Vipers Rule Read online

  Maddie wasn’t. Instead, she turned to peruse more of the pictures. Some of the tattoos were silly; some were beautiful. Some had roses, prominently displayed.

  Suddenly, she said, “I’d like roses instead.” When she was met with silence, she looked over her shoulder. “Sorry—is that a problem?”

  “Better you figure it now. It’s not coming off.” Holly stared at her. “Roses are my specialty. What are you looking for?”

  Maddie laughed, but there was little humor behind it. Holly was up again, touching her shoulder and back. “We’ll have to move the placement. I’ve got an idea.”

  At least one of them did.

  As Holly’s pencil scratched the paper, Maddie began to leaf through a book of tattoo photographs on the table absently. Until she ran across one that looked really familiar. She traced the skull and crossbones, noting that the next picture was an after. She couldn’t resist asking, “Is this Tals?”

  Holly glanced up for a second, and if she was surprised, she didn’t show it. “Yes. How do you know him?”

  Another loaded question. “We went to high school together.”

  Holly nodded slowly, then went back to drawing. Finally, she took the sketch and went to the copy machine. Maddie remained topless, waiting.

  When she came back over, she lifted Maddie’s arm over her head. “Hold it just like that.”

  Then she applied the paper, took it off and stood back for a few minutes, nodding. “That’s it. Take a look.”

  Maddie did.

  It was far more extensive than she’d imagined, with the first rose beginning almost along the front of her hip, flowers and vines rising up and branching out along her shoulder. “It’s so perfect.”

  “I know,” Holly said without so much as a smile. “How much color?”

  “Muted, but I definitely want color.”

  Holly showed her a few pictures and they agreed on colors. And a price.

  “This will take hours,” Holly warned.

  “Good. I’m in no rush.”

  “We might even have to split it over two sessions. I’d rather it heal well than rush it.” Holly was definitely a perfectionist. “You can wear these—I’d rather work outside.”

  Holly handed her a poncholike wrap—it was gorgeous and silky. “God, I love this. Who’s it from?”

  “Me,” Holly said as Maddie pulled it on. It was specially made to cover her breasts while allowing her side and back to be exposed at will.

  “Do you sell them?”

  Holly’s brows raised. “I make them for friends.”

  “So you never give them out,” Maddie countered.

  Holly was obviously fighting a smile. “So, you’re a bitch, just like the other rich girls from Skulls. Heard your grandparents started the exclusive community so they didn’t have to use the name Skulls Creek.”

  So Holly had known exactly who she was from the moment she’d walked in. And Holly was right—Maddie’s grandfather had come up with the name Jessamine, after the state flower, and that exclusive community had been created to give the illusion of separation between the rich and the rest of the town. “Vipers wasn’t exactly the upstanding institution it is now.”

  Holly’s voice was haughty. “Still isn’t. They just hide it better than most.”

  “My grandmother used to date a Viper,” Maddie told her.

  “Everybody dates a Viper,” Holly answered. “They fool around with rich girls, but none of you is right for them in the long term.”

  Maddie didn’t know how to answer that. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. Anything insinuating Tals wasn’t right for her, or that she wasn’t right for Tals, was enough to make her palms itch and her anger heat. She’d never wanted to physically fight someone in her life—save for the punch she’d thrown at her ex—but the urge to do so was strong now.

  And Holly knew it, knew she’d gotten under Maddie’s skin.

  * * *

  “Your girlfriend’s getting a tattoo,” was all Holly’s voice mail message said in her clipped tones.

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Tals bit out to the phone as though Holly were actually on the line. He texted Holly. How do you know who she is?

  A minute later Holly texted back, She recognized your tattoo in the book. Asked about you. She’s a walk-in. She’ll be here a while.

  Dammit. Maybe he should go in and end this once and for all. Before he could stop himself, or call Cage to talk him out of it, Tals found himself on his bike, heading toward Vipers Ink.

