Athena's Raid: Book Two Perdition MC (15 page)

She walked into the Boneyard with him, a sweet, silly little smile on her face, weaving like she was drunk and glowing from the quality assurance test of their lounge. The very, thorough test. There might be scratches on the floor, but by God, that thing was durable. Frankie looked up from his drawing board, a dude who looked so scrawny that if not for the way his muscles lay underneath his inked skin, you’d have thought he’d snap like a chicken bone. But the guy was Irish, ‘wiry’ he said, and no matter how he worked out, how much he ate, he naturally just had zero percent body fat. They’d been friends back before he and Bobby had opened the shop together, “Hey man, it’s good to fuckin see you again. Thought you’d gotten ghosted out there.” Frankie’s greeting was met with a manly bro shoulder bump and a one armed hug, another blast from his past made possible, because of Athena. “Thanks, Frankie. Can’t believe you actually pulled this shit off,”

This shit, being the shop. It was sweet, not too big, not too small, not out in the boonies somewhere or right smack dab in the middle of the city. And despite its size, the Boneyard had been claimed as home to the best artists in town, three years running. Frankie puffed up proudly, looking around at his place with pride, “Sometimes, neither can I. This your woman?” His arm tightened around Athena’s shoulders, introducing them quickly. “You got what I asked for, worked up?” Frankie nodded, winking at Athena and waved them over to his drawing board to show them the stencil he’d been working on.

It was sick. Exactly what he’d asked for. He’d spent hours online while they were apart, looking for just the right idea, just the right design style, and when he’d contacted Frankie, the guy had pretty much read his mind. Frankie had drew a Henna like design in the general shape of a wide belt that would sit over Athena’s hips. It was a meticulously precise design, except for the flowers with five petals that would flow along through the design like they’d been blown in by the wind. “What are these?” She pointed to the flowers, looking up at him with a nervous edge to her smile, it was a big piece for her first one, but he wasn’t going to let her get away with anything small enough to be forgotten about. “Geranium flowers. If you’re game for color, Frankie could make them look like those ones you like. The ones that start orange in the middle and turn pink at the edges, like a sunset.”

The way she looked at him then, was like he’d just hung the moon for her. She rolled her lips together quickly, but not before he saw them wobble a little, and because Frankie didn’t know her, he couldn’t hear the subtle shift in her voice. The husky note that entered into it. The one that told him he’d hit her right in the feels. Home run. Shit yeah. “And it’s made to go where?” She asked, moving her hand to better lace their fingers together, “Across your back and hips. A more sophisticated, tramp stamp.” Frankie told her with a wink, and she gave a sniff, “Would it be a pain in the ass to put it here?” She traced her finger over her ribs, just under her boobs, “I’d rather look in the mirror and see it every morning when I brush my teeth.”

Right.

In.

The.

Feels.

Frankie grinned a salacious, delighted little grin and assured her it would be no trouble at all to shift the design. “It’s made to wrap around a little, you ah, won’t be able to wear a bra for about a week if we get it up under your tit…breasts.” Frankie must have seen the thunder brewing, and quickly reverted to a more professional tone, and less of an appreciative one. “I very much doubt that’s going to be an issue.” She drawled, hiking her eyebrow up at him when he pulled the neck of her tee, wait, his tee, out to peek down to look at what bra she was wearing. He tried, anyway, but she whacked his hand away and glared at him, “Raid! Get a grip, we are in public.”

“I was trying to get a grip. Is that my shirt? What bra do you have on?”

“Are you fucking serious?” She hissed, excusing them both from Frankie’s earshot, though the little fucker was grinning ear to ear, “Babe, you want that tat under your tits where you can see it every day, you will get zero argument from me. But you have this habit of wearing sexy fucking see through bras, and if you’re wearin one right now, we got a problem."

