Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Finally, Con-man took the chair, remaining on guard if his stiff spine said anything. “Not like you’re thinkin’.”
“What am I thinkin’?” Dev asked, lifting his gaze from his boots to look at the prospect.
“Your ex keeps puttin’ on a show for the guys. Makes everyone uncomfortable. We work hard to be unseen, but she parades around barely wearin’ clothes, seekin’ out the guys’ attention.”
Of course Tena would do something like that.
“I thought you didn’t look in the house.”
Con-man sat up straighter, if that were possible. “She comes outside. Whatever she’s on seems to be becomin’ a problem. Last night she came out the front door that way.”
Tena was a damned hard thing to resist. He’d had a hard time trying to quit her himself. Didn’t matter. He didn’t care who fucked her or who she fucked, but he had one singular concern. “She’s off limits. I don’t want any slip ups when the girls are home.” Dev covered his eyes with a hand. She made everything harder than it had to be. “I’ll talk to her.”
“It’s a quiet neighborhood.” Con-man seemed to have something else on his mind.
“Hmm,” he managed. He wasn’t going to pull the topic from the man. He pondered the Tena issue. She had to keep her clothes on. What was she thinking? No matter how desensitized the girls were to Tena’s nudity, they had to see that other mothers wore their clothes all the time.
“Do you do ink for club members?” Con-man asked.
He sometimes inked for his brothers. They tended to like a lot of ink but didn’t require it to be the best quality and certainly didn’t want to pay the high prices for his custom work. If the prospects found out, his chair would be full all the time at the lower rate.
“My schedule’s pretty full, but what’re you wantin’ done?”
Con-man finally dropped the guard he’d been hanging on to and eased back in the seat. “I saw this snake that I thought was cool. It started from the thigh and went onto the belly. It’s been stuck in my head, but I’d want it to come up my arm and land on my pec. Something mean and fierce.”
How the fuck could this guy not realize Dev was responsible for all of Tena’s ink? The snake coming from the thigh went between Tena’s legs, covered her cunt, and finished on her belly. It had been Dev’s first vaginal tattoo. The snakes head resting on her belly had a sexual meaning to them. Dev was the serpent and the location showed where she wanted his load to land when he finished.
How many of these prospects was she fucking?
She strutted around naked all the damn time.
Her perfectly shaped breasts were fully inked as was all the skin between her legs. She was a calling card of inked sexuality. Sex was a sport for her. One she should earn a gold medal in.
He felt defeated as fuck.
“Talk to me after the holidays,” Dev found himself saying. “I’m goin’ inside. It’s been a long day.”
“I heard Smoke was dyin’. I didn’t know him…” Con-man started, sincerity in his voice.
“Then your life is already better than mine,” Dev cut him off and rose from the chair. He didn’t look back as he made his way inside.
Chapter 7
Something about this area of South Dallas spoke straight to Dev’s heart. He loved riding through these streets, close to the Bishop Arts area, between there and Trinity Grove. The contrast and struggle between the new and old, in both attitude and aesthetics, appealed to him.
New businesses settled in next to the old family homes, built back in the days when this area was considered solidly middle class. Way before Dev was ever born. He respected the tenacity of the holdouts, hanging on to their property while the community progressed around them.
He didn’t see the rejuvenation as a takeover but instead as an attempt to bring a lost vibrance back to a special part of Dallas. Dev had spent more nights than he could count, committing both the rundown homes and new modern architecture, including all the different types of people that came along with both, to the pages of his sketchbooks.
He had dozens of drawings depicting his views of the changes. Showing the give and take between the moderately wealthy versus those struggling to hang on to their roots.
Another bonus to the area was that they were on the edge of downtown Dallas. The decorative bridges and towering skyscrapers were a scenic backdrop and only a few miles away. So when a property had come up for sale, he’d jumped at the chance to own in this neighborhood. The first property he’d ever purchased by himself.
He’d bought the large single-family home that had been converted into four smaller apartment units. It had required a considerable amount of work, but he’d tackled the remodel with the stash of cash he had saved and ended up taking one of the units to live in himself.