Jekyll and Hyde Series

JAMIE

Tattoo shops were my happy place. With a tattoo gun in hand and my attention laser-focused on my next line, I could pretend I was a normal twenty-six-year-old girl putting in her time to get a paycheck. I could pretend I wasn’t a trained sniper and professional thief and that my parents hadn’t been murdered in front of my eyes when I was a small child.

This new tattoo place was no different—so I was annoyed to be jerked out of my Zen state by a loud bang as The Shop’s door was shoved open.

Four men swaggered in, two of them obviously drunk. All of them were wearing the universal bad-boy uniform of jeans and leather motorcycle cuts.

I knew instantly they were members of the Souls of Silence MC. I had only been in town a couple of months, but I already knew that the motorcycle club ran Carefree, Arizona. A waitress had told us so during our very first breakfast here, before I even put cream in my coffee.

After that breakfast, I had done a little digging on the Souls. Carefree was run by an anarchist motorcycle gang that had started up in the hippie days of the sixties. They ran guns and drugs, and owned several strip clubs and sex toy shops. They had the local LEOs on the payroll, and they kept their town safe according to their own rules.

It was all very cliché, but as long as they didn’t start poking their noses in my business, we could coexist just fine out here in the middle of nowhere.

This was the first time I’d been in the same room with any of them, and I couldn’t resist looking these fine male specimens over while they were otherwise distracted.

You would think that the two stumbling drunks would be the most entertaining, but my eyes caught on the guy standing closest to the door. He wasn’t the tallest or even the most conventionally attractive of the four. In fact, he almost blended into the shadows of the room, as if he drew darkness to him because that was where he belonged.

But when our eyes met, an intense punch of power pulsed through my system. I had the distinct feeling that he naturally dominated any room or gathering, and that he already assumed he owned this shop and everyone in it.

My inner muscles clenched with instant desire, but my mind revolted at the idea of being in the sights of another possessive man—and I raised my chin at him in challenge.

I didn’t care if my body thought he was sex on a stick. I was owned by no man.

Movement under my hands pulled my attention away from a potentially dangerous stare-off. My client was glancing over his shoulder. He took one look at the newcomers, then ducked his head quickly.

The Shop’s owner, Pete, went over to talk to Mr. Powerful. I assumed they were negotiating a tat because Pete soon led Drunk Asshole Number One to his setup.

When I had approached Pete about a job, he’d been hesitant to hire someone without any references. But eventually, he had agreed to let me start working with the small tats that no artist likes doing—the Chinese symbol, song lyric, or heart plus name.

I had swallowed my complaints and produced a motherfucking masterpiece with every stroke of my gun. Before long, Pete understood that I wasn’t a novice and started letting me do some of the bigger jobs.

Right now I was doing a pin-up girl dressed in little more than a fireman’s helmet as she slid down a fire pole. My young fireman client, face down on the table, was taking the pain like a boss.

Pushing my curiosity about the Souls away, I refocused on creating a bulletproof outline.

Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Drunk Asshole Number Two, apparently bored with watching his buddy get inked, came over looking for trouble.

“Well, you’re a fine-looking piece of ass. Why haven’t I seen you around town before?” Mr. Two’s clear voice suggested he wasn’t as drunk as I’d assumed.

“I’m new in town,” I said without looking up.

“Why the hell would a hottie like you move to a place like this?”

I couldn’t even take offense—I used my beauty as a finely-tuned weapon all the time.

“Who wouldn’t want to move to a place named Carefree?”

The guy rolled a stool over to sit right next to me, then leaned in so close that his red-gold beard rubbed against my shoulder. So, he was testing me.

I smiled and kept laying down lines. I had grown up with a twin brother. To win games like this, you needed to not react at all. After a few minutes of being ignored, Mr. Two sighed and started flipping through my portfolio of tats.

“Holy shit, these are fucking amazing!” He was fingering a photo of a biometric heart I had done last year. I smiled but continued working.

Mr. Two was lean but well-muscled, and could probably pack quite a punch. His dirty-blond hair glimmered red in the light and his beard was full but well-trimmed. The overall impression was of one fucking hot man.

