Wildfire (Men of Inked: Heatwave Book 3)

by Chelle Bliss

  “Come on, nerd girl. Let’s go start living life,” I tell her, pulling her by the neck toward our men in black.

  16

  Mammoth

  So, there’s an issue with sleeping with younger chicks. So many fucking issues. More than most men, even ones close to their age, want to deal with.

  First, they’re talkative. I don’t mean they like to casually chat. I mean they never shut the hell up. They can talk for hours about the same bullshit, never seeming to tire about the topic.

  Second, there’s no off-switch. None for the talking or everything else. They’re full of energy and always looking to party. Doesn’t matter what kind of shindig it is; they’re down for just about anything.

  Third, they can’t keep a secret worth shit. If there’s something you want the world to know, just tell a woman under the age of twenty-five, and you might as well publish the information on the front page of the newspaper.

  Fourth, most likely…you need to meet their family. This includes parents and anyone else who’s nearby.

  Of course, there are exceptions.

  I did have to meet Tamara’s family, but they weren’t assholes. Besides James, who I know is just trying to look out for his niece, they were all pretty fucking chill. The grandma could cook her little ass off, and the older aunt, the handsy one, she wasn’t even too bad on the eyes. All in all, the Gallos were solid. I could see why when Pike found Gigi, he held on to the girl like the world revolved around her.

  Sure, Tamara’s talkative too, but not to the point where I’ve tuned her ass out.

  But as for the secrets… Fuck. There are none.

  Tamara can’t keep one worth shit, at least not from her family. And her family seems to know everything about everyone, so there’s no keeping my life private from them. There’s not much left to keep either. By now, I’m sure James and Thomas have run my name through every background check they have at their disposal, finding I’m clean and probably scratching their heads or at least wishing they’d uncover something.

  I stare up at the ceiling, Tamara curled up next to me, wondering how I got here. I mean, I know. But still…how?

  I never get involved with anyone at the club. Those bitches are the cattiest, most ruthless women I’ve ever met. The last thing I want to do is fuck one of them and have them hounding me for more cock. So, why Tamara?

  She was an outsider. A complete unknown. I knew she was there for Crow and that he turned his back on her, but I had no idea why. I liked her sass and “go fuck yourself” attitude, which, unlike most of the clingy women hanging around the compound, was a breath of fresh air.

  “We’re fifty-five minutes away,” Tamara says, her face awash in light from her phone.

  I turn my head, glancing down just as she hides the screen. “From what?”

  “A sex club.” She waggles her eyebrows, and it takes everything in me not to laugh.

  This chick.

  I pull myself up, resting my back against the headboard, smiling. “We can’t just drop in to a place like that, princess. That’s not how it works.”

  Her forehead wrinkles as she drops her phone on the comforter, staring up at me. “How does it work, then?”

  It’s time for a little lesson. Something I’m not used to doing. Typically, I’m not into people looking to explore the lifestyle, but I’m not usually into younger women either.

  I slide an arm under her back and lift her up, planting her on top of me. “You have questions?”

  “Tons,” she says, straddling my waist, knees locked against my hips as her hands find my chest. “I want to know all the dirty things.” She rakes her nails across my pecs, finding my piercings and toying with them.

  I dig my fingers into her hips, steadying her as she starts to slowly gyrate her hips on top of me. “You want to talk or fuck?” I ask, because this can go either way, and I’m perfectly happy with whatever her answer is.

  “I get a choice?”

  “You always have a choice. Being dominated by someone isn’t about them taking away your choices or doing something to you against your will.”

  Her fingers stop moving, but the death grip she has on the barbells in my nipples has my cock aching to be inside her. “It’s not?” she asks, her eyebrows high.

  I shake my head, stroking the soft skin above her hips. “No, baby. It’s not. I’ve never forced someone to have sex with me. That’s rape. Always has been, always will be.”

  She nods like she’s comprehending. “But sometimes you’ll do stuff to me that I don’t want you to, right?”

