Inked by the Dad Bod (Big 'N Burly), page 1
INKED BY THE DAD BOD
BIG ’N BURLY
REINA TORRES
Copyright © 2023 by Reina Torres
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
AI RESTRICTION: The author expressly prohibits any entity from using any part of this publication, including text and graphics, for purposes of training artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text or graphics, including without limitation technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as this publication. The author reserves all rights to license uses of his work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
The CONTENT of this book and it’s GRAPHICS are 100% Human Generated.
Cover Template by: Elle Christensen; Clover Book Designs
Logo Design by: Sweet ’n Spicy Designs
CONTENTS
Bossed by the Dad Bod
Claimed by the Dad Bod
Watched by the Dad Bod
Inked by the Dad Bod
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Hidden by the Dad Bod
About Reina Torres
Contemporary Romance
First Responders
Military Romance
Paranormal Romance
Historial Romance
Sweet Contemporary Romance
BOSSED BY THE DAD BOD
Doyle Crane is the man people look to for reassurance. He’s a rock. The people who work for him. The people who live in town. His teenage daughter even laughs at his jokes… once in a while. He keeps himself busy, so he won’t think about what he’s missing. What’s even worse is he’s found her. New in town, making a new life for herself. What he wouldn’t do to get his hands on her, but he’s afraid he’ll scare her away. She’s just too sweet to be bossed around by the likes of him.
Shelby Akers is new in town and new to love, but that didn’t stop her from falling for Doyle Crane the first day she met him. It wasn’t love at first sight when he helped pull her car out of the mud or when he shook his head at how she was shivering in the rain, but it most certainly was when he took off his coat, wrapped it around her body and gave her a heated appraising look and muttered, “Someone needs to take care of you, Shelby.”
Doyle knows he’s too bossy to even think of getting close to Shelby. She needed a nice, easy-going guy who could be gentle with her, someone who wasn’t him.
That all changed when her boss put her in danger.
He went from hands-off, seemingly unaffected Doyle to demanding, bossy-as-fu…dge, hands-all-over protector. Shelby couldn’t be happier.
READ THIS BOOK
CLAIMED BY THE DAD BOD
She wanted to stand on her own two feet
He knew she needed to be swept off them every once in a while
Everything Nathaniel Sterling had in his life he worked for. He had friends and employees who he cared about, but no one to come home to. He had a friend with benefits. No, scratch that. She wasn’t all that friendly and lately the benefits… weren’t all that great either.
Who would’ve guessed that he’d meet the love of his life over a box full of neon-bright condoms?
Evelyn Connors has had a string of bad luck since she moved away from Heaven, Oklahoma. Her latest job is for a horrible jerk of a boss, and she manages to white-knuckle her way through every shift. Who knew that a man would walk in one night and steal her breath with his kindness and the easy way they could talk to each other.
Eve had no idea that the spark she felt with Nathaniel would come back to burn her. The woman he came in with wasn’t ready to let Nathaniel go and she didn’t care who got in the way of her plan to claw him back.
Nathaniel knows who he wants. Eve.
He just needs to show her that forever can start with a moment, and he’ll pull out all the stops to do it. Eve is going to find out that she’s been claimed. And Nathaniel is playing for keeps.
READ THIS BOOK
WATCHED BY THE DAD BOD
Ronan and Poppy are next-door neighbors who can't help but watch each other when they think the other isn't looking. In this case, cupid isn't blind, but he's definitely got great aim.
Ronan Duncan has been a Private Investigator for years, and he's nearly burnt out. These days the only person he wants to watch is Poppy Tanner, the woman who owns the coffee shop in the next building. He finds himself scheduling his work around her schedule just to keep an eye on her.
Poppy Tanner is tired of being watched. She went on two abysmal dates and now Grant won't take no for an answer, calling and leaving her gifts that make his obsession crystal clear. He wants her or he'll make sure that no one else can have her.
One night, the motion sensor Ronan set up to keep her safe blares an alarm and before he knows what's going on, he's leaping across their balconies to her apartment to save her life.
Now he wants forever, but how will Poppy react to having Ronan love and cherish her for the rest of their lives instead of being Watched by the Dad Bod?
INKED BY THE DAD BOD
It's hard to predict what brings two people together.
Lily and Vincent are two who find themselves drawn together with the inevitable pull of magnetism. Are they a pair of opposites drawn together in a perfect match, or are they too much alike to be together?
Vincent Kane never really considered himself a tattoo artist. He found himself drawn to the craft for its own merits. The artistry was a product of his mind, his building business to his hard work and determination.
