“Not sure I can get back to sleep for the whole hour I could do that,” she shared.

“What are you sure you can do?” he asked.

She leaned in and ran her nose along his jaw.

That was what he was hoping would be her answer.

And it was an answer to a lot of things, all of what they’d just talked about.

An answer he liked.

Luckily, he was sure he could do that too.

So he pulled her into his arms, took her to her back, and they did it.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Give Good Girlfriend

Carissa

WHILE MY BIKER was in the kitchen making coffee, droopy-eyed, I stood at the bathroom sink brushing my teeth, thinking about all that had happened the night before and early that morning.

I gave Joker what I needed to give him when we had our talk.

That didn’t mean what he said didn’t alarm me.

It did.

And in the light of the coming day, tired and facing work and an important meet-the-friends dinner that night, that alarm grew.

Still brushing, I saw Joker walk in wearing nothing but his jeans (and by that, I meant nothing—he’d pulled them on commando to go make coffee), his miraculous chest (and shoulders, and head, and face, etc.) on display.

And I saw his tattoos.

He had a variety of them he’d explained were Chaos tattoos. A big one on his back, one on his inside biceps, one on his outside forearm.

He also had a tattoo over his left pectoral that was a playing card of a joker.

To be honest, I’d never liked tattoos. I thought they were common, not in the sense they were low-class, but when everyone started getting them, the coolness factor went out of them.

But Joker had told me the story of his Chaos tattoos, and the joker card was obvious.

So I’d changed my mind.

First of all, they were amazing to look at. I was no art expert, but it was clear they were that. Art on skin.

But it was more. They told the story of the person who had them. Inked forever in their skin was their history, or what was important to them, or lessons they’d learned they didn’t want to forget.

This made me look at all Chaos brothers’ tattoos more closely, and I’d stopped being judgmental as I read their lives, their thoughts, their life lessons on their skin.

For Joker, I liked most the fact that his tattoos showed his life started when he found the brotherhood. He didn’t have tattoos from before, angry ones he got after he left his father and struck out to make his own life with a car full of stuff and not much else.