BULLET: Lords of Carnage MC Page 2

  Under my touch, the rigidity of his muscles slowly begins to ease. I work in silence, feeling the moment of tension between us begin to slip away as well. The tightness between my shoulder blades eases up a bit, and I allow myself a small sigh. I’m still hardly comfortable being this close to him, but I’m thankful to have something to keep me busy and my mind occupied. It’s still a struggle to ignore the raw sexiness of Bullet’s naked torso, though. Why couldn’t he have wanted a bicep tattoo? Or maybe his calf? Something that wouldn’t have required him being shirtless? Something a little less… lickable.

  Above me, Bullet chuckles low in his throat as I swab up toward his ribcage. “Tickles,” he rumbles.

  In spite of myself, I can’t help but snort. “Really?” I glance up. “You don’t exactly strike me as the ticklish type.”

  “I’m not, normally.” One corner of his mouth lifts. “How about you? I bet you’re one of those chicks who’s ticklish all over.”

  Back to the flirting, I see. I finish up and reach for the disposable razor to shave the area. “That’s privileged information,” I deflect.

  “Yeah? You gonna make me find out for myself?” He leans forward, until his warm breath is tickling my ear. “I can do that.”

  Without warning, my throat lets out this weird, rabbit-like yelp as I pull away.

  “Uh, okay, we’re all prepped!” I say in a strangled, giggly voice. “I’m gonna go get that stencil now. Just sit tight!”

  Standing up so quickly the stool scrapes noisily against the floor, I scurry out of the room and down the hall. Chance is just coming out of the room where we keep the thermal-fax.

  “Here’s what he wants,” he says, showing me. “It’s not that complicated, except for the shadowing.”

  I take a look. Even though I’m still a jangle of nerves, the tattoo itself makes me breathe a little sigh of relief. The bullet is a little larger than life-size, and rendered very realistically. The only tricky part is that it’s designed to look as though it’s hovering about an inch away from the surface. If I do it right, the shadowing will make it look as though it’s just about to pierce the skin.

  I can do this, though. I’m good at shadowing. It’s one of the things I’ve worked hardest on.

  “Okay,” I breathe. “This looks easy enough.”

  “Don’t be nervous,” Chance tells me, reading my mind. “You got this, Six.”

  We go back to into the room, where Bullet is sitting patiently. I suck in some air and force myself to pretend he’s an old, ugly, gross guy.

  Then, for the next forty-five minutes or so, I focus on doing the best damn version of this tattoo possible.

  As I settle in, the familiar vibration of the tattoo gun starts to soothe me, and everything else begins to fall away. There’s nothing like the experience of creating a piece of art that’s designed to be forever etched into someone’s skin. Even the simplest tattoos, if they’re done well, have their own sense of movement. The way the patterns and shapes and colors dance is unique, as is the way they accentuate the body and tell a story. The person’s body becomes a canvas, their skin a work of art in and of itself. The ink on my own body has become a part of me, as much as my hair or my nose or my smile. It’s as much a window to my soul as my eyes. If you know how to read it, that is.

  Creating such an indelible marker of a client’s identity is something I take more seriously than almost anything else. I know that’s part of why Chance has kept me on and agreed to teach me. He feels the same way about tattoo artistry. And I know he wouldn’t have anyone on staff at Rebel Ink who didn’t.

  When I’ve finally finished Bullet’s tattoo, I’m sweaty and trembling. But in spite of myself, I have to say that I totally rocked the result. The bullet looks almost like a photograph. The shadow is so accurate that you’d swear it was right above his skin, suspended in a crucial, inevitable moment in time. I hand the mirror to Bullet so he can take a look. He stares at it for a couple of seconds, then lets out a low whistle.

  “Damn, girl,” he grins, giving me a nod. “I should have had you doing my work all along. Chance, you’ve got competition.”

  Chance shrugs. “She’s got talent, for sure. Sometimes it’s the stuff that looks the simplest that’s the hardest to do.” He looks at me. “You should take a picture of that for your portfolio.”

