Heart of a Tattooist: Dark Romance MC Club Alpha Bad Boy Obsession (Tattooist Series Book 3) (2 page)

John shouted no but it was too late. She uncapped the peroxide, tearing the bandage off with her free hand. The peroxide foamed across Junior’s back while Cara yanked her foot back. No way was he getting up now. Peroxide on fresh ink meant plenty of mind-blowing misery.

“Remember this, you little shit,” she hissed as she emptied the rest of the bottle onto his back. “Cara Van Tear is nobody’s blow-job-on-demand-dummy, nor do I ever give away ink. If you or your Big Fucking-Uncle Jerry want to come looking for me, feel free.”

Color leaked and foamed along his back.

He made it to his feet. Deep shock and pain had replaced his earlier sneer and bluster. He glared at her. “You fucked up my back piece.”

“You attempted to rape me.”

“Oh, you would have blown me, bitch! You fucking would have! You would have if I’d had to smash your teeth out to make you!”

What a real sweetheart. And John didn’t have the decency to do anything to protect her? “Precisely. You would have had to make me, and that means you would have had to rape me. So I acted in self-defense. Fuck off.”

Junior ran out screaming that she was dead and he was going straight to his uncle. He probably was.

John shook his head. “I think you need to go.”

“I am.” She gathered her tools quickly. “You’re a worthless, gutless bastard, John. It’s too bad because the shop was cool.” She grabbed her phone and headed out, quickly losing herself in the crowd. Her rent was due in two days and she had exactly that money and none else to her name.

Okay, well, the place was furnished on a monthly lease. She’d blow town. She would be smart to leave. The sooner the better. Her little speech to Junior had been sheer bravado. Gangsters didn’t play games. The peroxide on his back was like calling for a war.

John would probably happily give her address out to the bikers who wanted vengeance for Big Jerry’s sniveling little nephew.

It was official. Memphis was over for her.

Now what?

It took all of twenty minutes for her to pack her stuff. She had clothes and her tattoo gear. That was it. Not one single personal item outside of a few old photographs.

The bus station was minutes from her front door. She made it, but looked over her shoulder the entire time. There were four buses headed out within a matter of minutes, and she stared at the board.

L.A., New York City, Atlanta, or Nashville?

No way was she going to Nashville, home to Mitch Rider, a man she had known for just a few short hours and who’d somehow managed in those hours to make her wonder why she had ever loved Cliff at all, or held on to his memory for so damnably long.

From the street before the station, the one that ran the few blocks to her place, she heard the high-throttled whine and roar of a lot of motorcycles.

She had to go. Now.

Atlanta it was.

Mitch knew something was wrong the minute he walked into Blues City Tattoos and asked for Cara. The guy behind the counter said, way too carefully, “Yeah, no. She ain’t here. Hasn’t been in weeks.”

“Oh? Damn. She did some work on me in L.A. and I heard she was here, so I figured I’d stop in.”

The heavily-tattooed young man sized him up. “Ain’t you a singer?”

“I am.” He didn’t elaborate. “So you know what shop she’s at? I had her start a piece I didn’t have time to finish and I’d like to get it done.”

The dude shook his head, sending his deliberately messy black hair flying. “Nah, man, but there’s lot of gun talent up in here.”

Mitch smiled at the deeply southern phrase. “I’m sure there is, but it was an original and she drew it out, so I was hoping to get her finish it. Thanks, dude.”

There was an older man nearby, standing not far from him. He wore a worried expression on his face. Mitch stepped outside and the man came out a second later. He stepped past Mitch’s bodyguard and said, “Hey, if you want to talk about Cara, I …um, I work right down there.” He walked off quickly.

Mitch blinked. It was damnably odd, but then again Memphis and its citizens were about as odd as it got. Memphis was a weird and simmering city filled with the past and present, and while it was unique and funky it was also dangerous as all hell.

Had something happened to Cara? His gut tightened as he and his bodyguard walked into the little souvenir shop.

The guy by the tat shop looked up. “You’re Mitch Rider, right? She told me about you. That the two of you went out once right before she blew out of L.A.”

Surprise surfaced. Cara had talked about him? His momentary burst of happiness was replaced by worry. “Where is she?”

The older man blinked. “I’m Bobby; I was a sort of friend to her. Not the kind of friend most folks have these days, just friends, and I guess she trusted me more than most folks, so…” he jittered nervously for a second then sighed and pulled out his phone. “She sent me this so I’d know why she had to go.”

He hit a button and extended the phone. Mitch watched the scene unfolding with real shock.

Then rage.

“So that guy tried to force her and her boss did nothing?”

