Missing Ink

by E J Frost

  She gives me a ghost of her sassy grin. “I kinda like you being in my hair, sir. Especially today. Thank you for being here.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We both look up at a knock on the door. It opens after just a beat and Logan walks through, trailing Emily. He takes the other folding guest chair and draws Emily down into his lap.

  “We could have been naked,” I point out.

  Logan smirks. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” He props a tablet on the desk beside Brenna’s hip and taps it.

  “Here’s the CCTV footage. Two little fuckers are clear as day, but I don’t think it’s going to do us much good.”

  As the slightly grainy, black-and-white video rolls, I see what he means. The two figures who approach the shop are covered from head to toe. Black ski masks, sweatshirts, sweatpants, even their boots. I can see that they’re white from their hands and the small amount of skin showing around their eyes. At a guess, they’re male by their builds, but they could be very buff women.

  “Wait,” Brenna breathes. “Go back.”

  Logan taps the tablet to back up the video. Bren leans over and peers at the grainy image.

  “That motherfucker,” she hisses. She pauses the video and enlarges the image, but it dissolves into black and white splotches. “It’s hard to see but I’m pretty sure it’s the same skinhead from the other day. PatriotWarrior, the fucker who put the one-star review on Google. He had ‘move on’ tattooed on his knuckles. It’s hard to see but I think it’s him.”

  “Good spot,” Logan says. “Also, language in front of my little.”

  Brenna screws up her face at him. “You just said fucker.”

  “Don’t set a bad example for my baby girl. Mac’ll smack your ass.”

  I nod. “I will.”

  Brenna rolls her eyes.

  “Oh, that just bought you pain,” I tell her.

  She rolls her eyes again.

  “So much pain.”

  “I hate both of you,” she says. “How do we find this guy?”

  “First, we report it to the cops,” Logan says. “Then, I ask Max if he can find a physical address for PatriotWarrior from the Google post he took down.”

  It probably says a great deal about my experiences in the Navy that I have more faith in Max than I do the police. “D’you think a little fear will help or hurt the situation?” I ask.

  “What do you mean by ‘a little fear’?” Logan asks. “Are we talking nitro in the head levels of fear or reactor scram levels of fear?”

  I chuckle, remembering those respective pranks. “Let’s start with nitro. We mockup an image of the dickhead’s tattoo and plaster it all over the neighborhood on ‘have you seen this tattoo?’ posters. Bet that gets him shitting bricks.”

  Logan’s grin is a fearsome thing. “Bren, can you draw a picture of the tattoo and email it to me? I’ll get the posters done this afternoon and Mac and I’ll canvass the neighborhood tomorrow.”

  Her echoing grin sends a rush of blood to my dick. “I can do that, sir.”

  “Good. You want me to call Theo before I go?”

  Her smile fades. “Theo?”

  “He’ll pay more attention to this than some random beat cop the desk sergeant assigns your call to. Besides, he owes me one,” Logan says.

  I make a mental note to ask Logan later why Theo owes him. And Brenna’s sour expression doesn’t escape my notice. She might have been happy to have Theo top her, but she’s not at all happy about dealing with him in an official capacity. Since he surely has more to lose than she does if their club connection comes to light, her reluctance makes my curiosity bone twitch.

  “Okay. I’ll work on that sketch and get it to you by the end of my lunch break.” She wraps her arms around herself. “Thank you, sir.”

  Logan nods as he pulls out his phone.

  While he makes his call, I cock my finger at Brenna and when she moves toward me, I take her hand and lead her out into the hallway, closing the door behind us.

  “I don’t like that a skinhead has it out for you, sweetheart,” I say, brushing her cheek with my knuckles. “Can I convince you to stay at Logan’s for the foreseeable future?”

  She leans into me but wrinkles her chin. “I like my own space, sir.”

  “Can I wangle an invite into your space? I’m hoping he’s just a punk who was pissed off you wouldn’t do that swastika, but if he’s actually Aryan Nation, those are some very bad guys. I don’t want you to be alone.”

  She grins up at me. “You can definitely wangle an invite into my space, sir. My apartment’s upstairs.” She tips her chin at the ceiling.