  Feeling almost dizzy with triumph now that it’s over, I take out my phone and do exactly as Chance says. Afterwards, I get Bullet’s tattoo dressed and bandaged, then recite the aftercare instructions I know by heart at this point. Bullet listens patiently. I can tell he’s just humoring me, but at least he doesn’t interrupt.

  “Okay, dude,” Chance says to him when I’m finished. He raises his hand and gives Bullet a fist bump. “You’re good to go.”

  “Thanks, man. See you soon.”

  I walk with Bullet up to the front. Dez, sitting at the reception desk, looks up from his sketch notebook when he sees us. He shakes his hair back from his eyes. Then, with his typical non-verbal communication style, he stands, gives us both a nod, and disappears into the back.

  I settle into the chair behind the front desk and tell Bullet the price for the tattoo. He pulls out a few bills and sets them on the counter in front of me.

  At first, I think he didn’t hear me right. There’s at least twice as much here as he owes. I open my mouth to tell him so when he cuts me off.

  “That’s a tip, babe,” he says. “And if you’re thinking of turnin’ it down, I got a way you can pay me back.”

  I frown at him quizzically. “I can pay you back by just giving you your money,” I point out.

  “Nah. Your money’s no good with me,” he grins.

  I can’t help but laugh. “You’re a confusing man, Bullet.”

  “I’m a simple man, Six. With simple wants.” He leans forward. “And right now, I want you to agree to have a drink with me.”

  “You ask me to go out with you every time you’re here,” I retort, brushing him off.

  “Yeah, I do,” he agrees. “And I’m gonna keep doin’ it until you say yes.” Bullet cocks his head and gives me that golden stare of his. “So let’s just cut to the chase, huh? Come on, Six. One drink. Live a little.”

  Live a little.

  The words resonate in my head. He doesn’t know the half of it.

  I live like a hermit here in Tanner Springs. It’s true. And that’s by design. The whole point of coming to such a sleepy town was precisely so I could live. Under the radar, and avoiding detection. This place has been really good for that.

  But his words hit home a little harder than he can know.

  Because the truth is, I want to go out with him. And because somewhere along the line, my life has been reduced to not much more than just existing. Other than coming to work, and a very rare girls’ outing with Hannah, I have no social life at all.

  That’s the way I wanted it. It’s perfect for me. It’s how I survive.

  But I am lonely. And I’m tired of spending every evening staring at the TV. Alone, and trying not to think about a future filled with nothing more than an endless stream of nights just like that one.

  And here, right in front of me, is a man who just won’t take no for an answer. That should piss me off. I should tell him in no uncertain terms to back the hell off. But it doesn’t. Not at all. It makes me nervous, yes. But not angry.

  Because if I’m honest with myself, Bullet makes me feel things I haven’t felt in a very long time. Every time he has asked me out — even though I always refuse — a flutter starts deep in the pit of my stomach. A flutter of excitement. Of possibility. Of things that could be possible, if my life were a different one.

  That alone should tell me he’s someone I should be running far away from.

  But for some reason I don’t refuse him automatically, like I have every other time. This time, instead of telling him no like I should, my stupid pie hole opens, and what comes out of it seals my fate.

  “Okay,” I
half-whisper. “One drink. And then you let it drop. Deal?”

  “One drink, Six. And then,” he winks, “we’ll see what happens next.”

  3

  Bullet

  Damn, this girl is wound tighter than a two-dollar watch.

  Even though she puts on a big show like she’s untouchable, I can tell there’s something else going on with her. Six has got a wall around her so thick I can almost see it. She doesn’t let people get close. Why, I have no idea.

  But if I only get one shot with her, I’m gonna make it count.

  Having Six do my new ink turns out to be a genius fuckin’ decision. And not just because she ended up doing a hell of a job. It finally kicked this flirtation we have going into overdrive and got her to let down her defenses, just a little. She was so flustered by the end of it, I saw my opening, and went for it. And damned it if didn’t pay off.

