The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos)

by Scarlett Cole

  “I kicked your ass, I kicked your ass, I kicked your ass.” Tyrell was shaking his tush and waving his hands in the air like the cocky ten-year-old he was.

  Lia could barely contain her laughter as she walked toward them in sky-high heels that made her legs as sexy as sin. It was the first thing he’d noticed about her yesterday as he approached her on his bike, and most of his highly inappropriate dreams had featured them wrapped around his back as he fucked her, preferably with her shoes still on.

  She high-fived Tyrell, the grin on the kid’s face revealing exactly how much she’d just made his day.

  “Okay,” he said to Tyrell. “Go back inside, pick up your homework, and head straight home. Let me know how you get on with the results. Okay?”

  “Thanks, Kenny. You’re the best.”

  He watched Tyrell run back into the garage then turned to face Lia. “I appear to be sweaty again.”

  “I see that,” she said, lifting her sunglasses and somehow managing to perch them on top of the very impressive hairstyle without putting a hair out of place. “Is it wrong that I kind of like it?”

  “Not so long as it isn’t wrong for me to wonder what you’d look like with all of that hair of yours spread across my pillow, as clichéd as that sounds.”

  “I don’t find anything wrong with that at all,” she replied, looking him directly in the eye.

  Her teeth bit gently into her lower lip, something he’d wanted to do the previous evening. Something he didn’t think he would have the chance to do again. He hadn’t expected to see her after he’d left her last night. Once he’d pulled away from the curb, he’d assumed he would get a call or an e-mail with instructions regarding the car, so he’d been stunned to see her standing in his lot. Unable to resist, he took a step closer. Not as close as he would like, but given how pretty she looked and how sweaty he was, it was as close as felt proper.

  “You standing here in that dress is far and away the best surprise I have had since Christmas.”

  “I needed to be sure my Cherry was in good hands,” she said with a grin. “And the only way to assess whether she was . . . well, it was to come here and find out personally just how good those hands are.”

  Usually, Reid prided himself on his control, but his dick twitched at the real meaning of her words. Nothing could top spending the next twelve hours with that hot body of hers under and over his to prove just how effective every part of him could be, but he felt the need to be clear with her in a way he hadn’t been the night before.

  “Let me start by saying that’s the best pickup line I’ve ever heard,” he said, unable to resist sliding his hand down the side of her rib and around her lower back until it rested on the curve of her ass. “And as much as I like you, and as much as I want to take you inside and strip you out of this fabulous dress, I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding between the two of us as to what exactly this is.” He needed to apologize in advance for the way he would walk away from her so quickly afterward.

  Lia tilted her head and squinted her eyes as if she was thinking. She placed her red fingernail against his chest and ran it all the way down his abs until it tucked an inch inside the waistband of his shorts. It was a move designed to tease, and it did, perfectly. “One night of fun that must include food, because I’m starving . . . and perhaps finding a replacement to this highly unoriginal car rental. Wait a minute, that’s all the dull and boring stuff. One night of fun, where we forget who we are, followed by breakfast and a farewell kiss because there is no way in hell I am leaving here doing the walk of shame.”

  Reid held out his hand and she placed her car keys in them. He led them over to her car and took her cases out before walking them into the garage. The automatic lights flickered on, emitting a low hum. “Twenty-four hours”—he turned suddenly—“in which first I tell you just how broken your car is and you make dull and boring decisions about how you want it fixed. Once that’s out of the way, you let me take you upstairs, where, yes, I will feed you.” He took her chin between his thumb and finger. Unable to stop himself, he brushed his lips against hers, enjoying the way she shivered against him. Fuck. He wanted to take her here, on the cold gray concrete floor, where the smell of sweat and gasoline mingled. Or bent over the hood of her car wearing nothing but those heels. Forcing himself to stop, he pulled back and looked into her eyes. “After that, it’s fair game for however many hours we have left. And if you aren’t convinced of just how good my hands are by then, I will do the work on your baby for free. Deal?”

  He was certain what her response was going to be, but he needed to hear her agree. She’d shown up at his place of work, had been blatantly honest about what she was looking for, and had kissed him in a way that made him desperate to unravel her, yet still the wait for her answer was painful. He leaned forward and sucked her lower lip into his mouth, biting it gently and running his tongue along it.

  “Deal?” he asked again.

  “Deal,” she said with a confident smile that warmed his insides for the first time in years.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “So, I used the strobe light to test here, and it looks like you have a problem with your rocker shaft,” Kenny said, pointing to some parts of the car she quite frankly couldn’t give a shit about, not when he was standing so close to her with his T-shirt off and his abs standing at attention. Perhaps it was just the mood she was in, but everything he said to her sounded like some kind of perverted euphemism rather than a fact-based discussion of what the hell was wrong with her car.

  When she hadn’t been being chased down by her father, she’d been thinking about Kenny. Half the time she wondered what it would be like to ride behind him on his bike. In others, she had her legs wrapped tightly around his waist as he fucked her on the hood of her Plymouth. Her romantic daydreams had always been adventurous, sexual or otherwise.

