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CHAPTER TWO

Harper

VIK DOESN’T REMEMBER ME.

The hottest man I’ve ever touched—and thank You, Jesus, I’ve touched this man—introduces himself as if I’m a stranger. As if he’s never kissed me, never put his dick inside me, never made me see stars because he felt so damn good. High school seniors, a keg of beer and a wild party were apparently a recipe for oblivion.

Even through the rubber gloves he wears, the heat and strength of him sears me. It’s weirdly seductive, his soft touch. Or maybe I’m lonelier than I thought to find comfort in the simple brush of fingers against skin. I’m paying him to give me this contact, and I’m far drunker than I should be if I’m in a tattoo parlor.

Today—tonight—is a day for firsts.

He hums, blond hair falling around his face as he sets the needle against my back. The first touch stings, the bright, rough bite blossoming into something rougher and darker. I push down into the seat to escape the burn but there’s no out for me. Why am I here?

Because the man you thought you’d marry locked you out.

Because you do the same things over and over and you want different.

Because your life plan just hit an unexpected brick wall.

The sound that escapes my mouth is embarrassingly weak. I don’t have to do this. I can go. He finds new skin with the needle and I whimper.

“Breathe.” He pins me in place with one big hand. I should get up. Should tell him I’ve changed my mind. I had no idea this would hurt so much but when he scratches that needle over my skin, thin, wicked lines cut into me so deep I feel them everywhere. His thumb rubs back and forth over the untouched, uninked part of me in soft counterpoint.

I twist my head to glare at Brooklyn. “I blame this on you.”

She cackles, fishing her phone out of her jacket. Instead of offering sympathy, she immortalizes me for Facebook posterity. “You said you wanted to move on. That you wanted to do something bold and brave to commemorate this particular life milestone.”

“I said that after two dirty martinis,” I protest.

Vik hums, leaning closer. He hurts me. Part of me wants to kick Brooklyn’s ass for talking me into this, but the rest of me just wants Vik closer and closer. To touch me more, to ease the sting his big hands create. Or maybe it’s the quiet strength in the way he holds me in place, soothing and hurting and making something beautiful out of the pain.

Thankfully, Brooklyn provides a distraction. “Still counts.”

“She’s an IRS auditor,” I mutter as Brooklyn flips me the bird. She’s minutes from passing out hard, her eyes already half-closed.

Behind me, Vik snorts. “That true?”

“Brooklyn doesn’t look like a CPA, but trust me. You should be really, really scared if she ever goes through your books. She’ll find every secret you tried to hide.”

“You could come join me on the dark side,” she crows. “But nope. You have to hang with the investment crowd, making all that lovely money. You didn’t need the douchebag for his bank account, so I hope the man had a magic dick.”

The needles buzz, the pain burning and melting into something fiercer as Vik works. I take a deep breath, counting through the waves of pain. I can do this.

I want to do this.

Vik

“Tell me more about this magic dick.” Harper tenses as I move the needle over her skin, but a grin lights her face.

“He was pretty,” she says. “Everywhere.”

Blondie—Brooklyn—raises a brow. “But did he know what to do with his joystick? Because otherwise it’s just a handle to lead him around by.”

Harper snickers. “The man could play games for hours. He always made it to the bonus level and he’s my all-time highest scorer.”

“That’s because you hadn’t met me yet,” I tell her.

Might be a good idea to keep my mouth shut. I consider the possibility for a handful of seconds before discarding it. Why hold back?

“Are you aware that you have no filter?” Harper’s hands flex on the bench, opening and closing as she takes what I give her. She starts to say something else, but then winces, sucks in a breath and freezes. This is the point where some people quit, abandoning my chair, and others bitch and curse. You have to ride out the pain, find its rhythm, lose yourself in each wave. There’s a magic moment when you pop to the top, finding the crest, and you’re fucking flying in a whole other place.

