Inked Destiny (28 page)

“It’s a secret recipe that’s been handed down in my family for generations I’ll have you know.”

No surprise considering her family owned several restaurants, including the one where she and his father had met. He gave her a hug. “I’m glad he’s got you.”

He’d been just shy of eighteen when his father married Jada, but he’d wholeheartedly approved, the race issue a nonissue for him. And then Jahna, his baby sister had come along, making
going undercover so much harder. There’d been no way in hell he was coming back home wearing Aryan Brotherhood tats.

Jada slid her arm around his waist. “Your being back is good. He worried about you, not that he ever let on just how much. It scared him, the idea of one day having some stranger show up at the door delivering bad news. I hope this job with your friend Sean works out and you enjoy doing it. You don’t hear about private investigators getting shot or disappearing and turning up dead.”

“True enough.” Quinn hugged her, tempting fate by reaching for a slice of pear.

The spoon struck his hand with laser precision. “Hey!” he yelped.

“Out of my kitchen!”

“I’m going. I’m going.”

He jogged up the stairs, halting in the open doorway to Jahna’s bedroom. She said “Enter” without turning from her desk to look at him or pausing the flow of her pencil on a sketch pad.

Quick strides took him to where she worked and then he stood transfixed. Gaze traveling hungrily from magazine spread to the open pages of a book, to magazine, to book, to magazine, his attention captured and held in the grip of glittering bracelets with the commonality of gold.

Slender fingers waggled in front of his face. He growled and snapped with enough force his teeth clacked.

Jahna’s peals of laughter did what her gesturing couldn’t, released him to focus on her.

“Finally!” she said. “You totally spaced.”

“Inspiration for your next project?” He risked a quick glance at her reference material, pride in his talented sister keeping him from becoming ensnared again.

“I’m making something for Mom’s birthday.”

He’d been deep undercover for five long years. But some of the memories he cherished were ones of taking her to the craft store to
buy beads and string so she could do up jewelry to give to her friends. Now she had a workbench next to their father’s, complete with machinery to grind and polish rocks, and he was betting not much about her jewelry-making was cheap anymore.

He leaned over her but she snagged the tablet and held it to her chest, hiding the design she was working on. “Sorry. Top secret. You know all about that.”

“What if I cover some of the cost? Could I see it then?”

“No can do. The work has already been commissioned by someone else.”

“Commissioned?” The word made him grin. “How old are you?”

She scowled. “Old enough to know you’re dissin’ me with that question.”

“Oh man. Home only a few days and already on my way to the dog house.”

“Like you could fit. Besides, Versace doesn’t even have a doghouse.”

Versace, hearing his name, got off the bed and pranced over to Jahna. She pushed her chair back and the Chinese Crested jumped onto her lap.

Gray skin with a smattering of pink patches, bald except for hair on his head, feet, and tail, he was a little king sitting on his throne. Cute, Quinn’d give him that, though petting him felt like touching a hot worm.

“I do have some availability,” Jada said, taking on an accent to go with a
jewelry designer to the stars
persona, “if you’re interested in commissioning me, for say, an engagement ring or something.”

Quinn’s pulse sped up in a rush of anxiety over the conversation he hadn’t yet had, the big reveal that the
special
someone they would meet, soon, was male. He needed to do it. Hell, in his heart, he knew they’d accept it and move on, but finding the right time…Hard to do with the worry over his dad’s health.

“Let’s just stick with
or something
. A piece for your mom, say, for Christmas. I’ll talk to Dad and see if he’ll throw in with me.”

Quinn’s throat tightened, an ache spreading through his chest with the possibility his dad wouldn’t be there for Christmas.

No! No! No! Positive thoughts only!

Derrick’s imagined voice cut through the fear and worry, bringing with it a surge of possessiveness and a whole lot of discomfort at not having line of sight on him. Not new feelings, but he was coping and it helped knowing Derrick was at work and safe at Stylin’ Ink.

“Got any suggestions about what she might like?” Quinn asked.

“Come with me.”

He followed Jahna to the stairwell. She freed Versace when he struggled in her arms, indicating his desire to see what was happening downstairs.

“Mom, can I show Quinn your jewelry?”

“Make it quick. The table needs to be set.”

“Okay.” She turned to Quinn. “There is a price for this consultation, you know.”

“My sister the shark.”

She touched the side of her head. “I will be working up here while you set the table.”

“Ever heard of multitasking?”

“Ever hear of prioritizing? Christmas is not that far away.”

He put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’ll do the heavy lifting while you
think
.”

“
So
not funny.”

He laughed and followed her to the master bedroom. There were several old-fashioned jewelry boxes on the dresser, yard sale finds his father had restored.

Jahna went to the one at the far right, lifting the lid and filling the room with the sound of music. “These are her best rings. If
you’re looking for the cheapest option, we could go with turquoise and silver. She doesn’t have anything like that.”

“Say money is no object.”

“As if.”

“So young. So cynical.”

Jahna shot him a scowl, ruined by a giggle an instant later. “I
am
trying to help you.”

She dropped the lid, silencing the music. “Okay. Real deal here. While you were gone Mom inherited an amazing necklace. I’m thinking a companion piece to it, probably a bracelet and definitely some earrings.”

Instead of opening a second jewelry box, she pulled the top dresser drawer out and stepped away. The sparkle and glitter grabbed his attention and held it. But it was only a short burst of infatuation lasting until she said, “Guess which one.” Causing his eyes to seek and find, and the moment he did, he caught himself wanting to steal it.

Jesus! Where did that come from?

“This one,” Jahna said, exasperation in her voice as she picked it up. He retreated when she held it out to him, sweat breaking out on his skin at just how loud,
Mine, Mine, Mine
pounded through his head like it’d become his heartbeat

What the hell was wrong with him?

