Chapter 16 - Wolfson
As I resume tattooing, the silence pulls like skin over bone, broken only by the hum of the machine.
The intensity vibrating off Jag Rath won’t quit. Neither will my questions.
What is he to Dove? More than a stepbrother? Has he touched her? Has she let him? How far have they gone behind closed doors, and how fucking wrong did it feel when they didn’t stop?
I want to ask. Hell, I want to demand it.
But I don’t. He won’t give me the truth.
Besides, it’s not just his story to tell. When I hear what happened between them, it must come from Dove. Her voice. Her terms.
I force myself to focus on the tattoo, my steady hands contradicting my turbulent thoughts.
Hours slip by. The needle purrs, and my fingers move closer to Jag’s groin, toward the untouched space beneath that sad little drape of underwear we’re still pretending is a barrier.
A barrier that does nothing to hide his unmistakable reaction.
Goth Jesus, help me.
He’s hard.
Not subtly. Not maybe. This isn’t some half-chub he could blame on pressure or friction.
This is full mast.
Salute-the-flag.
Big enough to be a third wheel on date night.
Maybe he gets off on pain. Not unheard of. Some people become glassy-eyed and float when the needle hits.
But this doesn’t feel floaty. It feels diabolical. Like I’m being observed, analyzed, and seduced by something that’s not supposed to seduce me.
Or is it me? The way I’m leaning between his legs? The way my fingers drag across his inner thigh, anchoring my hand while I work?
My face is close. Closer now. Heat rolls off his body, blending with the scent of ink, blood, skin, and something darker. Spicier.
Desire.
The worst part? I’m not repulsed. I should be. After what Denver did to me, this should trigger the full freak show, complete with a panic attack, explosive violence, and a sobbing manic spiral into lights-out land. But I don’t sense any of that looming.
Maybe because Jag doesn’t scare me.
He fascinates me.
My heart thuds in my ears, and after a long, internal debate, I slowly lift my head and meet him stare for stare.
You’re sporting a hard-on, genius.
He knows. I know. His dick definitely knows. I’m pretty sure it nodded at me.
His smirk is gone. No mockery in his expression. He wears a tight look, controlled and waiting.
He tilts his head as if curious what I’ll do with the ten hard inches of Don’t read too much into this bobbing under my nose.
“How about you tuck that before it starts making eye contact?” I turn off the machine and set it down. “If you need to jerk, you know where the bathroom is.”
“You do it.” He doesn’t look away, daring me.
“Hand jobs are extra.”
“Name your price.”
Most straight men would laugh off this whole exchange and awkwardly change the subject. But I’m not most men.
I was raised by a psychopath.
The only way to survive Denver Strakh was to learn how to outmaneuver him, to outsmart a pedophile who used love as a weapon and sex as a punishment.
So yeah. I know how to play sick games. Really fucking well.
Holding Jag’s unwavering gaze, I remove the gloves and let a wicked, slow-burning grin crawl onto my face.
“When I ruin your life, kitten, I won’t use my hands.” I lean forward. Not rushed. Not hesitant. I reach for the material draped over his lap with my mouth and slowly, tauntingly, slide it off with my teeth.
His breath hitches, and his dick stands fully erect, flushed, and throbbing against the absence of fabric. For once, he has nothing to say. No quip. No smirk. Just wide, unguarded silence.
He wants this, wants me, more than he wants control.
I bend in. Close. Close enough to feather my breath over the head of his cock. Close enough to make it twitch. To feel the heat coming off him in waves.
He stops breathing, his bedroom eyes in full effect, heavy-lidded and smoldering amber.
Please, his body says. Please suck me.
I smirk.
Then I sit back, grab clean gloves, and snap them on with a loud, surgical pop.
“Settle down, sugar.” I reach for the machine again. “I agreed to scar your surface layers. Nothing more.”
“You’re a tease. Didn’t see that coming.”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?” A charming grin. “Besides flirting with a beautiful man?”
“Someone without a drop of ink doesn’t walk into a tattoo parlor and demand a full-leg sleeve.
That’s not impulse. It’s strategy. You saw an opportunity to spend sixty hours with me.
With your dick hanging out. You’re not here to mark your territory.
You’re playing the long game. You want something from me. ”
“What do I want, Wolfie?”
“You want Dove. But by now, you’ve learned she has a security detail.
What better way to separate her from her guards than to flip the threat and turn me to your side?
That’s your usual game, right? You don’t fight for her.