He was also a man in constant motion. As he flicked through my binder, his head was moving to the background music, his fingers were twitching along the pages, and his left knee was bobbing.

Minutes later he was up, opening drawers, inspecting my other guns, smelling my ink, and testing out my sketching pencils.

I glanced over at Pete. He was working diligently on Mr. Drunk Asshole Number One while Mr. Powerful leaned against the wall next to the other, older guy. Both Mr. Powerful and Old Guy had their attention trained on me and Mr. Two.

So. They wanted to see how this would play out. I understood that these guys were the big kahunas in town and I was supposed to respect them, but this was getting ridiculous.

When Mr. Two went to stick his finger in an open ink cap, I slapped his hand. He jerked back like I had burned him with boiling acid. Quick as a wink, I reached into one of my work drawers and grabbed my golden dragon.

Mr. Two—I really needed to give him a better name—gave me a wicked smile and slowly reached over to the same ink cap as before. His message was clear. If he wanted to fuck with my ink, then I better let him.

When his hand was about two inches away, I reached out and pushed one of the dragon’s mouths onto his index finger. It clicked into place.

He inspected the thing attached to his finger. It was a golden, two-headed dragon with jade and emerald inlays. Each head had an open mouth that would clasp onto anything that was poked into its maw.

A Chinese finger trap.

Mr. Two grabbed the middle of the figurine and pulled. When it didn’t easily come off, he pulled harder. No success.

He inspected the figurine again and slowly put his other pointer finger into the second mouth. As it clicked into place, I couldn’t hold back a small, victorious smile.

“Get this fucking thing off my fingers,” he demanded.

He looked ten kinds of adorable with his fingers trapped in a child’s toy, and I decided that from now on he was Handsome Devil—or HD for short.

When I held out my hand for the dragon, he rolled his stool closer. On impulse, I reached up and stroked his cheek. After a surprised moment, he leaned into my touch, like a kitten starved for attention.

He was one of the kings of this town and looked like a redneck male model. Why would he react like this? I let him snuggle into my hand for a second, then gripped his chin so that he was forced to look me in the eye.

“HD, I am permanently marking this dude’s skin, and you’re distracting me,” I said in my best disappointed-school-teacher voice. “Keep it up and I’m bound to make a mistake—so I’m asking you to please stop.”

The please was for the other Souls—and my boss.

HD’s brow furrowed, and he held up the dragon.

“It’s a Chinese finger trap,” I explained. “A puzzle. Brute strength isn’t the answer here unless you want to rip off a finger. All the clues you need to get free are within the dragon.”

His eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning, and I let out a silent sigh of relief.

“What do I get if I get out of your little trap?” he asked in a flirty tone.

I pulled my hand away from his face and turned my attention back to my client. “You get the use of your fingers back.”

The fireman’s calf was as hard as a rock under my hand. He was scared stiff. I gave him a reassuring squeeze and started shading the pin-up girl’s face.

In my peripheral vision, I saw HD inspecting the intricate carvings on the dragon. He quickly found the dials for the combination lock on the belly of the beast and turned to give me a breathtaking smile.

As HD worked to solve the finger puzzle, the tension in the room dissipated.

HD finally freed his fingers as I was putting the finishing touches on the pin-up girl.

“Now that I beat it, do I get to keep it?”

I huffed out a laugh. “No way. It’s fourteen karat gold and real gems, plus it has sentimental value. You’re practically the only other person I have let touch it, and you almost ripped it apart. Of course, you can’t have it.”

“What’s a struggling artist doing with a thing like this?” He sounded genuinely curious. Interesting.

“It’s a family heirloom. My father would lock my fingers into it when I was bugging him at work. It took me months to finally figure out the code. I’m impressed you did it in such a short time.”

“Your family have many expensive heirlooms that they let children play with?” HD was regarding me shrewdly.

I looked him directly in the eye and told him the truth. “Not anymore. That was the only one I was able to save after my parents were murdered.” I paused to let that sink in. “Therefore, I think I’m going to hang onto it.”

HD took another long look at the dragon, and then placed it gently on my workbench.

I had just finished with the fireman’s pin-up and was wiping away any lingering ink when HD looked over my shoulder again. “Damn, chiquita, that girl is fucking hot. I don’t think I have ever seen a more attractive looking tattoo.”

