“You don’t know these people. They take care of their own.”

“Even when one of their own is dirty?”

“They’re like family. Some of them are literally family. I think it would be a mistake to underestimate them.”

“Whatever. I’ll keep you posted,” he says in his short, clipped way.

“Thanks.”

“Later,” Reese says.

“Later.”

The line goes dead and I’m left in the quiet of my house, thinking.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Sloane

“What the hell are you so happy about at this hour?” Steven asks as he stomps groggily into the kitchen.

“Good morning to you, too,” I reply cheerfully.

I sip my coffee as he makes himself a sandwich. It’s been Steven’s habit since we were kids to have a weird, lunch-like breakfast. It’s not unusual for him to have a peanut butter sandwich or a roast beef sandwich, sometimes even a tuna fish sandwich, which is the nastiest thing in the world to smell at six a.m.

“Well, what’s going on with you? I notice you’re keeping late hours. Just going right off the deep end, huh?” he says sharply.

“No, I’m not ‘going right off the deep end’.”

“Sure as shit seems like it. Staying out until all hours, drinking, making friends with all sorts of unsavory types.”

I get immediately defensive. “And just what ‘unsavory types’ are you referring to?”

“You didn’t think I’d forget, did you? That guy? At Cuff’s? That wasn’t the first time you two met. And I’ve seen him around there before. He’s probably a small-time criminal. Just the kind of person you need to get involved with right out of the gate,” he says snidely.

“He’s not a criminal. Of any kind, small time or otherwise.”

“And how, exactly, do you know this?”

“Because I just know. I know him.”

“The only way to be sure is to let us run a background check.”

My mouth drops open. “You can’t be serious.”

Steven looks at me like he can’t believe I’m questioning him. “Of course I’m serious.”

“You can’t just do stuff like that, Steven. God!”

“Why the hell not?”

“You…you…it’s…You just can’t.”

“Well, your sound logic has never stopped me before.”

If possible, I’m even more astonished. Which I’m pretty sure is physically impossible for me at this point. “You’ve run checks on people I know?” I say quietly. Steven, so righteous at the moment, doesn’t notice that I’m dangerously quiet.

“Yeah. So?”

“Like who?” I’m telling myself to remain calm. At least until I can get an idea of the true extent of this betrayal.

“Like…everyone you’ve associated with for the last five or six years.”

I am beside myself with anger and resentment and…shock. I never would’ve dreamed my crazy family would go to such extreme measures. Never ever.

My hands are shaking I’m so mad. When he continues, I’m still considering punching my brother as hard as I can right in the stomach. The desire is only heightened at his matter-of-fact tone, like he’s done nothing wrong.

“I would’ve already done it on this guy, but he’s a little harder to pin down. Which is cause for concern.”

“Well you can just give it the hell up then! I don’t want you to pin him down. Or investigate him. Or even so much as look at him. I want you to stay out of my life!”

Steven stares at me as though I’m a silly two year old, throwing a childish temper tantrum. “Tough shit. We’re your family. We look out for you. It’s what we do.”

My anger is diffused a bit by his obliviousness to why I’d be upset. “Steven, this isn’t normal. Or healthy. Y’all can’t treat me this way for the rest of my life. You have to let me grow up. You have to learn to trust me. And my judgment. You have to let me make my own mistakes.”

“No, we don’t.”

I squeeze my head between my hands, wishing I could ease the pressure that’s pounding right at my temples. I close my eyes and wave my hands at him. “I give up. If this is how you’re going to be, then don’t expect me to respect this insanity. Because I won’t. I won’t because I shouldn’t have to. It’s over the top and completely unacceptable.”

“Sloane, with your history—”

“Stop right there. You’ve got to let me go, Steven. I’m spreading my wings whether you like it or not. Don’t make this harder on all of us than it has to be.”

I see an uncharacteristic hint of sadness in my brother’s jet black eyes. “Do what you have to do. And we’ll do what we have to do.”

Without another word, Steven takes his sandwich and walks away.

********

I get ready and I dress for “work” on Saturday night with great care. There is, of course, the suspicion (and the hope) that tonight will be the night Hemi takes my virginity. I’ve always considered it an embarrassing thing. Like I’m some kind of freak. But now, I’m glad no other guy has ever had the balls to take it from me. I’d much rather be deflowered at the hands (and mouth and body) of someone like Hemi than an overzealous teenager.

I smile as I study my reflection in the blacked glass of the door to The Ink Stain. My hair is in a loose pile on my head, like Hemi seemed to like it, my lips are painted a deep red with a light sheen of gloss on them, and my outfit (I hope) is the perfect combination of sexy and chaste. That’s what I was going for because that’s how I feel—like a girl who is about to become a woman.

The bare skin of my arms and legs is smooth, lightly tanned and buffed to a satiny sheen from head to toe. I’m shaved from ankle to armpit. I chew my lip for a few seconds, hoping that shaving everything wasn’t a mistake. But then, knowing that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it now, I jerk open the door and make my way inside.

There are customers in the chairs in the lobby. They must be waiting. I head for the back room, making note of the three other artists that are working tonight. I’m thankful Paul isn’t one of them, but I’d like it even better if Sasha wasn’t either. But she is. She glances up from where she’s tattooing to narrow her eyes on me.

That’s new, I think, wondering if she already knows that something is going on with me and Hemi. I give her my brightest smile and walk right on by, heading for the little cubby out of which Hemi works.

