Chapter One
Knox
Several sins could send a man to hell.
Blasphemy.
Murder.
Idolatry.
Lusting after your dead brother’s wife, especially when you were responsible for his death, might not top blasphemy, but it must be on the list.
Which means I have a one-way ticket to hell with my dick riding shotgun.
“It’s pretty. You did good,” my own living, breathing mortal sin praises over my shoulder. Eden Gordon, my sister-in-law—or former sister-in-law. Shit, I don’t know how that works—straightens, and thank God. I can breathe again. With her leaning over me, I drag her scent into my lungs. Like peaches left out under a summer sun—warm, sweet, sultry, and fucking edible.
I bend closer to the young woman in my chair and finish up the last of the color and shading on her shoulder. Not because I’ve suddenly developed a Mr. Magoo case of nearsightedness, but to insert even a little more distance between Eden and me. When it comes to her, distance is good.
Sitting up, I shut off the tattoo machine and spray the tat with tincture of green soap and water, washing off the excess ink and blood from her shoulder. Eden’s right. The butterfly is beautiful—3D turquoise, purple, and black art that appears to lift from the woman’s skin.
And if I have to ink one more goddamn butterfly on another coed, I’m going to junk-punch myself. There are tens of thousands of students enrolled in Chicago’s “Loop U,” and I swear, it seems as if every female student who enters Hard Knox Ink looking to get her tattoo virginity popped, wants a butterfly.
At least from her squeals and twisting and turning in the mirror, it appears this Loyola student likes it. There’s a warm satisfaction in seeing her pleasure—or any client’s joy in one of my tattoos—that’s incomparable to anything.
“I. Love. It.” She whirls around, wearing a huge grin.
“I’ll go ring her up,” Eden says, laying a hand on my back.Fuck. I briefly close my eyes, that simple, small touch like a blowtorch to my insides. There should be branded flesh under her palm because, I swear, the heat burrows past skin and muscle. And I want it. I hunger for the burn.
Nodding, I bend my head on the pretense of removing my gloves and dumping the extra caps of ink. My jaw is clenched so tight, I’m surprised something doesn’t snap.
Eden’s a toucher; she hugs everyone, sweeps gentle strokes over cheeks, hair, and arms. Affection—and showing it—comes easy to her. Her caring, friendly caresses are every championship win, orgasm, and Christmas morning wrapped into one shiny package. They’re also every hell.
And I crave each one, hoarding it like I need an intervention on one of those A&E TV shows.
A greedy, goddamn masochist. That’s me.
“Thank you. It’s just what I wanted,” the brunette continues to gush as she turns back to the mirror for another peek at her new ink.
With her long, shiny hair, jeans with rips that were obviously done at the hands of a manufacturer, and the necklace with its single diamond resting against her collarbone, she looks like one of those girls from the Gold Coast. Or from a North Shore suburb with its mansions, golf courses, and country clubs.
Do her parents even know she’s slumming it in a Ukrainian Village neighborhood tattoo shop owned by a former MMA fighter? Highly doubtful. If so, they’d probably be shitting bricks—gold bricks.
“Let me bandage it up for you.” I stow the bottles of ink and pull open the second drawer of my work station, removing the roll of gauze and tape.
“A couple of my friends came in a few weeks ago,” she says, crossing the room and giving me her back. “They told me you were the best.” She glances over her shoulder. Smiles a smile that has my innerOh-shit-o-meter pinging like a ten-alarm fire. From her driver’s license, I know she’s twenty, but that curve of her mouth and the DTF gleam in her eyes tells me this girl has been around a few suburban blocks. “Now I know they weren’t lying. You’re great,” she damn near purrs.
“Thanks. I’m glad you like it.” I cut off a piece of gauze and carefully place it over her skin, taping it down on either side. “Leave that on for at least an hour.”
“I will,” she promises, turning around to face me. “Is it true you were an MMA fighter?”
I toss the gauze and tape back in the drawer. “Yeah.”
Most people would’ve taken the short, “drop it” tone for what it was and gotten the hell up out of the room, but not her. She trails her fingers over the tats on my forearm that are exposed by the pushed-up sleeve of my black Henley, tracing the trunk of the family tree inked there. Stroking the faded, brown leaf falling from the branch…
Controlling the urge to flinch, I deliberately move my arm, but she just shifts her hand to my stomach, flattening her palm against the muscle there. That hand slowly slides down, bumping over my belt, and lowering until it’s right over my cock. Her fingers curl around me through my jeans. And squeeze.
It’s not the first time a customer has come on to me, offered me pussy or head. Hell, it’s not even the first time one has grabbed my junk like it was their own personal joystick. And yet, a bolt of surprise still wings through me. A little flirtation, yeah, I’d kind of expected that. But I’d underestimated this girl.