I smiled at his praise. “See, HD, aren’t you glad I stopped you from messing me up?” I said, handing the fireman a mirror to look at the tat from all angles.

Suddenly, I felt a presence behind me. Mr. Powerful and Old Guy had both walked over to get a good look at my finished product. Old Guy wolf-whistled and, after a minute, Mr. Powerful gave me a nod of approval. Not that I needed his approval, but, I admit, the praise felt good coming from him.

The fireman couldn’t get out of The Shop quickly enough, but he did say a quiet thanks as he handed over a huge tip, so I assumed he was happy with my work. As I cleaned my station, the three Souls lingered, waiting for their buddy.

I was about to let myself out of The Shop when the redneck-model guy asked, “Why do you keep calling me HD?”

“Well, none of you saw fit to introduce yourselves, so HD is your new nickname.”

“You mean to tell me that you don’t know who we are?” HD sounded incredulous. When I shook my head, he gave me a hard stare and then asked, “What does HD stand for?”

“Handsome Devil.” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

His hard stare transformed into a cocky, flirty smile at the speed of light.

He hummed deep in his throat, then said, “We’re having a party tonight to celebrate Shorty becoming a full brother. You should stop by.”

I indicated Mr. Drunk Asshole Number One, still under Pete’s needles. “Him?”

“Yes, that’s Shorty. The old guy is Steel and the ugly one is Rogue.”

That was when I noticed that their names were stitched into patches on their leather cuts. Under Steel’s name was a patch that declared he was VP, while Rogue was President. I looked to HD. His name was Breaker and he was something called a Sgt. Arms.

“That would make you Breaker, then,” I said, reaching out and running my fingers along his name patch. “What’s a sergeant arms?”

HD puffed out his chest at my touch. “You really are new around here. I thought Pete would have clued you in at least a little.”

Pete and I mostly had a silent relationship. He treasured the peace and quiet within his shop, and I tried my best not to disturb that by asking too many questions or attempting small talk.

This was the only tattoo shop in town, and I really did love my hobby.

HD lightly grasped my chin and turned my face until I was looking up into his eyes. “I think I like you calling me HD. What do you say about the party, pretty girl?”

“It’s eleven p.m. on a Friday night. Do you really think I don’t already have plans?” I did have plans; he just didn’t need to know they were with a bubble bath and a large glass of whiskey.

“We throw the best parties in town. And you would be my special guest. Many girls would sell their left tit for this kind of invite.” HD spoke with a kind of desperate intensity. Like he wanted to make sure I knew what I was turning down here, but he didn’t actually want me to accept his offer.

Somehow this was another test. But I didn’t know enough about this situation or these men to know the political move here, so I said screw it and went with what I wanted.

“Thanks for the invite, but I’m going to have to pass. You have fun though, big guy.” I caught the slight raise of his lips and the crinkle at the corner of his eye. My refusal had pleased him, for some reason.

As I moved to put the golden dragon away, I felt the weight of many heavy gazes on me. I needed to get out of here before I turned into a fucking circus animal or something. Why were they all staring?

I had just grabbed my bag when HD spoke up once again. He was the only one I had talked to all night. Rogue, Steel, and Shorty hadn’t said a single word to me.

This town was fucking weird.

“What about lunch tomorrow? Can you come to a barbecue?”

At his words, everyone turned their eyes to HD. Reading his face, I knew it was important to him that I come to this lunch.

I had no reason to say no. After three months of talking to no one but Cain and Pete, I wasn’t even averse to a little social interaction.

“Yeah, a barbecue sounds good. Should I bring something?”

HD’s face broke into a Christmas-morning smile, and I knew instantly that I had made the right decision.

“I wouldn’t say no to cookies,” HD said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “It’s at the garage on Main Street; be there around noon.”

And then he spun on his foot and practically skipped out of The Shop. I looked from Rogue to Steel to see if either of them was going to explain what just happened.

Rogue was scowling and Steel looked just as confused about the situation as I was.

With a mental shrug, I saluted Pete goodbye and walked out, praying that I still had a job in the morning.