Cavan

I was a dead man the minute I inked her. I knew it from the first.

Her name was Danielle, Dani for short—no last names were used in the Black Dog Motorcycle Club—and she didn’t even look twenty-five. A tall, slender body with long legs and narrow hips. Dark hair worn long and sleek down her back, arrow-straight, with a long fringe of bangs over her dark-lashed brown eyes. A real beauty, every inch of her, and one hundred per cent the property—yes, property—of the Black Dogs’ current president, McMurphy. She wanted ink, and when the Black Dogs wanted ink, they came to me. Which meant I’d have to touch her.

I was a dead man.

She lay in my chair and handed me the drawing of what she wanted. Four small black birds, flying in silhouette; nicely drawn, and not too hard. “I’ve never had a tattoo before,” she said, watching me from those dark eyes while McMurphy sat on the other side of her, his eyes fixed on me. “This is my first one.”

Virgin skin, I thought. I didn’t look at McMurphy.

“Did you draw these yourself?” I asked her.

She nodded.

Impressive. “Where do you want it done?”

She pulled up her t-shirt, exposing first a sweet, flat plane of stomach and then the underside of one breast in its lacy bra. “Here,” she said, indicating the skin just below her breast. “And here.” Her finger traced around the curve of her breast to the side.

I did look at McMurphy then. She was his property; I had to make sure he was permitting this. The idea of the president’s woman picking out her own tattoo, and placing it on her own body, without the president’s approval was unheard-of in the Black Dog MC. McMurphy’s expression said that he already knew what she was going to propose. He kept his gaze fixed on me, his blue eyes in their sun-weathered face as hard as chips of diamond. “Just keep your hands where they belong, Wilder,” was all he said.

It wasn’t exactly my protocol to grope a woman’s tits while I was inking her, but he had a point. The tattoo wasn’t on her breast, but close enough that I’d have to touch it. My fingers brushing it. Quite a bit. I’d also have to look at it—I was already looking at it right now.

It was just a breast. Every woman had ’em—two, in fact. You could go on the internet and see as many as you wanted, on women doing whatever turned you on. Dani’s weren’t very big, maybe small B cups, fitted to her slender body. Which I should definitely not be thinking about.

I looked back at her to find her watching me. “It’ll hurt,” I warned her. “You’ve never done this, and the skin there is sensitive.”

“I can take pain,” she replied.

The words sat there for a second. Of course—any woman who was McMurphy’s would have to be able to take pain.

“Okay,” I said. “You’re going to have to take your shirt and bra off, but I’ll give you a sheet to cover yourself with.”

She nodded. Over her head, McMurphy said, “How long will it take?”

I shrugged, looking at the drawing again. “An hour and a half maybe.”

He fixed me with his laser gaze. “Do I have to sit here for an hour and a half and watch you, Wilder?”

“If you want,” I said. It was best not to show fear to McMurphy; he ate it like candy. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“You know the rules,” he said. McMurphy was about forty, way too old for this woman, with a hard face and muscles like a bulldog’s. He wore his beat-up leather cut, like he always did, and I could smell him from where I sat: sweat, oil, and yesterday’s whiskey. Some women just couldn’t resist it, like an aphrodisiac.

The rules meant that I wasn’t supposed to touch the president’s old lady. I wasn’t supposed to touch anyone’s old lady. I was just the guy who did the club’s ink, not a full-fledged brother.

I looked him back, straight in the eye, and said, “How long have I been inking the Black D?” Which meant Of course I know the rules, idiot.

McMurphy shoved his chair back hard and stood up. If I’d flinched in that moment, he would probably have hit me, but I didn’t.

“You touch her, you’re dead,” he said. “Fucking dead.” He turned and left the room.

I looked back down at Dani. She hadn’t even looked at McMurphy. She was still watching me. She still had her shirt hiked up, her skin showing, the edge of her bra visible. Her look wasn’t hostile—it was afraid, but courageous. Her body was so vulnerable. In a few years, her eyes would be hard and her body would be a canvas of the hits she’d taken.

And I realized something. When he’d warned me not to touch her, McMurphy had assumed that it mattered, that I cared about dying.

And I didn’t.