The man looked up, his gaze pinning Bolt. There was something there Bolt had rarely seen most of his life. Respect.
“Then you understand the ride,” he murmured and got back to work
Shamrock groaned. “Oi, my junk hurts just watching this.”
Than jaw ticked. Fly winced. The room felt warm with the sound of them, his brothers, men who’d chosen him when no one else ever had.
When the artist finally lifted the needle and wiped away the last streak of ink, Bolt exhaled with a shudder he’d never admit to. The skin along his hip and inner thigh burned with fresh heat, raw and tender, and he forced himself upright, bracing his palm on the table as the man angled a mirror toward him.
The design hit him like another pulse of lightning.
A long, savage bolt, sharp angles, brutal edges, no softness anywhere, cut across the top of his hip, each jag a declaration. It speared downward in a clean, merciless line, slicing through the tender skin near his groin before tapering toward the inside of his thigh, the point aimed with shameless precision at his cock.
It was perfect. Fierce. Uncompromising. Exactly the bolt that had split the sky the night he earned his name. The same savage silhouette etched now in black ink along the place of his body no one would forget once they saw it.
It looked like impact and speed and reckless loyalty. It looked like the moment he’d followed his swim buddy into the black water without hesitation. It looked like the electricity he pretended was all swagger when the truth was carved far deeper.
Shamrock squawked first. “Jesus fucking Christ, he got the full Zeus package!”
Bolt smirked, because he had to. “What? You jealous my lightning points the right direction?”
Fly choked on air. Than looked away with quiet reverence. Bolt rolled his hip just enough to watch the ink catch the light again, the angles stark against his skin, the line of it slicing downward like it had always belonged there.
It wasn’t vanity. It wasn’t sex. Though it would definitely get him sex. It was the strike that made him who he was, inked where only a man absolutely certain of himself would dare to put it.
“Damn,” he murmured, running a careful fingertip along the top of the bolt. “That’s me.” Not Indigo Fisher. Not the foster kid. Not the runaway.
Special operator. Warrior. SEAL.
A breath escaped him, low, surprised.
It looked incredible. It looked dangerous. It looked like him distilled into one perfect mark—audacity, speed, electricity, hunger for life, captured in ink.
He sat up slowly, letting the soreness register, letting the sting settle into a raw reminder of what he’d chosen.
Shamrock let out a long, appreciative whistle. “Christ above. Women will drop like flies.”
Then Shamrock blinked and there was something there that got Bolt right in the feels. Cormac knew. That crazy, hilarious, cocky bastard knew the real meaning of this mark.
Bolt grinned. “That’s the idea.”
He fist bumped Bolt. “Nothing’s stopping you now, badass.” His words were low, reverent.
Fly shook his head, but a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. “You’re insufferable.”
Than, quiet and sincere, studied the tattoo a moment. “It fits,” he said softly. “Like it was already in you, waiting.”
Bolt’s chest tightened unexpectedly, a brief, sharp pang that wasn’t pain at all, and he nodded once, swallowing past the pressure in his throat.
“Yeah,” he said. “Feels like that.”
Like lightning finally found ground. Like belonging. Like a mark no one could take away from him.
Fuck, he knew coming here to Coronado was his last chance. He was terrified down to his marrow that he would screw BUD/S up and have to go home with his tail between his legs and tell his brother, Nico, their father had been right all along. Something in him softened at the edges as he approached, the weight of the moment reaching under the armor of charm and mischief he’d worn for so damn long. He sank into the chair with a long breath, the kind you let out only when the noise in your chest finally quiets enough to hear your own heartbeat.
“All right,” the artist said, pulling on gloves. “Design?”
Cormac slid a folded sheet across the counter.
