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  Spark

  Chelle Bliss

  MEN OF INKED: HEATWAVE SERIES

  Book 1 - Flame

  Book 2 - Burn

  Book 3 - Wildfire

  Book 4 - Blaze

  Book 5 - Ignite

  Book 6 - Spark

  Book 7 - Ember

  …and more hotness to come.

  * * *

  To learn more,

  please visit menofinked.com/heatwave

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  Spark Copyright © 2020

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission.

  Publisher © Bliss Ink January 12th 2021

  Edited by Lisa A. Hollett

  Proofread by Read By Rose & Deaton Author Services

  Cover Design © Chelle Bliss

  Cover Photo © Wander Aguilar

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Nick

  2. Nick

  3. Jo

  4. Nick

  5. Jo

  6. Jo

  7. Nick

  8. Jo

  9. Jo

  10. Nick

  11. Nick

  12. Jo

  13. Nick

  14. Jo

  15. Nick

  16. Jo

  17. Nick

  18. Jo

  19. Nick

  20. Jo

  21. Nick

  22. Jo

  23. Nick

  24. Jo

  Epilogue

  Bliss Update

  FREE BOOKS!

  About the Author

  Also by Chelle Bliss

  Mallory,

  * * *

  You may not have come from my body,

  but you’ll always have a piece of my heart.

  * * *

  You are strong. You are brave. You are wild.

  Live without apology, and love without boundaries.

  * * *

  I couldn’t be prouder of the woman you’ve become.

  I’ll love you always and forever.

  Prologue

  Nick

  Five Years Ago

  I stood behind my cousin Gigi outside Lily’s house, trying to hide behind her and facing the street just as she told me to. “Bitch, open the door!” she yells into the security camera hanging above the front door. “I have a surprise for you.” Gigi pushes against my back, making sure I don’t turn around.

  “It’s late, Gigi. I’m not really in the mood for company.”

  “Trust me, you want to see this person.” Gigi’s hands are away from me again, and she moves closer to the front door, the sound of her boots on the cement unmistakable. “I can pick the lock.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Lily hisses. “I’m coming down.”

  “Good. She’s coming down,” Gigi repeats like somehow having my back to the camera makes me deaf.

  A few seconds later, the front door opens, and I smile, knowing Lily’s about to shit herself. Not literally, but she’s always been known for being over the top when it comes to happiness.

  “Wipe that sourpuss look off your face, princess, because I’m about to blow your mind.” Gigi taps my back, giving me the green light to turn around.

  Lily gasps. “Nick?” She covers her mouth as her eyes widen.

  “Lily,” I reply back, gawking at her.

  Shit is off, big-time. It’s October, and Lily should be finishing her final year of school, but she is here, back in our hometown and in her own house. Lily is also the most reserved of my cousins, but the girl standing in front of me has a wilder and more carefree side than I ever knew Lily could have.

  “What happened to you?” I ask, thrown the hell off because Lily isn’t at school.

  “What happened to me?” she repeats, pressing her hand to her chest, staring at me in disbelief. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Grew up. Filled out. Became a man,” I mutter. I know she isn’t talking about my size, but I also know Lily is going to be as pissed as my parents about the stupid shit I did and the fact that the school kicked me out.

  Lily takes education very seriously. More seriously than most people her age. Hell, more than most people at any age.

  “He’s clearly still the same asshole, though,” Gigi teases.

  “It’s part of his DNA,” Lily tells her. “But what the hell are you doing here?”

  I swipe my palm over my face and lift a shoulder. “School and I didn’t agree anymore.”

  Gigi slaps me with the back of her hand, shaking her head. “He got kicked out.”

  Lily’s eyes grow as wide as saucers. “You got kicked out?” she says softly.

  I nod. “Shit happens.”

  “How are you still alive?” Lily asks, blinking.

  After what went down, I wasn’t ready to go to my parents’ house. I like living, and I like breathing even more. I know if I went home, both of those could be in jeopardy.

  Although my dad rarely gets pissed at me about shit, I know what went down at my swanky boarding school is going to make him blow a gasket and possibly make breathing a whole lot harder if he clocks me right in the face.

  He isn’t violent. Never laid a hand on me. It isn’t his style. But every man has a breaking point, and I fear that getting kicked out for breaking the law isn’t going to be something my father celebrates.

  I follow my cousin into Lily’s house, complimenting her on her place and waiting for them to lay into me.

  Gigi already started on the way over here. Question after question, she hurled in my direction, grilling me like she’s been trained by my father or Uncle James.

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” Lily asks, walking next to me toward the living room.

