Mad Love (Guns & Ink Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Swoon Romance Titles

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.

  Copyright © 2017 by Shana Vanterpool

  MAD LOVE by Shana Vanterpool

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Swoon Romance. Swoon Romance and its related logo are registered trademarks of Georgia McBride Media Group, LLC.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-946700-64-3

  Published by Swoon Romance, Raleigh, NC 27609

  Get mad, be happy, and love.

  Feel the fire of all three.

  You’re allowed to feel, to want, to heal.

  You’re allowed to love.

  Not all love stories are easy.

  Some are mad.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Swoon Romance Titles

  Preface

  Madison

  Life had a way of expunging your expectations.

  But it also had a way of rebuilding them.

  I met a hero the day I walked into Klayton’s tattoo shop, broken and terrified. My heart was tattered, and my mental state was a plain of rubble in my skull. He wasn’t your typical hero. But atypical was exactly what I needed. I needed strength to combat my weaknesses. I needed love to fight my terror. And I needed someone to look at me like I was whole, when I feared I never would be again.

  I sometimes wished we could have a do-over. That I could walk into his tattoo shop smiling, clean, and glowing. But that would only erase the brutal, beautiful truth of us. I didn’t walk into his tattoo shop smiling, I wasn’t clean, and I was severely damaged.

  But Klayton loved me anyway. Even when I was empty, even when I was broken.

  Even when I was mad.

  Chapter One

  Klayton

  A shadow fell across my canvas.

  My canvas happened to have a pulse, and I was deep into a five-hour job. I’d been lost in the buzz of my tattoo gun, fading between the thick black lines and the tangy smell of ink and sweat. My client wasn’t the worst one I’d ever had. She had some ink on her upper arms and anticipated the burn of the needle. She barely jumped when I’d pressed the ink-soaked tip into her flesh.

  I sat back and turned, lifting the gun in the air. I glared when I saw it was Cat. “What?” I growled, pissed off she’d ruined my vibe.

  She ignored my anger, always had. Which was probably why we’d been able to get along through the years. I never fazed her.

  She pushed her onyx hair out of her face and then gave me a wide-eyed expression, jutting out her lower lip. Catherine Abbott was a few years younger than me. We’d never hooked up, never would, but she had a small influence over me, and she knew it. I cared about her as much as I thought I could care about anyone. She was tough, she didn’t take shit from anyone, and she didn’t cry. I couldn’t stand tears. In exchange for her patience, she got a job at Guns & Ink. But I wasn’t in the mood tonight for her pouting or her interruption, friend or not.

  “Can we talk?” Cat asked.

  A movement beside her caught my eye. Behind Cat was a woman close enough to her short height that she could hide behind her—probably close to 5’4.” The woman’s dark blond hair was in her face, and she wrung her hands together, looking at her feet, or the black floor, I didn’t know. All I knew was she wasn’t looking at me. She had a backpack on, and her white Converse shoes were gray and worn. Her ankles looked fragile, barely holding her up. Her body was slumped in on itself. I could sense her weaknesses, smell her fragility. I wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Go take a bathroom break,” I told my client. I pushed away and gave her hip a shove. “Don’t touch your ink. You hear me?”

  She gave me a wink as she walked around. “I hear you.”

  Great, I thought. Another one.

  Cat smirked, watching my client head to the back for the restroom with a knowing smile. “You know they only come in here for you, right?”

  I glared up at her. “Talk, Catherine.”

  She despised her full name. But it got the job done. She was no longer smirking. “This is Madison, my friend,” she stressed, for reasons I wasn’t sure of.

  Was she warning me? Warning me about what? I didn’t change my expression.

  “Say hi to Klay, Madi.” She tapped her friend on the shoulder.

  Her friend looked up, silver eyes wide. I was rarely taken by surprise. If anything, it was impossible to impress me. I cared about little. But nothing prepared me for what I saw. Her face was small, with petite features. She had a black eye, a swollen bottom lip, and the whites of her eyes were garnet—she looked deeply tired. Not sleepy, but empty.

  She met my eyes for an obligatory second. “Hi,” fell from her lips quietly, before she averted her gaze. She studied the tattoos on my chest and arms, at least the ones she could see with my tank top on, and then moved on to the lewd painting on the wall.

  It was one of my favorite paintings I had in the shop. A woman bent over a car with her pussy and ass in the air. There were tattoos all over her skin. Every single inch. The sex wasn’t the point of that painting. Her face was hidden by her hair. I liked it that way. No eye contact, no emotions. Ink and pussy. That was all I cared about. I didn’t need them to care because there was a large chance I wasn’t going to.

  “Say hi to Madi, Klay.” Cat sounded annoyed.