  I sigh softly, remembering to be patient. She’s a newbie. A clean slate. “Dom/sub relationships, even only sexual ones, are about trust, communication, and of course, pleasure. I would never do something to you if I knew you wouldn’t enjoy it. I don’t get off by making you hurt. That’s not my style.”

  Her lips twist, and I can almost see the questions piling up in that pretty little head of hers. “This is going to make my head explode.” I roll over, covering her body with my own as her legs wrap around me, locking at her ankles. “Will you teach me?”

  Nothing would give me greater pleasure than testing Tamara’s limits. I remember being lost, trying to find my way and figure shit out, but I was lucky and had great mentors. If she wants to learn more, figure out if she has a sub bone in her body, I’ll be more than happy to teach her, mold her, fuck her.

  “Of course. If that’s what you want, I’d be more than—”

  “I want it,” she says in a husky tone, pushing her sweet cunt against my cock. “I want it all.”

  I can’t hold back the laugh that comes from deep in my chest. “You’re greedy.”

  She runs her hands up my arms before resting them on my shoulders and giving me a smirk. “Is that so bad?”

  “And impatient.” I move my face closer and my cock farther away from her, which gets me a small whine in return, but I continue, “Demanding, selfish, and wild. So fuckin’ wild you need taming.”

  “Tame me, baby. Tame me,” she murmurs against my lips before smashing her mouth against mine, taking what she wants, showing no restraint.

  I pull away, taking my mouth from her and lifting my body higher and farther. “First lesson, princess. You don’t control things anymore. I do. Kissing included.”

  Her eyes flash, but there’s no anger. Just need. “Do I have to earn them?”

  “Still fuckin’ cute.”

  Her eyes narrow, and she digs her heels into my ass, trying to get the friction of my cock back. “Baby,” she whispers, tracing the outline of my jaw with her fingernail, “I’m not cute. If you’d fuck me, I’d show you exactly how cute I’m not.”

  “Even cuter,” I tell her, teasing her, pissing her off because she’s even hotter when she’s angry.

  “What the fuck?” Gigi’s voice breaks through the silence we’ve been enjoying for the last hour since we made it back to Tamara’s apartment from her grandparents’. “They what?”

  Tamara slaps at my arms, trying to slide down my body and through my legs. “Move it,” she demands, swatting, and not so playfully. I roll away, letting her go, lying with my back on the mattress and my cock straight up like a flagpole. “What’s wrong?” I ask her, staring down my dick as she moves around the floor, picking up her clothes.

  “I don’t know,” she says as she pulls her tank top over her head, not bothering with a bra. “But I’m sure as hell gonna find out.”

  “Pants!” I yell out as she moves toward the door in nothing but a G-string.

  She throws up her arms, cursing under her breath before snatching a pair of shorts from a drawer and pulling them on. “Better?” she asks, all full of attitude, looking to have her ass smacked and hair pulled because sometimes she’s wound so fucking tight, she needs something to unwind her.

  “Better,” I tell her, smiling, dreaming about making her ass pink from my palm.

  She rolls her eyes and is out of the bedroom a moment later, leaving me
behind. I grab the sheet, pulling it over me since she didn’t bother to close the door. I don’t care about public nudity when I’m at a club, but in the privacy of her apartment, around others, even I have standards.

  “They threw you out?” Tamara’s voice echoes down the hallway, and I know a really fucking great night just went off the rails. What I had planned and wanted wouldn’t happen because whatever hell is breaking loose in the living room will take precedence over my cock.

  “They needed a minute to talk and cool off. They went totally batshit crazy. My mom had to give my dad a Xanax so he’d calm down. I told them I was going to leave for the night, let them talk, and I’d come back tomorrow if they were willing to listen.”

  The girl losing her shit in the living room is Lily. I know the sweet, perky voice anywhere, and based on what Tamara told me, she was about to drop out of college and try to find herself. Guess that didn’t go over too well with her folks, but talks like that rarely do.