  It wasn’t as crowded as a weekend night, but word had spread of a pretty woman on the table . . . and Holly was doing her famous roses.

  Maddie was half naked on the damned table, in front of the entire room.

  Turning and walking away would be the smart thing. Obviously, he was pretty much a dumbass, since he moved forward, approaching the table.

  “Nice of you to join us, Tals,” Holly said.

  Maddie’s head was facing the other direction—Tals could see the tension in her bare shoulder—but she didn’t move.

  Tals stared at the beginnings of the tattoo. Along Maddie’s perfect skin, the outline of the twining roses was really fucking perfect. So were Maddie’s curves, even better than he remembered.

  Holly prodded him, and he cursed her under his breath. He walked around the table and stared down at Maddie. She was definitely experiencing a tattoo high—her cheeks were flushed and her eyes held that faraway glaze. Her lips parted . . . and her flush deepened when she looked up at him.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  He didn’t want to be nice to her, didn’t want to encourage this at all. “Hey,” he managed back. Barely. Because suddenly his throat was tight. If he’d ever thought all those years ago that she’d be getting a tattoo in a Vipers shop, and looking damned comfortable doing so . . .

  No. He wasn’t going there. The past had cost him, although not as much as it could’ve. And no thanks to her. “How long are you staying in town?”

  “I have no plans to leave, Tals.”

  “Maddie, we can’t . . .” He stopped. “I can’t do this.”

  “You haven’t even tried.”

  “You can’t just come back here and paint a pretty picture over the past, act like we were some kind of happy couple.”

  “I feel like we could’ve been. For a while we pretended we were . . . and I wasn’t pretending,” she admitted, then added, “But I don’t want things the way they were. I want them better. I have to talk to you about what happened.”

  “I don’t want to revisit it.”

  Holly had stopped working in favor of listening to the conversation. In fact, somehow everyone was watching, like they were some kind of goddamned reality show.

  Cage was there—Calla too. People from town. Gigi, who worked for Holly. Rocco and Bear.

  “Don’t you all have anything better to fucking do?” he asked them all gruffly.

  “No,” Cage answered simply.

  Rocco shook his head in unison with Bear and said, “Don’t let us interrupt you. Pretty roses, Maddie.”

  “Thanks,” Maddie told him.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Tals bit out.

  “Why not?” Maddie asked. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  A lightbulb went off in Tals’s mind. “What if I said yes?”

  “You’d be lying,” Calla said brightly.

  He glanced at Holly, looking for support. “Shouldn’t you be . . . using that or something?” He waved to the gun.

  Holly responded by putting it down and rubbing the outline with the antibiotic ointment, which made the tattoo—and Maddie’s skin—look good. Too good.

  He cleared his throat and looked away.

  “Come back next week and I’ll do the color,” Holly told her.

  “Can I keep this cape?” Maddie asked as Holly helped her sit up and drink a soda.

  Holly rolled her eyes. “Christ, you’re a pain in the ass. Fine. Keep it. Your clothes are in th
e back.”

  Maddie smiled and headed to where Holly pointed. Then she turned to him. “Tals, let me take you out to dinner. Please. I’m going to be here indefinitely. If nothing else, I’d like to make things up to you. I’d like to be your friend.”

  There was silence, like the whole room was waiting on his answer. He took a deep breath and said, “Maddie—”

  And somehow, in her mind, that was a yes. “Tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up. I know where you live.”

  After she walked away, without waiting for a response—with all of them watching, and they were not subtle about it—Tals sighed. “Fuck me.”

  “I think she’s trying,” Rocco said mildly. “What the hell did you do to her in high school?”

  “Chased her, exactly the way she’s chasing me,” Tals admitted, glancing over to where Holly and Calla had their heads together. At least they were pretending to give him space.

  “Any luck?” Cage asked.

  In the end it hadn’t been about luck at all, but Tals wasn’t ready to talk about that. “No.”

  Bear was studying him.

  “What?”

