I sniffed, but Bea’s squeal nearly made me drop my phone.
“Oh, my God!” she said, her smile tinged with wickedness, her cheeks stained with peach. “If I wasn’t half in love with someone else, I’d probably faint at how hot that text was. Phew, I could feel his intensity through the phone. What did you do to deserve that?”
I cracked my knuckles and struggled not to make eye contact with Lou who was staring at me in her voodoo way where I just knew she was reading my thoughts.
“Well,” I admitted. “I may have fooled around with Nova last night and then left this morning before he woke up.”
They both blinked at me then burst into raucous laughter that had the entire café staring at us in varying degrees of irritation. But we were biker babes, known in Entrance and revered or hated in equal turn, so they left us alone.
When Bea recovered, she wiped a tear from her cheek. “I think you’re my hero.”
“It’s about time someone gave Nova a taste of his own medicine,” Loulou said, humor rich in her voice. “And it’s about time that person was you.”
“I’m supposed to get a tattoo in…an hour,” I said after checking the pink watch on Bea’s pale arm. “I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to keep my distance with his hands on my body.”
“Do you want distance?” Lou asked, cocking her head. “Last time I checked, you wanted to wear him like a face mask.”
“Lou!” Bea cried again, but even she snorted with laughter.
“I’m not going to be some notch on his bed post,” I declared, even though the idea of having Nova’s strong, calloused hands on my body made my skin buzz with electric heat. “But I’m not ashamed. So we got drunk and hooked up, big whoop. We can move on from this.”
When the girls didn’t say anything, I pressed, “Right?”
“Big whoop?” Bea shook her head. “He rocked your world, huh?”
I sighed. “I think I came so hard I blacked out, and he didn’t even actually lay a finger on me.”
Lou nodded sagely. “Seems to be a badass biker talent. Don’t worry, babe, we’ll go with you to the appointment. I’ll drop the babies off with my mum, we’ll pick up H.R., and head over there together. He’s not going to try dick with all of us there watching.”
* * *
* * *
“Out.”
We hadn’t just picked up Harleigh Rose.
Cleo and Tayline had also been at the clubhouse, shooting the shit with Axe-Man and Cyclops, so they’d decided to tag along as well.
They weren’t even all inside the glass door of Street Ink Tattoo Parlour when Nova’s voice lashed out the one hard struck word.
“Out,” he repeated, standing by his station to the left of the reception desk, back leaned up against the wall, booted feet and tatted arms crossed, his face set to stone. He looked dangerous, filled with criminal intent and equipped with the means to see it out.
And his eyes, even from a distance, were nothing close to their habitually warm velvet brown.
They were black as banked coals, burning me up as they touched on my face, dragged down my body, then returned to lock with my eyes.
“Nova, is that any way to treat an Old Lady?” Loulou asked sweetly as the girls fanned out in the space.
“Where is everyone?” Cleo asked, looking around the deserted shop with a frown on her sweet face. “I thought you were booked from here to eternity with clients?”
“We are,” Nova agreed, pushing off the wall to slowly stalk toward us. “Had Sara reschedule everyone. Shop’s closed. That means no old ladies, no hang-arounds, no anybody save Lila and me. So out.”
Tay hopped up on the reception desk and swung her short legs back and forth as she stole a maple candy from the little skull dish and popped it in her mouth. “We won’t get in the way. Or do you suddenly have stage fright or something?”
“Awe,” Harleigh Rose crooned, “Does the great seducer have trouble preforming?”
“Guys,” I warned, seeing the shift in Nova’s face, noticing the animal quaking dangerously against the chains that locked him in his gut.
They ignored me.
They were women used to their Old Men, mellowed by love, plenty of orgasms, and mutual respect.
But Nova wasn’t anyone’s Old Man.
He had a hell of a lot of respect for the club women.
But he was not the kinda guy who brooked an argument when he wanted shit a certain way. He might have been more affable than the average biker, but he was still a hardcore badass, and taking shit shoveled at him by my women when he was already pissed would not end well.
“I’m gonna tell ya one more time,” Nova said slow and rough, face darker than I’d ever seen it, his beautiful features cast in granite, his lip practically curled up in a sneer. “Get outta my shop. I got things to discuss with Lila, and I’m not havin’ her hide behind you like she’s done for the last two fuckin’ years.”