Direct Nailing (Brannon Boys #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Rory

I’d done about three hundred laps around the shop today because it was dead.

Beyond dead.

Dead like we’d opened up shop in the Underworld—but then we’d be busy because dead people were probably bored and would line up to get tattooed and pierced.

Tattoos of the Damned would be such a killer shop name.

Granted, I was a fan of Alchemy Ink in a big way.

Not only had Owen taken me under his wing to let me apprentice with the old lead piercer, but he’d also believed in me when I was a hot mess.

Emphasis on hot. I was still messy, but when it came to piercing, I knew my shit.

“If you don’t stop moving, I’m going to staple you to the wall,” Nyx called over from her stall. She leaned back in her seat, sketching some gorgeous piece of art on her pad—at least I assumed. Maybe it was just an elegant pile of snails.

“My book is shit today,” I complained, throwing myself onto one of the tables in the empty stall. I flung my arms overhead. “Mark my words, this’ll be the start of my decline. No one will want to get pierced by me ever again.”

“Babes, it’s snowing out,” Nyx said, casting a glance toward the front of the shop, as if we could see through the walls. “Flurries scare people away, so actual snow’s a nail in the coffin. If it starts sticking, Owen’s going to make the call to close anyway.”

I rolled off the desk and started pacing again, earning a glare from Nyx.

Not like she was hopping out of her seat to strangle me, so I’d keep strutting my stuff.

The fear of client retention was real, though.

I’d been piercing for a few years, but I wasn’t well known enough to be crazy booked out like some of the popular piercers in Philly, and sometimes a light book landed like a personal failure.

And I’d stacked up enough of those in my twenty-five years, thank you very much.

Mrs. Hechinger’s scathing words on my eighth-grade report liked to circle around and bite my ass on the best of days.

Doesn’t have focus or follow-through. As an adult, he’ll be lucky if he can keep a job.

I strode out of the back and up front to the waiting room, where clients would be waiting if we had any right now.

The scent of the incense we always burned tickled my nose, and the neat aesthetic up here made me want to muss it up a little.

The white walls and black tiled floors offset the myriad of knick-knacks on the shelves, all fitting the whole alchemical theme, from glass beakers to brass weights and an assortment of crystals for good measure.

True to what Nyx had said, the snow was falling lightly outside, not enough to be a problem on the roads but enough to scare away any customers.

My feet tapped along the tile flooring, the sound echoing, and when I stepped close to the glass, it was cold from the snowy outdoors. The feeling of being trapped started to rise up, which meant I needed to occupy myself with something, but without clients coming in, that would be difficult.

Maybe I could convince Nyx to let me give her a piercing. Despite the number of tattoos she’d accumulated, she only had one hoop in her right ear. So much room for expansion.

Headlights swung in the direction of the shop as a black Toyota Ram pulled into the parking lot. The truck didn’t belong to anyone who worked here, so either someone was doing a turn-around, or we had ourselves a walk-in.

I slid behind the counter, figuring that if it was the latter, we could pretend at professionalism, as though we weren’t just shooting the shit and getting in one another’s businesses day in and day out.

A guy got out of the car, about average height with a ball cap on that obscured his features.

He wore a thick black coat and jeans, his black boots kicking up the fluff that had settled in the parking lot.

The closer he got to the front door, the more my interest piqued.

Those jeans clung to muscular thighs, and he had the sort of broad shoulders I loved to cling to while getting dicked down.

Even with the bulky jacket obscuring his torso, I could tell his body was a ten out of ten.

Please let him want a piercing.

The door creaked open and he stepped inside, some snow dust shaking off him onto the floor.

Then he looked up, and I caught full sight of him.

The breath snagged in my throat.

Goddamn.

I was at work. I was at work. I was at work and wouldn’t bend over the counter and beg him to fuck me.

This guy had a few years on me, at least a decade if I had to guess, which only made him sexier.

The black strands that escaped his ball cap were tousled and his skin tanned.

His deep brown eyes glowed, and the thick scruff around his mouth was peppered with a few silver streaks.

His lips were luscious, and with his strong nose and solid jawline… yeah, I was drooling at this point.

He ducked his head, tugging on the brim of his cap. “Uh, I wanted to know if you’ve got any openings for a piercing?”

Hallelujah. My hopes and dreams were answered. Getting to spend time up close and personal with him was the best way I could think of riding out the rest of this shift.

