Dare To Love Series: Daring Ink (Kindle Worlds Novella)

Daring Ink

by Avery Flynn

“
Show
me a man with a tattoo and I’ll show you a man with an interesting past.” - Jack London

When I was plotting this story, I asked my street team what kind of hero they really wanted to read about. Not shockingly, they picked a law enforcement alpha hero. 

Flynnbots, I hope Sawyer is just the kind of hot cop hero you were looking for.

Xoxo,

Avery

Ch
apter One

For
the third time that week, Penny Dare lay naked in her bed and plotted her neighbor’s untimely death. Only something slow, painful and publicly humiliating would make up for being repeatedly woken up at three in the morning, to usually one woman, but occasionally more, loudly moaning praises to the cock of wonders that her neighbor apparently had. Judging by the way her headboard jolted forward in time with the rhythmic banging on the other side of the wall dividing their condos, it must be soda can thick and anaconda long to require such a vigorous workout.

She hadn’t had four good nights’ sleep in a row since he’d moved in six weeks ago and installed a revolving door to his bedroom. Neither notes slipped under his door nor complaints to the building manager had made any difference to the neighbor who was never seen but sure as hell made his presence known.

“Fuck this shit.” Penny tossed her covers aside and stomped out into her living room. If nothing else, she could check her e-mail for more proof she had a tattoo design thief at Daring Ink.

Her phone lay on top of the wireless speaker and she got an idea. Check that. She got a revenge fantasy-worthy fucking brilliant idea. In the time it took to download a death metal playlist, she’d gathered every wireless speaker in her house and placed them against the shared bedroom wall. Thanks to the gift from surprise-I’m-your-dad, Paul Dare, who couldn’t fathom not being totally rich and living in a huge ass mansion, she had enough wireless Bose speakers to put three in every room in her one bath, one bedroom, kitchen/living room-combo condo.

The noise coming through the wall had slowed, but Mr. Anaconda Cock on the other side had a pattern. This was only the calm before the porn star-level pre-orgasmic screeching began. One. Two. Three. Bam! Right on schedule the “fuck me harder with that big dick” squealing started. She double-checked that each one of the speakers would pick up her cellphone’s signal and hit play.

Screaming guitars, pounding drums and a man yelling along to the beat erupted out of the speakers so loudly, the floor vibrated beneath Penny’s feet. It was glorious. She clapped her hands over her ears and ran out of the room to the farthest point from the cacophony—the kitchen, where she grabbed a beer from the fridge and toasted her brilliant maneuver.

She was halfway through the brew when the hammering started on her front door.

Oops.
Looked like she’d ruined the fun.

Taking her time, she strolled past the front door and into the bedroom where she hit stop on the music. A quiet fell so completely that she could almost hear Mr. Anaconda Cock’s dick shriveling up. Her work here was done.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The pounding on her front door echoed through her condo.

She slipped on an oversized Daring Ink Tattoo Studio T-shirt and made her way to the front door. Peeking out her peephole all she could see was a police badge.

That asshole had called the cops? On her?! Oh, this would not stand.

She yanked open the door. “I don’t suppose the douchebag told you—”

The rest of the words fell out of her head and crash landed on the hardwood floor.

The half-naked man in front of her was too much to process. Broad shoulders. Arm porn-worthy biceps. Washboard abs dissected by a dark honey-colored happy trail that disappeared behind the waist of his jeans that hung low on his hips revealing the tops of whatever those sexy V things were called. Unable to stop herself she had to look.

She gulped.

Yep. That was a big ole make-you-scream-every-name-in-the-phonebook bulge in his pants.

She forced her gaze to make the reverse journey back up all that muscle. By the time she’d made it up to the smirk curling his thick lips upward and the smug hey-baby look in his blue eyes, oxygen had returned to her brain, along with the sinking suspicion that this hot cop was her asshole neighbor.

“You’re Mr. Anaconda Cock?”

