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

and stubborn streak. Still, she’d said yes to Sawyer. It made no sense.
    The doorbell buzzed.
    It was too late to go back now. Her temper had landed her smack dab in the middle of trouble again. At least this time it wasn’t the mystery man who happened to be her surprise father on the other side of her door. This time she knew the devil in the hallway.
    Hurrying through her condo, she pinched her cheeks and smoothed her stick straight hair back behind her ears. By the time she turned the doorknob, she was ready for battle.
    Sawyer stood in the hallway in olive shorts and a white T-shirt that fit snug across his broad, muscular shoulders.
    He held out an unopened package of Oreos in one hand and two unopened bottles of beer in the other. “Peace offering.”
    Her mouth watered at the sight of the chocolate and creme cookies. “How did you know?”
    “Your wrist.”
    She glanced down at the Oreo cookie tattoo on the inside of her wrist. It wasn’t her best tattoo, the details weren’t as crisp as they should be, but it had been her first. Her brother had the glass of milk inked into his full sleeve tattoo. Her cookie, though, was small and easily noticed. The fact that he had made her brain all fuzzy.
    “Wow.” She brushed her thumb across the quarter-sized tattoo as if she could rub away the discombobulated feeling Sawyer always incited. “Usually most guys just notice my boobs.”
    “Those are pretty phenomenal too.” He winked, but his gaze never dropped from her face.
    Someone was on his best behavior, which only put her more on guard. “Come on in. I’ll go grab a bottle opener.”
    *****
    It had taken every iota of self-control, but he managed to keep from staring at her amazing tits, which were shown off to perfection in a tight black v-neck T-shirt with a picture of a tattooed Marilyn Monroe on it. He needed a beer after seeing that.
    Her apartment had the same layout as his, with the open concept living room/dining room leading to the kitchen on one side, a small balcony straight ahead that let in the day’s last rays of sun and a bedroom on the other side. From the black suede couch to the red leather chairs, everything was pin neat, perfectly organized and followed the same black, red and white color scheme—until he looked toward the bedroom. The door was open, revealing a sliver of an emerald green comforter and electric blue sheets still twisted from last night. The T-shirt he’d seen her in last night lay crumpled on the floor.
    She sauntered back in, drawing his attention from her bedroom to her long, lean legs that seemed to go on forever. His dick twitched. God, this woman was going to wear out his zippers.
    He took the beer she offered with a nodded thank you and sat down on the couch, resting his arm across the back. She hesitated for a moment before taking up residence in one of the two red leather chairs, tucking her legs up under her.
    “Okay,” he said. “Bring me up to speed with what’s going on.”
    Penny chewed her bottom lip and sighed. “When you got your tattoo, did you bring in a picture of what you wanted or did you just pick something from the flash?”
    Obviously, this was not going to be a just the facts retelling. He settled back against the couch, knowing better than to try to push a story out of someone before they were ready to tell. It was interrogation 101.
    “What’s the flash?” he asked.
    “The pieces of paper showing a bunch of different designs. Most studios have them tacked to a wall or collected in books.”
    He thought back to the small tattoo studio in Vegas where he’d gotten the thunderbolt tattoo after getting the call from the Miami Thunder coach that they wanted him to come on down for training camp. The bolt on his shoulder was one of six options shown on a white piece of paper hanging on the wall. “The flash.”
    “You’re like most impulse tattooers. Those clients can be bread and butter for some studios, but they’re not the work that