She just looked at him like he’d whacked her upside the back of the head with a two by four, then stuck her tongue in her cheek and made the sexiest little growl under her breath while she pulled out her phone and sent a text to someone, talking to herself. “Ever was so right. Tried to trick me, make me think you were more civilized than the rest of the guys, but I’m onto you.” She huffed, put her phone away and glared up at him, hands on her hips and gave him the sharp side of her tongue. God, he was a pervert. He loved it when she did that. Looked like a little sexy kitten that just got water poured on it. “Now you look here, clearly Frankie is a professional, and I’m sure he’s seen a pair of boobs before.”

“They’re my fuckin boobs, and he doesn’t get to see them.”

“Jesus, you...”

Her phone pinged and she looked at it, throwing her hand up like whatever she’d just read, confirmed something for her. “Neanderthal. Exactly. Like she read my fuckin mind. They’re MY boobs, thank you very little. They’re on my body, and you can go-“ He grabbed a handful of her hair and gripped it tight, tight enough to make her lashes flutter and a flush of arousal paint her cheeks. He leaned down, murmuring very softly, soft enough that she had to strain to hear him. “Keep sassin me, makin my dick hard and I will make you pay for it later.” She hissed softly, but not in anger, leaning into him and fisted her hands in his shirt. Her nipples were probably hard, and if she had on one of her lacy, see through bras, Frankie would be a dead man, because he wouldn’t be able to help himself and keep from staring at those pretty pink points.

“Frankie is going to have his hands on you to ink my brand onto your beautiful body. He’s an artist, and I’ve presented him with a blank, beautiful canvas to work on. If you think for one second he’s not going to picture you naked on his table, you’re being dense on purpose, and if I didn’t know the guy, this would be a big fuckin problem. Now, you can have your say, baby, but in this, you will not get your way. What bra are you wearing?”

“Ahem?”

He looked up from where he’d turned his face to Athena’s cheek, and saw Ripley standing there smirking at him, a little pink and white striped bag in her hand. “The purple one with flowers on it,” Athena murmured, “Which is why I asked Ripley if she was in town and could bring me something else.” He clicked his tongue at her and let her go, “You’ll get your say,” She repeated back to him with a little smirk, “But depending on how you say it, you might not always get your way.”

Ripley had brought her a black bikini top, that was as demure and full coverage as a bikini top could be, and she left his shirt on, just doing one of those girly things where she took and pulled the hem up through the neckline and made like a little crop top that could be moved aside easy for Frankie to work around. He sat down with her and held her hand while Frankie explained how it was going to go, while he gloved up, sanitized everything and carefully pressed the transfer paper down onto her white skin. Neither of them told her she’d picked one of the most painful areas to tattoo, but after the first initial sting, she blew his mind with how she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and relaxed into it. Frankie even looked at him from across her body and arched a brow in surprise. “Nice.” Was all he said, and kept going.

She smiled softly when he rubbed kisses to each of her fingers, wondering what she was thinking. He asked her once if she needed a break, if she was alright, and she took another deep breath. “Using a self-hypnosis technique. Barely feel anything at all.” Then she went quiet again while he was left to wonder what in the hell she was talking about.

TWENTY FOUR

It was driving her crazy, how bad she itched as the tattoo healed. She kept herself so covered in her own blend of wound healing salve, the tattoo totally feeling like a wound, that she’d taken to stealing Raid’s tees so that hers wouldn’t get stained or ruined. She’d been right that going without a bra for a week, hadn’t upset Raid any. It irked her, ever so slightly, how he thought it was an invitation to cup her boobs any time he felt like it, protecting them from gravity, he said while he pinched and rolled her nipples between his fingers. He was good at distracting her from being irked. He was also good at making her feel like his whole world.

He’d come up behind her earlier in the bathroom and seen her trying to pull her appropriated shirt up high enough to smear her chamomile and palmarosa balm on her truly stunning tattoo. He’d huffed a little sound of amusement, whipped his shirt off of her and ignored her when she squealed at him. His big hands had circled her hips, moving up to her belly, her ribs, stopping just shy of the ink and she’d watched his eyes settle there on her reflection, looking at the tattoo he’d chosen for her and looked…content. Happy. Satisfied in a very manly sort of way. He hadn’t said anything, but the way he looked at her made her feel beautiful, made her feel cared for when he took her jar of balm and spread it gently on her skin.