*****

Sawyer
Dixon had been called a lot of things in his life but never Mr. Anaconda Cock. He kinda liked the nickname and his dick more than kinda liked the leggy redhead.

He gave her a slow up and down, trying to process what his body had already put in the yes, please column. So this was who had been sliding shut-up-already notes under his door. If he’d had realized that, he would have found the time to come over before she’d tried to shake the fillings out of his teeth with what could barely be called music. The loose black T-shirt with a tattoo parlor logo gave only the barest of a hint about what she was hiding underneath, but judging by her lean legs that seemed to go on forever, he was missing out on something good. Time to fix that.

He held out a hand. “Most folks call me Sawyer.”

She narrowed her brown eyes and ignored his hand. “Let me see your badge.”

Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled it out again. “Why?”

“So I can flush it down the toilet.” She rolled her eyes. “So I can confirm it’s legit.”

“You have experience with law enforcement?” So did he a few times before giving up his dream of making it off the Miami Thunder practice squad and onto the roster. Then he’d woken up one morning and realized that was never going to happen. Thankful his mom had pushed him to get his criminal justice degree, he’d gone from Thunder black and yellow to police blue.

She took his badge without comment and looked it over. “So you didn’t like my choice of music to have sex by?”

For the past few weeks he’d been trying to fuck the memories of an undercover operation gone wrong out of his mind. It was better than falling into a bottle or worse, even if it’s a tad bit on the noisy side when done right. “We weren’t
that
loud.”

“Are you kidding me?” She put her hands on her surprisingly generous hips, just the kind that always make him look twice. “I could repeat verbatim every groan and squeal.”

The idea of her listening in turned him on more than he would have thought. He’d never been one for an audience, but if she was the one watching, he just might find his inner exhibitionist.

“You’ve been taking notes, huh?” The instant flush in her cheeks had him imagining all the things she could have been doing while listening. “Did you have a favorite part?”

“I think it was oh baby, oh baby, shut the fuck up now so the neighbors can sleep.” She nodded. “Yeah, that was my favorite.”

He laughed. Hard. He couldn’t help it. It had been years since a woman had done more than bat her eyes at him. He’d thought being a ball player at a Division I school, followed by nearly making the Thunder had taught him all he’d thought he needed to know about the fairer sex. Add to that his experience, the plethora of badge bunnies he’d enjoyed since he’d given up the gridiron, and he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had been so immune to the charms he’d spent a lifetime taking advantage of.

His front door opened and his date for the night, Annabeth, took a half step out into the hallway. She wore only a strategically buttoned dress shirt of his that barely covered enough to keep her from a public indecency charge.

“Are you coming back, Sawyer?” Annabeth asked, her stiff body language, even in the sexy getup, letting him know the offer still stood but the clock was ticking. “I’m getting cold.”

“In a minute. Just clearing things up with my neighbor.”

Annabeth nodded and went back inside, shutting the door behind her.

“Does she realize clothes might be a solution?” his neighbor asked.

He glanced back at her. The T-shirt might reach down to a few inches above her knees, but he’d bet good money there was nothing but skin underneath. “You’re not wearing much more.”

“I’m not cold.”

“Nope.” He focused in on her lips. Pink and full, they were the kind to inspire all sorts of fantasies. “You seem like the type to run hot.”

She pursed her pretty mouth. “Really? That works?”

His gaze dropped to the hard peaks of her nipples pushing against the thin cotton of her T-shirt. “You tell me.”

That earned him another flush of red across her cheeks. He wondered where else on her body the color spread and what he would need to do to make that happen.

“Just try to keep it down.” She started to close the door.

“Wait.” He stuck his foot in the doorjamb so she couldn’t shut him out. “What’s your name?”

“Penny.”

“Do you really listen to that music, Penny?”

“Only when I’m planning your murder and imagining the sweet silence of solitary confinement.” She nudged his foot out of the way and shut the door in his face.

Sawyer stood there staring and wishing he could get her to come back out and spar some more. No light shone out of her peephole. No doubt she was on the other side of the door watching him. Now she’d have a mental picture to go with all the noises she’d been listening to. He hoped she liked it.

