by Shandi Boyes
A pleasant evening? Is she fucking serious? That proves she would have never survived working in a place like Inked. If the staff didn’t scare her off, the clients soon would have. Maybe I should have hired her and let my crew work their magic?
Snagging my helmet out of the saddle bag on my bike, my eyes scan the nearly pitch black alleyway. Other than a couple of heavy-breasted bar bunnies bouncing around hoping to secure a warm bed for the night, the parking lot is empty, which isn’t surprising considering it is well past midnight on a Saturday night.
The two heavy-breasted ladies’ large smiles dampen when I dip my chin in farewell, denying their silent offerings. With Inked’s regular schedule, the bunnies know the prime time to show up when they're after a night of adventure. Although their offer is tempting, after my run-in with Princess Stuck-Up, I’m not in the mood for the antics a pair of bunnies would bring to my weekend. I also can’t guarantee my dysfunctional cock will be up for the task.
The profound rumble of my bike echoes through the quiet night when I kick over the engine. After gliding my bike down the alleyway, I shift my eyes up and down the street, scanning for an opening in the dense flow of traffic that always clogs the streets of Ravenshoe. It doesn’t matter if it is 1 AM or 3 PM, the flow of traffic in Ravenshoe is always congested. During my endeavor of finding a break between vehicles, my eyes spot a flurry of blonde standing in the shadows of the bus shelter a few doors up from Inked. What the fuck is she doing standing at the bus stop?
Unable to leash the moral compass my grandma embedded in me from a young age, I roll my bike away from the pavement and switch off the engine. After storing my helmet on the ape hangers of my bike, I stride to the bus shelter Clara is standing at. Although she frustrates the hell out of me, this side of town, at this time of night, is no place for any woman to be milling around unaccompanied.
“How far out is your ride?” I rake my eyes along the street to seek the gray Audi I saw earlier. It’s nowhere to be found.
Finalizing the last few steps between us, I tug my jacket in tighter to my body when a crisp breeze blows through my thin long-sleeve shirt.
Clara’s eyes stray from perusing the street to me. Her pupils widen as a look of surprise washes over her face. “I’m not waiting on a car. I’m taking the bus home.”
“What?” I ask, certain I didn’t hear her right. The roads are clogged with noisy motorists, so my hearing may be a little off.
“I’m waiting for the bus,” Clara advises again, her voice stronger this time around.
“You’re waiting on the bus?”
She huffs loudly. “Yes! The bus. You know that big metal thing on four wheels that clangs past here every twenty minutes or so. It’s called a bus. That’s what I’m waiting for.”
She rolls her eyes before turning them back to the street. I stare at her in utter disbelief. She must be a fucking lunatic. It is well past midnight on a Saturday; she's decked out in designer threads and wearing more bling than the jewelry store three blocks over stocks, and she's planning on taking the bus. Clearly, she doesn’t know this side of Ravenshoe after dark like I do. It isn’t a place for anyone to be wandering alone, let alone a woman with dick-twitching looks like she has.
Noticing a bus approaching my right, my naturally engrained protective instincts kick in. “You don’t need to take the bus. I’ll give you a ride home.” I nudge my head to the portion of my bike poking out of the alleyway.
“No.”
Her abrupt response dumbfounds me.
“Excuse me?” Surprise is evident in my voice. “When someone offers you a ride, you're supposed to say ‘Thank you. That will be lovely.’”
Clara’s eyes snap to mine. “Not when you don’t want a lift. I’m happy to take the bus.”
“You're not taking the fucking bus. Get your ass on my bike.”
She takes a step closer to me as her thinly slit eyes bounce between mine. “Do you have a problem with your hearing? I said no.”
I return her leering stare. “Do you think saying ‘no’ to a bunch of punks on the one AM express will stop them? You’re swimming out of your depth here, Princess. This isn’t fucking Kansas.”
The smell of exhaust fumes filter into my nose when a rusted old bus marked with 57 on the side pulls in front of the bus shelter.
“I can take care of myself.” She glares into my eyes with the same fiery spark she wore three months ago. “If I can handle a beast of a man like you, I’m sure a couple of punks will be no hard feat.”