Bobby sighed. “Memphis is the pits. It gets worse every day. That motorcycle club is running too much and people are scared of them. They already have enough to be afraid of too.” He shook his head. “Big Jerry and his crew have been known to jump a few tourists, just run up on whole tour groups and do a mass robbery. Nobody can ever identify them. Then there’s the drugs and everything else. Cara was right to run.”

Bobby was correct. What she’d done was stupid, but it was also part of what Mitch found so attractive about her. The woman had guts. He said, “Has she given you any idea of where she went?”

“She said she was laying low for a little while. That tatting wasn’t in the cards for a while. That’s all she said, though.”

Mitch’s heart bled for her. Cara loved to tattoo more than anything in the world. What was she doing now and where in the hell was she? He sighed with impatience. He hadn’t been able to leave L.A. when he had planned to and then his manager had signed him up for an eight-week-long tour of Europe, where unbelievably enough his sales were really catching fire.

So he had known she was there in Memphis the whole while, thanks to Cliff and Hawk, but he had just never considered that she would leave and so quickly.

Mitch held out his hand. “Well, thanks. Listen, maybe you should move or something.”

Bobby nodded grimly and shook Mitch’s hand. “The whole damn system here’s what’s screwed up. The government is too busy just trying to keep the tourists, of which there is still plenty, safe to bother with the rest of us. Tour guides are toting guns now. They also drop off their passengers and tell them to go directly into the building or the site but not one step past it then pray they make it back onto the bus. The whole damn city is falling apart around our ears and nobody’s doing a thing to stop it.”

Mitch sighed. “Yeah, I know. I used to come up here with my dad when I was a kid. He used to play gigs all up and down Beale Street. I asked him one day why we didn’t live here and he said because he didn’t want to see us dead.”

Bobby sighed. “You know the saddest part? Elvis’ family won’t even live here no more. Los Angeles is safer. B.B. wouldn’t live here no more, and probably because Vegas is safer, no matter what they say. It’s a war zone out there. If you happen to find Cara could you tell her that Bobby wants to know if she’s okay?”

Mitch nodded. “I will. Do you own this shop?”

Bobby shook his head, “No, just work it. I’m retired supposedly.”

Mitch said, “There’s plenty of tourism in Nashville, you know. Safer too, by a long shot.”

Bobby nodded but didn’t say anything else. Mitch and his guard left and walked down the street silently until they got to the black SUV they had arrived in. Mitch climbed in the back and Roger, his bodyguard, took the wheel.

“Back to Nashville?”

Mitch sighed. “I guess so. I need a private detective, I reckon.”

“This sure seems like a lot of trouble for a tattoo,” Roger offered.

Mitch chuckled. He and Roger had grown up together, but after high school Mitch had packed his bags for Nashville and Roger had packed his for a long stint in the Army.

“It’s not.”

Roger eased through the crush of traffic. Mitch could see the worry on his face. He said, “Man, Memphis. I love to play here, and I remember how much Dad loved to play here, too, but it really does need a few heroes, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll say,” Roger said. “You know how much I love checking out the real estate market of places. Memphis has multi-floor luxury penthouses on the river downtown for less than half a mil and they ain’t moving. That’s a three- or four-million-dollar place in Nashville. Ten or twelve in New York. But they ain’t moving.”

“Are you judging the place by its real estate?”

“It’s usually a pretty good indicator,” Roger said defensively. “Nobody wants to live here it seems.”

Mitch didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Roger was right. People didn’t flock to Memphis for opportunity and jobs. Most residents had grown up there and had a lot of ties to and loyalty for the place. But many were leaving as fast as they could.

It was a shame too. Memphis was one hell of a storied city, with a view unlike any other in the state.

He had no idea why Cara would have chosen it. The shop was not world-famous like many she’d worked at. It wasn’t drawing in large amounts of revenue either. It was as far from L.A. and New York as a person could get, too.

Or maybe that was exactly why she had chosen it. Maybe she had wanted to get as far from those places as possible.

That night that they spent together was incredible. Cara was fearless and wild. Out of bed. He hadn’t gotten a chance to get her into it.

She’d taken the wheel that night and drove him to the top of the city. They’d sat there, staring down at the lights, and then she’d gotten out of the car and headed down a canyon, walking away from the car as coolly as if she were walking a city street.

He’d been alone, no Roger. He’d also been confused as all hell. The canyons were known for mountain lion sightings and run-ins.

He’d gotten out and gone after her, yelling, “Hey! What’re you doing?”

“I want to see if they’re still here.”