I lay another, deeper line of ink into her skin. “Why putt down the highway of life when you can ride balls-out?”

“Do you like riding, Vik?” Harper’s voice is husky and amused, a thread of discomfort just beneath the surface. She has the strangest, sexiest effect on me. I shouldn’t want to lean down and kiss each raw line I’ve etched into her back. Lick the straight, strong line of her spine until she melts for me. She’s a client, and whatever fucked-up shit goes on in my head, it stays there.

“Yeah,” I say roughly. “I ride. I’m a member of the Hard Riders MC.”

“MC?” She turns her head so she can watch my face.

“Motorcycle club.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Depends on who you’re asking, babe. Also on what kind of business we’ve got. Most days we’re practically Boy Scouts. Even do a toy drive at Christmastime.”

“And the other days?”

“We take care of business.”

I give in to temptation and run my thumb down the straight line of her spine. Woman’s got more knots in her back than that macramé shit my brother Cord learned in prison. Supposed to be therapeutic and relaxing as fuck as Cord can attest. He tied up a few strippers and taught them the finer points of bondage when he got out.

“You need to move on.” Blondie’s words come out soft and slurred. I don’t disagree with her, and if Harper wants to forget the douche, I’m the man to help her.

Harper winces as my needle finds a particularly sensitive spot. “How many minutes until we’re done?”

“Sweetheart,” I say, brushing my mouth over her ear, “we’re barely started.”

I know firsthand what the needle feels like when it bites through skin, how the pain doesn’t ever quite ease up. Shit hurts. Life hurts. But this pain is a choice and it leads to a thing of fucking beauty at the end if I do it right. My firebird slowly takes flight on Harper’s back, first the wings, and then the head. I lose myself in between the lines, drawing and coloring, pulling something from her and putting it on the outside for everyone to see.

Harper’s quiet for long enough that I lean over to make sure she hasn’t passed out on me. Not that she’s a constant talker, but some sign of life would be good. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted when I need her to be here with me.

“Hey. You okay?” I drag the back of my knuckles over her cheek, cursing the latex between my skin and hers.

Her lashes lift slowly. She’s got the prettiest, softest eyes. “It hurts.”

“Good hurt or bad hurt?”

Her forehead gets this cute little pucker like my question doesn’t compute. “Good hurt?”

“Yeah. The kind where the burn eats you up and you get lost in all that feeling and you just have to let go and ride it out. You feel me?”

The crease in her forehead deepens, so I’ll have to show her. I lay down a new line of ink. She’s a squirmer. She wriggles against my bench, working her pussy into the leather like it’ll open up and give her a way out of here.

“You chose this,” I point out. “You put your cute little ass in my chair. You can endure the pain, or you can let go and lose yourself in it. I think you might like it.”

I drag my thumb down the outside of her spine, working against one of those knots. Investment banking doesn’t sound like a fucking picnic, and her body seems to agree with me. She lifts into my touch, the muscle beneath my fingertip loosening. Then she wiggles against the seat again.

“If this makes you feel better, it’s a good thing,” I say roughly. The ink I’m tracing into her skin certainly is—the bright red feathers almost fly off her skin, they look so fucking real. “You deserve good things, you hear me?”

“Yeah,” she says, so softly that I almost don’t hear her. “I do.”

Blondie’s head hits the window with an audible thunk. I can’t tell if she’s passed out or fallen asleep, but girlfriend looks painfully uncomfortable.

“Give me a moment.” I set my equipment down and strip off my gloves. “Sleeping Beauty needs an assist.”

“Sleeping Beauty?” Harper twists her head and takes in her friend sprawled half on, half off the window seat. Not my circus, not my fucking monkeys, but she’s here with Harper.

I brush my hands down my thighs. “You need a chaperone?”

Harper outright laughs. “Are you planning on hiding Brooklyn’s body?”

