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  “Cadeon, what the fuck? Open this goddamned door.”

  Cadeon stopped and turned to look at her with a confused look on his face. “He come with you?”

  She shook her head and smoothed her hands over her t-shirt once more. Dammit, what is he doing here? Cadeon unlocked the door, and Booshie came bursting in.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, feeling her annoyance that her dad most likely sent him to keep an eye on her. Who knows how long he was sitting outside just waiting for her to come out?

  Booshie stepped fully inside, looked around, and stopped when he caught sight of her. “Prez wanted me to come and check on you since you didn’t answer your cell.”

  She had grabbed her purse before walking toward the door, and when she reached in and grabbed her cell she saw there were a few missed calls from her dad. Stella had heard it ring, but talking on the phone had been the least of her worries. “I was getting a tattoo. I wasn’t about to tell him to stop just so I can answer the phone.”

  Booshie shrugged and looked from her to Cadeon, and then turned back toward her. “I thought I heard a scream.”

  Stella’s face heated, and she looked away. Acting as though she had done so to get something in her purse, she closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. It wasn’t like Stella was afraid of anyone knowing what she and Cadeon had done, but she certainly didn’t want to have this “Yup, I just got fucked” look on her face and have Booshie beat Cadeon’s ass on principle alone. If this was more than a one night occurrence she wanted to be the one to talk to her dad and the guys about it. But she honestly didn’t know if this had just been a quick screw, because right when they had been about to talk about what had happened Booshie had started beating on the door like he was the police and had a warrant.

  She turned back around and pasted on what she hoped looked like a genuine smile. “I’m fine. I was just getting ready to pay and head home. You must have heard something outside, or maybe a car stereo from one of those kids that ride around with the damn things turned up too loud. Or maybe it was those cats. Maybe they were fighting or got their tail stepped on You know how many strays there are around here.” She shrugged and smiled wider.” I don’t know, but everything is good in here.” Oh, God, she was rambling and making herself look guilty. She looked at Cadeon, saw the smug asshole smiling at her, and narrowed her eyes. When she looked at Booshie it was to see him staring at her with this confused look on his face.

  “You sure you’re okay? You been drinking?”

  She shook her head and felt her face heat even further the longer Booshie clearly examined her.

  “You sure? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this red in the face, or go on and on about guys and their stereos or a cat getting its tail stepped on.”

  “I’m good. I should probably get going.” Booshie didn’t move, but he did cross his arms, causing his cut to stretch across his big body, and glared at her. He was stubborn, just as frustratingly stubborn as the rest of the MC, and that was one thing that annoyed her to no end. It was also clear he wasn’t buying her bullshit. “Booshie, I am fine, and can get home on my own. I live like ten minutes away.” Still he didn’t move a muscle. After a minute she sighed and let her arms fall to her side. “Fine.” She walked over to Cadeon who was leaning against the counter, and looking like he was far more amused by what was going on than she was. She tried to convey that she was sorry about this, but he didn’t reveal anything in his expression aside from continuing to grin at her. “How much do I owe you?” This incredible evening had ended up being uncomfortable and awkward.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He straightened away from the counter and crossed his arms in the same manner as Booshie had.

  “I insist.” What was it with men and their stubbornness? For a second he just stared at her, and then narrowed his eyes.

  “Stella, I said don’t worry about it.”

  Maybe it was foolish for her to think, but if she didn’t pay for her tattoo it almost seemed like this was some kind of prostitute one-night hook-up, like she had paid for the ink by spreading her legs. She clenched her jaw and saw Cadeon mimic the act.

  “What in the fuck is going on?” Booshie’s loud voice broke up the weirdness that had bounced between her and Cadeon.

  She turned and looked at the burly biker. “Nothing. Let’s just go.” She reached into her purse, grabbed a couple of hundred dollars, and set them on the counter beside Cadeon. Booshie had already turned and was heading toward the front door, but before she could leave Cadeon grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him so his mouth was right by her ear.

  “This isn’t over, baby. Not by a fucking long shot.”

  She snapped her head toward Cadeon.

  “But I could see you two seconds away from flippin’ the fuck out. When you’re ready, we will be talking about what we did, and how I have no damn plans on just letting you walk away.” He let go of her and grinned this self-assured cocky one that should have pissed her off but made her pulse increase.

  She turned and quickly made her way out the front door. Well, she supposed that answered her question about what tonight had been about, and if this was only a one-time hook-up.

  Chapter Six

  It had been two days since he had given Stella her tattoo, but he hadn’t spoken to her. He had tried calling her the day after she left his shop, realizing he had not even told her the aftercare instructions for her ink. His mind had been pretty chaotic after he had finally had her. His cock, although semi-hard right after he had come, had been like steel once more when he had gone to bed that night. But she hadn’t called in back after he left a message, and he wasn’t about to stalk her ass like some kind of psychopath. But there was no denying that he wanted her. Cadeon had fucked a lot of women in the forty years he had been alive, but for whatever reason he wanted Stella like he had never wanted another woman before. He had thought maybe it was because she was off-limits, in a sense, and maybe that had been the initial reason. Cadeon was used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted, but with Stella it was more complicated. He couldn’t explain why he felt this need to be with her, but after he had finally been with her he felt this deep, proprietary desire for her. He wanted to protect her, take care of her, and make sure no assholes messed with her or he’d break their bones.