They? Who the hell were they? He followed her, walking quickly. Her shining blond hair was a beacon in the darkness. The soft breeze ran in over the lip of the canyon, dissipating some of the stink from the city below. The sound of traffic down on the congested freeways below them was muted. Night birds called to each other softly and the headlights clicked off, leaving them in a thick darkness that she navigated easily.

He caught up to her. The smell of the perfume she wore was subtle but intoxicating. He wanted to lean closer to get a long whiff of it. Her pale shoulders, bare above the figure-hugging corset, gleamed in the moonlight. The leather pants covered her lower body like a spilled oil slick, black and shining, calling for his hands to trace the supple leather, press hard against it to the skin below.

She stopped. “Look.” Her voice was a whisper.

Mitch tore his eyes away from her and he felt his eyes widen until he was sure they were hanging right out of the sockets.

Two enormous mountain lions rested on a high outcropping. They were obviously a twosome. And very old. They lay beside each other, their bodies touching and their massive heads pointed right at Mitch and Cara.

He grabbed her hand. “Leave them alone,” he said in a low and urgent voice.

She whispered, “I plan to.”

The male stood and stretched, his powerful body flexing and flowing. Fear bolted through Mitch. He didn’t dare glance over at Cara to see if she was as scared as he was.

He was plenty scared. He was also pretty sure she was laughing her ass off at him. Or that she moonlighted as a hired killer and her plan was to have him torn to shreds by the fierce creatures before them. If that wasn’t the case, then she was crazy as hell.

They backed away. Cara whispered, “Nice to see you again too.”

Holy shit. She had been there before! She’d gone looking for those two on purpose!

They backed away slowly. The mountain lions lay still. How long until they pounced? How could they navigate the little trail back down to his vehicle without turning their backs on those things?

They went, still backwards, around a bend then Cara said, “Maybe we’d better run. I think they’re hungry.”

Was she kidding?

Apparently not, because she spun around and hauled her undeniably nice ass right down the side of the mountain.

Mitch groaned and took off after her.

Unbelievably enough she began to laugh. Her light, silvery laughter rang out, bouncing off the air and hills around them. He could barely breathe and he was trying to hear the sound of paws coming up behind them.

They reached the car. She jumped in nimbly. He followed.

Then he burst into crazy laughter.

Cara looked over at him and said, “I know, right? Shit, we’d better get down from here, though. I imagine explaining to your insurance that a mountain lion destroyed your car is a hard conversation.”

“He’d assume it was my ex.”

She didn’t say anything to that. She drove like Batman, all speed and sharp turns. Her hands rested far too lightly on the wheel and he watched the shifting expressions on her face as they headed down further and further into the city and finally landed at the Chateau Marmot, where he had been staying since the lease on the house he’d been living in had run out a week before.

He smiled. “You want to come hang out?”

Her eyes flashed in the dimness of the car’s interior. “Depends, define hanging out. If you mean do I want a piece of your manhood, no. If you mean hang and talk, sure, why not?”

His mouth fell open. “A piece of my manhood? Did you just…did you really just say that? I mean…wow. I can’t decide if you meant did I want to sleep with you or be disfigured by you.”

Her lips curved upward. “Then my job here is done.”

He had to laugh. She was slick and funny, and he sensed that below that very shallow surface there was much, much more.

They’d stayed up all night talking. They both had an avid love for hiking, vintage airplanes, and good food. He’d ordered them a massive dinner and they watched old action films and talked about absolutely everything.

He learned that she had left Cliff because she had been afraid that if she stayed, one or the other of them would eventually come to resent the other. Tattooing was a competitive trade, and she was one of few women in it. That meant she had to deal with shit she should not have had to, most of which she hid from Cliff. Cliff didn’t have to deal with it, and he never would have understood it either.

He talked about his ex. She’d been fast and shiny, with just enough innocence in her to make him sure that fast shininess was just an outer thing. He’d learned early and fast that he didn’t love her, but he hadn’t wanted to be just another divorced Hollywood type.

In fact, he hadn’t wanted to be in Hollywood at all. He had wanted to be back home in Nashville, doing what he did best, but the money he was making kept him there. Or had. He had decided it was not worth it anymore, not at all.

That he had ever put money ahead of his heart made him sad. That was not the man he’d set out to be, and now that he’d faced that he had become that kind of man and fixed his course, he felt far better.

She’d gotten that in a way nobody else, except Roger and a few old friends, had.

They’d just clicked. They’d clicked so hard it was like something had fallen into place with a loud and audible noise that he had been unable to ignore.

Which was why he had been determined to take her out again. Only she’d bolted from L.A. the day after that first meeting, and now it seemed she had bolted from Memphis too.

Only this time, she had run not from an old flame but from a pissed off motorcycle gang.