“Yeah.” The painting was nice and it was better than sitting at home doing nothing, or going to the clubhouse to drink and dick around.
Dr. Singh stood and extended a deep brown arm, sinewy with muscle. “I look forward to hearing all about it. How’s the drinking?”
“Here and there, mostly beer.”
“Good. I’ll see you next week, Max.”
“Later, Doc.” I waved and made my way out into the damn near sweltering early afternoon. I loved the dessert air, but goddamn these days felt almost as bad as the other fucking desert. Still, it was early and I didn’t have much to do today so I decided to go for a walk around Mayhem. It had been a while since I just went for a walk. Mayhem was a small desert town, but it wasn’t isolated and desolate like so many towns in the state. Vegas was fifteen miles away and when the sun went down, the only thing that could be seen were those familiar bright lights. But Mayhem, despite it’s name was a thriving small town with an old west feel.
Tourists loved the wooden sidewalks on Main Street, and the red, white & blue awnings that were straight out of the seventies, and the fact that we had those old school lampposts. Mayhem even had a fucking General Store. Right beside the Bud Café, owned and operated by the Reckless Bastards. It was a cute little town, which was why we worked hard to keep it clean and to keep our businesses on the right side of the law.
I turned the corner into the small park that had been dedicated to the town by an old resident who’d gone on to be somebody big, apparently. I spotted a figure in the distance, wearing a pretty green and white polka dot dress with her legs crossed primly. The closer I got, the more details became clear. She was sketching something, her face parallel with the pad, long blonde hair c
overing her shoulders and most of the pad.
She was so engrossed in her sketching, wrist flicking quickly and efficiently, she didn’t look up when I approached her or when I stepped behind her to see what she worked on. It was a face, or more accurately it was a set of eyes. Hard and intense, and filled with pain. Finally, Jana froze and turned slowly until big, elliptical brown eyes stared up at me, angry and wary. “Excuse me.”
“It is you,” I said lamely. “It’s me, Max.”
“I remember,” she said warily and inched away, closing her sketchpad and shoving it into her hobo style bag. “Did you need help with something?”
“Nah,” I shoved my hands into my pockets and grinned. “I thought it was you from a distance, and I just wanted to say hi. You’re pretty good at sketching too.”
“I do okay,” she muttered, head down, keeping the right side of her face away from me.
I didn’t like that she seemed afraid of me. “You scared of me, honey?” It’d been a while since a woman was scared of me, but with the tattoos and the bike, sometimes it happened.
Jana jerked upright and frowned at me. “What? Why would I be scared of you, more importantly should I be?”
I bit back a grin. “Hell no, you shouldn’t. I’m harmless.”
She scoffed. “Somehow I doubt that.” She closed the flap on her bag and stood, taking a step back.
“So you just don’t like me? You’re not attracted to me?”
She sighed, clearly becoming frustrated with my interference. “I don’t know you to like or dislike you.”
“But you’re attracted to me, and that’s a start. Have lunch with me.” Sparring verbally with Jana was the most fun I’d had in a long time.
I watched her carefully. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, and did it again. Then again. She seemed to brace herself for something, tucking her hair behind her right ear and looking up at me so that I could see what she was hiding. A long, nasty scar from her right eye to the corner of her mouth. It was red and it looked painful, but it wasn’t the most interesting thing about her face. Her lips and cheeks were tied for first in that area. “Happy now?”
I stood and stared at her for a long time, taking in her defensive posture as she began to squirm. I grinned. “Is that supposed to scare me?” I let out a laugh that wasn’t amused at all as I lifted my shirt and tilted to the left. “A fucking kid snuck up on me in my nest and shoved it straight through my gut, and this ain’t the worst of it.” I let the shirt drop and crossed my arms, noting the way her gaze tracked over my arms and hands. “I’m sure what happened to you was fucking awful, but a tiny little scar doesn’t scare me. Now, can we go eat or do you need to see another scar?”
She stared at me for a long time and I thought she’d smack me or tell me to fuck off. But she didn’t, and soon I found myself exploring her ripe feminine curves. The jeans she wore did very good things for her hips and shapely thighs, even if she did try and hide what looked like a spectacular rack underneath an oversized t-shirt. Finally, she spoke. “Are there many more scars?”
I blinked until my brows dipped low. “What?”
“The scars, I’m curious how many you have.” She didn’t wear a smile that said she was flirting or kidding, she looked serious.
“Too many to count. Why, you interested?”
She shrugged and my cock sprang to life. “Between the muscles and the tattoos, I think I might like to get you down on paper, so I’m curious if you have more texture than just muscles and ink.”
I grinned at her words. She was quiet, but not shy at all. “You can even have me on sheets. Or carpet, or sofa cushions.” I laughed when she rolled her eyes and a smile curled her plump lips.
“You like Greek food?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. Never had it.”