21. LINK
When I rolled into the parking space reserved for customers of Indiana Ink, a hoot escaped the woman riding bitch at my back.
“Oh my God, that was fucking epic!” Lily squealed, her arms hugging me so tight that it would have hurt if it hadn’t felt so fucking good.
A laugh escaped me. “I’d never have been able to figure it out, what with all the hollering you’ve been doing back there.”
I guided her off the back of my hog, laughing again when she bounced on her feet. “I loved it!”
“I’m glad, sugar tits,” I rumbled, reaching out to haul her against me, loving her energy and excitement.
I’d thought she’d be nervous on the bike, wouldn’t have thought she’d like it.
A couple of my brothers, Storm and Steel, had warned that it wasn’t for everyone, and because she was so fucking dainty, so much a lady, she might hate it.
I was glad they were wrong.
Fuck, I was ecstatic myself.
She beamed at me even as she lowered her head to press a kiss to my mouth.
Me being me, I slipped her some tongue, and Lily being Lily—AKA mine—she lapped it up.
A groan escaped her as her hands did that fucking thing she’d started doing, that thing I loved, and her nails scraped over my scalp, digging in in a perfect way.
The only reason I didn’t bend her over my bike and make something of this was her goddamn cell ringing.
She tensed at the sound and I figured she recognized the tone. Her tension wasn’t the good kind either.
She froze against me, her nails digging into my scalp in a less than perfect way now, and I pulled back, whispering, “What is it, babe?”
“My father.” Her voice was hoarse.
“We expected this,” I countered.
“Did we?” she whispered.
“You had to know he’d call, babe. Even if it was for help.”
“I don’t want to answer.”
“Then don’t.”
She clenched her eyes shut, displaying a vulnerability I wasn’t altogether used to seeing in her.
But I guessed it made sense.
For all these years, she’d worn a mask, and with him gone, she was safe, and I’d vowed to protect her, so it figured that she’d let the mask slip.
Now, she was regretting that. Regretting it because whatever she thought he’d say, she knew it had to be bad.
She bit her bottom lip so hard that it started to turn purple, and just when I thought she was going to make herself bleed, she released her hold on me and quickly grabbed her cell.
She eyed it like it was an alien gadget, and when I felt certain she was going to toss it on the ground and stomp on it, she connected the call and put it on speaker.
“Father?”
Her voice was different. Fuck. Talk about a mask! It was like a different Lily. She sounded so formal, so disinterested and apathetic. So unlike my woman.
I hated it.
“Lilian, I don’t have much time,” he ground out. “I need you to go into my bedroom and access the safe.”
“I’m not at home,” she said woodenly. “But I will be later.”
“Did they bar you from the house?”
I frowned at that and his concern. Was it self-aimed or for his daughter?
“Why would they?”
“When they pulled the illegal search.”
We both shared a confused look. Illegal search? Hadn’t her guards told him about us going in and removing Luke’s computer?
“Don’t worry, my lawyers are working on it. But in the interim,” he stated, not letting her get a word in edgewise. “I need you to go home as soon as you can and use the code 07-12-67 to access the safe behind the Picasso above my dresser.” He blew out a breath, and in the background, I could hear the sound of a loud speaker that was, unmistakably, in an airport. “When you retrieve the documents, go to my lawyer in Manhattan. The details are all in there.” Another burst of sound in the background had him muttering, “Shit, I have to go. I’ll be in touch.”
He cut the call without even waiting for her to say another word, and she blinked at me, a little dead-eyed even as she whispered, “What the hell is his game?”
“We can reschedule the appointment here?” I suggested, worried by the look in her eyes but I had to admit, I was curious as hell about what was inside his safe that made him call her like this.
“No. I want my tattoo,” she grated out. “Whatever he wants can wait.” She straightened up, her nose in the air. “I don’t care.”
“No, but it might be interesting to see what he’s hiding. He evidently doesn’t think you’re involved with his arrest warrant.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. He knows I’m smart. You don’t get the grades I did in school and college without being intelligent, but because I’m a girl, he always discounted it. Well, joke’s on him.” She tightened her mouth. “I want my tattoo.”
