Daddy Ink Read online




  Daddy Ink

  Get Ink’d: Book 1

  Ali Lyda

  Contents

  1. Gordo

  2. Javi

  3. Gordo

  4. Javi

  5. Gordo

  6. Javi

  7. Gordo

  8. Javi

  9. Gordo

  10. Javi

  11. Gordo

  12. Javi

  13. Gordo

  14. Javi

  15. Gordo

  16. Javi

  17. Gordo

  18. Javi

  19. Gordo

  20. Javi

  21. Gordo

  22. Javi

  23. Gordo

  24. Javi

  25. Gordo

  26. Javi

  27. Javi

  28. Gordo

  29. Javi

  30. Javi

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  1

  Gordo

  All of the proper nighttime rituals had finally been completed, and now I could almost breathe. I’d fed my almost month-old daughter, Giuliana, her last bottle for the day. When her eyes had finally fluttered shut, her thick dark eyelashes dusting her rosy cheeks, I’d managed to change her diaper without any fuss. That was a trick my brother, Mason, had taught me. It was far easier to put a clean diaper on a milk-drunk baby than try to do it before, when she was hungry and raging.

  After the diaper came her footie pajamas, and the whole time I dressed her, I marveled at how small the jammies were, like a doll’s outfit. Finally, I had rocked Giuliana in the dark. It didn’t matter that she’d already fallen asleep a half-hour before—the rocking was just for me. It was the only time in the entire day I didn’t question if I’d made the right choice to be a single father.

  The soft smell of Giuliana’s hair sent waves of comfort through me, soothing me while the white noise machine hummed in the corner. The gentle rise and fall of her chest and the heat of her pressed against me was so wondrous that for a moment, I could almost believe I was good at this.

  When rocking her, I could forget about the poo that had exploded from her diaper earlier, staining the beige couch in a Cheeto-orange smear. I could forget about how I’d left her on the couch while I ran to get disinfectant, the thought that she might roll off not even crossing my mind until it did. That had caused a lurch in my heart and a spike of adrenaline that hadn’t faded for hours, even though she would have been entirely fine; she couldn’t even roll over yet.

  Rocking Giuliana helped me forget that I was alone in this when there were supposed to be two of us. My ex-husband, Kyle, and I had planned on raising a baby together when we’d decided to become fathers six years into our marriage. The expensive and heartbreaking rounds of in vitro with a surrogate had lasted two years, and left us feeling fragile and desperate.

  I’d hoped the grueling experience, that constant pain and stress, would bring Kyle and I closer. But two years can feel like a lifetime, long enough for two people who love each other to grow apart, and it only took one last call—a positive pregnancy with an egg that had my sperm—for Kyle to be out the door.

  Giuliana let out a toot and a soft sigh, and I knew it was past time to put her in the crib. It was time to put me to bed, too. Exhaustion was relentless, and no one had been joking when they’d told me that raising a baby would be tiring.

  But it wasn’t just tiring. It was torturous, made bearable only by the thought that the small infant I held was mine. The whole of my world now fit into my hands.

  “Time for bed, Peanut,” I whispered as I maneuvered out of the rocking chair. It was a little past eight in the evening. If I was lucky, I could grab a quick shower and a few hours of sleep before it was time for a night feeding.

  As soon as she hit the mattress, her arms and legs sprawled out, making her into a tiny starfish. Every parenting class I’d taken had said absolutely no blankets in the crib with babies. No pillows, no stuffed animals, nothing but a baby on a mattress. But there was a deep instinct in me to tuck, and I stood, letting it ebb. One day I’d be able to tuck her in.

  One day I’d have a handle on being a single father, and I’d have built a business from the ground up that allowed me to give Giuliana anything and everything she could want or need.

  But first, sleep.

  Maybe I’d skip the shower. The baby wouldn’t care if I smelled a little, or if my hair was greasy. She only cared if her diaper was wet or if I was late getting a bottle to her. In a way, it was nice to have such simple demands. On the other hand, they were constant, her needs turning into a litany of cries that marked the hours.

  If Kyle was here, it wouldn’t be so hard.

  I shoved the thought out of my mind. It was definitely time for sleep if my mind was so determined to latch onto things I couldn’t control. Instead, I tried to focus on the portfolio of graphic art I was building. I needed some edgier designs if I was going to be able to land some of the newer, hipper business springing up in town.

  In bed, those thoughts became sluggish. I was so tired that a fugue settled in before sleep did, making it feel as if I were sinking. It was the kind of tired that, once felt, made a body spin and revolt because if it wasn’t allowed to sleep for twelve hours straight, it might die.

  You won’t die from a few sleepless nights, I chided myself. Only it wasn’t going to be a few, was it? Without Kyle, without my parents, without anyone, I’d be the one up for every wake-up of Giuliana’s life. It could be years before I slept a full eight hours at once.

  My heart thumped with this realization so hard that it was as if my body buzzed with it. But then the thump happened again. And again. Shit. A glance at the clock told me all I needed to know—it was now nine-thirty, and the neighbors were having yet another party.

