Chapter Eight
Four days without tattooing was making her hands itch.
Megan woke Thursday morning with her fingers twitching against the sheets, muscle memory demanding work that wasn't there.
She'd spent three days helping where she could—organizing supplies, mapping Brandt's operation for the brothers, trying not to climb the walls—but none of it scratched the itch.
She needed her needle. She needed skin. She needed to create something permanent.
By nine AM, she was dragging her chair into the compound common room.
"The hell are you doing?" Hollow appeared in the doorway, coffee in hand, watching her wrestle the portable station into place near the window.
"Setting up shop." She kicked a barstool into position for her clients. "Anyone who wants ink, I'm open for business."
"Here?"
"Unless you've got a sterile environment somewhere I haven't seen." She met his flat stare without flinching. "I've been sitting around for four days doing nothing useful. That ends now."
Hollow studied her for a long moment—that hollowed-out gaze that gave nothing away. Then the corner of his mouth twitched.
"I've got a piece that needs touching up."
"Then you're first in line."
By noon, she was running a full shop.
Word had spread through the compound with the speed of wildfire.
Brothers appeared in ones and twos, some wanting touch-ups on faded work, others wanting new pieces they'd been thinking about for months.
Megan worked through the lineup with the focused intensity that had built her reputation—clean lines, steady hands, the kind of precision that turned skin into art.
And she talked. God, did she talk.
"Hold still," she told Hollow, who was getting the Delta Destroyers skull on his forearm refreshed. "You twitch again and I'm adding a bow to this thing."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me. I once tattooed 'MOM' on a drunk college kid who called me 'sweetheart.' He didn't even notice until his girlfriend pointed it out."
The common room erupted in laughter. Brothers who'd been pretending not to watch gave up the pretense, pulling chairs closer to catch the show.
"She's good," someone muttered.
"Better than good," Crossroad said. "She's the real thing."
The old ladies had appeared by late morning, settling into chairs with coffee and opinions. Grace watched with fascinated horror as Megan outlined a design on her own forearm.
"Does it hurt?"
"Like hell." Megan grinned. "But that's part of it. You can't make something permanent without a little pain."
"Grace is thinking about getting something," Nora said, her farrier's hands wrapped around a mug. "She's been talking about it for months."
"I have not—"
"You have. Every time we're in Memphis, you stare at the tattoo shops."
Grace's face went pink. "That's not—"
"What do you want?" Megan asked, finishing Hollow's touch-up and wiping down the fresh ink. "Don't tell me what you think you should want. Tell me what you actually want."
The bakery owner was quiet for a moment. Then: "Wheat. A small bundle of wheat, on my wrist. Something I can see when I'm kneading dough."
Megan smiled. "Now we're talking."
She spent the next hour designing Grace's piece while other brothers rotated through the chair. The wheat sheaf took shape on her sketchpad—simple, elegant, the kind of design that would age beautifully and mean something every time Grace looked at it.
This was what she'd missed. The creation. The conversation. The particular intimacy of putting something permanent on another person's skin.
Hollow had vanished after his touch-up, but other brothers kept the energy going.
She argued with a prospect about whether his girlfriend's name was a good idea (it wasn't), walked another brother through the healing process for his new piece, and fielded questions about everything from her apprenticeship to her stepdad to why she'd chosen Clarksdale over Memphis.
"Better rent," she said. "And less bullshit."
"There's bullshit everywhere," Crossroad pointed out.
"Yeah, but Delta bullshit is honest about being bullshit. I appreciate that."
More laughter. The room had taken on the energy of a good party—loose, warm, the kind of atmosphere that happened when people forgot to be guarded.
And through it all, Levee watched.
He'd appeared around ten, settling into a corner chair with a rifle across his lap and a cleaning kit on the table beside him. He hadn't said a word, hadn't joined the conversation, hadn't done anything but maintain his weapon with those precise, careful movements.
But his eyes never left her.
Megan felt his attention like heat on her skin. Every time she looked up, he was there—steady, watchful, tracking her movements with the same focus he brought to everything. It should have been unnerving.
Instead, it made her want to perform. To show him exactly what she could do with her hands.
Stop it, she told herself. Focus on the work.
But when she started inking Grace's wheat sheaf—the other woman's first tattoo, her wrist trembling slightly with nerves—she caught Levee leaning forward. Interested. Engaged.
Seeing her the way she'd seen him in his armory.
Dinner came and went in a blur of fried chicken and loud conversation.
