Sleeping beside a man like Mack isn’t usually this hard. On a usual night, we would just lay there, our backs facing each other. Some nights, I would be kept up by his loud, drone of a snore. Other nights, I’d crash from the warmth of his body incubating me inside the thin blankets.
But tonight is anything but normal. All the action in the tattoo shop with Ian and Mack getting beaten to a bloody pulp was enough to set my head reeling, but then there was Mack and me… together. I can’t think of a better word for it than that. It certainly wasn’t making love, though there was something coursing between us that was more than just lust. And I don’t want to call it fucking either. With a guy like Mack, I’d know if I was getting screwed.
Once we had finished whatever we were doing, we both quickly cleaned up and called in Zeke and the rest of the boys for a briefing. Both of us went over every detail we could come up with regarding the Knight. I struggled to remember just where I shot him. Was it his left or his right? Did I manage to nick his shoulder and potentially strike an artery or was it just his arm dangling like a ragdoll to the side? I wasn’t clear about that.
All the while they asked me questions, I looked back and forth over to Mack for help, but he was as clueless as I was. While he managed to pick up more details about the guy’s appearance, he couldn’t exactly answer why he was at the shop alone or why he had gone after Ian when he could have just come to our shop instead. Those were questions for when Ian was brought out of the coma the doctors decided to put him in. All the reports I was getting back from his wife and from the few of our guys stationed outside his rooms as guardians were that rest was the only solution. He’d need more time before he could give us answers.
Finally, when we were done with the interrogation and the replays, Mack decided it was time for us to all go. He doubled up security at the safe house and put a few extra men on the perimeter of the warehouse, restaurant, and shop. It was clear that Mack had thought the attack was his fault. As we walked out of the shop, he whispered to Zeke, “I’m not going to let this happen again. Tell the guys that the tattoo convention is off tomorrow. She’s not showing up with Riley taking this shit up a notch.”
I can’t help but interject. “What the hell are you talking about, Mack? There’s no way in hell that I am not going to be there tomorrow! We have to do those tattoos.” Nothing can stop me from going through with our plan—especially with Ian’s motionless figure stuck in my brain on some kind of crappy repeat. I have to do this for him and everyone else I love that Riley could be gunning for next.
Mack saw it differently. His face drops before he walks back towards me, his boots sliding on the gravel. In a low, guttural growl, he whispers, “What I say goes, and I’m telling you that we are not putting your life and the rest of my men’s at risk so you can go do this fucking tattoo convention. It’s not happening.” I can feel the red hot warmth of his anger on my face. His breath brushes against my hair and skin, sending shivers down my spine.
I bite down hard on the corner of my lip as I steady myself to reply. “This is our best chance to get Riley. If we don’t get closer to him tomorrow, then he’s just going to come after us even harder, especially if I managed to maim or kill his guy after all. You might not be willing to risk everything for that, but I am.” I stare up at him, this giant who rules his land with an iron fist. Who knows what he thinks of me right now—the girl he just had sex with, the girl he can’t save, the girl who’s questioning his judgement.
“She’s right, Mack.” Zeke intervenes, probably sensing the strange distance between the two of us. “Anna has a point. This was just a warning shot. Ian was low hanging fruit, and this was probably a distraction for whatever else he’s setting up to do to get her and us back.” He looks back at the closed up tattoo shop with the same look as me: doom.
Mack paces slightly, walking back and forth from the loaded up truck with that tattoo equipment inside to his bike. Finally, he stops before me and says firmly, “You get yourself killed tomorrow, Anna, and that’s on you. I’m not responsible for being your savior.”
My mouth goes completely dry as I hoarsely answer, “I never asked you to be.”
We ride back to my temporary home in silence. At home, it’s more of the same. There’s a million things to be said, but neither of us can let down our guard or pride to open our mouths and talk. Instead, I call my mom and check in on her. It’s been a few days, but the word about Ian’s hospitalization has somehow managed to get back to her. She sounds suspicious as she mentions my new living arrangements and the guys in the rented house down the street from her that seem to drive by frequently. It’s as if she’s connecting dots.
My phone call to Roxy is much of the same. I want to tell her about my night with Mack. She’d be thrilled. She’s been calling for me to bone him since I first mentioned him. But it seems strange to talk about it as if it was just a normal little event with a guy I was dating. I avoided all sex talk and stuck to facts about her new job and eventually invited her over to check out the shop and grab dinner—girl talk.
