Inked in Lies: The Fallen Men #5 Page 5

  My arms ached from holdin’ them up, and my eyes burned with exhaustion, but I finally felt good, at peace for the first time in a long time.

  I dug my phone out from the back pocket of my jeans and snapped a photo of The Three Caballeros.

  “’S not bad,” a gruff voice said from my left, startlin’ me so bad I dropped my phone to the asphalt, wincin’ as I watched it crack.

  Anger on my tongue, I whipped around to deliver a scathin’ fuckin’ beat down to whoever the hell thought it was a good idea to sneak up on a guy with spray paint in one hand and his phone in the other.

  “You wanna face full’a chemicals, ass––” I choked off the curse when I caught sight of the man who’d spoken.

  Because he was huge.

  As in, fuckin’ mammoth.

  Tatted, bearded, clad in a leather cut with badges sewn onto the left breast, the top one of which read ‘VP’.

  I recognized him because I’d seen the fleet of bikes roll through town on a rumble of manmade thunder and had taken note. And I’d taken note because somethin’ in their way, the independence, the flagrant refusal to fit in and toe the line, stirred my blood and called to me like a howl from fellow wolves.

  He was a member of The Fallen MC.

  The most notorious outlaw motorcycle gang in Canada, not to mention their factions in the States and across the Pacific in Europe.

  They were no joke and trust me, this guy didn’t look it either.

  I swallowed hard past the fear lodged in my throat, not because I was uncomfortable, but because I lived for this.

  The edge.

  One steep enough I might not survive a fall off of.

  I picked up my phone, shoved it in my pocket, and affected a lean against the brick wall. Jerkin’ my chin up at him, I asked, “Not bad? Clearly, you’re no art lover.”

  It coulda been my imagination, but I thought I caught a twitch of a smile in his dark beard.

  “Nah, don’t think I’ve ever set foot in a museum or gallery. Doesn’t take an art lover to appreciate sheer beauty, though, does it?”

  His praise burned in my gut like a straight shot of whiskey. “It’s just some Disney shit.”

  He stalked forward, his gait a threat because of his sheer size even if he didn’t mean to be intimidatin’. He stopped at my side and tipped his head back to take in the art from close up.

  “Don’t care what it is, it’s fuckin’ good.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed easily. “I’ve got natural born fuckin’ talent.”

  He slanted me a look, thick brows arched. “Just a kid and you already got an ego the size’a the Pacific.”

  This time, I cocked a brow. “You’ve seen my work, it’s good shit. Don’t see any point in bein’ humble if it’s just for show.”

  He made a noise that was half-laughter, half-grumble. “Gotta fuckuva lotta confidence for a kid so young.”

  I eyed him critically. “You’re what, thirty?”

  He had the permanent tan and crow’s feet of a man who spent too long outdoors in the sun without protection and the kinda lived-in ease that said he’d been a self-assured man for a long fuckin’ time, but he wasn’t old, that much was obvious.

  “Nail on the head,” he confirmed. “And you’re what, twelve?”

  The need to lie burned through me even though I knew he’d call me on my shit. “Nineteen.”

  Amusement flared in his pale, eerie, silver eyes, but he didn’t argue with me. Instead, he slapped a ham-sized hand on my back and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re lucky Eugene’s a fan’a the can. He’ll like the addition, but you best come in and meet ’im. He doesn’t take too kindly to random punks taggin’ his building.”

  “This is his art?” I asked, shocked because the designs on the sides’a the building were nearly as good as mine. “He’s not bad.”

  He chuckled and started to lead us toward the door. “Can’t wait to see you say that to his fuckin’ face. He’s gonna lose it.”

  Forty minutes later, I was sittin’ at a red leather booth in the dim, neon-punctuated light of Eugene’s kickass bar. It was one’a those places that played like a dive bar but was infinitely cooler, racked with personality from the graffiti and neon signs, to the collection of straight-up characters litterin’ the stools and open floorplan. Bikers, off-duty strippers-off-duty, a booth fulla cops in plainclothes sharin’ buckets of beer, and a sexy group of college girls titterin’ behind their hands and throwin’ back shots as they slid side-eyed looks at my table.

  My table where Zeus Garro and his brothers sat surrondin’ me.

