Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,9
were waiting on me by the door, then I made my way downstairs to my place of work.
When I unlocked the door between my private quarters and the tattoo parlor, I was surprised to see David, my assistant, wasn’t there yet. He was always weird, but he’d been weirder than usual for a while.
Reminding myself to chastise him for being late again, I grabbed the landline and checked the messages before I took some notes on upcoming requests for appointments.
Humming under my breath at the nice intake of clientele, I took some money from petty cash then palmed my phone as I slipped in my earbuds and connected a call to Stone.
As I headed out of the tattoo parlor, locked up, and wandered over to the diner, she finally answered, her voice groggy, “The hell are you doing calling me now?”
Relieved she was at the clubhouse now and not in the hospital anymore, I grinned at nothing. “Says the early riser.”
“I’m more of a night owl right now,” she rumbled, sounding gruffer still after she yawned.
“More something. He dick you down, yet? That’ll get you to sleep,” I joked.
She grunted. “None of your business.”
I sniffed. “I’ll be the first person you come to if he can’t get you off.”
“Look at Steel and tell me he can’t get a woman off.”
“Men are all about the tits and the clit, but when they got ‘em, they don’t know what the fuck to do with them. You know that as well as I do.”
“Okay, I do, but he had enough goddamn practice. Surely he knows what to do with a clit.”
“I dunno,” I retorted, pulling open the door and heading into the diner where I sat my butt down at my regular booth. As Wanda wandered over to me, I winked at her glum features which, as ever, were dour, pointed at my order on the menu, then gave her a thumbs up. “Most men think they do, but they don’t.”
She snickered. “Most men aren’t Steel, remember?”
I narrowed my eyes at the table, unsure if they’d fucked or not now. I knew they’d been sleeping together, like, literally, but she was on bed rest which wasn’t likely to put a person in the mood for sex. “You’re really going to hold out on me?”
“Not for long, just for the moment. You know, when he isn’t lying next to me, glaring at me. Shit like that.”
Content now I thought she’d give me details, I murmured, “Good girl.”
“You’re at the diner, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Bitch.”
I smirked. “You could come. You don’t have to be in bed all the time.”
“True.” She heaved a sigh. “Just most of it. I miss huevos rancheros. Giulia’s a great cook, but everything’s pasta this and pasta that right now. She must be craving it, because that’s all she fixes.”
“Boo fucking hoo,” I retorted. “What I’d give not to have to cook.”
“Like you couldn’t eat here every day if you wanted to.”
I sniffed. “And have all those fuckers up in my business and in my face?”
“Then you don’t get free food cooked for you.”
“You’re the one bitching about how boring it is.”
“I wasn’t bitching, just saying variety is the spice of life.”
“Not for you it isn’t, not anymore,” Steel rumbled, loud enough for me to hear down the line.
Though I rolled my eyes, her giggle was so unlike Stone who lived up to her name in nature, that I’d admit her laughter made me happy for her. I loved her like a sister and she deserved a good man—I was just unsure if Steel was that for her.
The Sinners weren’t exactly good men, after all. But I had a different qualification of the word ‘good’ in relation to people in possession of penises. Not because I hated all of them, but because a guy with a big heart didn’t always wear a bright red, crushed velvet suit and yell, ‘Ho, ho, ho.’
“I’m going before he says anything else sappy.”
“You woke me up for no reason at all?” She huffed. “Thanks, friend.”
I grinned, because even though she was casting shade, she wasn’t. Not really. And this was exactly why I’d needed to hear her voice after waking up with the memory of that fucker’s words ringing in my ears, of his breath gusting in my throat…
God.
My voice turned gruff. “You know you love me.”
“Good fucking thing.” She heaved another sigh. “When are you coming to visit?”
“Tomorrow.”
“About time.”
“I saw you yesterday,” I sniped.
“Yesterday was a long time ago. I almost died, Indy,” she whined.