After giving the closed door a slow wink and a salute, he turned and went back to his own condo. The temptation to go back and put on a show for pretty Penny was strong, but the blonde bombshell waiting in his bed held little appeal. Instead, all he could think about was how to get the pissed off Penny naked and between his sheets.

Ch
apter Two

Sitting
poolside, Penny had twenty minutes before she turned radioactive tomato red, even with SPF one bazillion—being a natural redhead in Miami was no joke. Still, actually getting one of the lounge chairs next to the pool was a miracle ever since a few of the Miami Thunder players moved into the building’s top floor penthouses, so she wasn’t about to give up her spot until she had to.

Flipping open her sketchpad, she penciled in a few lines on the Indian-inspired tattoo a client had commissioned. Full of intense fuchsia flowers and warm brown leaves it would follow the woman’s spine from the base of her neck to the small of her back with small symbols weaved into the tapestry.

“Hey there, neighbor,” Sawyer said.

She snapped her head up right in time to see her hot cop neighbor plant his hands on the edge of the pool and push himself up. Water droplets clung to his tan skin, highlighting the sinewy muscle rippling up his arms, and darkened his honey-brown hair to a dark malt color. In a move that would have looked like a drunk monkey doing the hula if she tried it, he did a quick push-twist thing that ended up with him sitting on the edge of the pool next to her chair with his legs dangling in the water. The position gave her the opportunity to take in the wide width of his back and the thunderbolt tattoo on his shoulder blade. The work wasn’t bad, but it was nowhere near as breathtaking as the canvas it was on.

“Now is normally when you talk to me instead of just eyeballing my bod.” He flicked water at her.

“Hey!” She scrambled back, her arm protectively covering her sketchpad, too worried about her design being damaged to be embarrassed he’d caught her eye fucking him. “Watch it, I’m working.”

“It’s a gorgeous day, you’re out by the pool and yet, you’re working.” He got up and strolled over to her lounger and sat down. “Do you ever play?”

“Do you ever not?” Despite her best intentions, her gaze dipped down to the muscular thigh peeking out from the hem of his board shorts.

She yanked her focus back up to his face. That wasn’t much better. The man was lethal with his Tom Hardy lips and Superman jaw. Looking at him set off a whole flustered, giggly feeling that she didn’t have time for—especially not with the gigaho next door and his ever-changing harem of loud, blonde hotties. Boyfriends or anything close to it were her kryptonite and she couldn’t boink and dash with a guy that lived next door.

“We got off on the wrong foot.” Sawyer toyed with the corner of her towel and gave her a lopsided grin that brought out his dimples. “How about I take you out to lunch and make up for it?”

Danger! Danger!
All the alarm bells went off in her head. “No.”

“Not even an I’ll think about it?”

All the girly, oh-my-God-yes butterflies swooped around inside her belly, but she had to stay firm. “Nope.”

“Tell me…” He turned, pinning her to her chair with the intensity in his blue-eyed stare. “Is it the cop thing or the Mr. Anaconda Cock thing because I promise he won’t come out to play unless you want him to.”

Her gaze dropped to his bright blue board shorts before she realized. She ripped her focus back up to his face, flames beating against her cheeks. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He winked. “So what are you working on?”

Brain reeling, trying to catch up with the one-eighty the conversation had just taken she answered, “A custom tattoo for a client.”

“That explains the Daring Ink shirt from last night. You work there?”

“I own it.” She couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice. It was a giant pain in her ass three days out of seven, but it was hers.

“Really?” He sat up and his broad shoulders lost the laid-back surfer dude ease. “What are you twenty-two?”

“Twenty-five, but I’ve had it since I was twenty-one.” She’d worked her ass off to save enough to show she was serious enough to get a business loan approved right out of college. She’d never looked back.

“You
are
an overachiever,” he said.

“No, I just have priorities.” Like never having to depend on anyone or deal with their lies ever again.