  The entire exchange had already drained me. Plus, my client was coming back from the restroom. “I don’t have time to say hi. If it’s important, wait upstairs. I’ll be up there after I close.”

  “It is important.” Cat gave me a wounded look, and then grabbed Madison’s arm. “Let’s go. We’ll hang out at Klay’s and eat all his food.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I heard her friend reply.

  I didn’t believe her. One look at her petite face, and I could see too much of her cheekbones and the bones around her jaw and neck. She was wearing jean shorts and a white hoodie; I couldn’t tell exactly how skinny she was, but she was skinny enough for me to notice in the first place.

  When I turned b
ack around, my client was standing there staring at me expectantly.

  “Lay down,” I ordered levelly, praying for patience.

  She scurried to do what I said. I pushed my stool toward her and examined her back. I refilled the black ink on my gun, changed my gloves just in case, and then returned to outlining her piece. Within seconds, I was vibing again.

  My artists, Corey and Wayne, were as well. Together, the buzz of our tattoo guns created a calming hum in the air. There was a TV on low, but none of us were listening to it. For the next two hours, I created the outline of what would be a full back tattoo. It was a gothic fairy garden. Dark fairies with black wings, moons the color of ash, and a swath of shadows creeping into the darkness.

  I rarely turned down a client, not unless they were drunk or underage. Corey and Wayne wouldn’t do the stupid ink or the feminine jobs, so they pawned them off on me because they knew I didn’t mind tattooing dollar signs on broke idiots, or names on couples who wouldn’t be together in a week.

  When I finished with my client, I gave her back a wash down and then handed her an aftercare pack. Once the parlor was empty of clients and the mess of tattooing was disposed of, I told Corey and Wayne to take off. I cleaned and then locked up shop. I grabbed the appointment book and the cash out of the register and took off for my office. I put everything into the safe with a slip for Cat to deposit it in the morning. I checked out my client list for tomorrow, surprised to find it booked until closing. Business was always good in the summer. If we made enough, it would keep our heads above water when the snow started falling in Colorado this winter.

  Shutting off the lights, I armed the shop and then headed upstairs to my apartment. I had forgotten all about Cat and her friend until I walked into my living room and found them eating pizza and watching my flat-screen.

  Cat laughed at something. Her friend sat there, staring emptily at the screen. She had her legs pressed to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her bruised eye looked puffy and tender, and her swollen bottom lip gleamed in the light from the TV.

  I ignored them, and instead reached between them both for the pizza box, making her friend jump in surprise. She clutched at her chest and gasped, breathing hard but sighing when she saw that it was only me.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, watching her closely. What’s her deal?

  “You ready to talk?” Cat asked, speaking to the screen as she lay on her stomach.

  I stepped over their slumber party and sank onto my couch, shoving a piece of pizza into my mouth. “Your friend okay?” I looked sideways at her as she tried to breathe.

  “She’s okay. She’s just shaken up.” Cat looked sadly at her. “Klay’s cool. I promise. I know he’s an asshole, and he’s about as comforting as a piece of rusty steel wool, but he’s not a bad guy. I promise,” she insisted softly when Madison tried to pull in air. “He won’t hurt you. He might make you feel like shit, but he won’t hurt you.”

  I didn’t deny her statement. It was the truth. What was there to deny? I took another bite, watching them from the corner of my eye. “Talk,” I said to Cat.

  “She needs a job.”

  “Can she ink?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you want me to do?”

  “She can do other things. Clean up, work the register, be your assistant. Tell me you don’t need one. You do all the work all by yourself, Klay. The guys don’t do anything but tattoo and leave. I can’t tattoo and do your errands.” Then she gave me those eyes. “Please, Klay. She needs help.” Her eyes glistened.

  I got a feeling in my gut. Anger and guilt swirled around me. I despised this feeling. It reminded me of being a kid. A kid who could never get it right. The feeling pissed me off, and I wanted her to know how pissed I was, but the look in her eyes prevented me from screaming. Plus, her friend was still hyperventilating. “I’m not a charity.”

  “I know. You’re a miserable dickhead, but you’re a good man. A good man who’s going to help her, the same way you helped me.” She sat up and stared into my eyes. She mouthed, “Please,” as her friend pretended we weren’t talking about her.

  “I’ll give her an interview.” I thought that was good enough.

  But Cat shook her head. “She doesn’t like talking to men.”

  Her soft ‘hi,’ came back to mind. “Then how can we work together?” I didn’t have time for whatever was going on here.

  “She can still hear,” she reminded me. “Do me this favor. She’s not like all those other girls, you know? She can’t make it out there like we did.” She gave me a dark look.

  Cat had about as hard a life as I did, but hers was harder. I didn’t like picturing her out on the street doing what she had to do to get by. It was tough; I knew that. And she knew I knew it. I narrowed my eyes at her, mumbling under my breath, all while Cat gave me those big dark brown eyes. “Let’s go in the back,” I snapped, making her friend flinch.