  “I gotta tell you, I love what’s under this hood. It’s a 350 CID Golden Commando engine . . . even has twin barrel carburetors.” He ran his hands over the hunk of metal like it was made of glass or something incredibly fragile, and between his pointed comments about rocker shafts and all things commando she wanted him to run his hands over her the same way. Images of them working their way down her ribs, across the flat of her stomach, until they . . .

  “You okay there, Lia?” he asked. “Because you’re looking a little flushed there, Red.”

  “In the spirit of full transparency, I was just wondering whether all car parts were named by men. Because I have to be honest, standing here with you, dressed like . . .” She gestured up and down his torso with her hand. “Well, everything started to sound incredibly like a sexual innuendo, and one more word or two, like dirty manifold or lubricated ducts, and I may not be able to control myself.”

  Reid laughed. “You know what I like about you, Lia?” he asked but didn’t give her time to answer. “You say what’s on your mind. I find that incredibly refreshing.”

  “So if I were to say to you that right now the status of my car is the last thing I’m worried about, and what I really want you to do is stroke me the exact same way you stroked that engine, what would you say?”

  “I’d ask you how much you like this dress,” he said, holding his hands up, palms facing toward her. They were covered in grease and dirt, yet the idea of ending up with dark smudges in hidden places turned her on.

  “What if I told you I didn’t care?”

  “Well,” he said, running his hand up the outside of her thigh until it reached the first button, which he opened slowly with a pop. “Then I might find I need to do this.”

  Goose bumps flashed up her skin as his cool fingers touched her. A heady awareness filled her as she stared deeply into his coffee-colored eyes. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened the night before. Perhaps it was old-fashioned gallantry, or something else, that had held him back from her. But it certainly wasn’t a lack of desire etched across his face. He ran his fingers along the back of her leg until they
rested just below the cheeks of her butt.

  Unable to resist, she leaned toward him and brushed her lips against his, yet found it impossible to prevent the curve of a smile when his lips moved against hers. Putting both of her hands against his chest, she gave him a playful shove. “Well,” she said, running the tip of her middle finger beneath her lower lip as if fixing her lipstick, “then we are agreed. But I believe the deal involved food first, and I, for one, certainly want sustenance in preparation for what I believe tonight will hold.”

  Reid shook his head and grinned. “Tell you what, Red,” he said, closing the hood of her car and pulling the keys from his shorts to lock it. “I can pretty much guarantee that you may need to refuel more than once tonight because whatever this is, it most definitely won’t be boring, or short.”

  After locking the garage, Kenny took her around the side of the building to a black metal staircase leading to the second floor.

  “I live up here.” He nodded in the direction of the stairs. “It’s nothing too fancy, but I promise you I’m house-trained.”

  The corrugated metal was anything but practical in her heels, but somehow she made it to the top. She looked over her shoulder to see Kenny following closely behind with her cases, studying her butt, which she deliberately swayed from left to right, allowing the tight fabric to tease him. The look of appreciation in his eyes did wonders for her ego and helped put the fears and concerns regarding the rest of her life to the back of her mind. She would have to deal with the fallout from her father’s announcement when she got back to Miami, but for now she was going to focus on the handsome man checking her out.

  He put one of her cases down on the narrow landing and grabbed a key from his pocket. Kenny unlocked the door. “Home sweet home,” he said, ushering her inside.

  Home was a large open space with long runs of windows along the front and back walls. To her right was a spacious living room area with a dark brown sofa, two tan leather chairs, and the mandatory large flat-screen TV attached to a wall that was all original red brick. Ahead of her was an L-shaped kitchen that seemed small and sparse but well-used. The chrome fridge stood beside a doorway into the back part of the apartment. She could see another redbrick wall and a large bed with a dark wood headboard and dark sheets.

  It was all a little industrial chic, which she figured was more a function of necessity than his ideal style.

  Opposite the kitchen, a tilting table stood in front of one of the windows that looked down onto the garage forecourt. A large piece of paper was attached to it. She wandered over to it and found a technical drawing for what looked like a futuristic motorbike.

  She heard the sound of water running. He was washing his hands. The thought of where he was going to place his fingers next sent a thrill through her.

  “Did you do this?” she asked, looking over to him as he made his way toward the bedroom with her cases.

  He put them down by the door and wandered over, coming to a stop behind her. He placed his hands upon her hips. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he looked at the drawing. “Yeah, this is one of mine. These are my babies. I want to design and make one-of-a-kind custom bikes. The repairs and stuff that I do here are only one part of what the garage does.”

  Lia ran her fingers along the pencil sketch, the artist in her admiring the stylistic lines and balance in the drawing. “This is really amazing. I had no idea.”

  “Yeah, well, I used to do this full time at a garage back in Chicago, only there it was my job to build them. Now I’m just building my reputation as a solo designer and builder.”

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his lips to the side of her neck, a move that sent shivers along her arms, standing the little hairs on end. “Is there something to be read into the fact that you sounded melancholy when you said that?”

