I nodded. He didn’t seem the kind of person who wanted to share his space.
“But I don’t mind if you’re here. I don’t. You can have my room. I don’t mind sleeping on the couch. We don’t have to talk. I don’t mind that either. I’m always at the shop or up here; it’ll be safe. I promise. And we both know that if we don’t make this work even a little, Cat won’t let us be. I think she’s trying to help you because no one was there to help her, you know?”
I looked at him.
“Can you work with me?” he asked.
Before I knew it, I was nodding.
He gave me a wink with his lips thinned. “Atta girl. I’m going back down. It’s all yours. There’s food in the fridge. You can, uh, start work when you feel like it. That cool?”
He didn’t wait for my answer. When I heard his hand on his door, I said, “Thank you.”
Behind me, I heard him pause. “No problem, Mad.”
Mad?
No one had ever called me that.
It felt new. Not from my old life or the hell. It made me think I could do it, be this broken me while I pretended I wasn’t completely empty.
It gave me … hope.
Chapter Three
Klayton
What the hell had Cat gotten me into?
I glanced over at her as she tattooed a skinny punk with a fixation for tribal bands. Sensing my gaze, she looked up, blowing me a kiss. She knew I’d never tell that girl no. I knew what Cat had gone through. I didn’t ask, but she’d told me one drunken night, and we’d never mentioned it again. I knew how she’d suffered. That this girl had probably gone through the same thing made it impossible to imagine sending her on her way.
But it was gnawing at me. I hadn’t done anything wrong to her, but I had this feeling that I would eventually. I’d do something unforgivable. Scream, shout, get so mad I could only see black. I didn’t want to kick her out, but I wasn’t going to love that she was around either. It was my only concession.
My one o’ clock was sitting in the waiting area. I’d drawn his tattoo earlier in the day. A dragon eating its tail. A symbol of his addiction. I was excited to show him what I’d come up with. I pulled the sketch out and went over to him, giving him a fake smile and an empty handshake.
His eyes lit up when I showed him my sketch. After a brief conversation, I led him over to my station. I made him sit backward on the leather lounge chair, and handed him his phone to keep him busy as I laid out the ink and loaded fresh needles and supplies. After I had sanitized his back—that he’d thankfully already shaved—I smoothed the sketch onto his skin and showed him what it looked like with a hand mirror.
“You’re dope, man. I love the placement.”
“Is this your first tattoo?” I didn’t like small talk. It was part of the job, though. Some tattoos were emotional and important and deserved acknowledgment.
“I have one on my ankle, but I got it when I was high. I’m gonna get the pair of tits covered up.” He chuckled at himself.
“I’ve seen worse.” The bad part was, I had.
That made him laugh harder. “I’ve got a friend who got eyes tattooed on his balls. Every time he hooks up with a girl she never comes back.”
I smirked. “Four eyes are better than one, I guess. You ready?” I turned the gun on, and the buzz immediately calmed my nerves.
Four hours later, I let him get up to use the bathroom. I shook my hand out and tried to come down from the vibe. I looked around the shop, spotting my employees bent over their own canvases. I kept moving my gaze around the room for Cat.
“Wayne?”
“Yo?” He didn’t look up from the woman he was working on. Her face was scrunched in pain. I had no doubt she wouldn’t be coming back.
“You see Cat around?”
“She’s in the back, I think.”
Damn it. I didn’t want to get up and take my gloves off and start the sanitation process all over again. I looked at the register, finding it empty. The only workers on the floor were artists. I had no assistants since I had fired the last three. One for stealing, the other for taking naps in the back, and the last for being a lazy little shit. Most assistants didn’t like making minimum wage for eight hours when the artists were taking a much larger cut from their jobs, but that’s the way it was. Artists inked, and they rung it up.
I contemplated Mad as my new employee. I didn’t think she’d be ready to be down in the parlor for a long time, if ever. But I could use the help.
