Free Heart of a Tattooist: Dark Romance MC Club Alpha Bad Boy Obsession (Tattooist Series Book 3) by Lexy Timms Page A

been strong-arming.”
    She sighed. “You don’t know bikers too well.”
    Mitch lifted an eyebrow and peered at her face. “What do you mean?”
    She held her breath. She thought hard for a moment and then said, “My folks were bikers. Real bikers. Not the kind who have good jobs and ride on the weekends. That’s how I met Cliff; his dad was a weekend warrior who hung out with my folks for a while, until shit got way too real and then he and his wife bailed.”
    “Way too real?”
    “My parents are in prison. They went to jail when I was young and they got out on bail for a few years. How they managed to stay out on bail for years is anyone’s guess, but…”
    “But then they got sentenced?’
    She sighed and burrowed her face into his armpit. “Yeah.”
    “So who raised you?”
    “Mostly my aunt and uncle or my grandmother. Then when all of them got arrested or tired of watching some snotty kid, the other guys in the crew took over. They dropped me with their old ladies or their moms, whatever. They promised my folks, and if there is anything a biker will do it’s keep a promise to their crew leader, especially if that leader went down on a hard bust that the whole club could have gone down on.”
    He propped himself upon his elbow and stared down at her face. “I’m sorry.”
    “For what?”
    “That had to be hard.”
    She shrugged. Her eyes were riveted to the way the sheet fell down around his waist and revealed the thin arrow of hair that led to his now-flaccid penis. “Other kids had it harder.” She knew that was true. She added, “Look, I just brought it up because I want you to know that I do know bikers, and the possibility that they forgot all about me isn’t high, especially since Junior died.”
    “You didn’t kill him.”
    She shook her head. “No, but unless someone kills his uncle or whoever else was willing to go to bat for him, you’d better believe that they’re coming after me. You see, now he’s dead. And his getting killed sparked off some real hatred and chaos. That’s cool for that crew, they probably thrive on it. But they don’t forget. They never forget.”
    Mitch’s face took on a hard expression. “Cara, I can keep you safe.”
    “No, you can’t.”
    He couldn’t, and not just from the bikers who might or might not still be after her blood. He couldn’t keep her safe from the heartache she was sure was going to come, one that he would bring her. The tattoo under her left breast, on the side, read: Beneath Lay Words That Suffocate. Promises made that could not be kept.
    He didn’t speak again. Instead he just pulled her close. She let herself feel every inch of his body, feel the hard and muscular length of his body against her own softer frame. His hand rested lightly on her hip and it felt so right there, so very right, but as she began to drift off to sleep she turned away from him, curling into a ball as she moved onto her other side.

CHAPTER 8
     
    Mitch lay in the darkness, listening to Cara’s even breathing and cursing himself. He should have left her alone. He should have made sure she was okay and walked away.
    Bringing her to Nashville was a giant mistake, a colossal mistake, one he wished he had never made.
    Cara had been unforgettable before, but now…
    He’d watched her walk away from that plane, all golden tan and dressed in those damn jean shorts, the ones that had the slight raveling of threads hanging at the bottom. Those little white threads had lain against her flesh, beckoning him to touch them, to pull on them just to see if the whole shebang would unravel and leave her naked.
    Making love to her had been like coming home after a long hard tour. Something about her called to him, pulled him to her like a magnet and maybe, just maybe, he might have eventually forgotten that pull if he had left things like they were, but there was not a single snowball’s chance in hell that he was ever going to be able to do that now.
    She had him