  They were all big men, huge across the shoulders, long in the limb, big hands scarred and tatted and be-ringed, layin’ like discarded weapons on the table. They were rough and scowlin’ when they weren’t smilin’, only because they had the squint’a men who’d spent too long in the sun and they gave zero fucks when most other people flapped their mouths.

  They were the fuckin’ shit.

  I was seventeen, the son of an immigrant fisherman and a homemaker. My skin was inked with pen, not permanent pigment, and my swagger came from knowin’ a good life, not a bad one.

  But they didn’t give a shit. Zeus saw me, and I mean fuckin’ saw me. He saw somethin’ in me that didn’t have a voice or a name until he dragged me inside the dark bar and sat me at a table with his men.

  Somethin’ that yearned for brotherhood and chaos and freedom.

  Somethin’ The Fallen men had in spades.

  “Workin’ at Stella’s to save money so your family can foster two neighbor kids,” Zeus confirmed slowly, spinnin’ a big silver skull on his finger. “Not often a teenager thinks’a someone other ’an himself, let alone two kids down on their luck with no connection to ’im.”

  Guilt and anger burned through me harder than the three beers I’d already consumed. Apparently, if I was with the bikers, Eugene didn’t give much of a crap if I was of age.

  “They’re family,” I said, wishin’ I could burn the words into the air, into the fabric of the fuckin’ universe so no one would try to take them from us again.

  He tipped his head to the side and stroked his short beard with tattooed fingers. “You got an old heart and a rebel kinda mind. I’m thinkin’ you didn’t like school anyways, didn’t feel good there with those people who smiled so fake and fuckin’ nice like the world isn’t a bad place and they aren’t bad people.” He leaned closer, forearms on the table, big, craggy face so close to mine I could see the smile lines in his cheeks and the creases beside his hard eyes. “Feel like you understand shit but no one understands you.”

  My knee set to bouncin’ beneath the table, a jittery nervous habit I’d never been able to kick. I wasn’t used to this. Lila’d once told me in her sometimes-creepy childhood wisdom, that I was like an iceberg. So many people saw the surface 10% and assumed that’s all I had to offer when the real me was mostly submerged in murky depths.

  I hadn’t realized until that moment how horribly vulnerable it felt for a practical stranger to sense my vastness.

  He smiled thinly, a memory in his eyes, stale pain stamped on his features. “Not judgin’ ya, kid. Just sayin’, there’s no real beauty without some serious depth, yeah? It’s admirable as fuck what you’re doin’. Respect the hell outta it.”

  My heart was tappin’ out a staccato beat in my chest, too fast, too outta tune with my natural rhythms. So I sucked in a quick sip of beer to steady it and plastered my signature grin between my cheeks. “Hell, man, I must be pretty as shit to get you to call me beautiful.”

  Zeus tipped his long-haired head back to the ceiling and shook with belly deep laughter before rightin’ himself and grinnin’ outright at me. For such a physically terrifyin’ guy, he was kinder than most men I’d ever known. “Gotta say, man, you gotta be the cockiest motherfucker I ever met, and that’s goddamn sayin’ somethin’.”

  “It is,” a man named Bat agreed with a smile that was more plastic than flesh. He had the broken and glue
d together look of a man who’d been through hell yet hadn’t quite come back. “But he’s right. Betcha think you could pull anyone of the women in here, eh?”

  I slouched back in my chair, legs splayed, hand dangerously close to my junk. One’a the sexy college girls, a redhead, wet her glossed lips with the tip of her pink tongue.

  “Yeah, man,” I drawled, mouth curled to the left in a smirk meant for her. “I damn well can.”

  Zeus, Bat, and the two other guys, a huge-ass blond named Axe-Man, and a quiet, First Nations guy called Kodiak, burst into loud laughter, drawin’ the eyes of all the girls at the table who basically let out a collective swoon.

  Like takin’ candy from a baby.

  I sat up in my chair and leaned my forearms on the sticky tabletop. “Fifty bucks.”

  “To get the girl’s number?” Kodiak grumbled.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Hey now, let’s not make this too easy. Fifty bucks I’m hookin’ up with her behind the bar in the next twenty minutes.”