  “Alrighty-then, girl. I’ll pack a bag while I’m at Logan’s and plan on staying tonight at least. You tell me if you get sick of me invading your space.”

  “Okay, sir.” She wriggles a little closer. “Can I have a kiss before you go?”

  “That’s a big affirmative.” I reel her in and claim her mouth. She melts against me and I can’t keep my hands from straying down to that smackable ass, perfectly encased in warm leather. When the door opens, I release her, but not before I give that ass a good, hard, very satisfying squeeze.

  Bren moves back with a little squeak and rubs her butt. “Ouch, sir. I think I might be sick of you invading my space already.”

  “Sure, girl. See you at seven. Call me if you need anything.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I leave her grinning.

  Chapter 9

  I need him all day.

  I need a tuna on rye from the deli for lunch. I need a cup of coffee to restore me after an hour-long telephone interrogation by Theo over who might have a grudge against me or Missing Ink. Once Mac arrives with my coffee, I need a hug every five minutes, although I limit myself to only asking for them after he’s finished shuttling back and forth from Logan’s with enough bags to stay for a week and parks himself on the reception couch with a huge hardback to read while I work. Am I being selfish and sappy? Damn right. But seriously, how often do I get a Dom at my beck and call?

  Besides, he lightens my whole day. He eats lunch with me—bringing his own meatball sub when he delivers my tuna on rye. After I tell him about a meme I saw online about the existence of a meatball sub implying the existence of a meatball Dom, he pulls each meatball out of the bun and wiggles it at me, talking dirty in falsetto, before he pops it in his mouth. He gets his test results just before I call him for the coffee run, so he brings along a box of bourbon brownies to celebrate and then steals most of them, stuffing them into his mouth as I try to grab them away from him. That leads to a wrestling match on the kitchen floor, which I let him win just for the feeling of him pinning me down. Knowing that he’s safe—and I can finally have his freaking dick—makes me crazy and I end up begging to give him a blow job. He drags me into my office, which has a lock on the door, and lets me suck him for five minutes, with the promise of earning an anal orgasm if I can make him come. I try every trick I know, working my tongue piercing into that sensitive spot where his head meets his shaft, playing with his balls, deep throating him until the tears run down my face, but he has too much damn control. It becomes a game for the afternoon, with us ducking into the office between each client. I realize he’s using my mouth to edge himself, which makes me desperately horny.

  Do I think of the skinhead and what he’s done to my shop? Nope, not even once.

  We’re late heading out to dinner because Mac decides that brownie wrestling’s made us dirty and we need a shower. I expect him to fuck me in the shower, but he just teases me, playing with my breasts and pussy and ass with his warm, soapy hands, until I’m so desperate for him I’m can’t think. He bends me over the sink as he’s toweling me dry, lubes up my ass and works in a butt plug with what has to be a three-inch neck. Once it’s seated, he pats my ass.

  “Let that open your sphincter, girl, because it’s all the prep you’re getting tonight.”

  I whimper at his words, and the stretch of the p
lug, and the mini orgasm that shoots through me.

  “Can you sit down with that wide boy in?” Mac asks.

  “I think so, sir.” I give him a shaky thumbs up.

  “Good girl. How long d’you need to get ready?”

  “Give me fifteen minutes, sir?”

  “Ah, that’s my girl.” He bends over and kisses the curve of my ass then sets his teeth in it until I yelp. He chuckles and pats my sore cheek before pulling me upright, drying off the rest of me, and tucking a few stray dreads back into my messy bun. Then he snaps the towel at my ass until I run away into my bedroom.

  As I pull on soft cotton tights, a sweater mini-dress and my Docs, I wonder if this is what Mac’s always like—this see-saw between playful and utterly evil—or if he’s just trying to keep me distracted. I hope he’s always like this. I kind of love it.

  I wolf-whistle when he emerges from the bathroom. He’s such a snappy dresser. He’s wearing a shiny, midnight-blue dress shirt that makes his eyes look electric, an abstract white, blue, and black tie, and tailored black pants. Instead of that expensive-looking coat he wore into my shop when he came in the first time, he’s carrying a leather jacket. He’s clean-shaven; his ashy hair slicked back to show the gray at his temples. He’s not trying to youth it up. It’s a classic look, and it absolutely suits Mac. Not that I’m fixated on his looks. Much. It’s more that he’s made the effort for me: to look nice, to take me out, to get to know me.