  “You want to go out with her.”

  “I want to do a lot of things that aren’t good for me,” Tals muttered.

  “And you usually do them,” Bear offered. “And you have a lot of fun in the process.”

  “Go away,” Tals muttered irritably, then turned to Cage. “Not a word to Tenn about this,” Tals warned.

  Cage sighed. “Yeah, you two keeping secrets from each other always works out so fucking well.”

  “This time it’s not a secret. It’s just a bump in the road Tenn doesn’t need to know about. I don’t tell him about the women I date. Much.”

  Cage’s brows rose. “Now you and Maddie are dating?”

  “Wrong choice of words. Come on, don’t screw with me. Go back and play house with Calla and forget all about this.”

  “You’d better hope Calla doesn’t say anything to Tenn—you know how close they’ve gotten,” Cage reminded him.

  “You keep your woman under control.” Tals was only half kidding. Less than a quarter kidding.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “What happened to women obeying?”

  “Preacher seems to have outlawed it, among other archaic practices,” Holly said, without a trace of irony. Calla laughed.

  “Women,” both men muttered at the same time.

  “Speaking of, Maddie’s taking a long time,” Holly commented.

  “I’ll go check,” Tals said. As he went toward the back, he took the Coke can Holly held out to him.

  “There’s candy back there too,” she called. “And plenty of privacy.”

  He held up his middle finger to her—to all of them who laughed after Holly spoke—and pushed into the curtained areas. “Hey, Maddie? You all right?”

  He heard a weak, “I’ve been better,” and found her sitting on the bench in one of the changing areas, head between her legs. She still wore the wrap, and he could see inside the sides of the poncho.

  Probably not the right time to remind himself of what he’d been missing, but fuck, he wasn’t a saint. “It’s okay—you’ll be fine. Hang on.” He grabbed a straw—there were several of them in a cup next to the candy, as this happened all the time. “Take a sip.”

  She did.

  “Come on. Sit up slowly,” he urged.

  She did that too. She looked pale. A bit unsteady, but it was nothing sugar wouldn’t cure. “I was fine. And then . . . I don’t know . . . I got dizzy.”

  “It happens to just about everyone. The adrenaline crash.”

  She was nodding and drinking. He opened a pack of M&M’s and she took a few, munched on them. Her color was getting better. “Thanks.”

  “You need to get off your feet and rest. A good night’s sleep will help.”

  “Right.” She moved to grab her bag and rifle for her keys, attempting to stand.

  And failed. “Whoa.” He caught her, a hand on the bare skin of her waist. She sucked in a quick breath and grabbed at his biceps. For a long moment, they just stared at each other . . . It would be really easy to kiss her. To pull the poncho off.

  Her cheeks flushed, like she knew what he was thinking, but even so, she smiled. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll drive you home.”

  She didn’t fight that. He had her, grabbed her bag and her clothes and walked her out with the poncho, his hand still under it.

  Which the whole group saw, because he knew they’d never leave now.

  Holly approached Maddie, murmured to her, while he asked Rocco, “Pick me up at Maddie’s place?”

  Rocco’s brows raised, but all he said was, “Not a problem.”

  They walked out, with his hand still rubbing the warm skin on her side and back, the spot that hadn’t gotten ink. Ink he couldn’t wait to see again, to study . . .

  Yeah, so much for just being friends.

  But he told himself his only goal tonight was getting her home safely. To that end, he made sure she got into the passenger’s side all right—she was definitely unsteady but markedly improved. She took a few big breaths and said, “I’m all right. The air helped.”

  It was January, and it wasn’t the warmest night, but it wasn’t the coldest either. He ran his hand along the roof before getting in, which she noticed.

  “You really want air?”

  She looked at him, a flash in her eyes. And nodded.

  “Look what you’re wearing, Maddie.”

  She raised her chin at him. “I know exactly what I’m wearing. I have to protect the ink.”