  “Yo, Cadeon,” Naggie called out.

  He lifted his head from the stack of papers in front of him. She had a pair of black gloves on and was getting ready to do some nipple piercings. “What?” He leaned back in his chair, and the leather creaked.

  “I asked if you could order some more 12 gauge needles.” The girl behind her looked like Naggie’s twin with her pixie cut, slender frame, and numerous piercings.

  “Yeah, I’ll put a requisition in.”

  She nodded, but he didn’t miss the strange expression that covered her face. He lifted a brow and tipped his chin toward her client. She pursed her lips and turned around. Cadeon knew he had been acting weird the last couple of days, but he hadn’t been able to help it. All he had thought about was Stella, and that he wanted to see her again. Of course he wanted to fuck her again but it was more than that. He wanted to get to know everything about her, and wanted to learn things that casual conversation between them hadn’t revealed in the last few years. But Cadeon had never chased after a female, and the fact she hadn’t returned his call made it seem like he would be doing just that if he pursued her more.

  “Creep” by Radiohead played overhead, and it somehow matched his mood today. He glanced at his phone that was beside him on the counter and felt like some kind of hormonal teenage needing his next Stella fix. But he didn’t reach for it, and instead focused on his paperwork again and tried to push her out of his thoughts. He wanted her like no one else. But he wasn’t about to go sniffing around her if she didn’t want him to. That was the reasonable action to take, but Cadeon had never been a reasonable man.

  The sound of the bell above the front door di
nging as it was opened had Cadeon lifting his head. A silent groan left him when he saw Tally walk in. She wore a micro-mini skirt and a halter top that hardly covered her breasts. It had first started off with her coming in for some tattoos over the last year, but Cadeon had made the mistake of fucking her against the side of the building a couple of those times. After that she thought there was something going on between them, some kind of exclusivity. It didn’t matter how often he told her that fucking her had only been about getting his dick wet. Of course at first he hadn’t been so coarse or bastard-like when he had said that, but after the fourth time of her trying to have him fuck her again, he had just come out and told her that he didn’t want her pussy anymore. But Tally was one of those females that thought her pussy was the tightest fucking thing and God’s gift to men, and clearly couldn’t understand that he didn’t want her anymore.

  She looked over at him, and her red painted lips stretched wide over her too white teeth. “Hey, Cadeon.” She walked over to him, and the sound of her six inch stilettos clicking on the tiled floor seemed to drown out the music. She leaned on the counter, and her tits nearly burst free from the too tight material of her shirt. “Can you squeeze me in a little ink?” She leaned back and lifted her shirt nearly all the way to the underside of her breasts. “I want a little heart and rose right here.” She ran the pad of her finger around her belly button.

  “You make an appointment?” Tally might get on his fucking nerves, but she was still a customer. But that didn’t mean he had to be the one to give it to her. The last time he had given her a tattoo after he fucked her he had known she got all fucking aroused by it. She was a needle junkie, and although there wasn’t anything wrong with that, there was something wrong with the fact she had been moaning the whole damn time he gave her the ink. No more would he be the one to mark her up.

  She leaned on the counter once more and gave him what he knew was supposed to be this seductive grin. Instead it just looked downright uncomfortable, and that was exactly how he felt around her. She was not much older than Stella, but where his girl had this innocence about her Tally was just used hard and put away wet. She had seen just as much action as he had, and she was half his fucking age.

  Wait, did you just call Stella your girl?

  “When have I ever made an appointment, Cadeon?” Her grin widened, and even though he was seated behind the counter, she eyed him up and down. “Come on, can’t you just squeeze me in? The tattoo isn’t very big. I bet you could get it done quickly, but make sure you were all sorts of thorough.” She lowered her eyes, trying to look sexy, but it just made her look like she was about to fall asleep.

  “You aren’t anyone special to this shop, Tally. You got in those last few times because there were openings. There aren’t any now, and so if you don’t have an appointment you need to make one and come back then.” He didn’t break eye contact with her, because he wanted her to know that this shit that she thought was between them, wasn’t.

  She pouted, and he wanted to tell her she looked ridiculous as fuck. “Really? There isn’t anything you can do for me, nothing that can be pushed back so I can be next?” She made one of those duck faces, and he curled his lip in distaste. She tried to act like she was still in high school by wearing clothes far too young for her, and her overall almost childish personality.

  “No, there isn’t anything. Now, do you want an appointment?”

  She huffed out and pushed away from the counter. “Fine. What is your next available opening?”

  “I don’t have any. You’ll have to book on with Naggie or Ziggy.” He kept his voice hard and void of any emotion.

  “But I was hoping you could give me another one.” She leaned forward so much that he knew she had to be on her toes. “I miss you.” She pouted once more. “I keep thinking about those two times you banged the shit out of me behind the shop. It was dirty, but only in the good way.” Before he could respond she was talking again. “I know there is something there, between us, but I understand you’re not the commitment type.”