  Axe-Man grunted. “Kid, you do that, I’ll give ya a c-note.”

  I grinned at them wolfishly as I kicked my chair back. “Done.”

  “Hey, Casanova,” Zeus called out as I started to turn. “You lose, you clean the garage free’a charge for a month.”

  I jerked my chin up in agreement and swaggered over to the table of girls. The redhead, blushed nearly as red as her hair, and I wondered if she’d flush the same straight down to her toes when I put my tongue on her.

  I stopped beside the booth, leanin’ against the edge of it with a small, wicked grin as I stared down at the women. The redhead was right beside me, so she had to crank around awkwardly in her seat to look at me.

  I winked at her when she made the effort. “I’m bored.”

  She blinked, surprised by my approach. “Oh?”

  One of her friends, a gorgeous Indian woman, spoke up with flirty sass. “Oh yeah, what are we supposed to do about it?”

  The grin spread wider between my cheeks. “I’m so glad you asked, gorgeous. See, I was sittin’ over there with my buddies shootin’ the shit, and all I could hear was the sweet sound of the laughter comin’ from this table. So,” I knocked my knuckles against the tabletop, “maybe you invite me to sit down, and I’ll have a reason to laugh too.”

  “Wow,” the sweet, auburn haired girl breathed under the rush of laughter from the rest.

  “Smooth,” the other girl approved. “I’m Daksha, why don’t you take a seat…?”

  “Nova,” I offered with that smile women seemed to like, a wolf poorly disguised as a sheep. “Nova Booth.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Her tongue was sweet in my mouth, but Katie’s, the redhead, felt even better against my neck, licking at my beating pulse. Daksha moaned as I palmed her tit through the opening in her blouse, and Katie giggled softly as I pulled her tight with an arm around her waist, hand to her ass on my other side. They were so soft, curves pressed to my edges, fragrant like desserts at a picnic in the park. There was so much to love about women, the headiness of their vulnerability when they gifted it, the darkness of their desires when they unleashed them.

  I had a lotta love in my heart for every kinda girl, but these, women confident enough to entertain their own fantasies? They made me hard as stone.

  Daksha gripped my dick through my jeans while simultaneously biting into my lip. “Who do you want, Nova? Katie, me, or both on our knees?”

  My hand fisted the back of her thick, silken hair and tugged so I could softy snarl into her panting mouth. “Why don’t we see how you both look down there, and I’ll letcha know.”

  Katie laughed again. “You are so fucking sexy.”

  “Hey,” I said, catchin’ the tip of her chin in my hand so I could speak against her lips. “I don’t know the half’a it compared to you two.”

  She melted against me, droppin’ to the asphalt behind the bar like butter on a stove. I braced my legs as she made quick work of my belt and fly, then sighed as her soft hands dove into the denim and fished my cock out. Daksha hummed with approval as she dropped beside her friend, and together, they started to lave me with their tongues.

  I closed my eyes, leaned back against the graffitied wall, and let the pleasure soak through me.

  “What the actual fuck, Katie?” A male voice barked from the side of the buildin’.

  Katie froze, hand wrapped around me like a vice, mouth open and pink tongue extended. She seemed confused at first, sunk so deep in her arousal and intoxication that it took her a moment to swim to the surface of reality.

  When she did, she dropped my cock like a hot coal and lurched to her feet so quickly she stumbled.

  I frowned because I hadn’t thought she was that drunk. Reachin’ out, I steadied her while addressin’ the jock who’d interrupted us. “What the fuck yourself? Give the women some goddamn privacy.”

  “Says the guy who’s assaulting them behind a bar,” he snarled, stalkin’ forward. In the yellow cast of the security lights his face was florid with anger. “Get your hands off my girl.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Katie who gaped like a fish out of water. “You taken, sweetheart?”

  Mutely, she shook her head. “He wishes, though.”

  Instantly, my blood went hot. “He bother you much?”

  She hesitated, because the asshole was still comin’ at us. “Um, yeah.”

  Daksha unfolded from her knees gracefully and was kind enough to tuck my now-limp dick back in my pants, givin’ it a little regretful pat after she zipped my fly. “Tries all the time. He’s a dickhead.”