Megan had inked three more pieces by then—a memorial for someone's mother, a motorcycle on a brother's calf, and a small compass on Nora's ankle that the farrier had been wanting "for a while now." Her hands ached pleasantly and her station was scattered with used needles and empty ink caps.
A good day's work.
The common room slowly emptied as brothers drifted off to their own business. The old ladies cleaned up the dinner mess, trading jokes and comfortable silence. Megan packed her supplies with automatic efficiency, her mind already drifting toward what came next.
She found herself heading for the basement.
The armory door was open, yellow light spilling into the hallway. Megan stopped at the threshold, watching.
Levee sat at his workbench, a shotgun disassembled in front of him. His hands moved over the components with the same precision she'd watched all day—cleaning, oiling, checking each piece for wear or damage. Utterly focused. Completely in his element.
"You going to stand there all night?"
His voice made her jump. She hadn't realized he'd noticed her.
"Maybe." She leaned against the doorframe. "Got room for company?"
He gestured to the space beside him without looking up. "Workbench is clear."
She crossed the room and hopped up onto the bench, her legs dangling. From here, she could watch his hands work—the careful assembly, the methodical checks, the particular way he tested each component before moving to the next.
"You were watching me today," she said.
"You were worth watching."
The words were simple, direct. No games, no hidden meanings. Just Levee, being exactly who he was.
"Most people don't pay that kind of attention," she said. "When I'm working. They see the tattoo, not the process."
"Most people don't understand what they're looking at." He set down the shotgun barrel and turned to face her, those steady eyes finding hers. "You're not just drawing on skin. You're building something. Reading the structure, finding the right placement, making sure every line holds up over time."
Her breath caught. "That's... yeah. That's exactly it."
"It's the same thing I do." He picked up another component, turning it in his hands. "Different materials. Same approach. You're looking for what will hold and what will break. What's worth building and what isn't."
"And what do you see when you look at me?" The question came out before she could stop it.
Levee was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was rougher than usual.
"I see someone who built something real with her own hands. Someone who didn't give up when the world tried to take it away." He met her eyes. "I see someone worth building for."
The words landed in her chest like a punch.
She should deflect. Should make a joke, change the subject, do something to break the tension that was building between them like static before a storm.
Instead, she watched his hands.
They were massive, scarred, calloused from years of hard work. The long scar across his left palm caught the light—the sheared cable, he'd told her. Nine years of building things that held.
She wanted those hands on her.
The realization hit her with sudden, startling clarity. Not just attraction, though that was there too. She wanted to know how those hands would feel against her skin. Wanted to see if he'd touch her with the same care he brought to his weapons.
Wanted to find out what they could build together.
"Megan."
She looked up. He'd set down the component and was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read.
"Yeah?"
"You've been staring at my hands for ten minutes."
Heat flooded her face. "I was—"
"Don't." His voice was soft. "Don't make an excuse. I've been watching you all day. Seems only fair."
She laughed despite herself. "This is insane."
"Probably."
"I've known you for less than a week."
"Technically, you've known me for two years." He stood, moving close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. "I just wasn't ready to do anything about it."
"And now?"
He reached out, and his hand—those massive, scarred, precise hands—cupped her jaw with devastating gentleness.
"Now I'm ready."
Megan's heart hammered against her ribs. She'd spent an hour watching his hands and hadn't once thought about Karl Brandt. Hadn't thought about her destroyed shop or the men trying to kill her or anything except this moment, this man, this impossible thing growing between them.
"Levee—"
"Wyatt."
She blinked. "What?"
"My name." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "Wyatt Pike. And I want you to use it."
Oh.
That was trust. Real trust, the kind that meant something in a world where road names protected identities and real names were kept close.
He was giving her something he didn't give anyone else.
"Wyatt," she said softly, testing it.
His eyes darkened. "Say it again."
"Wyatt."
He kissed her.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't careful. It was months of watching and waiting and wanting, finally breaking free in the basement of a compound surrounded by weapons and the smell of gun oil.
And Megan kissed him back like her life depended on it.
Finally, she thought. Finally, finally, finally.
His hands slid into her hair, tilting her head back. Her fingers grabbed his cut, pulling him closer. The kiss deepened, hungry and demanding, and somewhere in the back of her mind, Megan realized she'd stopped thinking entirely.
For the first time in four days—for the first time in years—she wasn't planning or calculating or preparing for the next disaster.
She was just feeling.
And it felt like coming home.