  “Not yet, but they will tomorrow.”

  “Well, shit,” Lily mutters, making my body jolt with her easy and carefree use of profanity.

  “Sit, Nicholas.” Gigi pats the spot next to her where she’s collapsed onto the couch. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

  As soon as I sit, Lily sits too, but on the other side of me, caging me in. “Spill the beans,” she tells me, folding her leg underneath herself. “What the hell happened?”

  I sit back, letting out a long, exasperated exhale. “I was running a side hustle and got caught. Simple as that.”

  Lily’s lips flatten as she crosses her arms, tilting her head, waiting for more.

  “I guess making and selling fake IDs is not only against school policy, but also against the law. I begged for mercy and leniency, but they told me to fuck off.” I shrug one shoulder, my lips snarling. “Especially after Malcolm Harrison was found drunk and passed out, my well-crafted ID in his pocket. The asshole was told to either give up his supplier or get kicked out. The rat sang like a canary, I got the boot, and he’s recovering in his room back in North Carolina.”

  Lily’s mouth drops open. “You sold fake IDs?”

  I grin, loving shocking my little cousin. She was always so innocent. While the rest of us were doing dumb shit all the time, she had a perfectl
y placed angel halo hanging above her head.

  “Made them too,” I tell her.

  She rolls her eyes, annoyed with me as always. “Your dad is going to straight up murder you.”

  “He’ll be pissed for a minute, but he’ll get over it,” I lie, waving off her comment.

  “You’re so dead, Nick.” Gigi tips her head back and laughs. “So, so dead.”

  I laugh, pretending she’s being dramatic but knowing she’s not. I haven’t seen my girls in over a year, and they haven’t changed a lick physically. But in other ways, they’ve both gone off the deep end, and from what they’re telling me about Tamara, so did she.

  Lily, the little bookworm who was studying to be a doctor, dropped out of college to become a piercer at Inked, our family-run tattoo and piercing shop. Somehow, she hooked up with Jett Michaels, one of the most notorious players back in the day, and got him to settle down. I don’t know how I feel about that either because I never pictured Lily with someone who’s had more pussy than people have fingers and toes combined. I always pictured her losing her virginity to another virgin because she wasn’t the most sexually open person I’d ever known.

  Gigi, on the other hand, always had some wild in her, and she fell for a biker wannabe. They both work at Inked but met months earlier.

  My other cousin, Tamara, is in her final year at college and is still on track to graduate. Over the last year, she somehow got wrapped up with more than one guy at an MC and has fallen in love with a real badass biker, shocking the shit out of everyone. Not that she found herself a hell-raising type of guy, but that she loves him and isn’t already looking for an exit.

  My head is spinning with the news when the front door opens and my father stands there, holding up an older Jett Michaels.

  Fuck.

  I crouch down, hoping to stay out of his line of sight, but only a few seconds pass before his eyes land on me.

  “What. The. Fuck?” my dad hisses, finally lifting his eyes, spotting me frozen on the couch. “Am I seeing shit, or is my kid in your living room?”

  I jump up from the couch, knowing shit is about to go sideways, and smash my shin into the coffee table, almost knocking it over. “I can explain.”

  Damn. I had hoped to get in one night’s sleep before my father found out, lost his mind, I begged for mercy, and somehow, we get past this.

  “Get your ass in the car,” my dad bites out, low and slow.

  “Catch y’all later,” I say as I move toward the door, avoiding getting within arm’s reach of my father.

  “Bye, Nicky. Don’t die!” Gigi calls out, being funny and a total asshole.

  “You’re going to wish for death,” my father growls as my boots touch the cement outside the door.

  I pick up speed, walking double time toward his car, debating on running back to my parents’ instead of driving back with him.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Dad snarls like he’s reading my mind.

  Busted.

  I give up any thoughts of running because I’m too far from anywhere and he’ll really want to beat my ass if I do.

  There’s no eye contact as we both open the car doors. No talking either. I slide into the seat of his car, pinning my body against the door as Dad climbs in next to me.

  “Don’t speak,” he tells me as he fires up the engine. “Not a fucking word.”

  So, this is going well.

  He’s not yelling at me, and he hasn’t grabbed me, trying to shake some sense into my thick skull either. So far, I’d call that a win.

  He drives down the dark roads faster than usual, taking turns a little sharper than he normally does, too. Nothing is said the entire way home, but about a mile away from the house, he yanks the wheel to the right, pulls off to the side, and cuts the engine.

  My entire body freezes, and I stop breathing, bracing myself for whatever comes next.