  Dick Head was close enough now to lunge out and grab for Katie. I gently, firmly, moved her behind me and faced him with bared teeth.

  “Seems she doesn’t think you have a right to barge in here, man. Why don’t you take a hike?”

  He scoffed. “Why don’t you fuck off, pretty boy, huh? Think you’re better than me or something?”

  “It’s not about me,” I said calmly even while I dipped casually into my jean’s pocket to grasp my keys between my knuckles. “It’s about the girls.”

  “Katie doesn’t know what she wants.”

  “Ethan,” Katie tried to protest.

  “You come with me now, I won’t have to beat up your pretty boyfriend,” he taunted, crackin’ his knuckles.

  He was on the large size, obviously a gym junkie with a neck as thick as his thigh. But he lumbered as he strode across the asphalt, no agility, no grace.

  And I doubted he had three brothers and a best friend who was a street fighter.

  I could take him.

  Bouncin’ light on the balls of my feet, I grinned a little maniacally at the fucker. “Seein’ how Katie is a grown woman––trust me, after feelin’ those curves, I know she’s all woman––I’m thinkin’ we respect her wishes and you. Fuck. Off.”

  Ethan eyed me for a moment, takin’ in my stance, my tall, lean form that still needed some fillin’ out, but was built considerin’ my age.

  And then he opened his mouth and hollered, “Avery, Bruce, Leland!”

  I sighed dramatically as there was a murmur of voices from the front of the bar, and then three figures rounded the shadowed corner to join us.

  “That scared, huh?” I teased. “Don’t see why, it’d be hard for me to fuck up your ugly mug any worse.”

  Easy as flashin’ red before a bull, he charged. Before his friends could flank him or he could think up some better approach, the fucker was swingin’ his heft in a fist aimed right at my head.

  Damn, I’d been hopin’ for a real fight.

  I ducked, the air stirrin’ over my head as he missed his mark, then I twisted on the ball of my foot, hips torqued for maximum force, and I landed a brutal uppercut straight to his lower left flank.

  The air exploded from his lungs in a bleat like wounded cattle. As he doubled over, I launched to my feet, drivin’ my knee into his downturned face.

  I could feel the bones crunch
against my limb like crumbling crackers, wincin’ in sympathy despite myself.

  He keeled over, droppin’ to his knees where he cupped his bleeding face and started cryin’ like a fuckin’ baby even though he’d practically begged me for it.

  But there wasn’t time to relish in a job well done since his three idiot friends were approachin’ at a clip, yellin’ curses at me, and assurin’ me I would ‘feel the pain.’

  I chanced a look over my shoulder and jerked my chin at the girls. “Get inside, don’t need you gettin’ hurt after all this.”

  Katie instantly moved toward the door, but Daksha waited. “Seems pretty shitty to leave you to get beaten up.”

  I barked out a laugh then chuckled even harder when Katie jumped back from the backdoor as it swung open from the inside and a mammoth body that was hard to forget stepped into the dark lot.

  I winked at Daksha. “Dick Head isn’t the only one with friends, yeah? Now get inside.”

  She shook her head, but there was a smile on her lips as she ran back to Katie who was waitin’ for Zeus, Kodiak, Axe-Man and Bat to fit their huge ass selves through the doorframe.

  They strolled slowly toward us, not in a rush even though the three assholes were in front’a me in the next heartbeat. I knelt quickly as one stepped forward and punched into his upper right knee.

  He went down with a wail.

  Another kicked me in the side.

  I coughed, crouched on my hands and knees, allowing myself a fuckin’ breath before lurchin’ into the fight again. But then a massive mitt was in my face, knuckles tatted, fingers ringed with skulls and a gold ring that read ‘DAD’.

  Grabbin’ hold of the hand, I got to my feet and smirked in the face of Zeus Garro who was shakin’ his head at me.

  “Why do I got the feelin’ trouble follows wherever your pretty boy face goes?” he groused good-naturedly.

  I winked. “I gotta feelin’ you’ve seen your fair share’a trouble too.”

  Zeus grinned, a feral, wolfish expression that made him look more beast than man, but before he could respond, one of our attackers lunged forward to punch him in the gut. Zeus deflected the blow the way someone would swat aside a fly then landed a brutal, cracking punch against the man’s chin.