  Not that she was the only one having trouble controlling herself back there. Hell, just having her that close to me made my blood run hot in my veins. And I knew just as soon as I yanked off my shirt that she was feeling the same way. God damn, the way her breath hitched in her throat, it sent a jolt straight to my dick. If Chance hadn’t been right there, God knows what would have happened next.

  The whole fuckin’ thing was an exercise in torture, for both of us. The only thing that distracted me from my own discomfort was how much I enjoyed watching Six get all hot and bothered. As I drive back to the clubhouse on my bike, I replay the scene in my head. How she trembled a little bit right before she first put the needle to my skin. Under her touch, the familiar sting of the needle transformed into an erotic thrum — a pleasure/pain sensation that buzzed from the surface of my skin straight to my dick. I had to shift myself in that goddamn chair more than once to adjust the pressure on the fucking club between my legs. It wouldn’t go down, no matter what I tried to think about to distract myself.

  Her lips — Six’s ripe, cherry-plump lips — were parted in concentration as she worked. Her mouth was close enough to my abdomen that I kept picturing her slipping down to her knees. In my perfect world, I would have unzipped my jeans and let out the beast that was fucking throbbing for her touch. Her lips would have slipped, velvety, around my shaft, her mouth hot and wet… God damn, the prick of that tattoo gun was nothing, next to the agony of my pulsing dick fucking begging me for relief.

  By the time she was done with my ink, I was already tryin’ to decide whether I needed to head back home to jack myself off, or go straight to the clubhouse to have one of the club girls take care of things for me. I know the sexual specialties of every single one of them, and normally I pick and choose depending on my mood. Trouble is, not one of the club girls can hold a candle to Six in the looks department. And it’s her throaty laugh that’s ringing in my head as I leave Rebel Ink. It’s her baby blues I want to see looking up at me as her lips wrap around my dick.

  I let out a low, tortured groan. Nah. The club girls aren’t gonna work for me tonight. My cock wants Six. No one else. And for once, I’m gonna wait. Steak instead of hamburger, like they say.

  I’m havin’ trouble not grinning like an idiot when I pull into the parking lot of the Lords of Carnage clubhouse, thinking about the fact that I’m finally gonna get her alone for a while tomorrow night.

  But my good mood doesn’t last long.

  Tweak comes striding up to me the second I walk through the clubhouse door. “I found him,” he calls out. “I finally found the motherfucker for you.”

  He’s been working on this for me for so long, it takes me a second or two to figure out what the hell he’s talking about.

  Then it clicks.

  “Holy motherfucking shit,” I breathe.

  * * *

  “Where?” I ask him, still trying to wrap my mind around what Tweak is telling me.

  “Here.” He points at a spot on a map on his computer screen. I scoot closer in the wheeled chair, peering at the place he’s indicating. “Pittsburgh,” he confirms. “Or just west of there, to be exact.”

  “That’s in Death Devils territory,” I remark. “Ain’t it?”

  Tweak bobs his head once in a brief nod. “Yeah. And coincidentally, Oz and his men are on their way here right now.”

  The Death Devils are an MC to the east of us. Their prez, Oz, has a daughter named Isabel, who’s our brother Thorn’s old lady. The relationship between the Devils and the Lords is somewhere between rivals and allies. The last few years, they’ve been moving further to the east into Pennsylvania, taking territory as they go. They’ve been helping us with moving product and defending our turf when they can, and vice versa. So these days, we’re more friends than enemies.

  “What are the Devils coming here for?” I frown.

  “They’re on their way out to Indy,” Tweak says. “Their club’s stoppin’ in here for a night to break up the trip. Angel’s opening up the clubhouse for ‘em to come party and stay for the night. Gesture of good will, shit like that.”

  “Indianapolis?” I repeat, puzzled. “What the fuck business they got all the fuckin’ way out there?”

  Tweak lifts a brow. “Fuck if I know. Thorn told me Oz used to be part of a club based outta there. I guess that club’s defunct now. But Thorn seems to think the visit’s got something to do with that. Even Iz doesn’t know much about it, I guess. So it’s probably not just old home weekend.”