After a few years as a partner in their current shop, Vincent finds himself disillusioned by his partner and inextricably drawn to his partner's apprentice. How will he straighten the tangle he's made of his life? Especially when he can't seem to keep his thoughts off of his partner's gorgeous apprentice.
Lily Weber found a position as an apprentice at Ink Envy, but she's worried that she's out of her element. Tattoo artist 'Hannibal' Baldwin is talented, but he also makes her skin crawl.
He doesn't seem to be as interested in helping her develop the skills of her hands as he wants to get his hands on her. If only he was like this partner, Vincent. Lily can't keep her mind off of the other artist who headlines the shop. He features in her dreams both night and day.
Life seems to throw them together over and over, but there's a tall and oh-so-handsy obstacle between them. What will it take for Vincent and Lily to find that they can create more than art? They could create a lifetime of beauty... together?
Lily may find herself Inked by the Dad Bod.
CHAPTER ONE
LILY
Lily Weber had made some horrible decisions in her life and yet she was still alive. She held onto that thought in a moment like this.
"Babe!" Her mentor and boss, 'Hannibal' Bill Baldwin barked at her from the front of the tattoo shop. "Get me some wipes!"
She stood up from her seat at the front desk and grabbed a new package of wet wipes from the cupboard that she stocked herself. She tucked the package under her arm as she snapped a latex glove on both of her hands.
"Babe!"
"I'm here. One sec." She pushed open the door to Hannibal's personal space and try as she might, she couldn't quite ignore the buxom blonde who was splayed out in the tattoo chair. Bambi, and yes, that was the name on her license, had come in for nipple piercings, and yet she was butt naked and flushed from head to toe.
The room stank of sex and when Lily reached her hand out, holding the package of wipes in her hand, she studiously kept her gaze away from her boss.
"Here you go, Bill."
He huffed, and then the package of wipes went flying from her hand.
"I don't want to wipe up. That's your job, babe. Not mine."
With her lips pressed together in a thin line, Lily turned back to Bill's client and saw her move away from the chair.
With the woman bare in the tattoo chair, Lilly had expected there to be a good deal of sweat like some people left on gym equipment.
Instead, the milky trail on the seat looked like something completely different.
Lily was a few minutes away from losing the granola bar she'd managed to gobble down during her five-minute lunch an hour ago.
As she struggled to wipe off the chair, she heard Hannibal laughing with his customer.
"I think you should come in next week, honey. We need to take a look at these babies and make sure that you've still got all of your... sensation."
Her breathy laugh made Lily gag. She barely covered her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Hey, babe!" The tone of his voice made it clear that Bill was barking at her.
Lily tensed, teeth clenched, and a muscle ticked in her jaw.
"Make my baby an appointment for aftercare."
Oh. My. God.
His baby, as he put it, was gushing with effusive words that only meant that she had no idea who she was dealing with.
Being Hannibal's apprentice had been eye opening in a number of ways.
She had been hoping for a mentor who was going to teach her. To lead her forward on the path to becoming a tattoo artist.
Instead she got to wipe up his... sweat, prepare his transfers, inks, and all the other bits and bobs he needed to create his art. And to top it off, when he got horny or drunk, which was pretty much every day, she had to find creative and sometimes all too physical ways of keeping his hands off of her.
Lily made quick work of wiping down the chair because she didn't want to spend an extra second in his room.
It was clean. She saw to that, but whenever he was in his room, his special combination of his cloying cologne and self-importance made it nearly impossible to breathe in the space that took up over a third of the interior space of Ink Envy.
Try as she might, Lily had no idea what she was learning from him besides the way to be a total douche and toot your own horn.
She washed her hands in the bathroom and scrubbed hard enough to make her hands raw and red. Whatever Hannibal and his lady friend had, she didn't want.
If he says 'babe' one more time, I'm going to treat him like the pig he is.
When she finished, she sucked up what little she had left of her professionalism and made her way toward the receptionist's desk, where Bambi was waiting to schedule her appointment.
Pushing through the retro curtain of beads that had more of an Age of Aquarius vibe to it than a topflight tattoo shop, she had to remind herself that she was just an apprentice.
Something Bill loved to remind her of if she ever opened her mouth to offer up a suggestion. Any suggestion.
As soon as the waist length strands of beads were safely behind her, the Barbie-like smile on her lips faltered a little.
Bambi Nelson was already heading toward the front door with an overly exaggerated sway to her burlesque worthy hips.
She cleared her throat as she stopped just shy of the doors. "Are you... going to help me?"
