Page 63 of Brand
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Cami
“Here ya go, beautiful,” Brand said as he came up beside me, placed a grapefruit down on the counter in front of me, and kissed my temple. Like he did every time he was around me. The kiss on the temple thing, not the grapefruit. That would be weird. No, I didn’t have a secret craving for grapefruit, in fact, I wasn’t even a little bit of a fan. So, I scrunched up my nose in a mix of confusion and disgust and looked up at him.
“Uh…thanks?” I shrugged.
“No,” he said as he shook his head and laughed at me. “Damn, sometimes you are so adorable.” If that had come from anyone else, I might have been insulted and angry. “It’s time, Cami. You get to work on your inking skills. I learned on pig skin fresh from the butcher, but given that you don’t eat meat, I figured this would be better.”
I loved that he had figured out I was vegetarian without me having to tell him. And I loved that he didn’t even make a big deal out of it. Though I wasn’t quite vegan—there were simply things I could not give up like cheese and caramel—he had taken notice that I didn’t like to drink milk. Anytime he would feed me he would order something meatless or take me somewhere that had a good selection of vegetarian meals. He even went as far as to check and make sure the beans at his favorite taco place were cooked without using any kind of lard or meat product.
This guy.
I was so head over heels for him it wasn’t even funny.
“You seriously learned on a dead pig?” I asked though I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d done my fair share of research going into this, and I had read a few things about people doing that because it was pretty much as close to human flesh as you could get.
“Yep. Sketch, what did you learn on?” Brand called out over his shoulder.
“Pigs feet. Had the butcher chop them off right above the knee for me, gave me more to work with.”
“Blade?” Brand went on trying to further prove his point.
“Cadavers.”
What?!
That made me freeze, and Brand, too. Guess that was something he wasn’t aware of.
“Uh, um, okay. I don’t even want to know,” Brand said, clearly a bit thrown off by this new information.
“Yeah, probably best,” Blade said and I heard his stool rolling around in his room the way it did when he was getting set up for an appointment.
“You got something going on? There’s nothing on the books.” Brand asked, noticing the same thing that I had.
“Yeah—”
His words were cut off by the jingle of the front door opening. Brand and I turned just in time to see B-ry stride in with Ky trailing behind.
“What’s going on?” Brand said in a greeting.
“Here to see Blade,” B-ry answered and flashed me a smile. “Hey, Cami. How are you doing, girl?”
“Hi. Good. You?” I said sweetly.
I’d gotten to know most of the guys over the last couple of weeks. Sure, I had my favorites, but I was not going to say who.
B-ry was forever giving me smiles and asking how I was doing. Mouse made sure I never had a frown on my face. Knight…well, he was really wrapped up in his girlfriend, Gwen, but both of them were nice to me. Tripp watched me with an intensity like he was either trying to figure me out or watch over me. I hadn’t been able to make up my mind on that one. Lake, oh sweet Lake. He reminded me a lot of Brand and I often thought of him like the brother I always wanted. I saw Sketch like that too.
And then there was Ky. Sometimes he was standoffish and sometimes he was there, right alongside the other brothers, laughing and carrying on a conversation with me. I liked the guy, but I could tell that there were some heavy things weighing on his mind. Or, maybe he was just moody. Like male PMS, moody.
“Wonderful, or at least I will be once this shit show gets started,” B-ry said answering my question with a sly smirk, one that told me something was about to go down, but I didn’t have the first clue what.
“Are you getting something done?” Brand asked as he walked with them over to stand just outside of Blade’s room, but still within earshot. And you can bet your sweet bottom I was listening in.
“Figured I’d get my dick pierced,” B-ry said and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
Sketch has his done. Seems like some ladies love that.