  “Don’t yell,” Cat hissed. “You can’t yell around her.”

  Her friend jumped up, eyes flashing around the room between the doors and me. The whites of her eyes were redder. She looked at me in fear, her little pale fists clenched in anticipation, or protection. Her breaths came fast and shallow.

  I felt like shit in seconds. I didn’t normally, and the feeling hit me hard. She’d obviously been abused. Her bottom lip trembled, but her eyes were burning, ready to protect herself from me if she needed to.

  “Let’s go in the back,” I repeated in a lower tone. She probably wanted me gone anyway. I rose slowly and walked around the couch, so I didn’t have to go by her.

  Cat whispered something in her ear, and her friend’s eyes shot to me again, this time leery. After Cat moved to follow me, her friend sat down, her cheeks now red. I walked down the hall toward my room, letting out a low growl once we were alone. I slammed the door and whirled on her. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Cat sighed, immune to my anger, and sat on my bed. “She needs your help.”

  “Why my help?”

  “Because you’re the only man I trust.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that shit,” I ground out, not wanting any more guilt. “I have enough going on right now. I don’t need her around my shop where men are coming in and out of the door all day.”

  She looked like she’d considered that too. She frowned. “She needs money. She needs … like a real life, you know? Like the one you gave me.”

  “I didn’t give you a life.”

  “No. You’re right. You gave me a chance. You showed me that not all men were pieces of shit. You made me feel safe, made me realize I was strong, and that gave me strength I didn’t know I had. She needs that right now, Klay.” She bit her lip and wiped at her eyes. “She was raped.”

  “Stop.” My brain was trying to wrap itself around this situation. “I’m not some fucking savior. Get that out of your head right now.”

  She shook it instead. “You’re my savior.”

  “Cat!” I roared, wanting to forget the devoted look in her eyes. “I gave you a job. That’s all I did.”

  “I know you can’t stand yourself, Klay. I know you dislike everyone in the world but me. I know it. But I also know that you’re not a bad person. You’re not as bad of a man as you think you are. She needs help. Look at her. If you leave her on the street, she won’t last another night.”

  Cat liked broken birds. But she loved “lost souls.” Animals, people, me—if it was a black sheep, she wanted it. I’d always secretly loved that about her. She didn’t need a reason to be that nice. Hell, she had no reason to be. But she never let the bad things that happened to her take that from her, and in a way, her being that good made it easier for me not to be.

  “Damn it,” I hissed, running my hands through my hair. “She in trouble? Anyone coming to look for her?”

  “The man who took her probably is. But he can’t find her if she’s here.”

  I stared at her closely. “You’re not saying what I think
you are, right, Cat?” The ice in my words made her flinch.

  “She needs a place to stay, too.”

  “Why can’t she stay with you?”

  “I’m living with my boyfriend and his brother, remember? Too many men.”

  “I’m too many men.”

  “Yeah, but you’re safe. You won’t touch her. You won’t want her.” She stood up and touched my arms. “Please, Klay. Do this for me. I saw her running away. She was …” She shook her head at the memory. “It’s only temporary. When she’s better, she’ll leave. Please do this for me.”

  I stared down at her, the rage inside of me twisting around my heart. I didn’t like being pushed into a corner. But this was a corner I couldn’t exactly back out of. And her eyes were so wide, so trusting, so damn full of her plea—I couldn’t say no. Plus, that girl out there would get eaten alive. But I wasn’t the better option here. I was anything but gentle. That’s what she needed, someone gentle.

  “You’re the biggest pain in my ass, you know that?”

  Cat hugged me to her. I didn’t return the favor. “Thank you, Klay. I’ll stay here tonight with her, and let her know everything, okay?”

  “She’s your responsibility in the shop. If she screws up, it’s on you.”

  “Totally understand.”

  “You two can have my bed tonight,” I offered, eying my king-sized bed in longing. I’d dreamed about crawling into it since I left it this morning. I’d been tattooing since seven; it was nearing midnight now. My head was clouded with exhaustion, and now thanks to Cat, weariness, too.

  “See?” She squeezed my hand. “You’re good.”

  I ignored her and opened my door, letting her out first. “Order me another pizza,” I whispered in her ear.

  She scooted away from me and traipsed back into the living room. Madison was sitting where we’d left her, eyes on alert. When she saw Cat, she relaxed, but when she saw me, she tensed up again. Yeah, I thought. I get that a lot.

  Cat gave Madi a nod, but that didn’t seem to appease her. She hugged herself and watched as I took a seat at my kitchen table with my laptop. I ignored her too. “Pizza, Catherine.”