“A companion piece sounds great,” he said, backing away another couple of steps. “I better get those dishes out.”

He turned and fled.

*   *   *

Y
ou got any shit left?” Puppy asked.

Sleepy glanced at the empty baggie next to the pipe. “Not right now. Maybe later. Let’s go over to Rosena’s place. I tell her you’re with me, maybe you’ll get a little pussy.”

Puppy bounded out of his chair like a starving mutt, then slouched, pretending it was no big deal to fuck Rosena. Sleepy laughed, feeling good.

His cell rang just as he got to his car. Drooler. “Yo, homie!”

“Can’t talk man, my uncle’s on the warpath. I’m sending you a picture from the newspaper in the office. If something is going down, text me. I’ll say I forgot I’m supposed to meet up with my probation officer. Later,
ese
.”

The buzz deserted Sleepy when he saw the picture. The guy they were supposed to off was standing next to Etaín. A
mamacita
like that wasn’t one to forget, and the two of them were in front of the shelter where Justine worked.

Motherfuck. There was no tattoo book. That was bullshit.

Sleepy slammed his hand on the car roof. Then hit it again, putting a dent in it.

He’d been right. That Irish
pendejo
had made Lucky rat before killing him. Now he was going to return the favor.

“Change of plans. You’re going to check out a place called Stylin’ Ink and see who’s there.” He tilted the phone so Puppy could look at the picture Drooler had just sent then flicked it back to the photo of Derrick. “One of these three people is going to talk. They’re going to tell us what went down with Lucky and where his body is. Then they’re going to die.”

Twenty-one

E
taín stood naked in front of the mirror that could be so much more than a mirror. The outfit she’d selected was tossed carelessly over the back of a chair despite its being every bit as expensive as the dress Eamon had produced the last time she was in his suite at Aesirs.

“You’re sure a do-over is necessary?” she asked, her heart imitating surf pounding against the shore.

Eamon stepped behind her, bare-chested and barefoot, the ink on his arms drawing her attention and banishing trepidation with a fierce surge of satisfaction.

“A do-over is definitely required,” he murmured, hands cupping her breasts so they filled instantly with heat and need. “What is that saying you’re so fond of?”

Tormenting lips captured an earlobe and sucked as fingers took possession of her nipples to tug and twist and squeeze, rendering her incapable of considering his question under the onslaught of pleasure.

She closed her eyes on a moan of surrender. His hands stilled. He released her earlobe.

“Watch or I won’t continue. Isn’t that what I was forced to do when we were here last?”

“Payback is hell,” she said on a husky laugh. “Is that the phrase you’re looking for?”

She lifted her arms and reached behind her to entwine her fingers in his hair, the gesture thrusting her breasts harder against his hands, a spellbinding erotic scene caught in the mirror. “I’m not sure this qualifies as hell. And you were the one playing hard to get that night.”

Her channel clenched as she remembered his hunger and the heat of his gaze as she touched herself in the shower, as she made herself come while he watched.

She ground bare buttocks against his trouser-covered erection and watched his face go taut. She was already flushed and swollen and slick, her cunt lips parted in invitation. She lowered her lashes in defiance and challenge, rubbing against the hard ridge of his erection. “Apparently playing hard to get is a game you enjoy. It’s a good thing you favor dark pants.”

Eamon’s fingers tightened on her nipples as need pooled in his testicles and became a burning, pulsing demand in his cock. His mistake, in starting this, when he knew just how easily her actions created a fire in him that would only be temporarily quenched by the thrust and retreat and mindless release that came with taking her.

She was as powerful as any of the multitude of sirens who’d once called this world home, before technology made it more difficult to lure sailors to their deaths in a great sacrifice of bodies to the sea. He wondered just what he might sacrifice to keep her, what he might do if magic got the upper hand and killing her became the wiser action.

He abandoned a breast, his hand descending in a slow glide over smooth flesh and sleek muscle. Her lips parted on a low moan, tongue darting out to moisten them in carnal invitation and a command that nearly rushed him to his destination. He resisted, measuring this moment against the memory of her in the shower,
tormenting him with the caress of feminine hands to a feminine body, with the slick plunge of fingers into sultry depths and the swirl of them over her clit.

Her hips jerked when he reached the engorged nub, and then his did when he found her wet, ready for him, her lower lips plump and parted. He abandoned the other breast in favor of freeing his cock, saw the flash of feminine triumph in her expression and nearly answered with a predatory smile of his own.

“Put your hands on the mirror, Etaín.”

She complied, far enough away from it so her upper body now angled forward and gave him an advantage she hadn’t counted on. Rather than sheath himself, he slid his cock between her thighs, stroking over swollen flesh and erect clit without allowing her the release of orgasm or the satisfaction of having him inside her.

It wasn’t without cost.

Each stroke was as much an agony of denial as it was a sensual victory. Each clamping of her thighs and spasming of her labia against him was a heated reminder of the ecstasy he was denying them both.

Arousal beaded at the tip of his penis, pre-cum lubrication no longer needed given how thoroughly prepared Etaín’s readiness had made him. On a groan he surrendered, nearly coming as she tightened in a merciless demand for a fierce taking.

Now their position worked to her advantage, giving her leverage to thrust backward and force him deeper, then deeper still. Until the ocean roared in his head, a powerful surge that left him helpless as his body followed suit in a hot rush of ecstasy.

He placed a hand next to Etaín’s, the other one sliding around to her abdomen to keep her from moving so he could remain inside her. As the fog of satisfaction lingered, he triggered the spell bound in the mirror covering the wall, yielding to the desire to see what wearing her ink might mean for him.