CHAPTER TEN
Gwen
I wished I could have said that everything was roses and rainbows after Knight and I had decided to put the past behind us and start fresh, but it wasn’t. That wasn’t to say that it was horrible. I had wondered if Knight would revert back to the cold, distant man I’d come to know lately. And while he did seem to pull back a little, it wasn’t anywhere near what I expected.
After a few weeks, we’d found ourselves in sort of a roommate routine. I’d wake, make us coffee and breakfast, then he would clean up the mess as I darted out the door to class. We even sat together and ate. And, believe it or not, we carried on conversations like we were friends.
The night after Knight had run Tara off, I apologized to her over and over. She seemed to accept it but I could tell she still wasn’t all that fond of him. Matter of fact, she would always ask if he was at the apartment before she came over. While I couldn’t excuse his attitude that night, there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it. I had hoped that he would come home one day and right that wrong. I knew once he showed Tara his true personality that she would like him.
In truth, the real Knight, past and present, was a perfect balance of fun and protective. He laughed—and it didn’t slip past me that he did so often around me now that the tension had eased a bit. He was serious when he needed to be, or more so when he knew I needed him to be. He took time to hang out with me, but also made sure I was keeping up with my studying. He wouldn’t ever let me slack off. Not even a little.
I felt like we were finally in a good place, or if not there exactly, we were headed on our way there.
But my life wasn’t all about Knight. I made sure that I didn’t completely isolate myself with only his friendship. Here I had what I’d craved while I was in Cali but I also made sure not to become dependent on that one side of my life. The club, while it was awesome and the brothers were great, wasn’t the entire existence I wanted for myself. If I was going to make my life like I had set out to do three years ago, then I was going to have to have a well-rounded balance of everything.
I was still currently trying to find the best balance. It would have been easy for me to rely on the guys, especially because it seemed like every time I turned around one of them was there. And I wasn’t stupid, I knew this was my dad’s doing. Or maybe Knight’s. Okay, it was probably a combination of both of them, but I wasn’t about to take it for granted.
“Alright,” I said tossing down my pen on the coffee table. “I think we’ve done enough for one night. Besides, all these words are starting to blur together.” I leaned back on the couch and glanced over at Tara who looked about as done as I felt.
“Yeah, no arguments there.” She let out a little laugh as she snapped the book closed that was sitting on her lap.
That was the moment the front door burst open and an uproar of manly chaos filled the apartment. Five of the brothers walked in with bags hanging from each of their arms, Knight pushing his way in very last.
“I should, um, go,” Tara said at the sudden intrusion. While I didn’t want her to feel like she had to run every time we weren’t alone, the last thing I wanted was for her to feel uncomfortable.
“No, stay,” B-ry said before I could even get a word out. “We’re making nachos.” He flashed Tara a charming smile then ducked into the kitchen.
“We may look big and scary,” Mouse said walking into the room and tossing his arm over my shoulders, “but we’re pretty much giant teddy bears.”
I rolled my eyes and smacked him on the stomach with the back of my hand. Then I resisted the urge to shake off the sharp pain that radiated through my fingers at the collision with his hard abs.
Shit, when did he get so fit?
“Speak for yourself!” Sketch yelled from the kitchen.
Sure, he may have been a prospect, but I could tell he was already in tight with the guys. He’d been working at the tattoo shop that the club more or less owned since it opened. He had a connection to someone in the South Carolina club and when he got wind of the new chapter opening up a tattoo shop here, he didn’t hesitate to bring his skills to the table.
Branded In Ink was pretty much named after Brand. He was from the Moon Hill chapter but from what I’d picked up, had only been there a few years. I’d met him a couple of times and he seemed like a pretty fun guy. Sketch had told me that Brand wasn’t the one to actually name the shop and when Brand had shown up to the shop after the sign was up, he seemed less than thrilled with the business’ title. I got the feeling that Brand wasn’t one to hog the light. While he had a boyish, playful air about him, he seemed like he could be a bit shy at times.
I had yet to meet Blade, the other guy that worked there. He not only did tattoos but he was the shop’s piercer. From what I’d heard he was huge, like muscles on top of muscles. He sounded like someone I definitely wouldn’t want to get a hole put in me by. And the name didn’t help either. He wasn’t currently part of the club or even prospecting, but by the way the guys talked about him, I could tell they still considered him part of the family.
