Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

He bent his head between my legs and he licked me to another quick orgasm. He kissed his way along the back of my thighs, and then he fully concentrated on the painting.

I was fully relaxed, sleepy from the orgasms. As Cage’s vision began to grow in scope along my side and thigh, I was amazed. He was decorating me like a sleek, strong, roaring bike, built to slice through the bullshit and handle whatever the world gave me. I was steel wrapped in all the pretty, and no one could mess with me. I’d always felt like that around Cage, but more so now.

My body was streaked with a mixture of blue and silver paints, gradations of gorgeous, purposeful streaks that snaked up my side and grazed the underside of my breast. The brush hit every place I’d been drawn on, erasing those scars that no one but I could see and putting something entirely more beautiful in their place. He’d drawn something on me that I wanted to remember forever. He took pictures then—Polaroids—and showed me. The pose was the same but the look on my face was different. And I wasn’t alone, because Cage’s work was there, protecting me.

“I want this to be permanent.”

He smiled. “It might be more fun if I can paint you anyway I want. Anytime I want.” And then he turned the camera off and he took his clothes off. He didn’t ask, and I was glad—I didn’t want to be treated like some gentle thing anymore. I wanted him to take what he wanted, the way he’d done since we’d met. I planned on doing the same.

He came up behind me—I was still on my side and he entered me, holding up my thigh so he could fill me completely. “Mine,” he said. “You’ve been mine since I called you, and nothing’s going to change that.”

I shuddered through another orgasm at his words, contracting around his cock and making his groan join mine in stereo. I was vaguely aware that I shivered, that he was taking me into the bathroom.

Boneless in the tub, leaning back against him, his erection throbbing as it rubbed between my ass cheeks as he patiently washed whatever paint hadn’t come off on its own. He’d let the water out a few times, running the handheld over me so I wouldn’t get cold as he replaced the old water with new, clean water. And still, the blue and silver swirled in the water around me, as lazy as his motions.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“Your trusting me means everything, Calla. You have to know that.”

I did. Because he’d made me a part of his art, part of him, and he’d transformed the most painful memory of my life into something amazing.

He helped Calla out of the tub, dried her off, got her into the bed after moving the paint-splattered drop cloth.

His hand had trembled a little when he’d first dipped the thin brush into the paint. He’d composed himself, had to because he’d known how important this was. He’d known it needed to be so fucking perfect.

He’d erased the past and covered it with the promise of the future.

There was so much he’d bottled up, never really letting it out, because there was something inside he always wanted to keep hidden. With Calla, there was a great deal already exposed.

Calla moved then, began to kiss her way down his neck, then his shoulders, giving special attention to the scarred one, her breath catching when she saw his back.

“Survivor,” she murmured as she ran her fingertips over the areas that still ached at odd times. The doc had told him that skin pulled as it healed, knitting up to become stronger.

He didn’t think he was any stronger than he’d been, because how strong could one person get? He didn’t want to become a machine.

He shuddered under her touch. When she put her mouth to the ragged scars and kissed them, he barely held it together. And then she went back up and did the same thing to the unscarred side.

“You’re not going to have this freedom for too much longer, baby, so enjoy it while you can.”

“You were more compliant in front of the camera.”

“I’m never compliant.”

“I said more, not completely.” She traced his nipple with her tongue. “Besides, I like you this way.”

While she writhed lazily against him, his hands dragged over her body, rough to her smooth. She moaned as the pad of his thumb found her clit. As she anchored him against the mattress, he watched her face contort with pleasure. He wanted to consume her, loved watching her breath hitch, loved being wrecked by her.

Afterward, they lay tangled in the dark, her hair splayed over his scars, and he knew he loved her. As if she’d read his mind, she hugged him a little harder.

Cage had cocooned me away for days while we waited for more news about Ned. As his next of kin, I was responsible for his body, but the coroner wasn’t releasing it yet.

I still hadn’t called my father to tell him. I was pretty sure he’d heard the news by now, but since we’d had a father-daughter relationship that centered on not talking, I was thinking that getting in touch with him might look suspicious.