Cursing under my breath, I ripped my gloves off and waited for my client to emerge. I led him over to the registers, gave him back his ID and took his payment. Then I led him back over to finish. Two-and-a-half hours later, and his back was glowing red and gold. I had to admit it looked badass.
His eyes were bright as he admired it in the mirror, bending at an odd angle to get a look.
“Can I put you in the portfolio?” I asked, liking my work enough to show it off.
“Hell yeah.”
I took a Polaroid, made him sign a release, and then waited for him to leave before I put it in the binder for customers to look at in the waiting area. As I was stretching my hands out, Cat came back in, eyes troubled.
“I need a drink,” she mumbled, taking a seat at my station.
“What’s going on?” I didn’t think it was about my houseguest. She’d come from down the hall, not the corner where the door was for the stairs to my place.
“Boy troubles.” She flashed me a grin.
“That’s what happens when you mess with wannabe thugs.” Her current boyfriend was as useless as her last. I didn’t get involved in her relationships. I thought they were all pointless, and she didn’t. No point in arguing. We’d never agree.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but his dick is so big.” Then she grinned, bright and naughty.
I smirked and took a seat in my chair. “You can buy one just like it.”
“True, but I need a boyfriend. You know that.” Her smile sobered. She looked at her hands. “It’s an unfortunate part of who I am, but it’s who I am.”
I knew that. She’d only been single a few times since I met her. And when she was single, she was up my ass. Sleeping at my place, dragging me to parties. And now she was hanging out in my chair. Shit. “You break up?” I guessed darkly.
She gave me those eyes. “Wanna hang out tonight? You, me, and, Madi?”
Yesterday, I’d lived by myself. Now, I had two roommates. “No. I’m going out by myself tonight.” Cat was a cock-block. She got in the way every single time. On purpose. Because I deserved better. I snorted to myself.
“We’re going to go upstairs and hang out. With Madi. She needs to have fun too.”
“She doesn’t want to have fun,” I pointed out. I pushed to my feet and went over to the register.
She followed. “Madi probably needs me anyway. I’ll stay a while.”
Somehow, I knew if I let this go down I’d have an even bigger headache. “You go out. I’ll hang with her.”
“She won’t want you there.”
He’s scary, her friend had whispered. “She’s living in my house,” I ground out. “She doesn’t have a choice.”
For the rest of the night, I avoided her. I worked on two more clients, both walk-ins. The last one happened to be exactly what I needed. A bright-eyed brunette with huge tits and glossy pink lips. The tattoo she wanted was on her inner thigh; I brought her to one of the back rooms. I settled between her legs and turned on my gun, working her flesh until it was raw and glowing. She’d gotten a pair of cat eyes looking up. When I finished, I rubbed some ointment on it and then snapped my gloves off.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Seventy-five,” I told her, eyeing her long pale legs. I imagined them wrapped around my waist.
She bit her lip. “What are you doing later, gorgeous?”
Hopefully you. I gave her a smile—she wanted one, not me. “I don’t know. You have any ideas?”
“I was thinking you come home with me and let me pay you for your wonderful work.”
Wonderful? Feline eyes looking at her pussy? She was easy to please. I leaned against the wall, giving her a look. It said everything I didn’t. This was a one-time thing. We weren’t going to do anything else but hook up. I was leaving once we were done. “I’m not sure the IRS would approve.”
She laughed, eyes twinkling. “I—”
“Klay!” Cat called.
See? Cock-block! I grabbed the girls arm and led her out, wanting her gone before Cat came down and ruined it for good. “Give me your number, and I’ll give you a call about … collecting my payment.”
She jotted it down on a blank page in the appointment book, her address too. Then she rose on her tippy toes and pressed a wet glossy kiss to my lips, her naughty eyes promising me naughty things. I studied her legs as she left. I swallowed my lust and waited for my cock-blocking best friend to come her cock-blocking ass downstairs.