You infiltrate. You get inside her circle, fuck her friends, bogart her lovers, and make them yours.
You manipulate them. Bribe them. Turn them into weapons to use against her.
” I wipe away ink and blood, revealing a shaded jaguar paw.
“You’re not here for my art. You’re here to see if I’m weak enough to fall for your tricks. ”
“Smarter than I thought.” His smile spreads like a blade being unsheathed. “Good. I was starting to get bored.”
“Don’t get excited.” I wipe the blood again and drag the needle across the curve of his thigh, slower this time. “When this tug of war turns on you, and it will, you’ll already have my teeth in your throat.”
“Promise?”
Rather than taking the bait or acknowledging the heat tightening in my boxers, I concentrate on the tattoo.
“You only have it half right.” He watches me like he’s several moves ahead on the board. “This is about the art. Your art. It’s also about access.”
“To her,” I growl.
“To you. Dove’s already mine.” He lets the words hang, then continues slowly, like he’s explaining a truth I’m too stupid to understand.
“She surrounds herself with broken things. Strays. Freaks. Tortured souls that are too much trouble to keep. I don’t need to pull her away from you. She does that herself.”
Stray. Freak. Too much trouble to keep.
That’s me.
I have trauma like other people have blood pressure—high, genetic, and emotionally triggered. I have scars I don’t remember earning and instincts wired for survival, not connection. I know I’m a risk. A walking warning label. Broken in places I’ll never let anyone see.
But hearing him say it so casually makes my chest hurt. He’s not poking at a wound. He’s shoving his fingers in it and grinning at the twitch.
I don’t rise to it. I don’t need to, because I’m not just damaged.
I’m dangerous.
And Jag just reminded me why.
He straightens to a sitting position, not caring how close he is or that he’s naked or that my needle’s in his skin.
“Seduction is part of the play.” His voice sinks into intimate darkness. “Her lovers, her friends, they never see it coming. A few smiles, a well-timed confession, and suddenly they’re looking at me like I’m the answer to problems they didn’t know they had.”
“You’re such an inspiration. Really.” I force my attention back to the tattoo, the whirring machine barely audible over the pounding in my ears.
“You’re no different, Strakh. The way your hand shakes when it gets too close to my cock, the way you won’t look at me unless you’re thinking about killing me or kissing me… That’s not hate. That’s friction. And friction is how fire starts.”
“Is that what you told Gavin before you gift-wrapped him for Dove? How’d that work out again?” I glance up, eyes cold. “Oh, right. She left him at the altar and came hunting you.”
“Gavin was a mistake.”
“Then by all means, try again. I could use the exercise.”
A few minutes later, I finish the final strokes, the vibration of the machine tapering into silence.
“That’s all for today.” I wipe away the stippling of blood and excess ink and study the raw, reddened skin.
The lower half is fully inked, the claws sinking into a half-shaded anatomical heart, feathers curling along the base, and veins tangled with circuits that trail into clean outlines waiting to be filled. A beast mid-transformation.
It’s not finished. But it’s already alive.
I hate how good it looks.
I hate what it says about the man beneath it. The obsession. The need to own something fragile and call it love.
When the jaguar is complete, I wonder what he’ll ask for next.
I wonder if I’ll give it to him.
I wonder if he’ll live long enough to finish the entire leg.
I peer up at him, finding his head tipped back, breathing slow, and eyes lowered, hooded, savoring his view.
His view of me.
Adrenaline floods my circulation, and my dick gives a happy little deranged kick.
He doesn’t move immediately, his gaze fixed on mine. Unsettling. Then he rises, naked and semi-hard, and steps to the full-length mirror.
The man has no respect for modesty.
I avert my gaze from his tight, chiseled ass and focus on cleaning my workstation.
“Christ.” He rests his good hand over his groin, holding his cock out of the way as he examines his new ink in the mirror. “You saw what I am, and you still made it beautiful. You’re part of me now, Strakh.”
“Yeah, you can cancel my subscription on that.”
“She’ll see this.” He turns his leg left and right, studying it from every angle, his eyes glittering darkly. “And she’ll know it was you.”
“Stay away from her.”
He would have to be nude for Dove to see it, and that will never happen.
Pivoting, he ambles toward me and invades my space. A menacing allure radiates from him, drawing me and repelling me as his voice drops a sinister whisper against my lips. “Make me.”
My body screams, Fuck yes, as I mutter, “Hard pass.”
With an unsettling smile, he dresses slowly, one-handed, holding my gaze hostage until he’s fully clothed.