Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Hurt flashed in her eyes. I sighed. Wordlessly, I drew her into a hug. “I’m okay,” I assured her. “I went through some really hard shit. I’m still struggling with it. Ink is just trying to show me that it’s okay to trust another man again.” I leaned back and forced a smile onto my face for her. She relaxed. “I promise I’m fine.”
I walked out of the bathroom. Ink’s eyes met mine from where he was setting up his tattoo stuff, and he frowned, seeing right through my fake smile.
It was unnerving how well this man knew me.
He silently held his hand out to me. With confidence I sure as fuck didn’t feel, I moved forward and placed my hand in his once I was close enough, allowing him to pull me closer. He leaned down and slid his lips across mine, taking my lips in a kiss so sweet, so tender, my soul wailed, all my hurt and pain releasing into him.
It took everything in me not to start crying.
“On the bed on your belly,” he ordered when he pulled back from me.
I laid down on the bed and folded my arms under my face. Ink maneuvered my body so my head was hanging off the side, but Joey placed a short stool under my forehead to give me support. “Need your neck straight, baby,” Ink told me as he sat beside me on the bed. “So don’t move.”
“Okay,” I whispered. I was nervous. I’d never been tattooed before, and my first tattoo was Ink’s name.
I had to be out of my fucking mind to allow this to happen.
I felt Ink putting a piece of paper over my skin, and after a moment, he lifted it. I heard the tattoo needle begin to buzz, and my muscles tensed. “Easy,” Ink soothed, running his hand down my spine. “I need you to relax,” he coaxed.
I drew in a deep breath, forcing my muscles to relax. Ink and Joey held a conversation as Ink tatted his name into the back of my neck, forever marking me as his woman.
But honestly, though it frightened the fuck out of me to belong to a man, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Right here with Ink was where I wanted to be. I was safe; I was secure. And I knew Ink would always take care of me.
He had been for years now.
“Jessie, Whiler’s birthday is coming up—"
I grunted at my brother. “He can celebrate with his hand on his dick.” Ink had to stop inking my skin for a minute to laugh. “Whiler gets on my fucking nerves.”
Joey laughed. “Yeah, well, he’s turning the big thirty. I need you and Elaina to put something together. River will be riding in with Adelaide, the kids, and his club.”
I sighed. “Do I have to?” I whined.
“I mean, you don’t have to,” Joey told me. “But I’d be grateful if you did. The man bends over backwards for me and for this club to help keep money in everyone’s pockets and to keep everyone protected. I’d like to do something nice for him.”
“He needs a woman,” I told Joey.
Joey laughed. “Whiler isn’t like the rest of us, sis. He prefers to date, not just fuck and go.”
“Not all of us fuck and go, brother,” Ink told Joey. “I haven’t fucked anyone in years, not since I realized Jessie was the only one I wanted.” I had to force myself not to turn to stare at him in shock. His words shook me to my core.
“No pussy?” I asked incredulously. “Like—at all?”
Ink laughed softly. “None, my girl. Last night was the first for me in a long fucking time.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep from crying. He had waited—waited for me.
A tear slid down my cheek despite me doing my best not to cry. I sniffled. “Oh, Jessie,” Elaina said softly as she sat on the floor beside where I was positioned on the bed. Another tear slid down my cheek. “Haven’t you been able to see that you’re all Ink has ever wanted?”
“I was blind to it,” I choked out.
Ink’s lips settled over my temple. “You’ve always been the only one for me, my girl.”
He went back to finishing the tattoo on my neck. Joey cleared his throat. “Fuck, bro, I had no goddamn idea . . . fuck, were you waiting on her even when I was fighting you every goddamn step of the way?”
“Yeah,” Ink told him bluntly.
“Shit,” Joey swore. “Way to make a brother feel like a right dick, Ink.”
Ink laughed. “I understood it, Joey,” Ink told him. “But now you can sleep easy knowing that I really won’t ever hurt your sister. She’s my beginning and my end.”
Be still, my heart.
I used my phone to see the back of my neck in the mirror. Ink’s name was in pretty calligraphy on the back of my neck, officially marking me as his. He gently turned my back to face him, and he gently rubbed an ointment over the tender skin before he placed a bandage there. “Just so your hair doesn’t irritate the skin,” he told me.