  Chapter 7

  The wind whipped around him. The air was frosty and snow was on its way, but Tals had an appointment to keep. He pulled into the lot of the building just on the outskirts of town, one Vipers used for special meetings and to house visiting charter members in the upstairs apartments.

  The first floor housed a big gymlike area. Tonight the building was locked up tight and alarmed. Tals had mentioned he’d go check on it, since Preacher liked someone to do so several times a day to make sure no one was fucking with it.

  Tals could think of very few who’d dare, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Preacher was smart, not paranoid.

  But Tals had a more specific purpose in mind tonight—he was doing more than coming to check on the place. He got out of his truck and began a slow walk over to the lone other car in the lot.

  The woman named Giselle was huddled inside behind the wheel and was waiting for him . . . and looking like she was ready to peal out of the lot. Running him over in the process, of course.

  He moved toward her window, hands up in a wave; then he stuck them in his pockets in an attempt to appear nonthreatening.

  But to a woman who’d been attacked, he was pretty sure that wasn’t possible.

  She rolled down her window a millimeter, and he said, “Giselle, I’m Tals. I know Ryker sent you.” Then he said, “Lila Rose,” which let her know she was safe and in the right place. Lila Rose was the name of the woman who’d put them together.

  She nodded. He pulled keys out of his pockets and pointed to the building, then walked away, opened the building and turned on the lights.

  Then he waited.

  Finally, she got out of the car. She was carrying—he was warned of that ahead of time. How proficient she was was another story. And after what seemed like another eternity, she started to walk toward him, trying to cover her six and watch him at the same time.

  He made a mental note to teach her how to do just that first thing.

  He let her go past, trying not to stare at her at all, but noting the bruise that was still visible on her cheek. Which meant there were more, no doubt, under the baggy sweats she wore. Based on the way she moved, she was sore. He’d have to take a verbal assessment so he didn’t injure her further, but the fact that she trusted him enough to come here to train was a good sign.

  * * *

  A couple o
f hours later, Tals determined that Giselle knew what she was doing with the gun, at least safety-wise. She could load and unload, and she also packed a pretty good punch.

  It was a start.

  “So tomorrow?” she asked eagerly.

  He was busy as fuck, but didn’t have the heart to say no. As he nodded, he noticed a tall blonde out of the corner of his eye. Holly.

  Giselle looked over her shoulder. “Someone else you’re helping?”

  “Looks like it. Tomorrow. Same time. I’ll walk you out.”

  “No. I can do it.” She smiled. “But watch me, okay?”

  He would. Holly smiled at her as they passed, and there was silence as he waited until Giselle got in her car and drove off. Then he turned his attention to Holly.

  Like she hadn’t caused enough trouble last night.

  “Hope I didn’t interrupt the session with Giselle,” she started. And she actually sounded . . . nervous. It was the first time he could ever remember hearing it in her voice.

  He stared at her steadily. “You didn’t. How long have you known?”

  Holly shrugged. “Women talk about these things.”

  “To their men?”

  “Not this, no.”

  He hoped not. A lot of these guys got proprietary with their women, and he touched their women. But he knew, too, that the women talked, or none of them would find him through Ryker. “Preach will have my ass.”

  “Well, at least one of us would be getting something, because he’s not touching mine.”

  Tals put his head back against the wall, closed his eyes. “That is so much more than I wanted to know.”

  Holly gave a soft, slightly evil laugh. “Let’s go, then.”

  “Kill me.”

  “I could take you up on that.”

  “Then you don’t need me.” He stared at her. “And you don’t, Holly, so what’s going on?”

  She shrugged. Pointed to her leg. “It hurts, but it’s not about that. Ever since that night . . .”

  That night when Eli, Cage’s stepbrother, had showed up at her tattoo parlor when Calla was there. Eli had been only fifteen, but he’d been a patched-in member of the Heathens. And the Heathens hadn’t been ready to let him walk away. Holly had defended him, shooting one of the Heathens, and she’d been shot herself.