  I nod. Isabel is Oz’s only child. If she doesn’t know what’s going on, it’s definitely not anything to do with family. It’s gotta be club business. Which means Oz ain’t about to tell anyone outside the Death Devils what they’re up to.

  Frowning, I shake my head, irritated that I’ve let myself be distracted from the business at hand. “Okay, well anyway, fuck that. Tell me more about what you got about Ellis. How did you find the sonofabitch?”

  Tweak shrugs. “Wasn’t easy, I’ll say that. Sorry it took me so long. The Lords have had a lot on our plate lately, and Angel’s had me running a lot of intel. I could only do this when I had time, here and there.” He pauses, and cuts me a look. “It is possible this ain’t him,” he cautions me. “But I think I got the right guy. If it is him, he goes by Edge now.”

  “Edge,” I snort, rolling my eyes. “For fuck’s sake.”

  “Yeah,” Tweak agrees. “Don’t know if he changed his name to stay out of sight. But the pictures my contact got of him look pretty close to the one you gave me.”

  “You got pics?” I repeat, impressed. “Let me take a look.”

  Tweak hits a few keys on his computer and a folder comes up. He punches another button, and a series of photos appears, in a carousel. He flips through them, just slowly enough for me to take them all in. They’re grainy and rough, some black and white and others color.

  But that’s him, all right.

  Ellis Strickland.

  My piece of shit stepfather.

  The sight of his all-too-familiar face — sharp, angry eyes, hooked nose, ears set too low on his head — makes my stomach roil in disgust. “That’s the fucker,” I growl. “You got him.”

  In an instant, the last memory I have of my mother while she was alive flashes in my mind. Her emaciated body, lying on the floor of the filthy hole they lived in, head propped up on a stained sofa pillow. Her skin, waxy and yellow from the drugs Ellis sold. The drugs he gave her to keep her addicted and submissive — so submissive that they were the most important thing in her life.

  And in the end, the instrument of her death.

  Ellis killed my mother, just as surely as if he’d held a gun to her head.

  Almost unconsciously, I reach down to finger the spot under my T-shirt on my torso where the gauze protects my new ink.

  What are the odds? The very fucking day I finally get around to getting this bullet tattooed on my skin — the bullet that marks the last time I tried to kill Ellis — Tweak would finally track the motherfucker down?

  The tattoo is an external marker of the actual bullet inside me.
That bullet will never leave my body. It’s a wound that will never completely heal. A pain and anguish I will never forget.

  Until I end Ellis Strickland, that is.

  A dry, bitter husk of a laugh escapes my throat. I never knew before that a laugh could hold no humor in it at all. Only disgust, and loathing.

  The prison sentence I got as a result of the events of that night took my freedom for two long years. It gave him another reprieve from paying for what he’d done. By the time I got out, he had disappeared without a trace.

  It’s taken far too long to find the bastard. To be honest, I’d almost given up hope. The trail had run too cold. I figured maybe some other person with a vendetta against Ellis Strickland had managed to get to the sonofabitch before me. It tortured me, though — the thought that someone else got the pleasure of sending him out of this world before I could do it myself.

  But now I know. He’s still alive.

  And with that knowledge, every emotion I’ve ever had to swallow — every roar of fury from deep in my soul— comes racing back, like it all just happened. The thirst for vengeance, deep and familiar, parches my throat. Anger and rage that I’ve kept tamped down for years shoves its way to the surface, threatening to consume me.

  More than anything, I want to jump on my bike right this fucking second. Drive to where my piece of shit stepfather is, and ram the barrel of my Glock right down his fucking throat.

  But even as I fight to cut through the rage-filled haze fogging my brain, I know in my black soul that the revenge will be sweeter if I bide my time. Shooting is too good for that motherfucker. I spent two years locked up behind bars, with nothing to do but dream of what I would do to him once I got out and found him. Now the moment is here. And nothing will take away the pleasure of making my face the last thing he sees as he leaves this world.