“Tisk, tisk,” she said behind me. “Think about how many guys she does that to, Klay. Think of all the semen she’s swallowed before yours.”
I cringed and whirled around, but the woman next to her stopped me from screaming. She was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to terrorize her. I swallowed my rage. “What I do, my dear Catherine, in my free time, isn’t any of your business.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s a whore.”
“I’m sure it’s her best quality.” I headed down the hall; two sets of feet followed me. She brought Mad with her on purpose.
“Why do you insist on sleeping with women like that? She got a free tattoo. Now you’re down the ink and the supplies, all for some ass that a million other men have already gotten.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose in the room I’d given my feline-loving new friend her tattoo. I started cleaning up.
“He’s getting upset,” Mad whispered.
Her eyes were wide, and her bottom lip was between her teeth. She’d showered and changed. She was in a pair of loose, ill-fitting jeans and one of my dirt biking shirts. Her hair had been washed and dried, hanging down her back and away from her face. Her black eye had healed further, taking away some of the garishness of her bruises, but there were still dark bruises on her throat. Those brought me up short. Someone choked her? Her neck was long and frail. She was frail.
She didn’t need some brutish bastard screaming. Which was exactly why Cat brought her down here.
“Come upstairs.” Cat gave me a hard look, daring me to defy her. “With people who care about you.”
I set to cleaning the supplies. “Go upstairs, Mad.”
She didn’t hesitate. She took off out of the room. A second later, I heard the door upstairs close.
I turned my rage on Cat. “Back off.”
“Why do you do this?”
“Why do you care?” I demanded, growing tired of her overprotectiveness.
“Because you’re twenty-freaking-seven. You live alone. You work alone. You eat alone. You do everything by yourself. And you hook up occasionally with a tramp you know for a fact doesn’t care about you. That’s not good for you. One day you’re going to wake up, and you’re going to be forty, Klay. Forty, alone, and even more miserable than you are now.”
“What about you?” I snapped. “You date a different man every day. You can’t be alone for more than five seconds without hopping into bed with another one. Who are you to give me advice?” As soon as I said it, I knew I was wrong. Deep, dark hurt entered her eyes. “Cat.”
Her face hardened, and instead of hurting me back, she took off.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the room and into my arms. She didn’t move to hug me back. She stood in my arms like a rock. We’d fought before. She knew who I was. But throwing her life back at her wasn’t something I typically did. She’d been abused, taken, and unlike Madi, she found solace in men. They made her feel safe. I was the one she always came back to.
“I’m sorry, Cat. That was messed up. I didn’t mean it.” I pressed her face to my chest when she cried, feeling a mixture of guilt and disgust for myself stronger than I normally felt. She owned me for the foreseeable future. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“No. It’s cool. I’ve got something to do.” She stepped out of my hold and tried to leave.
I grabbed for her again, but she knocked my hand away and took off. I didn’t need this shit right now. To muffle my guilt, I spent the rest of the evening doing the books. I closed shop at one in the morning and headed back up to my apartment.
Sure, I’d pissed her off, but she’d still managed to cock-block me in the worst way.
When I got into my place, it was silent. The lights were on, but there was no sound. I peeked down the hall and listened. I heard my sheets shuffle. I headed in that direction and looked into my room.
Madi was sitting in the middle of my bed with her legs crossed, staring. She looked like she wasn’t even there. Like she was in her head more than she was in the present.
“Ahem.”
She gasped aware, and scurried back, clutching at her chest.
I leaned against my doorjamb. “I’m sorry.” I’d been saying that too often.
She gazed nervously at me. At my eyes, at my hands, and then the hall. She wanted me gone. I gave her what she wanted. “I’m coming in to get some clothes,” I warned.
She looked down at her lap. “Okay,” she said softly.
I gathered jeans, shirts, boxers, and a couple pairs of socks. I dipped into my bathroom and grabbed my razor and a bottle of soap, and then I headed for my door. I paused before I left, meeting her fearful silver eyes. “You need anything?”