After issuing me a final stink eye, she climbs aboard the bus, completely snubbing my request for her not to. I stand frozen at the bus stop in absolute shock. I’m not just surprised by Clara’s stubbornness, but astounded by how fucking hard her feistiness has made my cock. I’ve never been so hard. Yeah, not happening, buddy. You’d need a cool million in the bank to ever get the chance of unclamping those legs.
Clara’s smug eyes glower into mine as the bus chugs down the road, leaving a throat-clogging puff of smoke in its wake. She thinks she can take care of herself, but she's swimming way out of her depth. But fuck it, if she wants to be stupid, so be it. It isn’t my place to play babysitter to a spoiled little rich bitch who would cut off her nose to spite her face. Besides, although the bus company advises their drivers not to engage in any domestic situations, the moral obligation of any man would outweigh corporate propaganda. Wouldn’t it?
Cursing under my breath, I charge for my bike and throw my leg over it. The profound rumble of my engine scares a group of feral cats out of the dumpster at the side when I kick over the motor. My heart beats double time when my abrupt departure from the alley has me narrowly missing a handful of motorists. When they honk their horns and yell obscenities out of their windows, I flip the bird before pulling back on my throttle. My excessive speed has my front tire lifting off the pavement and the coolness of a late February wind pelting my chest.
Weaving my bike in and out of the heavy traffic, I locate bus 57 a mile out from Inked. When I pull my bike along the right-hand side of the bus, I scan the seats lining the edge, seeking any signs of Clara. When I fail to locate her, I lower my speed and slip my bike to the other side. A moment of reprieve pummels into me when I spot her sitting two seats behind the male driver. At least she was smart enough to sit close to the driver.
Ignoring the absurdness of the situation, I continue to follow the bus as it makes its way across Ravenshoe. Even though she acts like she hasn’t noticed my presence, I’ve caught the occasional glimpse of her eyes glancing my way. I’ll admit it, even pissed beyond hell that I’ve rode ten miles in the wrong direction, and am wasting precious minutes of my days off tailing a lady who infuriates me more than any woman before her, the hardness of my cock hasn’t lessened a smidge. If anything, her blatant refusal to acknowledge my presence has increased the thickness of my cock, not lessened it.
“What’s wrong with you? You want some A grade pussy?” I mumble to myself, peering down at the crotch of my jeans.
My attention diverts from reprimanding my cock for its unattainable goals when I notice a group of young gangbangers at the back of the bus have locked their sights on Clara. If I had to guess their ages I'd say late teens, early twenties. I’ve seen these guys hanging around Inked a few times the past month, but I haven’t officially met them. After doing a hand gesture with two of his pimple-faced friends, the approximately six-foot tall boy with pasty skin and a red bandana wrapped around his grease-slicked hair moves down the aisle, his gangbanger swagger in full force. The wonky grin on his face enlarges as he gets closer to Clara, as does his grip on his crotch.
Blood roars into my ears from the gleam in his eyes. I slam my hand on the glass window of the bus, endeavoring to secure his attention. The glass rattles under the impact of my fists, but he doesn’t look my way. My heart rate climbs into dangerous territory when my eyes glance sideways to check my location. Fuck! I’m about two seconds away from being splattered onto the back of
a four-thousand-pound sedan.
Gritting my teeth, I release the throttle and pull back on the brake before veering my bike dangerously onto the sidewalk. A delivery driver squeals like a girl when I narrowly miss hitting him stacking the morning papers on the curb. Scraps of newspaper fly into the air, and the scent of fear filters into my nose as I zip past a newspaper stand. Once the delivery driver gathers his scattered composure, he yells out a string of obscenities. His voice is as shaky as my hands. I raise my arm into the air in silent apology before continuing with my original endeavor.
A rutted grunt escapes my lips when my bike leaves the sidewalk with an almighty thud. I pull back the throttle and catch up with the bus, swerving in and out of the traffic like a mad man. When I glide up next to the bus, my jaw muscle tenses. The young gangbanger is sitting in the seat behind Clara, twirling a lock of her glossy hair around his index finger. I bang my fist furiously on the glass. My thumps are so hard, the glass wobbles under my force. Hearing my commotion, the gangbanger twists his neck to the side and eyes me curiously. The ostentatious grin on his face enlarges when I stare him straight in the eyes while pointing my index finger at Clara.