She loved how despite the hurt now, that Frankie had taken the henna like curls, loops and dots, the flowers, orange that faded to a delicate pink, all the way around to her back at an angle, like lace, or wings. She especially liked the little heart shaped locket that sat permanently inked between her breasts, with a keyhole in the center. It was so well done, that it looked like she could reach up and feel the rounded edge, cool metal instead of skin. The etching that curled over the front that she’d gotten pissy over at first, proclaimed her PROPERTY OF RAID. It made her feel like a cow, branded like he said, but now it just made her feel like…she belonged. It was beautiful, Raid had made it beautiful, just for her. “Here’s a fresh one,”

He peeled the shirt he’d been wearing off, which made her laugh because it so wasn’t fresh. He’d been gone all morning, she hadn’t had time to get a lot of details because Ripley had been calling her non-stop with orders, and she was freaking out because her workshop at the nursery wasn’t done yet. Some issue with the flooring that wasn’t up to Ever’s specifications, and Roar had apparently fucked up the electrical because he’d been trying to do it himself.

So now, having taken a break from the madness of making ingredient lists, lists of products she needed to get made asap, there they were in the bathroom together and Raid was shirtless. That in and of itself was awe inspiring on any given day, all his gorgeous, rippling muscles, but today was a bit different. Underneath the saranwrap bandage that wrapped around his pectorals, was an owl in flight. The head sat just below his collarbones, the wingtips stretched out to touch either side of his biceps. The lines were stark, tribal almost, but it’s body was made up of Celtic knots and carefully drawn lines, intricate, stunningly so. She stared with her mouth hanging open, hungrily eating up every inch of the bird. She almost started to cry when she noticed the round disk, dangling from a purple ribbon, tied to the skeleton key that was held tightly in its talons. A round disk, with a smaller owl stamped onto it. Her wax seal. Her wax seal, hanging from a purple ribbon with her name on it, wrapped around the key that would fit into the locket on her chest. “What…Raid,”

She couldn’t speak louder than a choked whisper, her hands actually shaking a little when she pressed them to his belly. She really couldn’t speak at all. Had no words. He just grinned like he was proud of himself, and pointed at the copy of one of her wax seals, “You know which one that is?” Which one? It took her a second to remember that he’d memorized the shape, feel and texture of each of the wax seals that had come attached to her letters to him. “The fifth one, where you were tellin me about Tahoe. Wanting to make me candles that smelled like Tahoe, so I’d be able to breathe that free air. That was the one where I started to fall for you.”

She licked her trembling lips and rolled the tears back, sniffling while she touched the edge of the plastic wrap. “It’s beautiful. But so not fair,” He chuckled darkly, taking her hands to push out to the side, walking her backwards with her arms stretched out on either side of her, until her butt hit the bathroom sink, “Not fair?”

“You picked my heifer stamp, how come I couldn’t get my bull by the balls to put my mark on him?”

His laughter rang out loud enough to echo in the big bathroom, shared the taste of it with her when he bent his head and kissed her hotly. “Babe, you got me by the balls and you know it. You can’t see the mark you made. You burned it on my heart.”

TWENTY FIVE

“Alright, spill it. That’s like, the fiftieth time you’ve done that whole, looking into the middle distance with a dreamy sigh,” Ever’s wryly amused demand snapped her out of her day dream, and yep, she’d been staring into the middle distance and sighed, dreamily. “You get laid, extra special in your sex chair this morning or what?” She burst out laughing, because it sounded like Ever was pretty jealous of her sex chair. She’d already texted Raid, asking him to set her up with the guy who’d made theirs, so she could give one to Roar and Ever as a baby shower gift. He’d sent her back a short,