“Nah.” I shake my head and cross the room to Blondie. Harper watches like she can’t quite figure me out as I scoop her friend up in my arms. “I’m offering relocation services. Think she’d be more comfortable on the couch.”

I take her out front and set her down on the leather couch. Gia never looks up from whatever game she’s playing on her phone. The room’s chilly from the air-conditioning that ran for most of the day so I shrug out of my leather jacket and drop it over Harper’s friend. The nipples poking the front of her sequined tank top advertise loud and proud that the woman’s cold. It may be August in Vegas but it’s also two in the morning. The sun’s not up, and I don’t need her to fucking freeze to death—or wake up—before I’m done with Harper.

When I go back into my studio, Harper gives me a smile. The sight of her bent over my bench, waiting for me to put my hands back on her, makes me hard, but then everything about this woman gets me going.

“You’re a nice guy.” She sounds surprised. Not sure why everyone seems to think bikers do nothing but kill shit. We’ve got other hobbies and mayhem’s just one of my many talents.

“Everybody loves me.” I wink at her reflection in Ink Me’s windows. “So what does an investment banker do all day, Harper darling?”

“I make other people money.”

“Are you good at what you do?” Harper doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d settle for half-assing anything in life.

“I’m the best.” A small, self-satisfied smile licks up the corners of her mouth. I’ll bet she goddamned is the best. I know better but I press my fingers a little harder against her skin, spreading them so I can feel the little shivers as the needle bites into her skin and then the moment when she relaxes. She’d feel like that when I was deep inside her, too, making her come.

“Me, too.” Either you rock your shit, or you don’t, and I’m the best goddamned tattoo artist in Vegas. I already know that tonight’s ink is my best ever. My firebird looks ready to streak into the sky—or curl up and dig in because it’s hard to imagine a sweeter spot than the curve of Harper’s back.

“This is the hard part,” I warn.

Sure enough, when I start shading the feathers, she tries to hold it all in but a groan escapes her mouth.

“You don’t have to pretend for me,” I tell her. Mean it, too. “You do whatever you fucking feel like doing.”

She nods—and then she reaches down, feeling for me with her hand. The fuck? My dick may be hoping for a hand job, but instead her fingers find my thigh and pinch. Fucking hard, too. She can’t get a good purchase on me thanks to my jeans and my being built like a medieval Viking, all hard and no soft.

Christ, she’s amazing.

Still, she needs to understand that she doesn’t get to be the one in charge here. “Do that again and I’ll spank your ass.”

Not the smartest thing I could say, seeing as how it doesn’t just cross the line of what’s appropriate and what’s not. More like my words blow the goddamned line up and bury it in a mountain of TNT.

“You said I could do whatever I wanted.” Did she just blush? Been a long time since I’ve been with a woman who got embarrassed.

“Sure thing.” I draw her hand up by her head and pin it there lightly. “But if you make me jump, sweetheart, you’re gonna end up with a mutant firebird. This next part hurts the worst.”

“How long?” I can hear the tears in her voice. Fucking sucks. Harper’s made for smiles, not crying.

“Not long. Be good and I’ll kiss it better.”

“Be specific.”

I’ve got a lot of bare skin to fill in. This won’t be quick or easy. “Forty minutes.”

“Are you shitting me?” She shifts and I back off.

“Kisses,” I remind her. “I’ll make everything feel better if you hang in here.”

“You’ve got magic kisses?” That’s her drunk talking, laughter blurring the edges of her words and pushing away the tears.

“You can find out.”

“I already know how you kiss,” she announces, that cute pink blush getting deeper. “We’ve met before.”

Shit. I rack my brain trying to remember her. Women come and go in my life. Pretty sure I wouldn’t have fucked Harper and forgotten her, though, so maybe she’s just messing with me. Fair enough, seeing as how I’m planning on getting her out of those cute little panties just as soon as I can.

“That so? We’ve shared adult naptime? Done the bedroom rodeo?” I start in on the skin over her spine.