  “Possibly, Red. But that really isn’t something I want to talk about tonight.”

  Lia sighed. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said, turning to face him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

  Kenny leaned in and studied her lips closely. “How attached are you to that lipstick?”

  “If you’re asking me how much I like my Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick in pirate red, then I’d have to answer very. But if you are asking if you can remove it from my lips with yours without buying me dinner first, the answer is unequivocally yes.”

  * * *

  That was the only invitation Reid needed. He pressed his lips to Lia’s and kissed her in the way he had dreamed about last night. Hard. Needy. And who the fuck cared if it was a tiny bit desperate? The only thing he fully understood in that moment was that he wanted her and she wanted him to have her. It was the only thing that mattered as his hands reached for the small buttons that ran up her side.

  Lia tightened her arms around his neck and ran her fingertips up into his hair, scratching his scalp gently with one hand and tugging on his hair with the other. Her mouth opened against his, and he used it to his advantage, running his tongue against hers. Maybe it was just his imagination, or her obsession with all things red, but he could swear she tasted of strawberries and sunshine and everything that was good. For the rest of the night, though, he was going to show her just how bad she could be.

  The tiny little buttons were painful to open—his large fingers struggled to get them through the small holes—but he didn’t want to break their kiss to be able to see what he was doing.

  Lia laughed a little, and he put his hands on either side of her face to lean away from her.

  “Something funny, Red?” he asked, surprised by the huskiness of his own voice.

  She looked up at him flirtatiously from under long dark lashes. “Not unless you count the fact the buttons are just for decoration, and there’s a zipper running down my back.” Making a feeble effort to hide her grin, she leaned back into him and kissed him again.

  “Fuck,” he cursed, reaching around her to lower the zipper slowly. Should have spent more time checking out the back of her dress than her ass.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Much,” he said, setting his hands on her shoulders. He stepped back a little and enjoyed the front-row view of his fingertips as they drifted lazily along the smooth skin of her neck, shoulders, and arms until the dress dropped to her waist.

  She was wearing a sexy-as-fuck strapless black corset, the kind he’d seen on vintage models like Bettie Page. If she was wearing high-waisted panties, too, he was gonna lose his ever-loving shit, because he loved that tease me look, rather than tiny thongs and bras that gave it all away.

  Lia reached up and pulled the orchids from her hair, one at a time. The sun was starting to set, casting the apartment in a warm glow. Reid folded his arms in front of his chest and leaned back against the door frame to the bedroom. Seriously, there was nothing hotter than a confident woman who owned her sexuality, and watching Lia slowly take her hair down, pin by pin, was perhaps the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. There was no point in pretending that his dick wasn’t tenting his shorts or that his breath hadn’t become a little shallower. But there was no way in hell he was rushing the show. They had all fucking night to get to act two.

  And Jesus Christ, those spectacular eyes of hers were the color of storm clouds as she finally shook her hair down around her shoulders. Despite the incredible style it had been pinned into, it fell in soft red waves.

  “Should I continue?” she asked before putting the tip of her index finger into her mouth and sucking on it gently. And when he heard the pop of her pulling it out he almost came in his shorts.

  “Please,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  Lia turned her back to him and took several steps away from the window. Smart move. There was no way he wanted to share this private show with anybody else. She placed her thumbs into the sides of her dress and shimmied it down over her hips. Instead of letting go, she lowered it slowly as she bent all the way to the ground, giving him a spectacular view of her
ass and setting his imagination on fire with regards to how flexible she was. She stood back up and looked over her shoulder. “You gonna help a girl with her hooks and eyes?” she asked.

  “With pleasure,” he answered as he swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. “How are those hands looking?”

  “Right now, pretty damn capable.”

  He placed her feet on the floor and turned her around, scooping her hair into his hand. It was soft like the silk of her dress and reluctantly he shifted it over her shoulder. Placing a series of soft kisses across her shoulder blade, he started to undo the small hooks one at a time, working his way lower and lower down the corset. The soft scent of a flower he couldn’t identify hovered around them, and he remembered that he still hadn’t showered.

  Once he had unfastened the final hook, he dropped the corset to the floor and slid his hands up her ribs to take her breasts in his hands. Standing close behind her, he pulled her tightly against his chest and kissed the side of her face as he admired the view. Her breasts were perfect and heavy in his hands, pink areoles and tight nipples that were ready for sucking.

  “You’re beautiful, Lia.” He took a step back and lazily slid her panties down her legs. One at a time she lifted each heeled foot, until she was standing in nothing but a shiny pair of red patent-leather stilettos. For a moment he simply stood and admired the beauty of her body. The waterfall of hair, the toned arms, her firm ass and curved hips, and the length of her legs. Everything about her did it for him.

  Slowly, Lia turned to face him. He wanted to take his time, to appreciate everything about her. He was desperate to have her, yet even more desperate to make it last. So he took her hand and led her to the edge of his bed. “Sit,” he instructed.

  When she did as he said without question, his balls tightened. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip in anticipation of how far she would let him go, of how much control she would give him. “Open your legs for me. I need to see more.”