  “Tally—” He growled out her name, but she cut him off before he could finish.

  “I can make you feel ten times as good as any of those other whores you sleep with.”

  He stood so forcefully that his chair slammed against the wall. He heard the sound of buzzing needles stop, and glanced to his side to see Naggie and Ziggy looking over at him, and then at Tally. Naggie knew about what he and the other woman had done, but it wasn’t because Cadeon had told her. She had walked outside and seen him banging her, but that wasn’t why Naggie had narrowed eyes trained on Tally. Naggie was not a fan of the woman, not after Tally had come onto her boyfriend at a bar a few months back. Drama followed Tally like some kind of lost dog, and no matter where she went or who she interacted with, that fucking drama was with her and rubbed off on everyone.

  “Do you want an appointment, or not?” He wasn’t about to be baited into having this conversation. It had been months since they had done anything, and he would have liked to say he was drunk when he had fucked her, but he couldn’t even use that excuse. He had just wanted to get his dick wet, and because of that shit he was now being stuck with Tally hounding him for something he wasn’t about to give her.

  She shook her head and narrowed her eyes on him. It was clear she was pissed that he wasn’t about to get into that with her. “Fine, what do you have open with Ziggy this week?”

  He brought up Ziggy’s schedule on the computer and told her what was available. After she was set up he told himself he’d have to make himself scarce when she came back. He didn’t want to deal with this shit again. He busied himself with his work again, and didn’t look up until he heard the bell ding again at her departure.

  “Come on, Cadeon.”

  He looked over at Naggie. She was glaring at him. “What?”

  “You know what. You need to tell that tramp to quit coming in here.”

  He looked over at the girl Naggie was about to pierce, but the woman was busy on her cell. The client with Ziggy had a smile on his tattooed face. At least someone found this shit amusing, but that didn’t mean Naggie needed to be talking about it in front of customers. “Naggie, this really isn’t the time or place to talk about this.”

  “Pfft. That tramp needs to get a life.” Naggie turned toward her client, and Ziggy did the same.

  Cadeon leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. His cell vibrated, and he looked down. The way his pulse increased at the sight of Stella’s number flashing across his screen should have made him feel like some kind of pussy-whipped adolescent. But he didn’t feel that way, and he dared anyone to tell him otherwise.

  Chapter Seven

  Stella shouldn’t have been so nervous, but she was, terribly so. She had called him earlier today after not getting in contact with him for the last couple of days. It wasn’t that she was purposefully trying to avoid him—not really—but she had done a lot of thinking. Since leaving the tattoo shop and having Booshie follow her home, she had realized that this really hadn’t been just a onetime thing with Cadeon. But the one time he had called her was to leave a voicemail giving her aftercare instructions. She had been trying to think about how she was going to tell her dad about this, because it was going to seem like she had been lying to him about not wanting Cadeon. She may have wanted him, but when she had gone to see him it really had been strictly about the tattoo. But she hadn’t told anyone yet, because she knew she had to talk to Cadeon and see where he actually saw this—whatever this was—going between them. If he only wanted her on the side as a piece of ass then she would need to tell him that she wasn’t even going to go there with him. She wasn’t a club whore, and if she agreed to something like that then she would be no better than they were.

  She looked around her living room, although everything was already straightened up. Working part-time at a consulting firm as a receptionist, and the other part-time at the club balancing their accounts payable and received, she
wasn’t at home a whole lot. Her house was sparse in the furnishing department, but she had wanted to be in the comfort of her own home when she and Cadeon had this talk.

  A glance at the clock showed that he would be there any minute. She looked at the breakfast bar, saw the two boxes of pizza and case of beer, and couldn’t help snorting in amused embarrassment. When she had asked him to dinner she had every intention of attempting to make him a meal, or at the very least ordering something that didn’t come in a cardboard box. Of course her day had been hectic at work and then at the clubhouse, and the only thing she had time for was making the phone call for the pizza, and stopping by the gas station for the beer. Well, she tried, but tonight was more about what in the hell was going on between them, and not so much about what they would eat. Stella didn’t even think she could eat anything, what with her stomach in knots.

  The sound of a Harley started a small distance away, and even though she hadn’t looked out the window, she just knew it was Cadeon. The rumbling of engines became closer and that had her heart beating faster. When the sound of the bike was right in her driveway she moved to the living room window and pushed back the drapes. She didn’t want to look like a freak peeking at him through the window but she honestly hadn’t been able to help herself, and, well, she supposed she wanted to make sure her gut was right and it wasn’t actually her father or a club member that had showed up.

  She let the curtain fall back in place, but still stared out the window. Cadeon climbed off of his big ass Harley, one that was a monster of a machine, but one he looked damn good on. He wore a pair of dark jeans that were loose, but fit him well enough that it didn’t hide the raw power that made him up. He was once again wearing a t-shirt, this one just as dark as his jeans. Since she had first met him three years ago she didn’t think he ever wore anything aside from those two pieces of clothing. She had never seen him in a suit, or even a button down shirt. He took off his helmet but left his sunglasses on. The sun was already setting on the horizon, and there was a pink/orange hue that covered the Colorado sky.