up into the lens, his eyes hooded and unfocused like he’s stoned out of his mind, his hair loose around his face, his smile teasing and seductive. It makes me wet just looking at it, even before I let my eyes drift down his bare, inked torso to his hips. His jeans are open, and the hand not holding the phone is fisting his cock. You can only see the head, pierced through with the cross, leaving the four metal balls visible around it.
I lay back on the table, resting on my elbows, trying to get his face out of my head.
I want something just for me, not for Colt. I don’t want Mom to yell at me this time, though. I’ve disappointed her enough this week.
“I want my clit pierced.”
I whisper it, hoping his brother won’t hear it over the buzz of his tattoo gun. My face flushes at the admission—more than it already was with the heat of having seen Colt that way— butMaverick doesn’t even blink. He pulls out a piercing needle that makes my stomach turn and the rest of the supplies he’s laying out disappear. All I can see is that long, sharp metal. He snaps on a pair of gloves and scoots his stool over to the table.
“Open your legs for me, babe,” he says. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”
I lay back, my heart hammering, feeling like I’m at the gyno as I stare up at the ceiling. But it’s not like the gyno because I’m dressed, and Maverick is sliding my panties down my thighs and off my feet, pushing my knees open and spreading me with his gloved fingers. Suddenly all I can think about is what the Dolce boys said about me in the hall, and I want to slam my legs closed and never let anyone see me again.
But it’s too late.
“You want the regular hood piercing?” Maverick asks, thumbing my clit in sure, heavy strokes that make me have to bite down on my lower lip. “You got a perfect one for it.”
Perfect.
I savor the word, telling myself maybe it’s not so ugly after all. Maybe they were just saying that because they know how to hurt me, where to hit. If I’m not pretty, not desirable, I’m nothing.
I manage to mumble a yes, wishing someone less hot, with less tattoos, was between my legs. My face burns hotter as I feel myself getting aroused when he pinches and tugs at my clit.
“Are—are you hiring?” I blurt out as he picks up the needle.
“Hiring?”
“Yes,” I gasp out. “You know, the front desk. Maybe part time. Or people who wanted tattoos but couldn’t afford it. You could let them work off their ink.”
Maverick chuckles, the sound low and dark and dangerous, sending a delicious charge up my spine and a quake through my thighs.
