Dare To Love Series: Daring Ink (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Free Page A

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?”
    More like well-deserved break after a case he’d worked on fell apart right as they were ready to put the cuffs on the perps because the frat boy drug dealer leading the operation had parents with enough money and connections to make the whole case disappear. “Something like that.”
    She stared at him, her body language as stiff as ever, but she was wavering. He could see it in the way she nibbled her bottom lip and how she kept fidgeting with the black sketchpad she had pressed against her tits like a shield. All he needed to do was give her a gentle nudge to push her over the edge into yes.
    “I can track this thief down.” And he could. No one was better at working a case than he was. “Do you want my help or not?”

 
    Ch apter Three
    Penny stared at her bedroom wall—her silent bedroom wall—and tried to understand what she’d just done.
    You said yes, dumb ass.
    Why in the hell had she done that? She never asked for help. It was the one thing she and her twin brother, Copper, had in common. Well, that and the red hair