Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
The government had WITSEC.
We offered something better.
No red tape. No weak links. Just results.
It only worked because we trusted each other with our lives. Every patch earned its place. We had specialists in every corner—tech, weapons, fire, finance, theft, and intel. Some had military backgrounds. Others learned in darker places.
Ink and I brought our artistic talents into the mix. When King forged documents, we took care of the watermarks and other shit needed to make them hold up against the most intense scrutiny. We built lives from paper to digital footprint and made them stick. But no client ever knew who did what. That was the deal.
We didn’t take every job. Some we did for a price. Others we walked into with nothing but instinct and a sense of justice. No receipts. No favors owed. But nobody talked about those, which kept people from showing up with sob stories they thought could play us.
We weren’t above the law because we thought we were better than it. We just knew how broken it was. Sometimes, even the cops looked the other way. Especially after the MC made a generous donation to the police fund. Friends in high places didn’t hurt. We didn’t buy them—we just gave them a reason to see things our way.
We even had a fucking SKIFF room—sealed tight and soundproof, meant for the kind of ops the alphabet agencies pretended didn’t exist. It wasn’t about paranoia. It was about control. And the Hounds didn’t operate without it.
Elena didn’t belong in my world. She didn’t belong anywhere near it.
But I wanted her anyway.
When we reached my booth, I stopped and turned, letting her come up short in front of me. She lifted her eyes to meet mine again, and the look she gave me wasn’t shy. But it wasn’t bold, either. It was the look of someone who felt something they couldn’t name and didn’t know what to do with.
I understood that feeling a little too well, but I wasn’t quite ready to accept the whole truth of what it meant.
“Set your stuff down over there.” I pointed at a corner where there was a small chair and an end table. My voice was calm and controlled, like my blood wasn’t burning inside me or draining to my cock and making me so hard I could barely walk comfortably.
Elena moved, sliding her portfolio onto the table with careful hands. I watched the way her fingers flexed afterward, as if she needed to shake out tension. Her nails were short and practical, with faint graphite smudges at the edges. She looked like she lived with pencil dust under her skin. There were also the faintest traces of ink.
Good. That meant she wasn’t playing at this.
“What do you know about blackwork?” I asked, leaning back against the counter, my arms folding across my chest.
She blinked once, then answered smoothly, like she’d expected to be tested. “It’s about saturation and precision. Clean lines. Negative space. Knowing where to stop as much as knowing where to fill.”
My mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
She watched it happen, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
Fuck.
I wanted to hear her swallow again, but not because she was nervous. When she was on her knees in front of me, her lips wrapped around my cock, her eyes glossy with need. Sucking me with everything she had and moaning with delight because she was addicted to the way I tasted.
The thought hit hard enough that I shifted my stance, spreading my feet slightly, grounding myself. I didn’t touch her or move closer. But I didn’t let go of her eyes, my steady gaze locking us together with an invisible tether.
Her cheeks flushed faintly, and she tried to hide it by breaking our connection and glancing down at her portfolio like it would ease the tension in the room. It didn’t work.
“You draw?” I inwardly cringed at the question since the answer was obvious.
Her lashes lifted. “All the time.”
“Show me.”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then opened her portfolio and pulled out a sketchbook. She flipped to a page without fumbling, as if she knew exactly where everything was. She held it out, and I stepped closer. Her scent hit me again—clean skin, faint vanilla, and something warm underneath that made my mouth go dry.
The drawings were sharp. Pretty and decorative, but underneath the icing was an intentional structure. The kind of work that made you think she saw the world in layers that most people couldn’t access.
My gaze caught on her hands again as she held the book steady, and my brain went rogue once more. I imagined them trembling when I pinned her wrists above her head and pictured her trying to stay quiet while I fucked her slow and deep until she broke.
I didn’t speak for a moment. Too worried that anything I said would come on too strong and send her running. Not that I’d let her get far.