“You’re in luck,” I said. “Because of the snow, my book’s clear. I can take you now.”

Or he could take me. Whatever.

He tugged at the brim of his cap again, his cheeks pinkening. “I’d normally go to my daughter, since she works here, but the piercing’s, uh, not one I want her to give me. You’re Rory, right?”

My curiosity sounded a blaring alarm in my mind. He utterly consumed my attention, which was a difficult thing to do.

“Yeah, I’m Rory,” I said, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you…”

“Wyatt,” he said. “Wyatt Anderson.”

Wait. The pieces clicked into place. The mention of his daughter who worked here. The last name he happened to share with our other piercer and one of my friends—Harper Anderson.

“Are you Harper’s…?”

“Dad, yeah,” he said, refusing to look up at me. “If this is too weird, I can go somewhere else. She said you’re the best in the area, so…”

Oh, no, no, no. This delicious man was not slipping out of my grasp, even if he happened to be Harper’s dad.

“What sort of piercing are you looking for? I specialize in body piercings.”

“A Prince Albert,” he said, still not looking up at me, with a ruddy flush on his cheeks.

The fates had to be fucking with me at this point. There was no way Harper’s father was coming in and asking me to pierce his cock.

“Not a problem,” I said, barely tamping down the grin that bubbled to the surface.

Adrenaline rushed through me big time, but I was a professional.

Pro-fession-al. I could survive an entire appointment getting to hold this devastatingly attractive man’s cock.

No wonder he hadn’t wanted to come to his daughter for the piercing, though. Talk about awkward.

Though if my dad came in for a cock piercing, I’d consider doing it for the shock factor. Solely to make my siblings uncomfortable. It was my favorite game of chicken, and most of the time, I won.

“Ah, right, so where do we go?” Wyatt asked, breaking the weird train of thought my brain had taken. Par for the course, though. Most folks thought I’d either downed a ton of caffeine or did a lot of drugs to get like this, but hey, natural high, baby.

“Follow me,” I said, crooking my finger in his direction.

If I happened to add a bit more sway to my hips as I went, well, that was my business.

I regretted going the comfortable route today with my black weathered jeans and white muscle tee.

I had jeans that highlighted my ass far better than this.

Granted, Harper’s dad was probably a garden variety straight guy—ah, shit, and married too.

I might be a menace, but I wasn’t a homewrecker.

We passed Nyx on our way back to the piercing room, and she tossed a hand up in a wave, still working on whatever she was sketching in her stall.

“This place is gorgeous,” he said, and I stole a glance. He seemed to soak in his surroundings with a quiet intensity that I liked a whole damn lot. He couldn’t be past forty—how the fuck was this Harper’s dad? She was twenty-one.

“How young did you have Harper?” I asked on reflex and then cringed. Right, that was rude.

Wyatt let out a low chuckle. “Trying to do the mental math? Everyone does. Her mom and I were in high school, just seventeen.”

I let out a low whistle. “Damn, man. Well, you did a good job. Harper’s the best.”

“Yeah, she is,” he said, a softness to his voice. When I glanced over, the affectionate look in his eyes made him even hotter. But that was clearly a me problem.

“Okay, get settled in the seat. We’re going to need to consult on the piercing before we dive in, to see if it’s doable on your anatomy. Circumcised? Uncircumcised? The latter isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s better to check.”

Wyatt flushed hard again. “What do I do, just take my cock out?”

I arched a brow. “That’s what you want pierced, right?”

He shook his head, a slow grin rising to his lips. “Right. Yeah. I’m doing this.”

My heart thumped a little harder in anticipation.

Even if I couldn’t flirt with Harper’s ridiculously sexy dad, I could sure as fuck admire his cock.

“I mean, no one is forcing you to get a PA. Not like I’m trying to talk myself out of a client or anything, but it’s a piercing you want to do with forethought.

Wife might not be too pleased if sex is off the table for a while. ”

Wyatt’s expression shifted, the nerves dissipating in lieu of a sad resignation. “That won’t be a problem. I’m living on my own now and not in the market for anyone anytime soon.”

I blinked. Had Harper’s parents gotten divorced? She didn’t talk about them a ton, apart from sharing childhood memories and such. However, my brain also took that as an open invitation. “Well then, perfect time to get a PA. Come on, cock out.”