Removing his hand from Clara’s hair, he grabs his crotch while mouthing, “She’s fine.”
His cocky grin is wiped straight off his face when I use the same finger I'm pointing at Clara to make a throat slitting gesture, wordlessly warning him if he touches another hair on her head, I will ruin him.
He balks as his eyes widen. As he stumbles from his seat, the heaving of his chest amplifies. He nudges his head to Clara, as if to ask, “Is she yours, Brax?”
When I nod, he holds his hands out in front of his body like he didn’t mean her any harm. Un-fucking-likely. If I didn’t arrive when I did, I’d hate to think of how far he was planning to take this. The good kids in Ravenshoe are slowly outweighing the bad, but there's still a bunch of rotten eggs tainting the batch.
The tick impinging my jaw lessens when the fear-faced teen returns to his original position at the back of the bus. Although I’ve never been an overly violent man, I was born and raised in this area of Ravenshoe. That alone warrants me a fierce enough reputation that I’m not to be messed with.
When the young gangbanger takes a seat next to his two male compadres, I swing my eyes back to Clara. For the first time the past twelve miles, she doesn’t have her eyes facing the front of the bus. They're locked in on me. All the smugness on her face has vanished, replaced with a look of a woman who is acutely aware of just how close her stubbornness had her treading into shark-infested waters. After issuing me a hesitant smirk, she returns her eyes front and center.
Thankfully, the last ten minutes of Clara’s brush with the wild side is made without incident. I won’t lie, a conceited grin curls on my lips when the young gangbangers bolt off the bus at the stop following our exchange. Without a backward glance, they hightail it down the alleyway as quick as their quivering legs can take them. If Clara wasn’t still sitting two seats behind the driver with a terrified gleam in her eyes, I would have had a good talk with them. But since my priorities remain with Clara, that talk is being held for a later date.
The instant the bus rolled into the good half of Ravenshoe, I could have stopped following Clara, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, I continue tailing her for the next five miles. I’ve already come this far, so what’s a few more miles?
When the bus comes to a halt at the front of a fancy apartment building on the most expensive street in Ravenshoe, I pull my bike onto the curb behind it. I’m not at all surprised when Clara hops off the bus. Just seeing her in this expensive setting strengthens my belief that she was attempting to prank me earlier tonight.
Keeping her chin held high, she saunters towards the guarded doors. Just before she enters the heavily manned foyer, she spins around to face me. Her pupils are wide, exposing that she’s rattled from her brief encounter with the rough side of Ravenshoe. But even frightened, she holds herself with a sense of dignity and class. She has the type of poise no etiquette class could teach. It is infused in her blood.
“Thank you.”
A grin tugs on my lips. From the look on her face, you’d swear it was the first time she’s ever said the words “thank you.” I inwardly chuckle. It probably is.
I lock my stern gaze with her heavily dilated eyes. “You shouldn’t catch the bus at any time, let alone this late at night. It was a stupid thing to do.”
Even though her lips thin in grimness, she nods. “I’ll add it to my long list of things I'm unqualified to do.” Her snarls reveals that her stubbornness is still loitering in the shadows. “I’ve found out today I can’t work at a tattoo parlor, a café, or even clean the gas station toilets on the outskirts of town.” The hardness of her lips firm. “Who would have thought you would need a degree from Harvard to clean a washroom?”
My brows furrow. “You’re that desperate for a job, you’re willing to clean toilets for a buck?”
Keeping her gaze planted straight ahead, she briefly nods. My heart freezes. I honestly hadn’t expected her to say yes.
“Fingers crossed biker bars and strip clubs aren’t as demanding, because at the rate I’m going, they will be my only viable options,” she mutters before spinning on her heels.
Strip clubs? Even knowing she’s most likely goading me, and I don’t know her from a bar of soap, I hate the thought of any woman working in a sleazy club just to make a dime. My momma did it, and I swore I’d never let any woman I know follow in her disastrous footsteps.