Hanging up with Roxy, I feel Mack’s unmistakable presence behind me. I can’t begin to guess how long he has been standing there, but the air feels as if it has been sucked out of the room. “We’re set for tomorrow,” he finally says before turning and heading back towards the bedroom. I follow him silently, dropping the sweatshirt I had thrown on. He too has stripped down to just his boxers.
Mack turns to watch me, his tongue dashing back and forth between the sides of his strong, sturdy jaw. In the dim light of the paper lamp, his tattooed skin practically glows red, tan, and brown. He somehow looks softer and more imposing with the shadows dancing over the curves and defined lines of his body. Quietly, I lift my thin shirt over my head, followed by my black biker shorts. Both in our underwear, we stare at one another, unmoving.
I don’t know who makes the first move this time or even how we cross the space between his side of the bed and my spot on the doorway. All I know is that in the time it takes me to blink, his body is pushing me up against the wall with such urgency that I think I might fly through. My hands circle his thick, long neck while grasping at the tiny strands of curls. I couldn’t hold tighter to him if I tried.
Our hands move up the other’s body as if they’re at risk of disappearing. His grasp onto my chest, pushing up tightly at my breasts. I let out a gasp at the roughness of his skin and the touch of his index finger on the thin fabric of my bra. Gently, he rubs back and forth at both of my nipples until he has subtly slipped in under the fabric. The cups of my bra curl open, exposing me to him and his waiting lips. Gently, he sucks and tugs lightly, twisting one of the most sensitive parts of my body into impossible knots.
My leg creeps up his thigh, locking me in place against him, begging him for more while sliding down his boxers over his ass towards his knees. His cock has already grown for me. It rests right at my stomach, standing at attention against my skin. I get glimpses of it when I gasp for air. Eventually, Mack can’t stand my fidgeting anymore. In one hand, he takes both of my wrists and pins them up above my head. “Stay,” he growls. It’s the first word he’s said to me since we’d gotten home.
He knelt down on his knees, his elbow firmly pressed up against my stomach. He hooks the black panties I thankfully put on this morning in his lips and slowly begins to lower his head. With a tug, they come loose enough for me to step out of with a slight wiggle of my hips. Mack rests his head right under his arm, just above my hip bone. I listened to the long, sucking in of air. It’s him taking me in before he begins making wet kiss marks down my pubic bone towards the opening of my slit. When I look down, all I can see is the large mop of curly, unruly hair bobbing as it licks between my thighs.
I can feel myself moisten with every lick around the folds. My toes curl deliciously into the hardwood until I have to slam back into the wall for balance. Tenderly, he alternates kissing, sucking, licking. Kiss, suck, lick. Kiss, suck, lick. On the third round, he pauses, and blows warm air from his lips directly onto the sensitive tip of my exposed clit.
I can’t take any more of this torture. He has me so close to an orgasm, but I want something more… I place my hands around the back of his head and pull up. He follows my orders perfectly, inching his way until he towers over me like the imposing figure that he is. He looks down upon me with this satisfied, terrifying grin that can only give me a hint at what is about to come. With one bold move, he lifts me up from off the ground, my legs flying through the air until they have no place to go but around his sturdy hips. I feel his steely, warm cock pressed up against my hip bone, waiting for entry.
Mack walks me to one of the lone pieces of furniture in the room besides the bed, an old oak dresser one of his men gave to me when I moved in. It’s just the right height. He lays me down upon the glossy top and commands, “Hold on.” I have just enough time to grasp the sides of the wood before he’s off, entering me with such command that I have no choice but to scream out in a mix of surprise and excitement.
We had done this already today. I had learned all about the ways his cock had fit into my tiny body, how his warm cum dripped between my thighs, but this is like experiencing it all over again. He manages to find new places, new distances, new angles that I have never known myself. With my legs resting high upon his shoulders, the spaces are limited. It only gets better when he places my legs firmly together and then crosses my ankles just at his neck. I let out another scream, but this one is for more—more of him, more of the pain, more of whatever he can give me with that tool of his.
“Damn… fuck… you’re so fucking wet,” he says, and I can tell he means it only as a compliment. He closes his eyes as if he only needs to feel me to enjoy me. He rocks slowly back and forth inside, keeping up a rhythm that has my insides crawling and drumming along with him.
