Sinful Rewards 12 by Cynthia Sax Read Free Book Online

out.” I stagger to my knees.
    â€œAre you sure you’re fine?” Mack lifts me out of the vehicle. “You’re damp and looking a bit shell-shocked, like you took enemy fire back here.”
    â€œHawke is going to kill us.” Demo sweeps his fingers over his short hair. “He’ll tear our limbs off and jam them down our throats.”
    I roll my eyes. “He won’t kill you.” I hold on to Mack’s arm, my legs stiff and unsteady. “I asked you to do this, remember?”
    The two men nod, looking slightly mollified.
    I glance around us. Boxy metal-covered industrial buildings line a familiar side street. The pavement is perfect and the area is surprisingly tidy, not one piece of garbage floating in the breeze. “The Road Gator is close to here.”
    â€œIt’s a block north.” Mack studies me, appearing genuinely worried. “Hawke’s in there.” He waves his hand toward a shockingly graffiti-covered structure, a burst of color, of rebellion, on the otherwise gray street. Even the vintage vehicles parked in front of the place are bright hues, the shiny chrome reflecting the sunlight, adding a touch of sparkle. Hawke’s pretty bike is parked with the cars.
    He’s in there. I gaze at the American flag spray-painted on the door. The area doesn’t appear dangerous. Is he working? Did I make another mistake by coming here? Should I have waited for him?
    â€œMa’am?” Mack and Demo gaze at me expectantly.
    I spent the past who-knows-how-many minutes of my life stuffed in a trunk with imaginary mice nibbling on my legs. Facing Hawke should be a piece of Karl’s cheesecake. I stride forward, blast through the door, and enter a dizzying psychedelic world.
    Paint covers every inch of the shockingly spotless space, the scent of cleaners and disinfectants reinforcing this attention to hygiene. Tattooed men in black leather and denim flip through binders of photos.
    An impish man with a green Mohawk larger than his torso vigorously scrubs his hands, soap frothing between his fingers, every exposed inch of his skin from his chin to his ankles covered with tattoos. A bearded giant with both arms inked is bent over a cringing redheaded woman, etching a red rose onto her pale skin. A blonde, pierced Amazon woman is laying a piece of white transfer paper on a bald man’s right foot.
    My man sits in a leather chair, facing away from me, his broad shoulders and crew-cut hair recognizable from across the room. A man with a gray ponytail, wearing a red-and-orange-flame-covered Hawaiian shirt, hovers over his left hand.
    My worry morphs to anger. Hawke couldn’t answer his phone because he was getting a new tattoo? I bristle. He put me through all of this worry and distress for some new ink?
    And why didn’t he tell me about his plans? I’m his girl. Damn it. I’ll be the one looking at whatever design he gets.
    Knowing him, it will be as hideous as the black T-shirt he’s wearing and I’ll have to stare at it all fucking day because I love him and I don’t have a choice. I march over to him, slapping my shoes against the gray floor, prepared to tell him exactly what I think of his thoughtlessness.
    â€œSweetheart.” The distress in Hawke’s voice escalates my anger.
    â€œYou’re in pain.” I glare at his rugged face, noting the lines of strain around his lips. “Why would you do this?” I wave my hands at the gray-haired tattoo artist bent over his hand. “It clearly hurts like a son of a bitch.” My cuss filter has been destroyed by my concern. “Is another tattoo that important to you?”
    â€œThis one is.” Hawke grasps one of my hands and pulls me closer to him. “I’ll be okay. I have three tattoos, remember?”
    I swallow hard, wishing I could forget those three tattoos. The wings inked across his collarbone must have been agony. “You got those