Page 14 of Ink

A tiny, miniscule, puta-ish part of me wanted to know what it felt like to be handled so roughly. To be fucked with my face against a wall just like that.

Another part of me screamed to get a fucking grip.

“Ready?” he asked. As if he hadn’t just shoved a dude’s head against my wall.

“I can’t leave a stranger in my house.”

I wasn’t born yesterday. People liked to steal irrelevant shit, but stealing was stealing. I wouldn’t hear the end of it if someone pilfered one of my ma's recuerdos from a distant cousin’s baptism from ten years ago.

“If he touches anything or if anything turns up missing, a speck of paint gets on your belongings, I will personally shoot every fucking finger of his and make him eat the bullets afterwards.”

Why did I believe that?

A better question was, why the fuck did that turn me on so much?

“Okay,” I said, hating how absolutely breathless I sounded. “Then let’s go to work.”

There was something about getting on the back of Ink’s bike that felt even more intimate than his piercing stare. He waited patiently, quietly, while I stood awkwardly trying to decide if this was a good idea or not.

My body was already having a strange reaction to him. Adding the intimacy of riding a motorcycle together would make my concha cry out like la llorona wailing for children.

Damn.

There went my errant thoughts.

Eventually I did hop on before he could bark at me to do it. Throwing one leg over the bike, I tried to keep a respectful distance between our bodies. He still didn’t start the thing, however. He reached an arm behind him and yanked me close by the hem of my shirt until I was practically molded to his back.

“Hold on tight,” he ordered in the growling voice of his. The rumbling sound of it sent tiny bursts of delicious, dizzying energy through me. I wrapped my arms around his waist in a daze and then we were off.

My pueblo was a maze of potholes and cobblestone roads, but Ink dodged each one as if he knew them by heart. When he got on the main roads and sped up, I felt a thrill of adrenaline whirl through my insides. The urge to throw my hands up and let out a shout was immediate, but I only held tighter to him. There was something freeing about this, in every possible way.

When we finally pulled to a slow stop, my heart was racing and my wind-whipped hair ratted down my shoulders. But I didn’t care about that. Laughter filled me as I hopped off the bike.

“That was fun.”

Ink grunted, and the sound pulled me back to my current reality.

He was my boss.

This was my second chance.

I couldn’t act like a foolish child and risk losing this job. Again. Yes, he was painting my house, but that felt more like an apology on his end rather than anything else. I knew I had to work extra hard to keep him happy now, regardless of what happened.

I cleared my throat and started across the street towards the shop. It was open, and when we went inside, Fer was sitting behind the desk.

A wide smile broke out on her mouth as soon as she saw me. “You’re back!” she squealed. The genuine, excited greeting brought a small smile to my lips. “Good! I told him his shitty system needs an update. I knew it wasn’t your fault, amiga.”

My face heated at the reminder of said system.

“Let it go, Fer,” Ink growled.

“Never. You need to get a new one. Fix it. Something! Anything!” Fer waved her hands through the air, her dyed hair flinging with every exaggerated movement of her body. She was such a character.

But her words reminded me of something, and I wasn’t sure…

My mouth dropped open. “I–” I shut up again when Ink’s piercing gaze whipped in my direction. Why did he have to stare at me like that? It made me lose all my senses. My breath came out in shallow pants, and I had to force my lungs to expand at a normal fucking rate.

“What?” he asked.

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