Under Locke (2 page)

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” It wasn’t like whatever man they were referring to had ‘Anger Issues’ tattooed on his forehead. I hadn’t even seen him yet.

“Dex.”

I blinked at Trip’s explanation.

“Locke?” he offered like that would mean something to me. It didn’t.

Sonny grabbed the top of my head and shook it. “Don’t worry about it, kid. I’m sure I’ll introduce you sooner or later.”

At that time I thought to myself that it wasn’t like I really cared whether or not I met someone that was constantly pissed off.

~ * ~ *

Shoulders and chest.

The guy was somehow all elegant trapezius muscles a
n
d pectorals when I first saw him up close. A tight, black v-neck stretched over broad shoulders, barely hiding two bold tattoo sleeves that ran up from the wrist and disappeared underneath the fitted shirt.

That alone made me go a little brain dead though I should
ha
ve known better than to let my hormones run rampant. I’d never really had much of an opinion on whether I thought tattoos were that much of a deal breaker when ogling a guy but…from the heat that had flamed up my neck, I was a fan. A big, season ticket holding fan.

I kept looking at him while he closed the distance between us, a portfolio shoved under one long, muscular arm that drew my attention to the inches of colorful red skin the cut of his shirt showed tattooed on his chest.  I'd been too far away at Mayhem to see more than just splotches of heavy color on his skin.

Holy crap.

I should have been glad the cap had hidden his facial features at the bar, so I had time to take in the magnificence that was his tattooed upper body without the added distraction of a face that made my ovaries
scream glory hallelujah
. His wide shoulders and thickly veined forearms were more than enough to make a girl stare. Because his face… Jesus, shit.
Jesus
.
Shit
.

I was going to ask Santa for his good identical twin for Christmas.

“Hi,” I squeaked out. Hot men went on my list of people who made me nervous and therefore had me acting like more of an idiot than usual. Like if knowing I'd be working for a man who had been to jail for assault wasn't nerve-wrecking enough. “I’m his sister, Iris,” I corrected him. My smile was wonky for sure. "Half-sister to be specific."

The guy with the most striking face ever created blinked at me.

Oh boy he was friggin’ hot in a very masculine, raw way. Not like the men I saw so often back home who used more skin products than I did. High, angular cheekbones that looked sharp enough to cut granite were crafted alongside a hard, square jaw that had needed a shave yesterday. The purest and bluest eyes I’d ever seen were deep set above a nose that was just short of straight, and ohmigod lips that I knew had to have been used thousands of times—it’d be a shame if they weren’t. The guy had the most flawless male bone structure I’d ever seen.

Those blue eyes locked on my face, unblinking and expressionless.

Had I done something wrong?

I looked down at what I was wearing: a tan cardigan went over my short-sleeved light pink button-up shirt that was miraculously missing wrinkles—thank goodness—and dark brown work pants. It was something I'd wear to one of my old jobs. I looked closer to make sure that my clothes weren't stained.

They weren't.

Still he stared right at me looking completely indifferent. So absolutely different from the scowling, bleeding man I'd seen tugging a petite blonde behind him as he left Mayhem last week. There was only a small crusty fleck on the edge of his eyebrow that served as a reminder of that night.

"You're late."

Uhh, what?

I glanced down at my cheap, electric blue watch to see it was four in the afternoon on the dot. "Oh. I thought I was supposed to be here at four."

Wasn't that what Sonny had said? I thought back on the call. There was no way I'd heard differently.

He looked at me, his expression unmoving. That handsome, hard face was a block of stubbled concrete. "I have a business to run, girl. I'm doin' Son a favor by hirin' you. The least you could do is show up on time."

Cue my mouth gaping wide.

Was this guy insane?

"I'm sorry," I told the man, eyeing the blue-black hair that went in ten different directions, only slightly tamed by the cap on his head. There was no way I got the time wrong, I knew it, but what was the point in arguing with him? I needed the job. "I really thought he said four." I flashed him a careful, wary smile. "It won't happen again."

He didn't even bother responding. Flicking two tattooed fingers at me, he waved me forward. Leading me toward a life I wasn't so sure I'd been destined for. "C'mon, I don't have all day to show you how to do shit."'

Chapter Two

"I need you to update this every Friday. Got it?"

Got it?
Got it?

Ef me. No, I didn't have it.

How the heck does someone go through the inner workings of QuickBooks in less than twenty minutes? I was going to need someone to explain to me how that was possible because I had no clue.

I wasn't an idiot, or slow by any measure—or so I liked to think—but he'd blown through the program with mouse clicks quicker than my poor eyes could keep up with. One minute he was explaining something about expenses and the next he'd started babbling about saving the files into a specific folder. I'd caught onto...maybe half.

Okay, realistically, more like a quarter of it.