He lowers his body over me as we go on. The space between us becomes less and less. With one hand massaging firmly at my breast, the other slides down the line of my body towards the space between my pressed legs. He manages to find a way in with those long, torn up fingers of his. Before entering, he licks his hands gently and then presses them to my lips. I take his bouncing fingers in between my lips, sucking lightly before circling my tongue around the tips. He lets out a laugh before finding that magical spot again and massaging around the skin of my clit.
Dear God, does that feel amazing. The hairs on the back of my neck come to attention as he intensifies the beating of his cock inside of me. Thrashing, he speeds up the circles of his hand. “Fuck me, Mack. Please, please… take me…” I lose my words. Nothing can describe the way my stomach leaps, the folds of my pussy open for him, the blood pumping hard within my cunt.
He seems to know I’m close. He pushes and punishes me even harder, if that’s possible. The pain becomes so unbearably good that both of us breathe and gasp almost in synch with one another. I hold on to everything and anything as I let go. One by one, the warmth of my orgasm rolls down from the top of my head, my neck, my breasts, my fingers, my stomach, my hips, and then my clit. Even my toes feel the burst of electricity spark off.
Seconds later, Mack follows. His own seems more like an explosion than my wave. The volcano of his body boils for seconds before he lets out a sound I can’t be sure is human. His hands pound next to my head in fists on the top of the dresser, shaking it underneath me. I grab hold of his neck, wanting him to be near me as he spills himself on the top of my thigh and hip. Warm, sticky liquid pools out of him and onto the surface of my skin.
Neither of us says a word. We both hold one another close, shaking to our core. This is round two, another chance for us to become closer, but after our earlier fight, we can’t be further away.
And now, about two hours later, I am still laying here listening to that man breathe and dream. He turns occasionally, this time back towards me so that I can feel his breath upon my shoulder. Part of me wants to turn around, to place my tiny hand upon that enormous jaw of his.
It’s the only way that I can say, without saying, that I would be okay tomorrow, that he didn’t have to worry at all about me. I could take care of myself, especially around Riley. I would be safe because of him and for him. I didn’t want to jeopardize this strange, little life we had made over the past weeks.
But instead, I stay put. I let myself remember the moments between us when a look was enough and the sensation still pulsing through my skin from the two orgasms of the day. Those thoughts could wait till tomorrow when I could have a clearer head. I need to be my best after all. Tomorrow, I would be setting traps for my ex while dealing with the feelings that were building up for a man I shouldn’t care for.
Hours pass and I haven’t shut my eyes. My brain passes between rational to irrational—from fear to determination. But it just won’t let go. And with what feels like is a snap of my fingers, the sun rises just outside the bedroom window. I hear that robin on the tree that’s been taunting me almost every morning. Today, its song is almost a relief. I don’t have to pretend to be okay with Mack just laying beside me. I have permission to get up and get my day going.
Showering as quickly as possible, I manage to miss Mack’s alarm going off and the first phone call of his day. I can hear his voice over the shower jets. It’s him going over logistics for today’s security. When I finally reappear in the bedroom, he’s already in the kitchen cooking up something. Another miss. Thank goodness.
About twenty minutes later, while I’m finishing off my makeup, I hear the door open. One of the boys is there to come pick me up. Mack calls for me, and I slip into the living room without any acknowledgment of either of the two. The man, Rico, hands me a white plastic bag and explains, “We were thinking you might need this at your booth. It’s a microphone and camera. We’ll watch outside the convention hall and inside one of the side rooms we rented. If there’s trouble, we’ll know before you do.”
I pull out the mess of cords and strings. At the end dangles a tiny black camera the size of ring. “You’re going to show me how to hook this up, right? I’m not really into the spy gadgets.”
Rico nods and begins explaining to Mack where he will be set up so he can stick around that area. As Mack asks his questions and seemingly double checks and triple checks every precaution, I head back into the kitchen to grab some of the bacon Mack fried up. It’s still warm and tender in the oiled up pan.
“We’re going to need to take that to go. You’re riding with Rico today.” Mack’s booming voice makes me jump. A piece of bacon goes flying into the air.
“Jesus. Give a girl a warning,” I spit out.
He smiles slightly before apologizing. His eyebrow raises in the direction of the bacon’s landing spot. Finally, he goes back to Mack-the-pissed off. “You ready to go? The rest of the guys are already at the hall setting up your booth for you. They figured you could need a hand.”
“That’s nice of them,” I murmur as I grab a sweatshirt from the back of a kitchen chair. At least that’s a relief. I really don’t want to be lugging chairs and machines around all morning, especially now that my hands have suddenly begun to shake. I throw the sweatshirt over them. The last thing I want is for Mack to see me scared.
