“Hey, I don’t judge.” Rox shrugged. “It looks kinda hot.”
“Jesus, what freaky shit do you and Jet do that you think shooting stuff out of your ass is hot?” Mo asked.
Rox raised a brow. “You really wanna know?”
“No!” Tamra, Dana, and Mo snapped in unison. I couldn’t blame them, Roxy’s stories tended to get pretty detailed and… colorful. I attributed my refusal to even think about having kids anytime soon to her prison visits, when she’d filled me in on all the weird ass shit pregnancy was doing to her body. Maybe she’d exaggerated some of it, but I still had the occasional nightmare.
“Alright, well, what the hell were you talking about then?” she asked, noticeably disappointed.
More shots appeared—red ones this time—and we slammed those back too. I had no idea what disgustingly sweet concoction I was being plied with now, but the cinnamon-tasting shit didn’t go down easy.
I shook it off and explained, “I just meant that if I feed my man something spicy, I give him something else to neutralize the burn. You know, push his buttons but give him an ego boost right before he goes over the edge.”
Having gone from nothing but uncommitted flings to marrying Torch the day after he proposed, I was hardly a relationship expert. But experience with the opposite sex had served me well, Torch was a powerful man and I’d learned that powerful men often had opposing personalities when it came to what they wanted. They liked being on top and pandered to, but eventually that shit got old and they started craving a challenge. The problem was they couldn’t stomach actually losing one because defeat was viewed as weakness.
So, what was a wife to do? She went full-force, naturally, but always knew when to pull back just enough to make her man feel like he still had an edge even in a losing battle. Sometimes it took sex, sometimes nothing more than affirming words, but it almost always worked. Whenever I successfully distracted Torch from an argument, I won by default… in my mind anyway.
“So you’re telling me to bash Gauge’s head in and give him some ice,” Dana said. “Got it.”
“Are you guys having problems?” I asked. “I’m a little worried about the glee in your voice when you say that.”
“I have no idea,” she sighed. “Everything he does lately annoys the shit out of me for no real reason. Maybe it’s that seven-year itch people are always talking about. Or maybe I’m just getting bitchier with age.”
“You’re only thirty-two,” Tamra pointed out.
Dana smirked. “Exactly. Can you imagine me at fifty?”
“Good thing the club has so many chapters,” Mo chimed in. “By that point, Liv’s man should be the president and she can get you and Gauge transferred.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Dana huffed. Obviously trying to change the subject, she grabbed my arm and inspected it. “Mack did an awesome job on this ink.”
At Torch’s request, Mack—an amazing tattoo artist and one of two recently patched-in club members—had set up shop at the wedding reception and marked our skin as quickly as we’d marked the marriage certificate. I loved tattoos, my back was mostly covered in black and gray ink, but my husband had demanded visible placement, which only left my neck, chest, or arms. I wasn’t a fan of the first two options because they could be easily spotted and identified on surveillance video—a habitual concern stemming from hiding out for years—so I’d ended up with his name over abstract wings on the inside of my forearm.
I couldn’t be as opinionated about where Torch put his, he was working with a busier canvas. His torso, arms, and neck were already crowded with various art, his back was strictly for club ink, and he’d scoffed at my suggestion to stamp his ass. In the end, he’d opted to put my name over a fading black-and-white lion on his collarbone and had Mack cover-up the mane by making it look like flames. It was the only colored tattoo on his body and I absolutely loved the symbolism.
“That is pretty sweet,” Rox added. “One of these days I’ll get a job where they don’t care about showing tatts. I’ll be the scary-looking mom at PTA meetings who makes the uppity bitches nervous just by staring at them. You know, like Stinger’s ex does. I’m convinced the only reason his kid hasn’t failed a grade is because Margo terrifies the piss out of his teachers.”