Chapter 2
ONYX
Ididn’t look back at Ink as I pivoted and began walking toward my section of the studio.
But I could feel the asshole’s amusement poking at me.
Ink wasn’t stupid. I knew he’d seen the shift in me the second my eyes landed on Elena.
He recognized obsession when it sparked.
The two of us had witnessed it happen to our brothers, not to mention Ink had been there himself, which was why he’d made the call without me even having to say the real reason out loud.
Thank fuck I’d come out of my office when I heard Ink in the hallway. It had only taken one look at Elena for my body to come roaring to life with a ferocity I’d never experienced before.
I reacted before I even saw her face because she’d been taking in everything around her. She didn’t look overwhelmed, which told me she either had nerves made of steel or she knew how to keep them hidden.
Then she turned slightly as Ink spoke, and I saw her face in full.
The heat hit low and hard. An immediate pull that made my spine go tight and my lungs forget their job for half a second. It wasn’t subtle or gradual. The attraction slammed into me with no warning, leaving me standing there as if I had just been claimed by something I didn’t understand.
She was young—nineteen or twenty, if I remembered right. Her hair was dark brown and thick, pulled back with a few strands loose near her face like she’d shoved it into place without caring if it looked perfect.
She was slim, but not fragile. Soft in the right places, making my hands itch to stroke her curves.
Her mouth was full, the lower lip slightly parted, as if she were about to speak and had forgotten how.
I caught myself staring at it, imagining what it would look like bruised pink from my teeth, envisioning the sound she’d make if I kissed her hard enough to steal her breath.
Her eyes were gray-blue, cool and clear, and the second they flicked up and landed on me, I felt the impact all the way down to my groin.
She froze for the smallest beat, like she’d felt it too.
Good.
She wasn’t gawking at the ink or the cut.
She looked at me like her body had made a decision her mind hadn’t signed off on yet.
Her breath caught slightly, and her shoulders stiffened as though she was trying to force herself back into control.
But her gaze dropped anyway, sliding over my chest and my arms like she couldn’t stop it.
When her eyes lingered on my hands, something inside me went viciously still. She stared at my knuckles like she was imagining what they’d feel like. She didn’t smile or blush. Her quiet and intense expression lit me up inside.
I’d been around women my whole life. Was raised by a strong, loving mother who’d taught me to respect them.
I'd worked with them. Protected them. Watched my brothers fall for women and get knocked on their asses by it—which I found fucking hilarious at the time. Though they didn’t tend to appreciate my sense of humor. Boring motherfuckers.
Never been the guy who lost his head over a girl. For sure, I never looked once and felt something primitive snap into place like a lock.
But fuck if that wasn’t what happened.
Mine.
The thought had come uninvited, sitting in my chest while every breath fought to be set free.
While Ink kept talking, I realized she belonged here in my space. But I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet.
She wasn’t mine. Except my body didn’t believe that shit for a second.
But I didn’t let any of what I was feeling show when I murmured, “C’mon.”
My pace was steady as I led her across the room, but my body was very aware of her presence beside me.
I could hear the soft scuff of her boots, the faint rustle of her clothes, and the quiet inhale she took when we passed one of the open booths where a machine buzzed against skin.
Every time she drew in a breath, my mind supplied a different sound to go with it, something lower and broken that she’d make if I had her pinned to a wall with my mouth at her throat.
I was losing my fucking mind.
She was too young. And much too sweet.
I was patched into the Hounds of Hellfire Motorcycle Club, for fuck’s sake. We weren’t the damn devil, but we certainly weren’t choir boys either. My life was filled with secrets and darkness. It was the nature of the beast.
Motorcycle clubs were built on silence and loyalty—ours more than most. People on the outside didn’t know much, but they got enough to stay the fuck out of our way.
We weren’t saints and never claimed to be.
We had blood on our hands, dabbled in shit that never made it to paper, and handed out our own kind of justice when the law fell short.
But we had honor. Loyalty. Limits.
And unlike a lot of other clubs, we actually lived by them.