Going against my better judgement, I blurt out, “You start Tuesday at 2 PM,” before my brain can compile a rejection.
Clara freezes halfway into the entrance of her building. Her shoulders rise as she gulps in a deep breath before her eyes snap to mine. “Really?”
When I nod, she smiles a heart-stopping grin that has my cock stiffening all over again. Don’t even think about it. She's way above your paygrade.
“You have a two-week trial to prove yourself. If you fuck it up or scare away any of my customers, your ass will be out on the curb quicker than I can snap my fingers.”
“I won’t. I promise,” she guarantees, her assuring eyes adding to the strength of her words.
I arch my brow. “And you're not to take the bus,” I warn, glaring into her eyes. “This is not a negotiable term. If you turn up to Inked on the bus, turn around and get straight back on it, because your ass will be fired.”
Her face whitens and her breathing shallows. She looks more concerned now than she did when I began inking her virgin skin.
“I don’t have any money to put gas in my car,” she mumbles, her low words relaying her embarrassment.
Jesus Christ! What the fuck am I getting myself into?
Slinging my hand into the back pocket of my jeans, I pull out my wallet and snag a twenty from the small selection of notes inside. I hold the note a few inches from my chest before locking my eyes with Clara. If she wants my money, she’ll have to come and get it.
A stretch of silence passes between us as her eyes dance from the crumpled note in my hand to my face. After exhaling a deep breath, she spans the distance between us, her steps shaky and reserved.
Just before she removes the twenty from my grasp, I pull it out of her reach. “This is not a loan. It’s an advance. I’ll be taking it out of your first paycheck.”
She fights her hardest battle, endeavoring to keep her tears at bay before curtly nodding. “Okay. Good,” she says, her voice stronger than the weakness in her eyes.
She removes the twenty from my hand, folds it up, then places it in the pocket of her jeans.
“Thank you,” she murmurs before walking into her apartment building, not once glancing back at me sitting on my Harley, shocked into silence.
Even though I could see the defeated look in her eyes when she accepted my money, I hope she just played me for a fool. As no matter how much she irritates me, I’d rather have her pranking me than
be so desperate for a job she turns up to Inked on Tuesday morning.
My hope is short-lived.
Chapter Four
Knocking distracts me from the tattoo I’ve been drawing the past hour. It is a sleek design I’ve been working on for a long-term client. Although he doesn’t have much prime real estate left on his torso for my artwork, this piece is just as important to him as the numerous other tats I’ve placed on his skin. I slide the sheet of paper to the side and check my watch. My lips quirk when I notice it is a little before 1 PM. Considering the shop doesn’t open until 2:30, I decide to ignore the eager patron.
All my best laid plans go straight to the gutter when the tapping grows louder and louder. Once it hits a point I'm no longer capable of ignoring, I push back from my desk and march to the door. I clasp the stainless-steel door handle, preparing to unleash a verbal tirade on the moron who can’t read the hours displayed in thick red ink on the eyelevel sign hanging from the door. My plan goes to shit for the second time in under a minute when I swing open the door and am smacked in the face with a rich floral scent.
“You really do need to get your hearing tested. I’ve been knocking for ages,” Clara says with her heat-scorching eyes blazing into mine. “Are you going to let me in?”
I nearly step to the side before reality pummels into me. This wasn’t our plan. “What are you doing here?”
She freezes. “You said I have a two-week trial,” she replies with her icy blue eyes bouncing between mine.
“Yeah, Tuesday at 2.”
Her eyes roll skywards. “It is Tuesday, Brax.”
I only just manage to hold in my surprise that she knows my name. I shouldn’t be shocked though. I’m sure she spent her entire weekend digging for dirt on the guy she's playing tricks on.
“Yeah, it is Tuesday, Princess.” I say her nickname with the same disdain she said mine with. “But it isn’t even one yet. You’re way too early.”
Her brows furrow. “My brother has previously said ‘being early shows you appreciate the opportunity bestowed upon you.’” Her hands fist the fabric on her jacket before she stammers, “I appreciate the opportunity.”