Lily turned to the desk and her mouth went dry.
In her place, Bill's partner, Vincent Kane was manning the desk.
He turned to look at the door so she couldn't see his expression, but that was kind of a good thing.
She really didn't want to see Vincent fawning over Bambi.
Her gut really couldn't take it.
"Excuse me? Mister..."
"You can push the door open. It swings just fine."
"But," she gave him a breathy whisper, "what if it's heavy?"
He turned his head and that's when she caught his gaze with her own.
Lily couldn't help her reaction.
It happened every time she felt Vincent's eyes on her.
Her skin tinged. Every damn inch of her skin.
Her face heated. Forehead. Cheeks.
Oh, and the skin across her chest, too.
She fought the urge to touch her fingers there and see if she could feel it through touch.
Lily certainly felt it in a few places that she certainly wasn't going to touch in public and certainly not in front of Vincent.
But while she was in bed...
"Ah-hem?"
Lily turned back to look at Bambi, who had one shapely hip poked out and a hand splayed over her extremely low-cut neckline.
"Help?" She smiled and batted her eyelashes. "With the door?"
Lily lifted her chin and smiled like she used to when she worked at her cashier jobs as a teen.
Without wasting another precious moment of her time, she walked across the room and up to the gorgeous woman who'd just orgasmed in her mentor's tattoo room and while keeping a few inches of distance between them. She pushed the door open and held it.
If looks could kill, Bambi was ready to drip acid out of her mouth. "I don't want you, you little bitch." She'd hissed the words out through pearly white teeth and a super model smile.
"Thank goodness for that." Lily breathed out her words as a whisper and then raised the volume of her voice. "You have a nice day."
Bambi turned back with a saccharine sweet smile, but Lily didn't look.
She really hoped that Vincent wasn't buying Bambi's act. If he was, she didn't want to see it happen.
"Lily?"
Vincent's voice slid down her spine like a lover's touch. She couldn't help how her nipples tightened as the sensations worked their way through her body.
She barely held back a whimper.
"If she's going to stand there for whatever reason, go ahead and let the door close. We pay enough for air conditioning without letting it all bleed out the door."
Lily's smile was suddenly genuine.
"Okay."
With a shrug, she turned around and let the door swing shut.
"Hey."
She didn't let Bambi's startled shriek bother her. Lily walked back to the reception desk and stepped behind it to look at the appointment program.
It was still open to Bambi's aftercare appointment.
Lily couldn't help but snort a little as she read that heading.
She caught sight of Vincent in the reflection on the monitor screen. He gave her a little side-eye look as she quickly went over the fields that he'd entered in.
"I saw you go into the bathroom, so I thought I could key in her next session with Bill."
She smiled as she tapped the SCHEDULE button on the screen. "Thanks, you did great."
"I have you to thank for that."
What?
Lily looked toward him and saw his shoulder first. He was standing close enough that she could touch him if she leaned in his direction.
"You don't have to thank me." She closed out the appointment program and turned, letting her hip lean against the edge of the desk. "I was glad to help with the program. It was something like what they used at the spa that I worked for."
"You were working a lot of jobs before you came to work here."
She lifted her gaze to meet his and tried not to look star struck. Vincent Kane was everything she'd wanted in a mentor.
And a lover.
But she didn't have a chance at either.
Unlike Bill, Vincent had morals. That was part of the reason why she liked him so damn much and the reason why nothing would ever happen.
She barely avoided laughing at her own thoughts by pressing her lips tightly together.
There was no way that Vincent Kane was attracted to her.
He could have his pick of women and given Bambi's petulant pout, she'd tried to rope him in, and Vincent had turned her down.
Good.
Lily reasoned that if she couldn't have him, she didn't want him with a woman she couldn't stand. Especially someone who'd just done... whatever she'd done with Bill.
"What's with that smile, Lil?"
Lil.
Oh the way he said her name.
Yeah, she was done for.
Tingly?
Check.
Aroused?
Check.
Wet?
Hell yes.
"Smile?"
Cheesy much?
She had no 'game' when it came to flirting. She was just too damn awkward to do much more than look silly.
It didn't mean that she could stop herself though.
"Yeah, your smile." He leaned against the desk and put his hand down on the desktop, his fingers splayed and tented on the hard glass top. "You look like you just won something, and you don't want to split the prize with me."
That got an immediate and possibly stupid reaction from her, but again, she had no game.
"What? With you I would. I mean..." She tried to wave off her own flustered feelings. "Well, I would. I just wouldn't share it with-"
