Read Online Inked Fighter: Complete Collection (MMA MC New Adult Romance) by E. E. Griffin - Free Book Online

my chest. I wanted him so bad.
    I sat up in bed and thought about buying a box of condoms. I’d never bought condoms before. The idea made my face flush even hotter. I could feel the blood flowing to my cheeks and running down my neck and chest. I covered my face and moaned. What was I thinking? It was just a tattoo, nothing else.
    Rose giggled at me. Hopping out of bed with a spring in my step, I lifted Rose from her bed and got her dressed and changed.
    Downstairs, I found Zoe nursing her coffee. She looked hung over. I might not have been around the block many times, but I knew that look. She was only eighteen, and I hated the idea of her drinking. I wouldn’t scold her. I wasn’t her mother. Zoe was the most responsible eighteen-year-old I knew. She could have her fun. I trusted she would take care of herself. 
    “Feeling okay, Zo?” I asked.
    “Fine,” she moaned, staring at her coffee.
    “Long night?” I put Rose in her chair and poured myself a cup of coffee.
    “What has you so chipper this morning?” She turned and squinted at me with one eye closed.
    “Nothing,” I lied.
    “Oh yeah. Tattoo Guy. What was his name? Damien. So what’s the deal with him?”
    I sighed and sank into a chair with my coffee in hand. I knew my eyes were far away as I remembered his embrace. I snapped back and looked at her seriously. “He’s coming over to give me a tattoo on Monday. He designed it himself and everything. He’s doing it for free.”
    “Free. Wow. What is it?”
    “A dragon. I’m going to get it on my upper back, right at my neckline.”
    “He likes you.”
    “I think he does. I guess that makes him strange, right? Who wants the teen mom?” I laughed bitterly.
    “Please, Claire. You’re beautiful and a total sweetheart. I don’t know many girls who could have done what you did at your age. I couldn’t do it.” Zoe took a sip of coffee and pushed her strawberry blond hair out of her face. Her green eyes fell on me.
    “You do plenty,” I said.
    “I do the least I can do. You are the one keeping everything together.”
    “Stop, you’re going to make me cry.”
    “Come off it, Miss Hormonal. I’m just telling it like it is. Any guy would be lucky to have a girl like you.”
    “Thanks, Zoe.”
    Toby trotted down the stairs to the front door. He flew outside and rushed up the driveway without a word. Zoe and I looked at each other and smirked. Rose fussed, and I got up to slice her a banana.
    A few moments later, Regan came downstairs. Her hands shook and her shoulders were hunched. Big bags hung under her eyes and her face looked deathly pale. I slipped the bananas onto Rose’s tray.
    Regan went to the coffee maker and poured herself a cup. She said nothing and went back to her bedroom. Regan looked like crap, even for Regan. I’d seen her through some horrible meltdowns, but I’d never seen her so gaunt-looking.
    I shrugged it off. I never knew what was going on in Regan Land. I didn’t really want to know. I made myself another cup of coffee and thought about my tasks for the day.
    After driving Zoe to work and putting Rose down for her morning nap, I took a quick shower and then rifled through my chest of drawers for clothes. When I went to my top drawer, I took out a pair of panties but couldn’t find my money. My heart pounded into my head. I pushed everything aside. The money wasn’t there.
    Cold washed over me and my nerve endings stung. My head felt like it was being squished by a sadistic giant. I left my room and walked down the hall out of earshot of Rose.
    “Fuck!” I screamed at the bottom of the stairs. I dropped my clothes on the floor around me. Someone took my money. Almost three hundred dollars, gone. The electric company kept threatening to shut us off as the late bill inched higher and higher.
    I stomped up the stairs and flung open Regan’s bedroom door. She wasn’t there. Regan’s room was a disaster. There were drawings and writing all over the walls, and her