  My insides tighten, which makes me supremely aware of the plug, and I feel my face heat. Mac moves into my space—which isn’t hard in my tiny apartment—cups my chin in his hand and rubs his thumb over my lower lip.

  “What’s got you blushing, bold girl? You thinkin’ naughty thoughts?”

  “The naughtiest, sir.”

  “Good, you can tell me about them later. Uber’s here.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I push everything I’m grateful to him for, including that he’s not making me walk to the restaurant when I’m plugged, into my words and those blue eyes glow with pleasure.

  *****

  Okay, hibachi is a little kitschy. Edz wouldn’t be caught dead here. But he’s missing out. We’re too late for the reservation Mac’s made, but once he turns those killer blues on the hostess, she seats us anyway, smuggling us into two spare seats at the grill. The chef gives us the full show as he cooks our dinners in front of us: tossing my shrimp up in the air with his broad cleaver. When I keep telling him to throw on more hot sauce, he makes a game of it, cupping his hand to his ear to encourage the diners on either side of us at the long counter to shout “more” as he splashes on drop after drop of the bright orange hellfire. I’m laughing so hard my cheeks ache by the time my shrimp and veggies land in front of me.

  Mac steals a shrimp and wolfs it down, then fans his tongue and pretends to gulp down water while the people around us laugh. I pop back a shrimp while I laugh at him. It singes my sinuses briefly, but it’s got nothing on Bebe J’s five-alarm chili, and I enjoy every bite.

  After asking me for a “butt status update,” which has me laughing, Mac leads me down the block to a hookah bar. I’ve never been to one; never even contemplated going to one. They seem like gathering places for creepy old guys to smother in clouds of carcinogens while they play games with little pegs. And not the fun kind of pegs, either. But I’ve got it all wrong. The hookah bar turns out to be a really nice bar with a seating area on the sidewalk, shielded from the street by wooden screens. Mac unleashes those blue eyes again and we get seated outside next to a heater on wicker couches. Mac orders us a pot of Turkish tea and a “Lebanese Splash” hookah. When it arrives, he pulls me onto the couch next to him, which just about fits both our butts, slides his arm around me, and taps the funny little hookah pipe against my lips.

  Holding his eyes, I take a draw off the pipe. My own eyes go wide when I get a strong hit of mint. The smoke’s smooth and I exhale without coughing. Mac takes his own drag off the pipe and blows out a series of smoke rings.

  “Good job, Gandalf.” I laugh delightedly.

  He leans in and blows the last smoke ring against my lips, which fills my nose with mint. He licks into my mouth to share the flavor with me before offering me the pipe again.

  We share the hookah between kisses and attempts to teach me how to blow smoke rings. I cannot get the hang of the exhale-inhale-exhale needed to form the ring and end up snorting smoke out of my nose, which has Mac chortling.

  Is there anything better than sitting outside on a cool fall night, warm under the arm of my Dom, sharing quiet time and kisses and laughter with the sounds of the city flowing around us?

  Once the hookah’s spent, we sip the slightly bitter, black tea out of pretty glass cups. Mac plays with some wisps of hair that have escaped from my dreads, tickling my ear with them. “How are you doing, bold girl?”

  “Good, sir.” It feels natural to use his title, even out in public. Maybe it’s his age or the way he wears authority like a suit, but no one around us blinks an eye when I call him sir.

  “Will it bring the tone down too far if I ask you a few questions about today? Want to just stay focused on our date?”

  I tip my head into his shoulder. “No, sir. I’m good talking about it. Thanks again for everything today. It really—” I clear my throat before I choke up. It’s the smoke, nothing to do with all the feels Mac’s giving me. Nothing at all. “It made all the difference today.”

  Mac wiggles the tip of his pinkie finger inside my ear, making me shiver and giggle. He strokes my neck with the backs of his fingers, catching at my day collar and tugging lightly, before returning to the caress. “I want to talk about your collar, too. But first, Logan and I were talking about how to track the skinhead down. Have you had problems with them before?”

