Chapter Two
Riley
Riley had seen a lot of big men in her chair. None of them looked like this one.
She sat on the rolling stool in her studio, studying Dan.
“Don’t think you have to hide your face from me.”
He reached up with one hand and hesitated for a long moment. She wasn’t sure he’d comply, but then Dan tugged the bandana down.
He had shoulders so broad he’d had to angle sideways to fit between the counters.
The Rogue Maniacs cut had come off first, draped carefully over a chair like it was made of gold instead of leather.
Then he sat there in a black T-shirt stretched tight across a chest that could have been carved from granite.
She snapped on nitrile gloves as she watched him, mostly so she wouldn’t do something stupid like run her bare hands over all that scarred muscle.
“Let me see the hand.”
Dan extended it without comment. His knuckles of four fingers were shallowly split open, blood already dry.
Scars crisscrossed the back of his hand and disappeared under his sleeve.
Old burns, surgical lines, shrapnel divots.
His was a story written in skin. She wanted to know every inch of him.
Jesus, I haven’t wanted anyone like I do this man.
Riley swallowed. “Do you perhaps come with a warning label, Just Dan?”
“Several.” He chuckled, and his voice rumbled like a truck’s diesel engine at idle.
She reached out for her supplies, cleaned the fresh cuts with a gauze square, and he didn’t even flinch. When she dabbed his fingers with antiseptic, his only reaction was a slight tightening of that square jaw.
“You always this stoic or only when pretty girls are pouring stinging stuff on you?”
That earned her the tiniest twitch at one corner of his mouth. Progress.
“Pretty girls don’t usually patch me up,” he said. “Generally, they run the other direction screaming.”
Riley paused, cotton ball dripping. “Their loss.” She smiled at him. “My gain.”
Something flickered in his dark eyes, there and gone before she could name it. She finished cleaning his hand in silence, then peeled the gloves off.
“Those HHMC assholes,” she said. “They’ve been sniffing around for weeks. I honestly thought they were just posturing after their club went tits-up. Guess not.”
“How many appointments did you have left today?”
“Three, if I’m counting you in that number. I can’t afford to close the shop and reschedule.”
“It’s late in the day to start on my ink. Let’s put that off for another day, yeah?”
“Right.” She smirked at him. “Sounds like we’ll have the time.”
“Where’s home?”
Riley angled a glance up, then winced when his expression turned incredulous.
“No way. You live here too?”
Riley straightened, slapping the gloves against the palm of her hand. “And what if I do?”
“We’re worried they’re not done yet.” Dan stood, towering over her. “You got any security cameras?”
“Cheap ones. Mostly for show, because they don’t record half the time.”
He muttered a curse. “You got somewhere safe to stay tonight?”
Riley arched a brow. “I’ve been taking care of myself longer than you’d think, big guy. No reason to babysit me.”
“Not asking if you need it. Advising you you’ve got it.”
The words hung between them, heavy as the summer heat outside.
Riley’s pulse kicked. She should tell him to get lost. She didn’t do damsel, in distress or otherwise. Ever. But the way he looked at her, like she was something worth protecting, made her knees traitorously weak.
“I close at ten,” she said instead.
“I’ll be back here at nine-thirty. I’ll have your housing sorted by then. Just give me a minute.” He pulled out his phone and sent off a text, receiving a response within seconds. “Okay, I’ll have someone here before I pull out. Don’t want to leave you vulnerable after what happened today.”
“Whatever floats your boat, Just Dan. I promise I’d be okay here, but I get that you’ve gotten a direct order. Wait though, don’t you want to see my sketches?”
“I’ll go over them with you tonight. I can already tell you that I’m going to say yes to everything you recommend.
Lookin’ at the flash on your walls, you’ve got a hell of a talent.
You might change your mind after you see the damaged canvas.
” He stared at her with a flat expression on what she could see of his face. “Riley, lock up behind me.”
He shrugged back into his cut with brusque movements, gave her a short nod, and walked out. The vibe in the shop lasted long after he was gone.
Riley glanced over at the empty doorway, heart hammering against her ribs.
“Get a grip, Monroe,” she muttered. “He’s just another biker with a hero complex.”
Except she already knew he wasn’t.
A few minutes later a bike came to a stop in front of the shop, and almost immediately another bike started up, pulling away. She won the battle to not rush to the window to watch him but then wasn’t sure she’d wanted to win this time.