“And those are?” he asked.

“Never having to sell myself on the corner for grocery money again.”

His eyes bugged out.

“I’m kidding.” The laugh boomed out of her loud enough to make the people around them stare.

“Wasn’t sure you knew how to do that.” There was his lopsided smile and killer dimples again.

The man could be dangerous if she didn’t watch herself. “I laughed a lot after hitting play last night.”

He crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge, and shot her a sorry excuse for a dirty look. “That was a mean trick.”

She shrugged. “It worked.” Not another sound filtered through their shared wall after she’d snuggled back into bed.

“Only because I couldn’t stop thinking of you.” He stood and tipped a finger in salute. “Good luck with your work.”

Finishing her design was the last thing she was thinking about as she watched him walk away. Her pulse rushed like a raging river in her ears, drowning out the sounds of the pool as his last words played over and over in her head. Thinking of her. She dropped the sketchpad into her lap, her fingers losing their ability to grasp things just like a dippy heroine in a stupid chick flick. She didn’t do that. She wouldn’t do him. She needed to go upstairs and find her battery-operated boyfriend before he came back upstairs from the pool and heard the tell-tale buzzing through their shared wall.

Sawyer stopped a few chairs over and settled in next to a guy the size of a tank. Must be one of the penthouse footballers judging by the dude’s massive muscles and flock of women in Miami Thunder string bikinis circling. More power to them. Any smidge of interest she’d had in the game died the moment she found out the dad she’d grown up never knowing owned the hometown team.

The player leaned forward revealing a tattoo on his shoulder of a Phoenix spreading its wings, a chalice dangling from one talon and a football helmet in the other. All thoughts of getting off with her battery-operated boyfriend imploded as the realization hit, sending her blood pressure to low-orbit space flight levels.

Mother fucker.
That was
her
design.

Again. Another person she knew she didn’t tattoo was wearing her work. No doubt about it, she had a thief at Daring Ink and when she figured out who it was, she was going to make sure every tattoo artist in Florida knew. The thief would get blocked from working with every reputable tattoo artist in the state.

The alarm on her phone went off. Time to go in, but not before she got Mr. Football to give up the name of his tattoo artist.

*****

Sawyer
did math problems in his head to keep from sprouting a tree in his trunks as he watched Penny bend over and pick up her towel. The last thing he needed was to be a grown man with a public boner. Seeing her last night in just the T-shirt had been tantalizing. Seeing her clad only in a green bikini that matched the vine tattoo curving around her hip and up her side, was beyond tempting.

“Roll your tongue up, man.” D’Andre Johnson winged a bottle of sunscreen at him, hitting him square in the chest. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“Like that’s possible.” The Miami Thunder backup cornerback was many things—loud, wild, loyal to the bone—but easily embarrassed wasn’t one of them.

“I’m sure it’s happened—once maybe.” D’Andre laughed.

Sawyer tore his gaze away from his sexy neighbor. So she was behind the noise complaint notes slipped under his door. The highly-detailed doodles on the plain white paper made sense, now that he knew she was a tattoo artist who owned her own studio. After delivering Annabeth into the taxi, he’d pulled them all out and read them again. She had neat, precise handwriting but the drawings around the words were unrestrained and passionate. Which version would show up in bed? He had stroked his cock thinking about her naked in his bed and watching her transform from uptight businesswoman to wild artist.

“What’s wrong,” D’Andre asked. “She turn you down?”

There was no way he was going into details with his old teammate. Some humiliations stayed in the vault. Still, he had to give him something.

He shrugged. “She’s my neighbor and it seems our bedrooms share a wall.”

D’Andre laughed so hard he had to wipe away tears from his eyes. “Oh you are never getting between those pretty thighs.”

Well, he hadn’t been trying until she’d opened her door last night spitting mad, with her hair going every which way. If a woman could make a ratty T-shirt look good and a green bikini look phenomenal, then he was damn well trying to get to know her better. Not that he was going to admit that. “Who said I’m trying?”