Even though I wasn’t guilty.

Tonight, Cage was going someplace with Preacher. And I agreed to stay put, with Rocco watching out for me, just in case Flores decided to pull something. But while Cage was getting ready, his phone rang, and he came out of the bathroom, half dressed, saying, “No, I don’t think so.”

He glanced at me and I frowned. “Hang on.” He put his hand over the phone. “The tattoo shop needs a hand tonight. But if you’re not up for it . . .”

“I’d even tattoo if that would help you.”

“You just want out.”

“If you were here, no.”

He smiled. “I know you’re going stir-crazy.” He spoke into the phone. “Rocco will bring her in. Give her half an hour.”

He hung up. Pulled his shirt on and grabbed for his cut while pocketing his phone. “Gotta run, babe. I can pick you up from the shop or Rocco can bring you back here. Up to you.”

“Okay.” Being with Rocco was easiest, I guessed, because Flores would hesitate to pull anything when I was with my lawyer. All in all, things were quieting down and I was hoping—praying—that this would all go away.

Cage had been checking my e-mails too, and he’d said there had been nothing new coming through. I hadn’t been able to look at the old account, so I’d given him all the info and opened a brand-new one.

I was getting a lot of fresh starts these days. “Will you be late?”

“Not sure.”

I would not act needy. “Okay.”

His voice dropped an octave. “I’ll be sleeping next to you tonight, babe.”

“You’d better be.”

He kissed me, a definite promise to that effect, and then called over his shoulder, “Don’t you dare get tattooed without me there.”

“I’ll try not to.”

I didn’t know what to wear to a tattoo shop, but I didn’t have many options. I put on the jeans and tank top I’d washed, but then discarded it for a black wifebeater I found in Tals’s closet. I wore my bra underneath, so I showed a lot of skin, and I pulled my hair back and put on makeup for the first time since the night of the bar.

I smelled Cage on the shirt—on me—and I looked damned good. I needed that.

Rocco looked like he approved, if his rumbly hello and gaze up and down my body was any indication—and since he obviously knew the deal between me and Cage, I was safe with that gaze. Having the Vipers’ approval was a good thing.

Rocco drove me in his truck, big and black, with a slight tint to the windows. He kept checking the rearview, but turned to me and said, “We’re clear.”

He parked behind the clubhouse and we cut through the alleyway to the shop.

“Holly’ll show you the ropes,” Rocco told me. “You’ll stay till closing and then she’ll bring you to the clubhouse next door.”

I froze then. Cage hadn’t mentioned that part. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it—I was only going to the clubhouse to meet Rocco, not to hang out. Obviously, Cage had kept my meltdown a secret, which I was grateful for. “Sure, that’ll work.”

Rocco nodded. “You just text or call if you need me. I’d hang here, but I’d rather check things out from next door.”

“Because of Flores.”

“Yeah.” He glanced at the blond woman who walked up to us, and she nodded to him. “Calla, this is Holly.”

I hadn’t seen Holly around before, because I would’ve definitely remembered her. She looked like a model. She was at least six feet, and somehow still managed to look completely feminine and graceful. She wore old jeans that looked painted on and a tank top that showed off a delicate sleeve of tattoos, and her long blond hair hung in a sheet halfway down her back. “You must be Calla.”

And to top it off, a crisp, brilliant British accent.

She gave me a head-to-toe once-over. “You’ll do, but maybe you can dress a little sexier?”

“I thought I was just taking appointments.”

“Nothing around here is ‘just’ anything.”

Rocco put a hand on my shoulder and he’d disappeared before I could turn around. When I faced Holly again, she said, “I didn’t really want you working my shop tonight, but I owe Preacher. So let’s try to not make this a miserable experience.”

“Wait—Vipers doesn’t own this?”

“They own the building, but this business is mine,” she said, her eyes cutting me like daggers.

“Okay, wow. That’s cool.”

She pursed her lips together, like she’d heard it a thousand times, and pointed to the phones. “Just answer and check the book.”

I stared at her, then walked behind the counter. The book didn’t look particularly full and I made the mistake of saying so.