  “No, sir. There are a couple of skinheads who have come in for tattoos, but as long as they don’t ask for a racist design, we give them what they ask for and we don’t have any trouble.” I shrug. “I don’t even know why anyone wanting a swastika or Weiss Macht or whatever would even come to me. There’s a guy on East Eleventh who will do anything, no questions asked.”

  Mac’s blue gaze sharpens. “What guy?”

  “He calls himself Mad Bob, but I think his real name is Robert Iggleston. His place is called Shameless Studios. It’s not the same guy, though. He’s got tons of tattoos on his hands. You can’t even see his skin."

  “Is he a skinhead?” Mac asks.

  I shrug. “I don’t think so but I’ve only ever seen him wearing a bandana under a backwards baseball cap. He thinks he’s Eminem or something.”

  Mac snorts. “And he’ll do swastikas?”

  “He’ll do anything. And make a mess out of it. I can’t tell you how many people have come to me for a correction or cover up of something he’s done. On top of everything else, the guy cannot spell. He sent some poor guy away with ‘respect’ spelled R-E-P-E-C-T. It was a disaster.”

  Mac chuckles. “Worse than my mermaid?”

  “Nothing is worse than the flounder with boobs, sir.”

  “Your mouth, girl. I think it’s time to teach it some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”

  I tip my head back and nip at the hinge of his jaw. “As long as you spell it right, sir.”

  “You ready to go? ‘Cause I am more than ready to claim that ass.”

  I shiver against his side. “Yes, sir.”

  I expect the talk about my collar to wait, but once we’re in the taxi on the way back to my place, he puts his arm around my shoulders again and flicks the leather circlet with his thumb. “Who put this on you, girl?”

  “Master Logan. I finished my training under Master Damon, but he resigned before my collaring ceremony so Master Logan put it on me and gave me the rules of the collar.”

  Mac humphs .

  Is he going to demand I take off my collar? Sure, Logan put it on me, but it’s not Logan’s collar or anything. It’s mine. It’s the daily symbol of my submission, and belonging, and everyth
ing else that being part of Blunts means. “I’m, uh, pretty attached to it, sir.”

  “I hope so. I’d be disappointed if it didn’t have meaning to you. I’m just processing how I feel about you wearing a collar Logan put on you. I wouldn’t ask you to remove it, but how would you feel about adding to it?”

  A weight lifts from my chest. “I’d be good with that, sir.”

  “Good. I’m gonna want to see something of mine around your throat pretty damn quick.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out. How do I keep telling myself it’s just a date, just a scene, just sex when he keeps stamping permanence over everything? “Sir, I’ve been collared before and when . . . things didn’t work out, it was hard for me for a while.” That’s a massive understatement. I was a complete wreck after Edz uncollared me, even though I was the one who asked him to do it. If it wasn’t for Ruby, well, I don’t know what would have happened. “Could we, I don’t know, go slow?”

  “Of course, girl. But I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t see things going that way.”

  I swallow hard and turn my face into his neck, so he doesn’t see the mist filling my eyes. Allergies, obviously.

  Mac rubs my shoulder and holds me to him for the rest of the ride to my place.

  Once we get inside, I give him the two-penny tour. Since my apartment’s only three rooms and some storage space under the eaves, it’s not worth much more. Mac shoo-es me out of my bedroom while he gets ready. I use the bathroom, take out all my rings and barbells the way he’s told me to, unwrap a spare toothbrush for him and leave it on the corner of the sink, and, after a long minute’s deliberation, make a safe call to Austin.

  “I’m scening at my place. No monitor. With Mac. He’s staying the night. I’ll call you before I go to sleep,” I tell him after he says hello.

  “You had anything to drink?” Austin asks. He sounds sleepy, even though it’s not even eleven o’clock. Maybe he had an early shoot. Or maybe Mistress Dana’s already put him through the ringer.

  “Nope. Mac and I shared a hookah after dinner, but it wasn’t weed or anything. Just tobacco or whatever’s in a hookah.”