  Giuliana and I had spent the first two weeks of her life living with my brother. But for the past week we’d been home, in our new home that was supposed to offer a fresh start from the life I’d had with Kyle. And for the majority of that week, the house next door has had parties. Loud parties, with the bass going so loud my windows rattled.

  Most of the time Giuliana could sleep through it. But not always, the parties sometimes keeping us both up. God, I needed tonight to be a sleep-through night.

  The monitor crackled, and Giuliana’s tiny wail came rushing through the speaker. Apparently tonight would not be a night she could sleep through the noise. Anger flared hot in me. For the love of all that was holy, what was with those assholes?

  This was a residential neighborhood, with a homeowners association and five house designs that peppered each street and cul-de-sac. I’d chosen the house for those reasons, wanting something appropriate for raising a baby, and I’d even broken the lease on my apartment to achieve it. The one thing there shouldn’t have been was nightly ragers at the neighbor’s like they lived in a goddamned frat house.

  My daughter’s cries escalated as I lurched from my bed and shoved my feet into some shoes. Enough was enough. Being a father was hard enough—I wasn’t going to let some impolite jerk make it even tougher.

  It took no time to pull Giuliana from her crib and strap her to my chest with a baby wrap. God bless the person who invented baby wraps. Having my hands free made me feel more in control, while the warm, snug presence of my daughter on my chest kept me grounded. And it helped her, too. It was probably smug, but I loved that my daughter was the most calm when we were together like this.

  It was warm outside, muggy in the way it got before the rain came. No clouds yet, though, just a blanket of stars that would have given me pause if I couldn’t still hear the party next door. The music was loud enough that I felt as if I were already in the house instead of stalking across the dewy grass, mind flippi
ng through a hundred rude things I wanted to say.

  The yard was well maintained, and there were flowers in pots along the steps, blue and white hydrangeas, which seemed at odds with the piercing growl of guitar coming from inside. At this point, I hesitated at the foot of the stairs, trying to decide if I was too angry for this house call, if maybe I should wait until tomorrow, when I’d cooled off a little, so I wouldn’t do something I’d regret.

  But then someone inside whooped and raucous laughter followed, and yep, I was just the right kind of mad. After all, this was keeping my daughter up. Her hiccupping cries validated my rage, and I stomped up the steps.

  The front door had a welcome mat in front of it, but I didn’t want to be welcomed. I wanted some peace and quiet. I banged on the door hard with my fist, a constant rattle so that I knew someone would have to hear me. Someone did. The knob turned, and I dropped my hand just in time for the door to swing open and reveal a very petite, very tattooed woman.

  She looked at me with this passive, don’t-give-a-shit expression that made my fingers curl into fists.

  “It’s Tuesday night,” I said, voice pitched with accusation.

  “Yep,” she replied, sounding bored. Her eyes dropped to the bulge of Giuliana against my chest. Her nails drummed against the doorframe.

  It felt as if I might shake apart from fury, but the baby strapped to me helped tether me to some semblance of calm. “If you don’t turn down the music, I am going to call the cops.”

  Not only that, but the cops include my brother. If you think Mason will offer a polite warning after I tell him you’re keeping up his niece, you’ve got another thing coming. The thought was followed by a vision of my brother, dressed in uniform and bringing a buddy down to shake up the partygoers, and it was very enticing. Even so, these people were my neighbors—I should at least try to resolve it on my own before bringing out the big guns.

  The woman was pretty-ish, her tattoos so vivid the colors seemed to leap from her skin. My mind, trained to see art and take its measure, was impressed. But the exhausted rest of me wasn’t.

  She arched a manicured eyebrow before shrugging. “Not my house.”

  Oh, for the love of—

  “May I speak to the owner, then?” I growled, teeth gritted to keep myself from screaming.

  Before I could say anything else, the woman slammed the door in my face. It hit so hard I was forced to step back, a hand placed protectively on Giuliana’s back. That… that bitch.

  My phone was out of my pocket, my thumb moving rapidly to pull up Mason’s contact, before I could even think to talk myself out of it. Because I wasn’t going to be nice twice. It was too bad, too. Some part of me had always hoped to have the kind of neighbors that I could wave to or talk sports with on the weekends. The kind of neighbor Giuliana would feel safe with growing up.

  It was supposed to take a village to raise a kid, and the door slamming in my face reminded me all the more of how alone I was.

  Before I could hit send and bring in the troops, though, the door opened again. I braced myself, prepared to tell the woman off, but it wasn’t her leaning in the doorframe.

  Instead, dark eyes pierced me. The porchlight caught them, and I saw they were hazel, deep pools of luminescent color that stole my anger from me. The owner of the eyes was tall, close to my over-six-foot height, and he was lean and muscled in a way that made me think of a panther, all sleek body and sharp claws.

  Because the man, with his sharp cheekbones and practiced frown, looked dangerous. It wasn’t just the tattoos that licked and curled around every exposed inch of his warm brown skin. It was the taut lips and thick eyebrows pressed together, making me wonder if I’d just made a very large mistake.