She turned to the sink, washing her hands longer than necessary, letting the cool water chase away the heat in her palms. Her mind wandered the way it always did when she was alone and restless, back to the reasons she’d ended up with ink under her skin and a machine in her hand.
Prison visiting room tables.
She’d been nineteen, scared shitless, sitting across scratched Formica from her father while he told her, in that calm, reasonable voice that always made her feel small, that she’d brought this on herself.
That if she’d just listened, just been a good girl, he wouldn’t have had to teach her manners with his fists.
He wouldn’t have had to discipline her so often.
That if she’d just been good for one fucking minute, she might not have ended up in here.
The guards had let him keep talking because he could be charming when he wanted to be. Riley had sat there, split lip stinging, watching the movement of his hands. They were big, wide, and calloused, the same hands that had shattered her mother’s cheekbone when she was twelve.
That was the day she decided she’d never be small again.
Her bunkmate later that year was a big, quiet woman named Carla, who was doing time for armed robbery.
Carla taught her the basics of tattooing while sitting on the bunks on the unit.
They used prison contraband for everything.
The tools they had were shaved metal acting as needles, ballpoint pen ink, and a nylon guitar string for a grip.
Carla had said giving and receiving a tattoo was about taking back control: “They can lock your body up, but they can’t lock up what you choose to put on it. ”
Riley had practiced on bartered oranges until the juice ran red, then on herself in small, secret pieces easily hidden under waistbands and sleeves. When she got out a year later, she’d turned it into a living. Transformed the pain into art. Converted the scars into stories she controlled.
She dried her hands and looked at the doorway again.
Dan’s scars weren’t hidden under clothes. They were right there, screaming across his face and arms and probably everywhere else she hadn’t seen yet. And he wore that damn bandana like it was bulletproof armor.
She wondered what would work to get him to take it all the way off.
Wondered if she wanted to be the one to ask.
You know you do.
***
Riley was wiping and cleaning up after the most recent client when the bell jingled at 7:28. She didn’t need to look up to know it was him.
Dan stepped inside, bandana already halfway tugged down around his throat tonight, scars fully exposed under the shop lights. He didn’t hide. Didn’t even try. The man just stood there bravely, letting her see.
“You’re early,” she said. “I’ve got another client in fifteen minutes.”
“Why wasn’t the door locked, Riley?” He sounded furious.
“I had a client who just left. He was probably still in the lot when you pulled in. I wasn’t slacking, Dan.”
He offered her a quick up nod. “I figured you might want to close up sooner than usual, with how your day was going earlier.” His eyes tracked over her and around the shop, taking a quick inventory, checking for threats. “Everything quiet?”
“So far.” She tossed the rag into the sink. “You really planning on playing bodyguard all night?”
“Prez’s orders.” A pause. “And my honor.”
Riley studied him. The scars pulled tight when he spoke, making the left side of his mouth lift in a permanent half-snarl. But his eyes...they were steady. Tired, maybe. Definitely wary. But steady.
She walked closer, stopping barely inside his personal space. “Can I ask you something?”
He nodded once.
“The bandana. Why’d you start wearing it?”
Dan’s jaw flexed. For a second she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he exhaled, slow and rough.
“First few months after the blast...I couldn’t look in a mirror without wanting to put my fist through it.
Kids would stare. Women would flinch. Grown men would cross the street.
” He lifted one shoulder. “Easier to cover it up. Let people see what they expect instead of what’s real.
I don’t inflict myself on them and also didn’t have to eat their reactions with a side of wounded pride. ”
Riley tilted her head. “And now?”
“Now it’s habit.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, then back up. “It’s armor that allows me to keep a forced distance between me and any curious lookie-loo.”
She reached out slowly, giving him plenty of time to avoid her touch, and brushed the edge of the bandana where it rested against his throat. When her fingertips grazed the ridge of a scar, he went very still.
“You don’t have to wear it around me,” she said softly.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Never let a woman touch the scars before.”
The admission hung there, raw and unguarded.
Riley didn’t pull her hand away. “First time for everything, Just Dan.”
His eyes searched hers, searching for pity, maybe. She knew he’d find none.
He exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath for years.
Then, deliberately, he reached up, hooked two fingers into the black fabric, and tugged it off the rest of the way.