Rico doesn’t seem to notice how my eyes keep darting side to side when we enter the convention hall. The entire building is flooding with pros like me, some I recognize as idols or legends in the Seattle scene and others look more like me—fresh meat, new names. They huddle back and forth towards their booths, setting up signs and testing equipment.
I’m the only one who isn’t running around like a chicken with their head cut off. The club boys have set everything up, almost identical to my shop. The chair they brought in faces out, towards the small archway the convention hall has set up for each artist’s demo areas. The public can pass in and out freely, but it still gives the artist some quiet and peace while they’re working.
For me, being covered up like that is a liability, and my guys seemed to notice the flaw in our plan right away. Rico strokes his long, graying beard as he points towards the black sheet that hung low over the arch. “We were going to have a guy or two standing on the balcony. That’s not going to work anymore.”
“Do you think we could just remove it? What are they going to do? Mack paid for this spot, and I can do that tattoo in my sleep.” I’m not lying. The last few nights, I have dreamt of nothing but the circle with three lines running through it. I reimagined it in hundreds of ways, twisting the pattern and adding color. I am more than prepared for today’s plan to tattoo each member of Mack’s club with the black mark that haunts me.
“Tear it down,” Rico instructs one of the young guys connecting the station’s parts. He begins unbuckling the fabric so that it falls down upon the chair. The whole place lightens up, leaving me less exposed. The rest of the artists watching eye me suspiciously while studying their own private booth’s setup with suspicion. Maybe I’ll be a trendsetter.
I watch the rest of the boys set up quickly, testing their work as we go. The last step is to put up the sign that’s been hidden by a small piece of tarp at the back of my booth. No one wanted to touch it before the public arrived, but with five minutes to go before the convention officially opens, my stomach threatens to implode if I don’t just get it over with.
I carefully unfold the small tripod stand provided to each artist, positioning it in the right spot where the most eyes could see it. And then, the sign with the tattoo of the day. I eye its straightness, trying not to focus in on that circle and the nearly full sign-up sheet underneath with names of men who had suddenly become like brothers to me.
The only one missing from the core group of the Red Dragon Riders is Mack himself. I have no idea where he’s gone to. They’d told me he was watching, so I assume it’s on the camera in the side viewing room. The boys had quietly and quickly set the hidden camera up by the portable sink so that it’s in the line of sight of both the entrance and the chair. My hand actually lifts to wave at it, but I set it down quickly. It’s show time. Time to man up and catch Riley in action. If I’m bait, I need to start acting like it.
The doors open minutes later. I spot my guards almost instantly. They stand near the entrance to my booth, clutching pamphlets in their hands. But through their dark glasses, they eye each and every person studying my booth and the sign with the Knight’s mark. If anyone who recognized that sign was suspicious, they had their work cut out for them. Within minutes, I receive my first hostile look. A man dressed in all black with tattoos covering his long, thin neck and jaw looks me up and down with a sneer that says it all. This mark wasn’t mine to claim.
Luckily, I can ignore the few faces attempting to intimidate me. They are the ones who don’t pass through the archway to watch me put the tattoo on the first few men. They are quick jobs. I don’t embellish much or play around with the design. My rattling teeth keep me from being too adventurous. The guys thank me as I wipe off the excess ink and hand them the mirrors, but they look as nervous I am, opting for the white gauze bandages to cover up the newly healing tattoos.
A few hours pass, and there’s no movement. I get in a comfortable groove, even joking around with some of my repeat customers from the Dragons. “You’re looking busy!” I hear a familiar voice exclaim. “Who knew Figure 9’s was doing so good…”
“Mom!” I shout, dropping the tattoo gun on the table. I collapse in her arms, hugging her tightly to my chest. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen her in person. She looks lighter now, if that’s even possible. Her brownish blonde hair bounces in that old fashioned perm as she pulls away.
“I didn’t want to bother you, but I heard about the convention from Roxy, so I thought I’d stop by during my lunch break. I cannot believe how busy you are! That sign-up sheet is longer than anyone else’s here! And that design…” I tune her out, wanting to imagine her totally naive to that image of death. How can I possibly explain this plan to her without giving it away that I’m in mortal danger, even as we stand here hugging tightly?
Unfortunately, I don’t have to. Danger has its own ways of creeping up on you.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing with that tattoo, Anna?” I spin around to see the one man even my mom knew as trouble—Riley.