Page 46 of Broken (Powertools: The Shields 4)

Neither of those things seemed to put Ace in a better mood. Liam tried to help. “It won’t kill you to wait a bit.”

“Oh yeah?” Ace scoffed. “I remember how antsy you were to have your work done. You were trying to get them to do it all at once instead of in sections like they recommended.”

James shifted to stare at them. “Liam has a tattoo? Where? I mean, not that I was staring, but I’ve seen him bare chested and doing squats in those tiny black shorts he works out in.”

“I love those shorts.” Ruby sighed.

Liam whipped his wide-eyed stare to her. She’d been checking out his ass at the gym? Or maybe his package. Damn.

“They’re great. But they don’t leave a lot to the imagination.” James tapped his chin. “So fess up. What do you have, googly eyes on your balls or what?”

Ace snorted at that, rocking against Liam as he hugged Ruby to him.

“Not a tattoo.” Ruby’s eyes stared into the distance as if she was recalling memories from the night before. She rambled. “A piercing. No, lots of them. And they’re so pretty.”

JRad cleared his throat from the opposite sectional. He winked at his protégé. Ruby blinked, then clapped her hand over her mouth, a blush washing her cheeks in the softest pink he’d ever seen. Liam wondered if her ass would turn that same shade if he spanked her for letting his secret out later, not that he really minded.

“Ah hah!” James poked Liam in the chest. “I knew it. You’re as kinky as the rest of us. Maybe more. You just hide it better. Those are always the ones you have to look out for.”

He stared at Ruby and Ace as he said it. Neither of them denied it. Nor did they look like it bothered them.

“You have a Jacob’s ladder?” Blakely asked, her professional curiosity kicking in.

Ruby, ever helpful, said, “It kind of looks like a ladder. Down there, I mean. Yeah.”

“They can be tough to get straight.” Blakely seemed impressed. “And you need to have a decent amount of real estate to make it look good.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem,” Ace added while he and Ruby grinned at each other. “There are plenty of rungs on it.Pl-enty.”

“I’m right fucking here.” Liam growled. He knew Ace loved to provoke him because it meant later he’d get the sweetest form of payback. And right then he found he was looking forward to it.

“Okay, I must be dumb. Somebody tell me what we’re talking about?” James asked.

Blakely sketched a very unanatomical drawing that looked like a cucumber with dashes through it. “It’s a series of frenum piercings. Sometimes with the addition of scrotum rings or a Prince Albert, which goes the other way, up at the tip.”

“Damn.” James looked at Liam with a newfound respect.

“Do you do those?” Liam asked before he thought better of it. He’d been considering adding one final touch to his collection after reading that they could be particularly pleasurable for his partners.

“Personally, no. But Mike and I designed an in-house piercing area. I have to find the right partner once the city quits screwing with my permits and we can finally open.” Blakely sighed. “At least I have you guys to hold me over. You’re running out of blank canvases, though.”

She turned back to Knox and started flipping to the sketches she’d worked up for him.

James, however, was not so easily diverted. “So, Ruby. When exactly did you see Liam’s big fat ladder?”

Ruby choked. Ace patted her on the back as she tried not to swallow her tongue about the time that James’s husband and wife strolled in together. They often hung out with him for a while at Shields before the three of them headed to their home at the Powertools complex for the night.

Neil perked up at the talk of construction gear. As a veteran carpenter and now a foreman of his own crew, he had a professional interest. “What’s this about a ladder? Can I see too?”

James cracked up, rocking as Liam covered his face with one palm.

Everyone laughed along. Devon and Neil exchanged puzzled glances before Devon shrugged.

“What kind of bullshit is going on now?” Neil smiled good-naturedly.

“Liam’s apparently got some ladder piercings, you know…on his peen.” James waved toward his crotch. “And I’m guessing by the way Ace and Ruby are practically drooling, that it feels real good when he puts them to use. So maybe you should consider looking into it.”

The mischievous twinkle in James’s eyes gave away that he was only teasing, but Neil played along. “Nope. No way. I love you, but no one is shoving a needle through my dick repeatedly. If you’re into that, you’ll have to talk Dave and Kayla into it. That’s why you have eight other lovers.”

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