  But whether the mistake was picking a fight with someone who looked that dangerous or that gorgeous, I wasn’t sure.

  My mouth was dry. “Are you the owner?”

  He didn’t reply. Instead, he stared me down harder, like he was trying to peel my skin away and get to the heart of me.

  I motioned to Giuliana, who was restless in the wrap and getting crankier by the minute.

  “I have a newborn. She’s only a few weeks old. We’re your neighbors and—” I stopped long enough to shut my eyes and take a bracing inhalation. “And she needs sleep. I need sleep. Could you please turn it down? Maybe for a few nights?”

  My drop-dead gorgeous, mysterious, tattooed neighbor didn’t say a thing. Those eyes, so large and sharp, dropped to my daughter. He stared at her for a beat before meeting my gaze again. Then he nodded formally, like we’d just signed the Geneva Accord. The door was shut in my face again, the music still pounding.

  I stood, body vibrating. I don’t care how attractive this guy is, I’m calling Mason now. Fists clenched, I felt frozen to the spot. The nerve of him!

  Yet again I found myself missing Kyle. Not him him, per se, although sometimes I still did, but just having someone in my corner. Because I was standing with my daughter on a neighbor’s porch, trying to do the best that I could, and all it earned me was a door shut in my face. Twice.

  Can’t I catch a break?

  But as I broke from my pity party and started to reach for my phone, the music… stopped. Surprised, I waited. Were they simply switching playlists? It seemed impossible to believe that my hazel-eyed neighbor, silent and staring, had actually listened.

  And yet.

  When the music restarted, the volume was low enough that I could barely hear it from the front porch. The shouts and whoops and laughter were more contained, as well. Something in my stomach unclenched, and when I inhaled, it felt as if I were taking my first deep, full breath in a long time.

  “Thank you!” I shouted through the door before I could stop myself.

  Giuliana stirred at my booming gratitude, and I patted her bottom through the wrap. “Okay, let’s try getting you to bed again.”

  The party remained turned down throughout my trek back home, the changing of yet another wet diaper, rocking my daughter, and putting her back in her crib. No music or bass buzzed through my home as I stripped to my boxers and slid under the covers of my bed, which suddenly felt too large.

  Sleep should have come right away, but it didn’t. It danced and teased at the periphery of my mind, because I couldn’t stop thinking about my neighbor and the way those piercing eyes had a brooding, wounded quality to them.

  And how much that quality intrigued me.

  2

  Javi

  My hand was pressed to my chest as soon as the door was shut. Beneath my palm, I felt the rapid thump of my heart as it raced double time, hyped up from the one-sided conversation even as the party continued to rage around me.

  The ‘for sale’ sign next door had disappeared months ago, but aside from a moving truck, I hadn’t seen my neighbor once. Now I had, and fuck me, I made a mess of it. To start off, I had not planned on having a man next door who looked like that.

  Sure, he looked like any parent of a newborn would, sloppy and exhausted. Dark brown hair that stuck up in all directions. Dirty t-shirt clinging to broad shoulders. Angry brown eyes so rich in color it felt like I was being pulled into him by his gaze alone. It wasn’t fair that someone could look so desirable when they were at their messiest. I could only imagine how good he must look when he’d had some sleep and a shower.

  The stereo was in the room attached to the foyer. I strode to it and turned the music down, ignoring the complaints coming from my guests. Who gave a shit what they thought? They hadn’t just been railed at by their new and stunning neighbor.

  Peering out the window that overlooked our yards, I rubbed my hand along my jaw as I tracked my neighbor’s movements back to his home. His arms were wrapped around the tiny bundle that had been strapped to his chest.

  It had been overwhelming, my good-looking and clearly livid neighbor and his kid. All of that fiery attention focused on me, pinning me like I was a specimen up for scrutiny, and I’d shut down. Which meant I’d also shut u
p, not trusting myself to be able to talk without a stutter. The sight of his infant daughter had made me tighten up to the point where I couldn’t speak.

  As I kept watching out the window, lights flicked on, flicked off, flicked on, and then off throughout the house next door. I imagined him putting her to bed and then going to bed himself. When I looked at my watch, guilt crept up like ivy, growing fast and smothering me.

  Could I have been more inconsiderate? I’d opened my house to the guys from the shop almost every night for the past week. I liked having people in the house. It made it feel like a home and helped me forget, for a small time, that I didn’t have a family to share my space with. But my comfort had come at that poor baby’s expense.

  Tomorrow I’ll do something nice for them and leave an apology note. A housewarming gift and a peace offering wrapped into one.

  A hand on my shoulder caught me off guard. The overwhelming smell of body spray let me know who it was before I turned around. Ash, I thought—though to be honest, I hadn’t bothered to pay much attention to his name when Dane introduced us earlier. Dane, who thought he knew my type and wanted to help me find a boyfriend, not just a hookup.

  But if Dane really knew me, he would stop trying to find someone for me. There wasn’t someone special out there for me. ‘Someone specials’ belonged to people who deserved them. I deserved people like Ash (or maybe it was Cash?), a one-night fuck and then a “see you never” after.