  “Jesus, Uncle Mike is such a fuckin’ pansy sometimes,” Gigi says, not sounding as panicked as she did a moment ago.

  Maybe there is hope for my cock after all.

  “This calls for tequila,” Tamara says in return.

  DOA. That’s what my cock is. Instead of complaining, I roll out of bed, slide on my pants, and head toward the living room to at least get in on the action.

  Tamara’s eyes find me as soon as I walk out of the hallway, finding her setting a bottle of tequila on the counter. “You in, big guy?” she asks, smirking at me, begging for that spanking I’m so badly in need of giving.

  “I’m down, princess,” I tell her. “What’s wrong?” I act like I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the entire apartment complex heard them screeching about Lily’s situation.

  “Lily’s parents lost their shit. So, we’re going to cheer her up.” Tamara fills one shot glass and moves on to the next. “Maybe head to the bar after this. We do a few shots before going to save some cash.”

  Gigi and Lily are sitting across from Tamara, waiting for their drinks, nodding in agreement as Pike comes to stand next to me. “You don’t have to stay,” he tells me like I’m going to listen to him and leave because there’s a chick crisis.

  “Fuck off, man. I’m here to stay.” I walk away from Pike and head toward my girl. She’s filling the glasses so much, the tequila is spilling over the sides, pooling at the base of the glass. “It’s all about moderation. Something you don’t seem to know anything about,” I tell her, taking the bottle from her hand.

  She rolls her eyes as she turns toward her cousins, ticking her head my way. “This one’s bossy.”

  “That should go over well,” Gigi says, giggling and elbowing Lily in the side, but I know they’re full of shit. “She’s always been great at listening and following directions.”

  Tamara isn’t one who’s hard to peg. The moment I laid eyes on her and she opened her mouth, I knew she had no discipline. Maybe when she was little, but as an adult, she’s making up for being caged.

  “If Aunt Izzy can put up with Uncle James, there’s still hope someone can tame Tamara,” Lily adds before downing a second shot of tequila right after the first.

  “Izzy seems pretty damn tame.” I pull Lily’s glass back without looking up, but when I do, I see three girls with their mouths hanging open. “What?”

  “Izzy is not tame, Mammoth. She’s the boss of everybody, right behind my grandmother. If you do wrong, she’s going to have her foot so far up your ass, you’ll be shitting Louboutin for a week.”

  “Loub-a-what?” I ask, staring at her in confusion. “You mean Louis Vuitton, like the purses?”

  Tamara’s eyes sparkle with laughter as she slides her hand behind my back, groping my ass. “Louboutin. It’s a fancy shoe and very different from Louis Vuitton.”

  I pour myself a glass now, needing something to stop me from hauling her ass back into the bedroom, finishing what we started. “I swear to shit, you just said the same names.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Tamara shakes her head. “Just know Izzy is not meek, mild, or tame. The girl is fearless. She had to be, growing up with four brothers.”

  “She’s always been my idol,” Lily says, surprising the fuck out of me. The little bit of time I’ve spent with her, she seemed more like a quiet little bookworm than a badass.

  “Man, you don’t know shit about Izzy,” Pike tells me, grabbing a shot glass off the counter, helping himself to the tequila. “That woman has given me nothing but trouble since I walked in the door. She busts my balls every single day at the shop. But James—” Pike smiles before slamming back the tequila and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand “—he walks in the door, and she changes in a freaking heartbeat.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Gigi says, pointing at Pike with her long, thin finger. “She doesn’t bow to him.”

  “She kind of does, darlin’,” Pike says, looking to me for confirmation.

  Tamara takes the shot glass right from my hand and places it back on the countertop, but she’s looking at her cousins. “Fuck this. I’m done talking about old people having sex, especially my aunt. Let’s head to the bar, dance, get shitfaced, and see what kind of trouble we can stir up in this small, boring-ass town. We need to get Lily’s mind off her parents for a few more hours until she passes out, and tomorrow, all will be well again.”