It’s empty when I round the corner, so I bend to put my purse under the cabinet where it’s stowed when I’m here. When I stand, before I can turn around, I feel a hard, hot body pressing against me from behind. Hemi’s big hand comes around my waist to flatten over the low part of my stomach as he leans into me. I can make out every firm inch of him, even the growing bulge that I can feel at my butt where he’s grinding his hips.

“Oh, shit, this is gonna be a long night,” he whispers into my ear, his fingertips digging into my stomach. I feel breathless. Instantly breathless. “You can’t be bending over like that in front of me, got it? I’ll drag that tight little ass of yours into the bathroom and your first time will be memorable in a totally different way than what I have in mind.”

His voice is dark and deep and hoarse. In it, there are hints of sensual promise that turn my bones to jelly. Carefully, I turn around in his arms, pressing my chest into his. “And what would be so wrong with that?”

“I’d hate for your first time to be like that.”

“Why? I wouldn’t care. As long as it’s with you, I don’t care where we are.”

I hear the air hiss through his gritted teeth. “Don’t say shit like that if you don’t really mean it. I’ve been thinking all day about burying my tongue inside you, of tasting your sweet come pour out onto it. I’m about two seconds away from taking you out of here tonight.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

He half growls, half grunts. “Grrr, because I have clients coming in tonight. And I have somewhere I want to take you tomorrow. I just need to make it until then.”

I can’t help but smile. “Well, don’t feel like you have to wait on my account.” I pull my bottom lip between my teeth when I see his eyes drop to my mouth.

“I might’ve been right,” he says quietly.

“About what?”

“You might be more devil than angel.”

“I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”

With that, I ease out from between him and the cabinet and I make my way to the lobby to check the schedule, glancing back over my shoulder at Hemi as I go. His dark eyes are glued to me. Suddenly, I feel hot all over.

This flirting business is all kinds of fun.

********

As it turns out, working alongside Hemi with this insane tension between us, with the excitement and the anticipation hovering just around the edges, is exhilarating. And frustrating. As I watch his hands as he works on the limbs of other people, all I can think about is what it felt like to have them on me, about how I can’t wait to feel them again. It’s for that reason, I’m glad when his last appointment of the night cancels.

“I guess that leaves us some free time before I close up shop,” Hemi says with a gleam in his eye. My heart thumps and my pulse races at the wild tangent my imagination takes. “Wanna try your hand with the tattoo gun?”

“Really? On what?”

“Yes, really,” he says with a grin. “On me.”

I feel the smile come. Not only am I thrilled to be able to feel the gun in my hand—finally—but to be able to touch Hemi in the meantime…yes please!

“That sounds…interesting.”

With lips curved into a suggestive smile, Hemi lowers the chair into its flat position and scoots up onto it. “Then get ready to do some shading. And hurry it up, little girl. Time’s a wastin’.”

For some reason, it’s not insulting when Hemi calls me “little girl.” Not anymore, anyway. It has become an endearment of sorts. Sexy. Provocative. Like I’m the innocent he wants to teach naughty things to. And, actually, I am. Maybe that’s why I don’t mind it.

As I go through every motion that Hemi has taught me about preparing for a tattoo—from alcohol and razor to sterile needles and bottles of pigment, to readying the electromagnetic machine, which is what he prefers to use for shading—I notice the fine tremor in my hand. I don’t know if it’s excitement or nervousness, or the searing heat that I feel from Hemi’s eyes on me as I work (because I know they’re on me), but something has me all keyed up.

I lay out everything before I turn my attention to him. He’s sitting, shirtless, facing me. Watching me. Waiting.

“I want you to prep this side,” he says, indicating the ribs that already bear ink. “I told you I wanted to eventually add some shading here. This is a good way for you to get a feel for a gun before you start out on a blank slate.” I nod as I look at his trim waist and flat stomach. “That way I can guide you. Teach you. Show you how it feels.” My eyes fly up to his. They’re intense and his voice is husky, the double entendre clear.

“Then, by all means, show me.”

Hemi stretches out on his side. With him looking on, his incendiary words haunting my every motion, I prepare his skin for the tattooing. When I’m finished, he sits up. “Grab that shader and come here.”

I do as he asks, rolling the little table closer to him and taking the tool in my hand before I glance up into his face. “What now?”

Hemi winds his arm around my waist, pulling me into the V of his spread legs and wrapping his fingers around mine. He places our bound hands high on his thigh and rests them against the material of his jeans, where it’s stretched snug over his bulging muscle. “Get the feel of the weight of it in your hand, the feel of using it like a pencil or a piece of charcoal. Shading is the easiest way to start. Just let your fingers move naturally, fluidly. Back and forth.”

He begins to move my hand over his thigh in smooth, small circles. I put all my effort into focusing on the gun and what Hemi is saying, but my mind keeps straying to him making small circles like this on my body. With his fingers. And what they did to me. Where it led. And where it might lead again.

“Do you like the way that feels?” he asks. I turn my head to look at him. There’s heat in his eyes. He’s no more talking about the gun than I’m thinking about it. He’s thinking of something else, too. Something much more intimate. And much more satisfying.

“I love the way it feels.”

“I knew you would,” he replies hoarsely. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I say, again speaking of so much more than what I’m about to do in the next five minutes. “I’m very ready.”

“You’d better be,” he responds meaningfully. “Because I’m a selfish bastard and I always get what I want. Even if I have to take it.” I wonder if he’s still considering dragging me off to the bathroom. Because, if he is, I want him to know I’m game. I’ll go. Anywhere he wants to go, I’ll go.

“Is it still selfish when someone wants you to take it?”

“I don’t know. But I think I’m past the point of giving a shit.”

“Then take it. Take what you want.”

“Be careful what you wish for, little girl.”