“Yes,” I reply in a small voice.

At this, Hemi finally looks back up at me. “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.” And for some reason, I believe him. “We may have to break this up into two or three sessions, though. I don’t want to overwhelm you, and there’s quite a few butterflies to do. Plus, ribs can be a little more tender and tricky.”

“So you won’t do it all tonight?”

“I don’t think so. Let’s start with the shell and one or two butterflies, and see how you’re doing. Then we can go from there. We don’t want you in the chair too long. You can make an appointment to come back another time to get the rest.”

See him again? Yes, please.

“Sounds good.”

Hemi pauses, with no grin on his lips and no teasing in his eyes. This time they seem just…warm. “Are you always this easy?”

Before I have to try to formulate some pithy or flirtatious (or stupid) reply, Sarah speaks up for the first time since I laid down. “Hell no! She’s stubborn as a mule.”

“So it’s just me then.” He stares at me for several seconds before his grin returns. “Just easy for me. I like that.”

The next thing I feel, aside from the damnable heat in my face, is the cool swipe of an alcohol pad as Hemi preps my skin for what’s to come. I barely notice the moisture. All my attention is riveted to the warm hand resting against my hip, holding me still. Keeping me steady.

CHAPTER TWO - Hemi

I try to ignore the soft, warm skin that feels like satin under my palm. I try to ignore the way this girl watches me, like she can see me taking her shorts off the rest of the way. I try to ignore the fact that, if she did let me take them off, I’d do things to her that would make her blush every time she thought about them for the rest of her life. And I try to ignore how much it irritates me that I don’t have time to explore someone like her.

Since the ripe old age of fourteen, when I nailed my first piece of cougar ass, I’ve always preferred experienced women. The wilder the better. I’ve never taken a girl’s virginity, nor do I want to. I want a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. And one who knows where the door is before I get out of the bathroom. They’re the kind I’ve always sought out, and the only kind I have room for in my life. And, until today, they’re the only kind I’ve ever really been interested in. So what is it about this girl, with her innocent, brown eyes and her perfectly-formed ass, that’s making my dick throb so damn hard?

You need to get laid, brother! I think to myself, tracing the outline of an oyster shell on pale, flawless skin. And you need to do it fast.

For an instant, it makes me miss the selfish prick that I’ve always been. Before I became so driven.

CHAPTER THREE - Sloane

“What time did you get in last night?” my older brother, Sigmond (Sig, as we call him) asks.

“Late.”

“No shit, smart ass. I went to Cuff’s with the boys after shift last night. I got in at almost one thirty and you still weren’t here.”

“So? I’m twenty-one years old. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

I watch Sig’s dark brown eyes, so much like mine, widen. “Damn! Touchy, aren’t we? I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just askin’.”

I sigh. “I know. I’m just tired. Sorry.”

Sig is only two years older than me and I’ve always been closer to him than either of my other brothers, Scout and Steven. Sig is the fun-loving one, and he’s never “fathered” me quite as much as everyone else. Scout is bad, but Steven is the worst. Being the oldest, he and Dad took it upon themselves to see that I’m as protected and sheltered as a princess, and that I was raised like a lady, even without one in the house. For that reason, they keep a close eye on me, terrify my would-be friends and suitors, and punish me every time I use the F word. That’s why my only friend is Sarah, I’m still a virgin and my favorite word is “frick.” It was either get used to that or spend my entire childhood grounded. What the men in my house never understood was that, lady or not, it’s hard to listen to four potty-mouthed cops day in and day out and not pick up a potty mouth myself. But I learned. Eventually.

“Hand me the creamer,” Sig says, nudging me with his elbow. I rise up on my toes and reach into the cabinet to get down the creamer. Sig turns, his gun holster grazing my hip. I hiss, sucking in air through my teeth. “What was that for?”

“What was what for?”

“You made a noise. Like I hurt you.”

“Did not.”

“Did, too.”

“It’s nothing. Your holster just poked me.”

Sig frowns, looking down at his holster and over at my hip. When his eyes rise to mine, he narrows them on me. “So what? That shouldn’t have hurt. Are you sore? Why are you sore?”

I see concern light his eyes and I know there’s no way I’m getting out of this without confessing to what I did. Otherwise, he’ll have the whole family freaked out before I can eat my breakfast.

“I got a tattoo,” I admit. When Sig opens his mouth to fuss, I rush to continue before he can get out the first word. “And I don’t need to hear any bitching about it. And you’d better not tell a soul, or so help me God, I’ll tell Bear every embarrassing secret I can think of.”

That gets his attention. Bear is Sig’s partner. Sig knows he’d never hear the end of it if I told Bear anything worth hearing. Giving a cop any information he can use to rib, blackmail or otherwise embarrass the shit out of another cop with is like handing him a loaded gun and a target. Sig knows this. And so do I.

His lips thin and I know I’ve won. “You know, Sloane, you really should be more careful.”

“I am careful, Sig. I’m always careful. I’ve always been careful. This wasn’t not careful. It was just something I wanted to do. I want to enjoy the next few years as much as I can—”

“Stop right there,” he says, holding up his hand. “Don’t even finish that sentence. I don’t want to hear it.” I snap my mouth shut. I should’ve known better than to say something like that, dredging up painful thoughts and memories. Even though it’s true. “Let me see it.”

“It’s still got plastic on it.”

“So? You think I can’t see through plastic wrap?”

Reluctantly, I ease my pajama bottoms over the film taped to my hip. Sig looks at it, a disapproving expression clouding his face.

“An oyster shell and two butterflies? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“That’s not all there is to it. That’s the base of it. There will be more butterflies.”