For a brief moment, when I was looking down at the legal pad he'd slid across the desk when I'd followed in after him, I thought about asking him to show me one more time so I could write better notes. Because that wasn't uncalled for, right? I mean, who learned things perfectly the first go around? It'd taken me at least three tries to figure out how to use the cubed ice feature on Sonny's refrigerator correctly.

And then I glanced up at him, Dex Locke. His big body leaned over the edge of the dark brown desk, a red tattoo peeped out at the world over the collar of his shirt, the side of his surprisingly full mouth twisted just barely to the side...and I balked.

"Got it."

What. A. Liar.

A little coward of a liar.
Pathetic.

He nodded at me briskly and started pulling up a file on his desktop that said 'Waivers' on it. We were off again.

Curt words. Brisk nods. All business.

At one point, he got up to "go take a piss" and I took the opportunity to look around for the first time after following behind him like a lost puppy. When I'd come in, those hard, pure blue eyes were some form of impatient so I focused in on sitting at the chair he'd dragged over around the desk, and followed along. My chance to snoop had finally presented itself.

The office wasn't at all what I would
ha
ve expected. The walls were a plain bright white, nearly empty with the exception of two framed pieces and
…
were those television screens mounted in the corner
? Maybe.
He didn
’t seem like the type to watch daytime soaps though.

The colorful art was the first one to catch my eye. An angry, flaming red octopus looped across the paper in what looked like oils. Tentacles swirled and curled in bisecting lines. Bright and full of so much life, it seemed strange to be held captive on paper.

The other frame, directly next to the octopus, was done in black ink. Black ink that sketched out an immaculate replica of the Widowmakers' Motorcycle Club insignia. The one I'd seen bearing down on my father's bicep for years. The one that up until coming to stay with Sonny had only been a sign of the supposedly terrible things I'd been shielded from.

Bad things my mom had told me about to keep me fearful but I pushed that thought away and kept looking around. My mom's memory was meant for a different time. She already took up so much room in that designated little area I let her memory rest in. A place that I didn't want to get sucked into.

The rest of the small office consisted of the large desk, two matching padded chairs, and a cabinet that crowded the corner.  It was almost immaculately clean. There was also a hint of cigarette smoke that clung to the air.

Huh.

"It smell in here or somethin'?" that deep, husky voice I'd heard for the last hour asked from the door.

I looked up at him and smiled. Did he smile in return? No. But I brushed it off and lifted a shoulder. "Do you smoke?"

Dex took a breath so deep and long that it seemed to last a solid minute in length. "When I want."

I almost scrunched up my nose.
Almost
. Because I hated cigarettes though I doubted the barely-there trace would bother me. I nodded at him again, taking in the dark Rangers cap he had pulled down tight over his head, the ends of his raven hair peeping out in tufts. Realizing that my hands were still damp, they hadn't stopped sweating from the moment I'd been in the car, I wiped them over my pants. 

He blinked, breaking the silence. "You got legal ID?"

There were illegal IDs? Yeah, I wasn't going to ask for clarification.

~ * ~ *

I left Pins and Needles at seven that night. In a little more than three hours, we’d crammed a tutorial on how to use the appointment log and calendar on the computer by communicating via two-word groupings of instructions and grunts after our marathon accounting overview and paperwork for payroll. Dex had then pointed at a digital camera sitting on the edge of his desk and said I needed to upload pictures onto the computer and hard drive daily.

Did I ask where to upload the files? One look at that twist of his mouth had me agreeing to the job. Nope.

I learned where everything was hidden in the studio by watching where he pointed: inks, needles, gloves, water bottles, paper towels, disinfectant, cleaning supplies, everything. Dex briefly explained how to time appointments. How to handle walk-ins in every situation. What to say and not to say to clients. He mentioned that there were four tattoo artists that worked in the studio including himself. The only other person I got to meet was a nice bald man named Blake, who had a double piercing through thick black eyebrows and multicolored tattoos that went up to his jaw.

Everything seemed easy enough.

I still couldn't get a solid feeling about the job and much less Dex since he hadn't so much as smiled once, but oh well. The job wasn't worth jumping for joy over but I wasn't exactly dreading the idea of going back. And it wasn't like I had any other option after looking at my bank statement.

I'd take what I could get, damn it.

Plus there was something about the shop that called to me. Maybe it was because I'd been expecting some seedy place with customers that were stinky, old men that got into fights over old ladies, and had more body hair than I had on my head.

Then again, was Sonny what I'd imagined a biker to be? Sonny with his gaming system obsession. Sonny who I'd caught watering his potted plants one morning. Sonny who made me tofu recipes without batting an eyelash.

No. He wasn't.

So I tried to push my worries to the back of my brain, accepting the fact that maybe I'd been wrong to be worried. Maybe.

~ * ~ *

Sonny’s bike, a sleek deep red Harley that cost as much as my car, was in the driveway when I parked in front of his house a few minutes later. Sonny's bungalow was small and located in an old, lower middle class neighborhood. Families and young couples populated the homes up and down the block, loud and constantly in motion.