  “Who said drinking?” Pike’s brother, Austin, whom I met earlier today, asks, strolling through the door already dressed and ready for a night out. “You ladies weren’t going without me, were you?” he pouts, earning a collective response of Never! from the three cousins.

  This kid is good. Smooth as shit for being so young. Impressive, really, but it shouldn’t surprise me since he is Pike’s brother. Pike isn’t a dipshit. For not becoming a Disciple, he held his shit together under some situations in which even the most hardened of criminals would’ve wilted or at least pissed themselves like a baby. But he didn’t. He was solid, and I’ve always respected him for figuring out his path and chasing his dream.

  “Let’s get this party started,” Austin announces, dangling a set of keys from his finger. “I’ll be the designated driver.”

  Tamara’s arm moves around my waist. “You guys go with Austin. I’m going with Mammoth on his bike.”

  “TamTam,” Austin says, touching his chest. “You’re really going to trade in time with me for…” His eyes slice to me, raking over my face. “…this guy?”

  Tamara nods quickly. “I’ll always love you, Aussie, but we never would’ve worked. It’s best this way.”

  “You slept with him?” I ask, ticking my chin toward the kid who can’t be more than eighteen.

  Tamara laughs. “No fuckin’ way, baby. I like my men—” she clears her throat, running her hand up my chest “—a little bigger.”

  “You mean older,” Austin corrects her. “We know I’m way prettier. You’re missing out, babe. Missing out on the best thing ever.” After those words, he’s out the door, keys in hand, heading toward the parking lot.

  “He’s a dipshit,” Gigi mutters, taking Lily’s hand and leading her toward the front door.

  “Ready?” Tamara asks me when I don’t move right away.

  I almost say no. What the hell am I doing here with this group?

  My world and theirs are miles apart. Mine is filled with mayhem and violence, while theirs consists of partying and the easy life.

  But then Tamara’s hands find my ass and her lips my mouth, and everything, including our differences, disappears.

  17

  Tamara

  “You headin’ back soon?” Gigi asks me, not hearing the conversation I’m having with Mammoth.

  I turn my attention to my cousin, snuggling into Mammoth’s large side and placing my hand on his knee. “I should. I really need to get ready for the last year of classes. Get my books and meet whatever chick’s going to be my roommate this year.”

  “Classes,” Lily mutters, staring
at the glass she’s turning in her hands. “Drop out of school. What the hell was I thinking?” She’s talking to herself, doubting her decision, but I think she’s making the right one.

  My cousin has always done everything everyone around her has wanted. She’s always been the doting daughter, doing whatever her parents asked. She’s barely lived life, her nose usually stuck in a book, scared to fuck up because she’d end her illustrious medical career before she even got started.

  “Babe,” I tell her, waiting for her to look at me. When she does, I tell her what I need to say. “You do you. As long as you’re happy, you’re making the right decision. You have to live life for you. Not for us. Not for your parents. Not for anyone except yourself. If you don’t want to be a doctor, be whatever the hell you want to be. You want to sell hot dogs outside the local hardware store, I’ll be there to cheer you the fuck on. You want to hold a sign on the street and shake your hot little ass to generate some business and call yourself a marketing director, I’ll be your biggest fan. I don’t care what you do, but at least be fucking happy about all the possibilities you have before you now.”

  “Hot dog stand?” she whispers, her mouth tipping into a lopsided smile because she’s drunk off her ass.

  I nod. “You know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  “For real, Tam? I know you’re trying to cheer me up, but Jesus, I don’t want to be the wiener lady.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t go into inspirational speaking,” Gigi tells me, laughing her ass off until I narrow my eyes at her. “What?” She throws up her hands. “She was going to be a doctor, and now you’re talking to her about hot dogs and twirling signs on the street. She’s going to work at Inked with me. End of story.”

  “Oh my God!” Lily howls, throwing herself forward and laying her face in her arms. “I fucked up.”