“So, you like nachos?” Mouse asked Tara after she didn’t respond to anything that anyone had said to her.
“Um, yeah, okay,” she managed to get out.
I remembered her being shy the first time she approached me in the coffee shop. It seemed that once she warmed up to someone she was a completely different person because now she could talk my ear off. Not that I minded at all. It was nice to have someone to talk to, especially one that understood what it was like to be a girl. I had no doubt that once she hung around the guys for a bit that she would relax around them and come out of her shell.
“Well come on then, sweet thing. Tell me what you want on ‘em,” Mouse said as he moved toward her, tossed his arm around her shoulders, then walked her to the kitchen.
Knight passed them and gave Tara a small chin lift but didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t even look at her for longer than a flicker of his eyes. I knew he wasn’t being dismissive on purpose, it was more like his eyes couldn’t help but to lock onto mine.
His face was stern as he stalked—yes, stalked—toward me. I swallowed and didn’t dare even blink. I felt the pull to him and I wondered if I was the only one. But then there was a flash in his eyes that was dark and full of heat and I knew I wasn’t alone in this feeling. However, it didn’t last longer than a second before he pushed it away with a blink of his lids.
“Hey,” he whispered harshly like he was having trouble getting the word out. He stopped right in front of me, our toes almost touching. So close that our breaths mingled, and his heavy leather and musk scent filled my nose and made my head dizzy.
“Hi,” I said back just as harsh as he had because my throat was suddenly as dry as a desert.
“I got you olives,” he said and his lips twitched with the flicker of a smile.
“And onions?” I asked with a hopeful tone that he had remembered.
“Of course.”
I melted inside. As much as he made me feel like he’d forgotten everything about me, this one simple thing was proof that he hadn’t. The smile that overtook my mouth was huge. There was no way I could hold back the elation I was feeling right then. And as his eyes dropped to look at my lips, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he was thinking at that moment. But I knew he’d never tell me. He wouldn’t even give any sort of indication. Or maybe it was simply that he wasn’t thinking anything. For all I knew, I was being a pathetically hopeful girl.
“Yeah,” he said with a tiny shake of his head. “Want me to make yours?”
“Please. Thanks.” I said with a little nod. I knew that he would make them just the way I wanted them.
“Alright.” He took a step back and it seemed like he had to force himself to turn around and walk back into the kitchen.
I let out a rush of air once he was far enough away that his scent wasn’t so powerful in my nose. I self-consciously looked around to see if anyone else had witnessed the tense encounter, and sure enough, there was Mouse looking at me through the open space of the kitchen. He winked at me, a knowing smirk plastered on his face.
I chose to be the bigger person and not flip him off. Though I was really itching to do just that. Instead, I shook off my dizzying feelings and moved to clean off the coffee table.
Not long after that, we were all seated around the living room with plates of custom nachos in front of our faces. Tara sat next to me but I could tell that she was relaxing a little. She actually interjected herself into a few of the conversations, which was good.
Things were light for the most part and I could tell that the guys were avoiding bringing up pretty much anything about the club. Not that I didn’t think Tara picked up on the fact that every single one of them was wearing their Steel Paragons cut.
“So, how’s work Sketch? Do any crazy tats lately?” I asked.
He usually had at least one new interesting story to tell. It seemed that the shop brought in some people with strange requests. I knew that Sketch was professional and so he would do his best with each one. I’d seen some of his work and it was amazing. Some of it even seemed so lifelike that I thought it was going to jump right off the person’s skin.
Sketch was known for his realistic ink. Brand was the one you went to for the classic, sailor style and anything that had to do with script. He was also good with the use of colors, especially bright ones. His work was also amazing. And Blade was good at, well, so far Sketch had only shown me three that Blade had done. It seemed that they liked to give him the butterfly tattoos. Sketch told me that he and Brand flat out refused to do butterflies and dragonflies. And that they didn’t want to deal with the ‘trendy, dumb as fuck sorority bitches.’ Sketch’s words, not mine. All I could do was shake my head at the guy. He was always asking me when I was coming down so he could ‘do something’ on me and I had contemplated more than once on telling him he could ink me but only if it was a butterfly. One day I would actually make that joke. It wasn’t like I really wanted a stupid butterfly on me, no way in hell. I wasn’t a butterfly kinda girl, at all.