“You breathing? Your eyes still work?” D’Andre snorted and grabbed a beer from the cooler between their lounge chairs. “Good. It’s just your melon that’s broken.”

Sawyer flipped him off.

“Don’t worry.” His friend popped a can of beer open and took a drink. “You didn’t stand a chance anyway. Forget fucking her, you couldn’t even get a date.”

What the hell? His game was strong—just not with her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sawyer sat back and closed his eyes as uncertainty went Zip Tie-tight on his balls. Sex had always been his relief valve when things got too stressful, but lately it just wasn’t the same. It was good, he made sure of that, but… Hell, none of it made sense. 

“Alright then,” D’Andre said. “If you’re so sure then loser covers the tab for a dinner at Mel’s and a night in South Beach.”

He flinched, imagining his bank account after that kind of night. “I’m on a cop’s salary now not the league minimum.”

D’Andre arched an eyebrow and smirked. The bastard wasn’t about to give up on busting his chops. Of course, if the situation had been swapped he would have been busting his best friend’s balls just as hard. It’s what they’d always done since they’d both unpacked their suitcases in the dorms years ago.

“A date?” he asked, the idea taking hold of him.

His heart sped up but doubt shoved its way through his ego and set up shop in his head. Penny wasn’t like the women he usually dated—she wasn’t a club girl or a badge bunny—plus, she lived next door. Love ‘em and leave ‘em wasn’t an option unless he packed up his condo and moved.

D’Andre held out his fist. “You playing or what?”

Time to either man up or surrender his balls. Trying to ignore the way his mouth had gone dry and his toes had started to sweat, he raised his knuckles. “Fine.”

They bumped fists.

“Look sharp, man.” D’Andre laughed, nodding at something over Sawyer’s left shoulder. “Your girl is on her way over.”

He whipped his head around. Penny wasn’t just strolling over for a flirty chat. She was marching over with her full lips in a tight pucker. In a heartbeat he scrolled through the last ten minutes wondering what in the hell he could have done to piss her off so completely, but he came up empty. 

Penny stopped in front of D’Andre’s chair, her hands on her hips. “Where did you get that tattoo?”

Obviously unprepared for the total lack of awe over who he was, D’Andre blinked as he looked down at his chest, which was littered with tats of varying shapes, sizes and quality. “Which one?”

“The Phoenix on your shoulder.” Penny pointed to his left side.

D’Andre screwed up his face. “A year ago. Miami. Shit, I don’t remember exactly where, but it was definitely here.” He pivoted in his seat and grabbed the suntan lotion off of Sawyer’s chair and held it out to her. “You want to put some of this on it while you take a closer look?”

Her cheeks turned pink, highlighting the freckles dusting the bridge of her nose, and she exhaled a disgusted sigh. “How do you not remember who did your work?”

D’Andre shrugged. “I was drunk.”

She’d been pink before, but now her coloring went straight to Ferrari red. Her big brown eyes rounded and the vein in her temple throbbed to a techno beat. This situation was about to go south quick.

Putting on his most soothing, I’m-a-cop-and-I’m-here-to-help look, Sawyer asked, “What’s going on?”

“Some asshole is stealing my tattoo designs.”

Weird. Who knew that that was a thing?

“How are they getting them?” D’Andre asked, always so completely not helpful in tense situations.

Penny went ramrod straight again. “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” she said with enough bitterness to turn the Miami summer downright chilly.

“I could help.” The offer was out of Sawyer’s mouth before he had a chance to double-think it.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah right.”

“No really. I’m a cop, remember you examined my badge last night? I work vice.” And solving her problem would be the perfect way to work his way into her good graces and go out on that date. Penny will be happy because her thief will be caught. He will be happy because his bank account won’t be plundered. It was a win-win situation. What could go wrong? “I’ve got a few days off. Why don’t I help you look around?”

She eyeballed him, suspicion forming a little line between her eyes. “Vacation or suspension?”