“Where?”

“Going up my side.”

“Sloane,” he begins warningly.

“Sig,” I respond eyeing him right back. “It’s my body, my life, my choice.”

“But you’re—”

“But nothing. Y’all have got to let me live.”

He rolls his eyes. “You still haven’t answered my question. What’s it mean?”

“I feel like I’ve lived inside a tight shell my whole life. And now, finally, after all these years, I’m gonna get to crack it open and spread my wings a little.”

“But you know why they—”

“I know why, Sig. And I love y’all for it. But it’s time for me to live a little. To make my own choices and do my own thing. Mom was Mom. But I’m me. Y’all can’t keep me locked away, safe from the world, in a shell for the rest of my days. Besides, there are some things you can’t protect me from, no matter how hard you try.”

Sig doesn’t say anything for a long time. “When are you getting the rest?”

“I go back tonight.”

“Well,” he says, stirring a heaping spoon full of creamer into his coffee. “Just don’t let Dad catch you coming in. Or Steven.”

“Yeah,” I say with a heavy sigh. “I’d forgotten what a pisser it is having him around.”

“He probably won’t be here for long. I feel sure coming back here is cramping his style. I mean, it’s not like he really chose it. Things just didn’t work out with him and Duncan. Mark my words, he’ll be moved back out before Christmas.”

“You think?”

“Hell yeah! He’s already looking for places cheap enough for him to make rent on his own.”

“Why don’t you go live with him? That would help him out a lot.”

Sig’s eyes get wide and his mouth drops open. “Bite your damn tongue, devil woman! I’d rather eat a plate full of cat shit than live with Steven for the rest of my life.”

“It wouldn’t be for the rest of your life. One of you is bound to get married eventually.”

“Living with Steven, without anyone else as a buffer? Trust me, it might as well be the rest of my life. It sure would feel like it.”

I can’t help but giggle. Poor Steven. He’s a great guy, but he takes life very seriously and tends to be the resident wet blanket in most cases. He takes after Dad. So does Scout. Well, a little bit. He’s more of a split between both parents, I guess, whereas Sig and I are both fun-loving. More like Mom. But in fairness, Steven was older when Mom got sick, so he was affected more profoundly. Not that we all weren’t devastated, but he and Dad seemed to get the worst of it. Her sickness and consequent death seemed to drain the life right out of them, at least the part that makes people enjoy living.

“He’s had a tough life, Sig. Cut him some slack.”

“You have, too.”

“We all have.”

“Yet no one uses it as an excuse to be an as**ole except Steven.”

“It’s just the way he deals, Sig.”

“Well, whatever the reason, I’ll be damned if I’d subject myself to that shit on a daily basis for an extended period of time. Growing up with him was bad enough.”

“Yeah, but he made a great target for pranks, didn’t he?”

Sig looks down at me from his imposing six-six height and grins. “Hell yeah, he did! You remember that time we put laxatives in his birthday brownies?”

I can’t help but laugh as I think of it. “He couldn’t leave the house for two days. Thought he’d never come out of the bathroom.”

“Good times,” Sig says, carefully sipping his coffee as he looks wistfully out the kitchen window. “Good times.”

And they were. There were always good times, even among the bad. There usually are. I’ve just learned that you have to look for them.

********

I leave the dark of the night behind me as I enter the shop. The first thing I notice when I open the door to The Ink Stain is the music. It’s an old song I’ve heard before, one by Stone Temple Pilots called Still Remains. There’s something intimate and…sexy about it. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought of it that way before. But I do now. Tonight, I feel like it vibrates, resonates somewhere deep within me.

The reception area is empty, just like it was last night. So I walk over to ring the bell, just like I did last night. Only this time, I don’t get that far. Hemi appears in the doorway to the tattooing room. He’s wearing a snug black t-shirt, snug black jeans and dull black boots. He looks dangerous. And delicious.

When he smiles at me, my heart trips over itself for a beat or two before righting its rhythm. “Welcome back,” Hemi says with a smile before he peeks around my shoulder. “You by yourself?”

“I am,” I reply.

“Your timing is perfect. I was getting really bored.”

“Slow night?”

“Uncharacteristically,” he explains, tipping his head for me to follow him, which I do.

In the back room, all the overhead lights are turned off except for one set—the ones over the chair that Hemi uses. The room seems more intimate this way, and the fact that we are alone only accentuates that.

“Are you by yourself?” I ask, turning his question back on him.

“Yep. Everyone else is gone.”

“I could’ve come earlier. You didn’t have to stay late just for me.” I assumed when he made the appointment it was either more convenient for him or the only opening he had.

He turns to look at me, patting the flattened chair that I’ll be lying upon. “I prefer to work the late shift. The world seems quieter at night. This probably won’t make sense to you, but it’s like I can feel my artwork better. Sort of get lost in it. Especially when I’m doing something freehand, like I’m doing on you.”

“Actually, I understand that perfectly,” I admit, scooting up onto the table. “I’m an art major, so I totally get where you’re coming from.”

He smiles and, for a second, it’s like my soul connects with his in a way that transcends words. I daresay only an artist would understand what he means. And I do. I most definitely do. For me, drawing or sketching is the perfect combination of escapism and therapy. It’s consuming. It’s cathartic. It makes me wonder what scars he needs to escape, what wounds he needs to heal.

“I’m gonna get you to start out on your stomach again. I’ll do the first few butterflies and then have you roll up onto your side to do the rest. Now, let me warn you, this hurts more over bone, so the tats over your ribs aren’t going to be very comfortable for you.”

I nod. “That’s fine. I understand.”

“Still worth it?”