After a few minutes, Sheridan pulled from my arms with a sad smile before she splashed her face and dabbed it dry.
“Come on,” she said, taking my hand. “Let’s go to your shop. I need a tattoo.”
“Actually, you may need to come with me. My stuff isn’t there.”
“Why?” she asked, confused.
“Long story, just come to Alex’s.”
“No one knows where he lives,” Sheridan replied in shock as her eyes bugged out of her head.
“Wait…so no one knows he’s kept me locked up in his house since we got back?” I asked her, just as the others joined us in the hall.
“Has he?” Sheridan asked, her smile turning into more.
“Grow up, Sher,” I said, hiding my own smile. “Who’s taking me back to Alex’s?”
“I got the car,” Viper said. “I’ll take you there. Bear’ll have my nuts for breakfast if I left you alone.”
“At least they’ll be getting used,” Savage retorted before he smirked and walked away with Hawk and Morena. Viper grunted as he led us down to the car and we headed toward Bear’s place.
I finished the final line on the end of the r for her to spread it over to her hip, and looked down at the masterpiece. The black ink shone up at me, her skin peppered with red and pink from the pain, but she hadn’t winced once. A tattoo over the hips and just above the pussy was painful, and yet Sheridan had been resolute in what she wanted. I usually wouldn’t tattoo a name on someone, unless it was the kid, but I had no reservations about tattooing Cooper’s name on her. I knew they were endgame.
“That’s it, let me just wrap it and you can get up,” I said. I set about cleaning it up, rubbing cream into it and placing the tattoo wrap over it. She got up, and pulled her shirt back down.
I knew why she’d done it. She needed to take back the power she lost in that courtroom today.
“The girls asked me if they could change their name to Malone today,” she said.
“Wow,” I replied, packing up my stuff. “That’s amazing, what did Coop say?”
“I haven’t spoken to him yet,” she said. “With everything going on…I don’t know…I think it’s something to ask when we aren’t battling the hounds of the devil, you know?”
“Or,” I said, standing to come and stand next to her at the door to the back courtyard. “It’s exactly what he needs to hear right now, to take the pressure off. He would protect those girls with his dying breath, and we all know it. He’s been more of a daddy to those girls than Neal ever was.”
“I wish they were his.”
I put my arm around her and squeezed her. “They already are, so tell him what they want. I’m sure he would be so fucking honoured.”
Sheridanpushed away from me. “So why are you hiding away here, and why is your shit here?”
When Sheridan was done with the sappy shit, she was really done. It’s why I loved her so much.
“Matteo Barone is here, Alex kidnapped me to keep me safe.”
Sheridan’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You knew?”
“I knew Matteo was here, yeah,” Sheridan said. “I didn’t know you were staying with Bear.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “When he finds Matteo, I’m sure we’ll figure out what to do after that.”
Sheridan didn’t respond, but I could see she knew something.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