“Okay, babe. We’ll get it,” I told her soothingly, because I felt like she was on the brink of losing control and that was the last thing I wanted.
Seeing her reaction to her father’s call made me wonder how long she’d been so on edge, and it made me hug her that bit tighter as I hauled her into my side as we walked into Indiana Ink.
“Yo, Link,” Indiana greeted the second we were inside, and I grinned at her, squeezed Lily, and raised my free hand.
“Hey, Indy, how’s you?”
She waggled her eyebrows. “I’m good. Real good. This your lady?”
I dragged ‘my lady’ over to the desk and leaned against it as I smiled at her. “This is Lily.”
“Never thought I’d see the day Link would get himself an Old Lady.” She beamed at Lily. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you.”
Lily’s smile was more polite than anything else. “And I you.”
Indiana shot me a look that had me holding back a laugh. I thought it was cute as fuck when Lily ended up sounding like she’d come out of an Edgar Allen Poe book, but that was me.
“So, aside from the ‘property of’ tat, you want anything else?”
“‘Property of?’” Lily repeated.
“That’s what the tattoo has to say,” I told her softly.
“You could have warned the girl,” Indy chided. “I mean, dude.”
“No, it’s okay, I just didn’t understand. I’d like a fox tattoo.” Her eyes connected with mine and, instantly, I knew we were both thinking back to the other day when I’d called her a dirty fox.
Her cheeks pinkened, but her grin was anything but sheepish. I smirked at her, then at Indy as I hauled my arm over Lily’s shoulders, so fucking proud of her right then that I could have goddamn burst.
Indy, not getting the reference, merely shrugged. “Like a real fox? Or some kind of Japanese one? There are some super cool graphic foxes, but I have to warn you, the lines might blur over time.”
“Can you show me examples?”
“Of course. Better still, I’ll draw you something.”
Her hand snapped out, and like it was connected to her, a pencil was suddenly between her fingers.
As I gazed down at the paper she was drawing on, my brows rose as I saw the state of her desk.
There were more sheets of paper everywhere, and her diary was wide open. I didn’t mean to snoop, but the second my eyes glanced over a name in the books, I felt my jaw pretty much gape open.
MAVERICK.
In caps.
Maverick? My Maverick? The Maverick who never left the fucking compound? Who hadn’t left the clubhouse until Ghost had come to us?
Even as I wanted to choke on that, curiosity making me wonder why the fuck he’d want to come here, the scratching of Indy’s pencil grabbed my attention, and I saw she was already on a second example of the fox she could style for Lily.
Because Nyx’s sister’s imagination was pretty much blooming into being, before I lost her totally, I informed her, “Did Douchebag David tell you that I wanted a tattoo too?”
Indy cocked a brow, but that was all I needed to know I’d grabbed her attention as well. Her pencil stopped, then she eyed me warily.
“David called in sick this morning. Hence the state of the desk. But…really?” The word came out over six or so syllables.
“Yeah. Really.”
“Long time since you wanted a tattoo.” She used the eraser to scratch her chin. “Nyx started another trend, I see.”
“You know Nyx?” Lily asked, her surprise clear.
“He’s my brother. Blood brother,” Indy tacked on. “Not the MC’s kind.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Really? You’re not alike at all.”
“I have some Native American in me.” To me, she questioned, “Any preference? Location?”
“Over my shoulders.”
“Spanning your back?” She whistled. “Gonna be a big one.”
“That’s how I’m feeling.”
“You two are talking cryptically,” Lily complained. “What’s going on? Is it such a big deal that Link wants a tattoo?”
“That he’s asking for it now, at the same time you are, yeah.” Indy grinned at both of us. “You’ll see.”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s no secret.”
“Not gonna be one for long when someone sees your fucking back,” Indy replied with a snort. Then she rubbed her hands together. “Right, let me do my shit, come up with some concepts, and we’ll get things sorted.”
And that was exactly what she did.