Page 22 of Gluttony

“Ugh!” she screamed, hating herself as she reached for the phone, snatched it to her chest, and heaved an annoyed breath. God, she was such a weakling!

Grumbling to herself, she looked down at the still black screen, blew a raspberry of frustration, then turned the screen on.

Yup, just as she’d guessed, two new notifications fromhim; he’d posted twice in the last few minutes.

“Must be a record—not every day a man can fuck, nut, then upload the evidence, all in the span of five minutes,” she sneered, rolling her eyes at her own dumbassery.

One day, she’d stop thinking about him. One day, she’d stop letting her bitterness, anger, disappointment, humiliation, and grief at what she lost fill her with such ugliness.

But today was not that day, dammit!

Flicking her thumb down, she pulled up the notifications and pressed on the first one, immediately going to his Instagram profile.

And there they were, two new posts.

However…they were not what she was expecting.

Swallowing down the anxiety, curious and flustered, she pressed on the image he’d posted first.

He was standing, bare-chested—as per usual—in a room smattered with hand drawn images. Behind him was a mirror on the wall and next to him was a black leather chair.

He was in a tattoo parlor, and as soon as she asked herself why, her gaze caught on something she never thought she’d see in all her days on earth.

There was the tell-tale outline of a tattoo stencil on the skin right abovethatplace, the peek-a-boo place he often showed as a teaser, that place right where his jeans would stop, leaving the rest of him a mystery—though, not much of one since the outline of his trouser anaconda was obvious most of the time.

The lines of the stencil were too light for her to make out what was meant to be there, but that didn’t make her as curious as the fact the bare-chested man was also…bare-faced.

He didn’t have a mask on.

He was…looking directly into the camera, without a mask to cover the lower half of his face, leaving his succulent lips, arrogantly formed nose, and dark stubbled, rock hewn chin and jaw visible.

Red wasrevealinghimself. Online. To millions of people.

“What the hell?” she rasped, her breaths trembling.

What is happening right now?

Why didn’t he have a mask on? What was he thinking—his whole schtick was about being the masked seducer all women—and some men—wanted. It was about the allure of the unknown bad boy, the draw to the mysterious, the thrill of the tease.

The caption was vague as fuck.

#bigreveal #grandgesture @buckedupink

Bucked Up Ink was a tattoo place in Clarks Summit, and was known for providing ink to the Unchained MC.

Obviously, he’d posted a before and after image, waiting to post the first until the second was done.

But why?

Her fingers shaking, the swiped up to the second image, this one posted almost immediately afterward, and her breath burst from her chest at what she saw.

Where the faded stencil marks had once been was now a colorful, vibrant tattoo.

Of her name.

Valentina

Holy fucking shit!Suddenly, there wasn’t enough ice in the world to stop her from turning to molten lava in her own kitchen as a full body flush enveloped her.

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