“Oh shit!” Sketch said surprisingly as he dropped his half-eaten plate on the coffee table. I knew whatever story he was about to tell was going to be great. He had the attention of the entire room as he started.
“So, this bitch.” He paused and looked at Tara with a half-apologetic grimace. I wanted to laugh but I held it back. I was used to the language and terms, it wasn’t like the guys really meant them they way they sounded. But Tara was new here and I could appreciate his awareness and respect. “I mean this girl came in and had some sob story about how her boyfriend of five years cheated on her, right? Well, she rambled on like crazy about it and I did my best to half listen to that shit. Since I was the only one in the shop at the time, I couldn’t even hand her off to Blade.”
He paused and took a swig of his beer.
“I was expecting her to tell me she wanted some like woman power tattoo, ya know? But no. After her story, she looked at me and says ‘I want her name tattooed on my lower back so that every time he fucks me from behind he sees his betrayal.’ I was so shocked I didn’t even know what the fuck to say.”
“That sounds like bullshit,” Mouse said as he tossed his beer cap at Sketch.
“No, dude, I can’t make this shit up,” he said and his eyes got really big. “I had two choices. Give her what she wanted or try to talk her out of the really bad idea. One I knew she’d later regret. But then I thought to myself that if she’s still with the guy, then maybe she deserved the bad ink.”
“Did you do it?” I asked with a huge trace of shock in my tone.
“Well I wasn’t going to, but then she said she’d suck my—” He cut himself off and his eyes fluttered over to Tara for a second. She seemed to be really into the story and I wondered what she was thinking about the whole thing. “She said she’d give me a really good tip.”
“That was a really bad cover, man,” Knight mumbled from across the room. I held his eyes as a big laugh slipped from my throat.
Tara seemed to catch on as she looked around the room. Although, Knight had been completely right, Sketch’s attempt at covering the truth of what he was going to say was horrible. Then the next words out of her mouth shocked the shit out of me, and by the way the room went silent for a whole minute, I wasn’t the only one.
“So you did it? Did she really suck you off?” Tara asked like she couldn’t quite believe it.
Mouse choked on his beer. Everyone else seemed to be stuck in a frozen state, me included.
“Well, yeah.” Sketch said after a pause of recovery. “Who would turn down a free blowjob, really?” He gave his shoulders a quick shrug and tried to hide his smile behind his swig of beer.
To me, Tara seemed like the quiet, reserved type. We hadn’t talked about anything over the line of basic things, really. We hadn’t even gone anywhere near any kind of topic involving sex. Which I was totally alright with. I mean, she was fun and easy to talk to, but she also had this almost innocent and naïve quality to her. Then again, maybe I just didn’t know her well enough yet.
“Was it any good?” she asked, her body leaning a little closer to Sketch’s as she waited for his answer.
“The blowjob or the tattoo?” he asked with a chuckle. He knew what she meant but he was just goading her.
“The blowjob?” Tara asked.
“I mean, it was alright. Got the job done.”
The room erupted with laughter and I reached behind me and grabbed the pillow I’d brought out earlier to help prop up my book on my lap. I tossed it as his head but his reflex were quick and he deflected with ease.
The next couple of hours seemed to fly by with all of us swapping fun stories. Tara even told a few, though it seemed that her life had been a little tamer than most of ours. But no one made fun of her and all of them seemed to listen when she talked. I could tell that she was warming up to Knight. As the night went on she spared him more glances and actually looked at him when he was speaking. Though his eyes were usually on me. I didn’t miss that and I was sure that no one else did either. But I didn’t care. I’d take as much of Knight as I could get. And the fact that his guard was slipping while there were people around made me smile and do a happy dance internally.
It got late, and though I seemed to be the only one having trouble keeping my eyes open, I had to say goodnight and usher Tara out as gracefully as possible. Luckily, she got the hint quick enough and told everyone bye without lingering. Sketch offered to walk her out and I was grateful because I wasn’t even sure I would be able to make it to my bed. I had an idea that the three beers I’d consumed weren’t helping my sleepy state either. I wasn’t a big drinker, so they hit me pretty hard. I told the guys to carry on and not worry about keeping it down, knowing I was going to be out like a light once my head hit the pillow. And sure enough, not even five minutes later, I was passed out.