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“…while fucking her.”

“I…”

No. I’m not here. I am a pile of ashes that used to be a person. I’m genuinely, entirely, thoroughly lost for words. Fuck, I’m lost for emotions, if that’s even a thing. All my brain can summon is some kind of blinding, nonverbal, white-noise shock.

“Figured you’d want to know,” Blue finishes.

Christ. I glance up just long enough to gape at him, and finally find my voice. “Thanks, bro. Appreciate the solid.” Apparently this revelation is empowering me to try and out-sarcastic-bastard Blue, king of the sarcastic bastards.

My heart’s galloping in a way that has nothing to do with all my coffee. But certainly isn’t helped by it either. How I’m supposed to outline an entire Japanese-inspired sleeve in fifteen minutes, I have no idea.

I do my best to go back to staring into space.

“There a problem?”

My eyes flutter shut. Is there?

No, what am I thinking. I give a short, hard laugh. “A problem? God, how could there not be?” I blink and bring my gaze back to earth.

“Dunno.” Blue stands up from the stool, finally snaps off his gloves, and pitches them in the trash. “You’re both consenting adults.”

“Right,” I acknowledge. “Right. I guess…”

My eyes dart around the shop, looking for something, anything, to fixate on and preoccupy me.

Which is a mistake, because everything in the shop feels like a temptation. All the art, my art, of typical tattoo things: locks, keys, anchors. Ropes.

Chains.

“It’s just…I think I might be, kind of, you know.” I swallow, because why am I even saying this, too late now, “Kinky?”

Fuck. I don’t even know if that’s the right word.

“Okay.” Blue blinks. “And?”

“And…and…shit, I don’t know. And I don’t know what I’m doing, or what that even means”—or if she’d even like it—“or…or anything.”

“You think I can’t help with that?”

I hadn’t, honestly. Not even remotely.

But…

If Blue cares about my answer, he doesn’t wait for it. “Just let me know,” is all he says, striding off for the stairs. “I’ll even give you the friends and family rate.”

By way of response, I kind of collapse forward so that my face is pressed into my knees.

Blue. Helping me. With Tink. With Tink. And with Blue.

That’s…dear God.

That’s complicated.

That’s tempting.

That’s almost certainly a bad idea, given every fucking other thing going on in this pathetic excuse for a tattoo parlor run by the most impulse-driven, irresponsible, flirt-with-danger biker crew in London Valley.

“Oh, and also,” I say to the empty shop, voice muffled against my legs, “there’s the small matter of my brother being in love with her, in case that matters?”