The Hounds didn’t just run bikes and muscle. We had legitimate businesses, more than people realized. And Ace, with his freakish brain for the stock market, made sure our investments stayed fat.
But the real money came from the shadows.
We didn’t kill people for cash. We killed identities. Scrubbed them clean. Rewrote lives from the bones up. It had started with a few favors, but it turned into something bigger. And lucrative. We became the place you went when you needed to vanish for good—no questions, no trace, and no slip-ups.
The government had WITSEC.
We offered something better.
No red tape. No weak links. Just results.
It only worked because we trusted each other with our lives. Every patch earned its place. We had specialists in every corner—tech, weapons, fire, finance, theft, and intel. Some had military backgrounds. Others learned in darker places.
Ink and I brought our artistic talents into the mix.
When King forged documents, we took care of the watermarks and other shit needed to make them hold up against the most intense scrutiny.
We built lives from paper to digital footprint and made them stick.
But no client ever knew who did what. That was the deal.
We didn’t take every job. Some we did for a price. Others we walked into with nothing but instinct and a sense of justice. No receipts. No favors owed. But nobody talked about those, which kept people from showing up with sob stories they thought could play us.
We weren’t above the law because we thought we were better than it.
We just knew how broken it was. Sometimes, even the cops looked the other way.
Especially after the MC made a generous donation to the police fund.
Friends in high places didn’t hurt. We didn’t buy them—we just gave them a reason to see things our way.
We even had a fucking SKIFF room—sealed tight and soundproof, meant for the kind of ops the alphabet agencies pretended didn’t exist. It wasn’t about paranoia. It was about control. And the Hounds didn’t operate without it.
Elena didn’t belong in my world. She didn’t belong anywhere near it.
But I wanted her anyway.
When we reached my booth, I stopped and turned, letting her come up short in front of me. She lifted her eyes to meet mine again, and the look she gave me wasn’t shy. But it wasn’t bold, either. It was the look of someone who felt something they couldn’t name and didn’t know what to do with.
I understood that feeling a little too well, but I wasn’t quite ready to accept the whole truth of what it meant.
“Set your stuff down over there.” I pointed at a corner where there was a small chair and an end table. My voice was calm and controlled, like my blood wasn’t burning inside me or draining to my cock and making me so hard I could barely walk comfortably.
Elena moved, sliding her portfolio onto the table with careful hands.
I watched the way her fingers flexed afterward, as if she needed to shake out tension.
Her nails were short and practical, with faint graphite smudges at the edges.
She looked like she lived with pencil dust under her skin.
There were also the faintest traces of ink.
Good. That meant she wasn’t playing at this.
“What do you know about blackwork?” I asked, leaning back against the counter, my arms folding across my chest.
She blinked once, then answered smoothly, like she’d expected to be tested. “It’s about saturation and precision. Clean lines. Negative space. Knowing where to stop as much as knowing where to fill.”
My mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
She watched it happen, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
Fuck.
I wanted to hear her swallow again, but not because she was nervous. When she was on her knees in front of me, her lips wrapped around my cock, her eyes glossy with need. Sucking me with everything she had and moaning with delight because she was addicted to the way I tasted.
The thought hit hard enough that I shifted my stance, spreading my feet slightly, grounding myself. I didn’t touch her or move closer. But I didn’t let go of her eyes, my steady gaze locking us together with an invisible tether.
Her cheeks flushed faintly, and she tried to hide it by breaking our connection and glancing down at her portfolio like it would ease the tension in the room. It didn’t work.
“You draw?” I inwardly cringed at the question since the answer was obvious.
Her lashes lifted. “All the time.”
“Show me.”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then opened her portfolio and pulled out a sketchbook.
She flipped to a page without fumbling, as if she knew exactly where everything was.
She held it out, and I stepped closer. Her scent hit me again—clean skin, faint vanilla, and something warm underneath that made my mouth go dry.
The drawings were sharp. Pretty and decorative, but underneath the icing was an intentional structure. The kind of work that made you think she saw the world in layers that most people couldn’t access.