  “What happened? And I want the truth because you know I’ll be talking to the headmaster tomorrow.”

  I exhale, running my hands down my jeans, and lay it out without looking at him. “I was making IDs for some of the kids at school. One kid got popped. He sang. I got booted.”

  Even in the dark, I can feel his eyes trained on me. “You were selling IDs?” he says, no disbelief in his voice. The words are even and low.

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck me,” he mutters. “Your mother is going to have my balls.”

  I gaze across the small space, watching him shake his head in the soft glow from the dashboard.

  “I should’ve never taught you that shit,” he continues, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She’s going to rip me a new asshole first, and then she’s going to come after you.”

  I’m not sure who I’m more scared of, my mom or my dad. Dad’s bigger and definitely has a hard edge to him, but Mom… Mom can turn on a dime, especially when you’re acting a fool and in the wrong.

  Dad has a lot of gray areas to him. His time in law enforcement taught him skills he’s carried over into his work at his security and private investigation firm.

  But Mom, she is all about right and wrong, and there is no in-between. Either you messed up or you were in the right, and she’d go down swinging to defend the wronged party. I know where I stand in this instance, especially in her mind.

  “I’ll talk to her, Dad. She won’t be too upset,” I lie.

  “She won’t be too upset?” he asks, his voice going all high-pitched with the last word. “Son, have you forgotten exactly who and how your mother is?”

  I shake my head. “She’s pretty hard to forget.”

  He closes his eyes, fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, and inhales deeply. “We have to let the chips fall where they may. No other option.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Am I getting a pass? I broke the law, Dad was about to kill me, but now, he seems to think we’re both going to fall on the proverbial sword to get the bad news over with.

  “Don’t think you’re getting off scot-free with me either,” he tells me, opening his eyes again and turning his body so he’s facing me. “Your ass is in school by Monday, you will get straight A’s this year, and you’re grounded until graduation.”

  “But—”

  “Shut it, Nick.”

  I clamp my mouth closed because there’s no winning this argument. The only thing I can do is wait for the dust to settle, hoping they eventually take mercy on my teenage soul.

  “Buckle up, kid. We’re about to have a very bumpy night.”

  “Fuckin’ great,” I mumble into the darkness.

  Five minutes later, I walk through the doorway of my parents’ house, and Mom’s standing in the foyer, arms crossed, face pinched, waiting.

  Looks like Headmaster Quinlinn already called her and informed her of my permanent exit from campus.

  “Couch. Now,” she orders, tipping her head toward the living room with her eyes trained only on me.

  I don’t say a word, don’t even bother pleading my case as I toe off my boots before heading toward the couch for the ass-reaming of the century.

  “Baby,” Dad says, his tone very different than it was in the car. He’s trying to cover his ass, buttering her up. “Maybe we should talk before—”

  “No, Thomas,” she cuts him off. “We’re going to talk now. All three of us. Get your ass in the living room and sit next to your son.”

  I grimace, my steps slowing.

  She said your son. That only happens when she is at maximum pissed off, and based on everything I’ve seen so far, she’s been there for a while.

  I am screwed.

  Goodbye, senior year. Hello, home confinement.

  1

  Nick

  Five Years Later

  I love tacos.

  Not any kind of tacos, but the type where you sink your teeth into that crispy shell and the grease runs down your chin, puddling on the paper.

  There is only one place in town where I can get my fix. It doesn’t matter that it is
after midnight, I am getting the damn tacos, the grease, and all the goodness.

  I park my bike and stalk up to the window outside the converted ice cream joint which now serves the most slammin’ Mexican within fifty miles. I’m behind a drunk guy who’s ordering a shitload of food and swaying back and forth like the ground is moving underneath him.

  I glance around, crossing my arms, and zero in on a pretty girl, jamming nachos into her mouth, crying in between each bite.

  Not my chick. Not my problem.

  Besides her, me, and the workers, the only other person here is the drunk guy. He’s leaning against the counter at the closed register window next to me, talking to himself in tongues.

  “One sec.” The woman on the other side of the glass and wearing a sombrero holds up a finger.

  The damn hat is twice as big as her head, pink and yellow woven together, and has cotton balls hanging from the edges that shake every time she moves. When she finally glances up from the cash register and makes eye contact, she says, “Well, hey there, handsome.” Her eyes move away from my face and hungrily trail down my chest and then sweep back up my arms before her face breaks out in a smile. “What can I get you tonight?”

  “Five tacos with extra meat and a bottle of water.” I reach into my back pocket, not looking to flirt with the sombrero girl, and grab my wallet.