“No.”
“You’re not hungry?” She had to be hungry.
Her head shook.
“Just me gone, huh?” I gave her a small smile. See, I’m not that scary.
She wrung her hands and opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“It’s cool,” I assured her. I reached around back of the door and locked it. Then I started to pull it closed. “You’re not the only one who wants that.”
I dumped my things off in the spare room down the hall. I’d have to get a bed in here. Put a lock on the door for her. I couldn’t keep sleeping on the couch. I tried calling Cat once I’d had a couple beers, but it went straight to voicemail. My houseguest didn’t show her face for the rest of the night, and she hadn’t come out by the time I left for the shop the next day. It stayed that way for a few days. I worked downstairs, Cat called in sick, and Madison must have only come out of her cave when I wasn’t around.
I spent the weekend working my ass off, pulling in twice as much income as I normally did. There was a biker rally downtown, and the influx of bikers made for a lucrative weekend.
Come Monday, the shop was closed. I didn’t like it, but I had no choice but to give my guys two days off. I couldn’t afford to hire a new crew for two days, and that meant they were my days off too.
I sat up that morning and looked around, groaning when my back ached. There was a dip in my couch; it ate into my spine. I heard a sound down the hall and looked over my shoulder. Out came my little blond houseguest. She spotted me and looked down, and then looked right back up.
“You got something on your mind?” I asked. I cleared my sleep-filled voice, scratching my beard. I needed to shave, but the light in the hall bathroom was shitty.
“Where is Cat?”
I felt like a prick. “She took off.”
Sadness and fear slithered into her gaze. “Why?”
“I said something I shouldn’t have. She’ll come back home,” I assured her when she looked at me like oh shit, I’m stuck with him. “She always does.”
She hugged herself. When she did, she lifted up my shirt she
wore, showing me how much her hip bones poked out. She looked like she was wasting away. Had she not been eating? I’d figured she was when I wasn’t around. I hadn’t thought to ask.
Almost a week with no food? Self-disgust punched me in my gut. “You hungry?”
“No.”
“You’re hungry,” I decided firmly. She was eating today. “What’s your favorite food?”
She glanced at my body and then back to my eyes, clearly uncomfortable. I grabbed my shirt off the floor and pulled it on. I did the same with my jeans, but I left them unbuttoned. Better? I thought, raising my brow.
In response, she looked at my unbuttoned buckle.
“Shit, girl.” I buttoned my jeans fully. “Better?”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “It reminds me—I don’t like—It’s—”
“Hey,” I interrupted. She was giving me a headache. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. What’s your favorite food? I’m thinking bacon. Pancakes too. Eggs.” I started groaning. “You up for going out?”
She tried to hide it, but a flush of desire filled her cheeks. I had her. “I don’t know …”
“It’s a breakfast spot down the street. Coffee, maple syrup, fluffy sweet pancakes.”
“Klayton,” she said, her tone stronger than it had ever been.
To anyone else, it would sound like a normal speaking tone. To me, she was screaming for me to stop. I wanted to hear her speak that way all the time. So, I kept going. “Or, maybe even white toast and sunny side up eggs. That yolk dripping from the toast. Crispy, juicy sausage.”
She let out a wanting sigh, and then she gave me a small humorous look. Her lips remained down. But she’d found it funny for a second there. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”
I eyed her outfit. She hadn’t changed in days. “Go shower. I’ll do the same. We’ll meet in this exact spot, say …” I looked at the clock on the cable box. “Nine-thirty. That good for you?”
“Yes. May I wear one of your shirts?”
For some reason, her question went straight to my groin. It was so soft, so sweet, so waiting for me to tell her no. I cleared my throat and frowned at my reaction. “You can wear all my shirts for all I care.”
Mad Love (Guns & Ink Book 1) Page 3
