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When we come, it’s together with silence screaming from our throats and whispered praise on our tongues.
“Kade.” It’s barely there on the current of what pulses between us.
“Emery.” It sinks into her skin as my lips move from where I’ve slumped against her shoulder.
But I’m not done with her.
Not even close.
CHAPTER 3
EMERY
I try to keep my eyes from staring at the Devil’s Saints MC patch on the cut hanging on the other side of the room, but it’s not easy to do. It’s taunting me. Or maybe haunting me.
Then there’s how difficult it’s been to not ask Loot, who I’ve tattooed a few times before, about his brother Driller. I shake my head and focus on finishing up the last session for the back piece I’ve been working on the last few times he’s been in my chair. This art deserves my focus.
Not that they all don’t, because they do and I take a lot of fucking pride in my art, but I know how much this piece means to the man in my chair. It’s both a memorial, depicting the horrors the city was up against in the aftermath of Katrina, and hope for the future because of the Harley riding in to save the day.
If only it was that simple back then. I guess, in some ways, it was for Loot. He had no one after Katrina, but then the club found him and gave him what he was missing—a family and a purpose.
I was only five when Katrina swept through and my memories are fuzzy, at best. I vaguely remember evacuating and the state of everything when we came back. But, then again, that was before everything fell apart in my family. I do remember how hard it was to rebuild and how the ripples from that one storm were felt for years.
Loot is a good guy, and it wasn’t until he came in a week after the night I spent with Kade that I realized they’re from the same club. I have no idea why I didn’t put those things together when I met Kade at The Sanctuary.
Maybe I didn’t want to make the connection.
My heart aches and I fight the need to rub my chest right where the pain is.
I swear I can still feel the man’s phantom grip on my hips. I can still see the sparkle in his aquamarine eyes as he looked up at me when I was sitting astride his hips and riding his dick like my fucking life depended on it. I can hear his voice as we talked about all sorts of things—his job and his regrets about spending so much time on the rig, my art.
He even told me about his own dreams about opening a tattoo studio for the club and how he was able to piece together an apprenticeship before he should have been allowed to because of his age. The work he pulled up on his phone to show me was beautiful. It might not be the best place, considering where he works, but he’s tattooed men he works with and they’re grateful as fuck for his skills.
I can’t imagine putting so much of your life on hold to be out in the middle of nowhere for that long.
I close my eyes as I tip my head forward, my arms feeling so fucking heavy because part of me wants to hate the man. I want to lock the memories I have of that night away and never allow them to touch my heart again.
Because I know, without a single doubt, Kade stole my heart that night.
It’s been three months and the memory of waking up expecting his large, firm body to be wrapped around me is still just as vivid as it was then. But he wasn’t there.
He was gone and I haven’t heard from him or seen him since.
I feel so fucking stupid for letting him in. For letting my guard down. For thinking I could have something that was always going to be out of my reach.
“Em,” Loot’s deep voice pulls me out of my thoughts and my memories. It’s a good thing because there’s nothing more than heartache waiting for me at the end of those meandering mental pathways. I’ve already cried more than a man I spent a few hours with deserves. I look up to find him peeking over his shoulder at me, concern shining in Loot’s eyes. “You good, sweetheart?”
“Yeah,” I croak and then swallow hard, trying to dislodge emotions I can’t seem to shake. I glance over at his cut, and it feels like a knife slicing through my resolve. I square my shoulders and force myself to only see the art in front of me. “I’m good,” my voice is surer this time, more confident.
Fake it ‘till you fucking make it.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask about Driller. Again. But I bite back the words. It would be unprofessional as fuck.
“Are you sure? You seem sadder today than you have over the last couple of months,” his voice is soft and hesitant, like he’s talking to a wounded animal he doesn’t want to spook.
Honestly, I’m not even sure what to say to him. I could shrug it off as man problems, but it feels wrong. Not only is Loot the man in question’s club brother, but my tattoo chair is a place for my clients to exorcise their demons, not mine.
His voice is calm and even, “Whose ass do I need to kick?”
