Page 153 of Timeless

I was running my fingers over the five dots near his thumb. Most people wouldn’t know the meaning behind these five dots. Four dots make a square, represent a cell and the dot in the middle represents a prisoner. This tattoo told everyone in the underworld that Jax had been in prison for a lengthy time.

“Jax?” My finger kept going over each dot.

“Yeah, babe?” He didn’t pull his hand from me.

“I’m sorry you ended up with this tattoo.” I sighed and then looked up at him, my head on his lap.

He took his hand from mine, his fingers brushing away the wet strands of hair from the side of my face.

“Sweetheart, for the shit I did in there, I was heading for a watch.” He gave me a smile.

The made my heart tighten. A watch with no clock hands meant a life sentence or doing a lot of time. Usually, a man who had that tattoo spends most of his life serving a sentence.

“Don’t joke about that,” I was quick to say. The thought of him locked up for most of his life, well, it scared the shit out of me. I knew when his dad was sentenced he got a watch tattooed on him. “Have you spoken to your dad?”

Jax sighed. “Can we not talk about him?”

Jax never had a good relationship with his father. In fact, his relationship with his dad was worse than mine with my dad. At least my dad was around. Jax didn’t speak much about his dad. I knew he dropped the club and the title of king on Jax when he was young.

The man most feared but also the man most wanted dead.

I didn’t want to ruin the night. So, if he didn’t want to talk about his dad, I wasn’t going to force him.

I took his hand back. My fingers starting to trace the letters on his fingers. A.C.A.B. Again, if you weren’t in the criminal underworld, you wouldn’t understand the tattoo. It stood for, All Cops Are Bastards. It was common across the knuckles of bikers and other criminals. Sometimes people think it implies that the person wearing it openly wants to go to prison. But that wasn’t the case for Jax.

Then there were those criminals who had ‘changed their ways’ and told people it stood for, Always Carry a Bible. But everyone knew what it really stood for.

“Where do you get your tattoos?” Jax asked, I was so lost in tracing his tattoos and thinking about the meanings of them. “The tattooist is obviously good.”

“He is.” I nodded. “People travel from everywhere to get work done by him. He is so good, that he only opens his books in December and books out a year within a day. Honestly, him and the line of people trying to secure a booking makes the news every year.”

“Guessing that means I won’t get in with him. Who else do you recommend?”

“He will fit you in. I help him do his books come every July.” A small smile spread across my lips. “He sort of counts on me to hide his cash customers.”

Jax sighed. “Still doing shit you shouldn’t.”

“Come on, a bit of tax fraud is nothing.” Laundering money, tax fraud. It just all comes with the lifestyle. “What are you planning on getting done?”

“Just more. You know, make sure everyone knows I’m no good.”

I looked at him dryly. “Very funny.” I looked back down at his hand. “You better not even think about getting a spider web.”

“Nah, didn’t do enough time to warrant one of them.”

“Did you get any tattoos in prison?” I sat up and turning on the couch, tucking my legs under me to face him. “I’m not going to lie, I was trying to inspect your body.”

“Admitting to checking me out?” He grinned.

“You and I both know you didn’t give me a real chance to.” I rolled my eyes at him.

“Come here.” He opened his arms for me.

Knowing what he wanted, I moved over him, straddling him. My hands went to his shoulders.

His hands went under the t-shirt of his I was wearing. I heard him exhale slowly. His hands moved up my back. And then down again. It was so relaxing, having him touch me. But then the pain I had been trying to ignore came back in my shoulder.

I’m going to have to take something for it. I hated pain killers with a passion. I moved my hand down, dropping my arm. My other hand went to my sore shoulder. I flinched when I touched it. I think I had caused it to flare up.

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