Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
S triker…
It was pretty much business as usual as soon as we got back to St. Augustine. We all went home, showered, slept, and met up the next morning at the club to a catered brunch. Renegade’s way of showing us all appreciation for showing up and showing the Scorpions out of North Florida.
We ate around the table in the chapel, talking shit and cuttin’ up, and it was a good time.
My thoughts were never far from Rarity, though. I’d woken up with one hell of a boner and missing the feel of her in my arms. She was a sweet thing, and I had one hell of a sweet tooth where she was concerned.
I was contemplating my next visit to the Iron Horse when Renegade caught my sightless staring while I was lost in thought.
“You ain’t planning on going back down that way anytime soon, are you?” he asked, leaning back in his seat.
“I’d be lying if I said I ain’t thought about it,” I said, relaxing back into mine with a careless grin. “Think it’s a bad idea?”
“Eh, you fly solo and slick-backed and see if their staff or security recognizes you. They do, you leave with some grace. They don’t…” he shrugged. “I don’t see a problem.”
“I know what her car looks like. Could always leave a note,” I said.
Renegade’s mouth turned down like he was impressed, and he said, “That’s using your head for something other than a hat rack.”
I laughed.
“Man, fuck you,” I said, and he grinned and winked at me.
I felt better about the whole thing having his blessing, you know?
I didn’t need it, but it was nice to have it.
“Thanks, man,” I said, and he gave a little lackadaisical shrug.
“You aren’t one to get sidetracked by pussy,” he said evenly, and he didn’t mean it in any sort of insulting way toward Rarity. It was just a fact.
“She’s got a set of brass ovaries,” I told him. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it. She’s got my attention. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.”
“Yeah, yeah, it has,” he agreed.
I’d carefully avoided getting too involved with anyone over the last, shit, almost twenty years. I’d had flings, sure – but never anything past a few weeks or months of fun while the girl looked for something better… more permanent.
I wasn’t looking to settle down or anything with Rarity. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was after where she was concerned other than I’d really like to get to know her. Or at least learn more about her.
She was this alluring combination of straight fire and yet held this sort of sweet innocence about her. It had me hooked, and I didn’t know how or in just what way – not yet. I just knew I had this driving need to see her and to see if it could go anywhere. Part of that was feeling like I owed her.
I mean, for fuck’s sake. She’d stood between my ass and getting shot . That was huge. She had the heart of a lioness, and yet she was just a cub. I wondered if that was part of the appeal for me.
I had a serious need to be a protector, and she’d pushed all the right buttons. By the same token, she was stand-up, could and was taking care of herself and her family. She wasn’t just fling material, and I recognized that. But with the age difference, I didn’t know if it was right to go further than just friends…
I just didn’t know, but I had this serious urge to find out.
I had the impulse to go for a solo ride and decided to take the A1A all the way to the Ponce De Leon Inlet Lighthouse and Museum. If I needed a quick fix to clear my head, I would just climb the St. Augustine Lighthouse. That was a fuckin’ workout. The Ponce Inlet Lighthouse wasn’t nearly as grueling, but I wasn’t in it for the climb when I went out that way. I was in it for the hour-and-forty-five-minute plus ride along some of the most scenic beachfront coastal roadway in North Florida.
I let the bike eat through asphalt, my mind a pleasant hum of replaying every memory I had so far of Rarity. I admit, I almost slid into the turn lane when I approached Ormond Beach to head more inland to where the Iron Horse and her place lie – but I resisted the urge.
For real, I couldn’t bank on her feeling anything for me like I had her. I didn’t even know if I should be this low-key obsessed, but I couldn’t shake her beautiful blue eyes or the feel of her silken, soft blonde hair between my fingers. I definitely couldn’t shake the memory of her soft curves pressed into my body as we’d lay in the dark, the only illumination the blue flickering glow from her softly playing television.
I thought for sure that I’d picked up on the vibe that she’d wanted to see me again at the end there when I’d slipped out and we’d parted ways… but now I was second-guessing everything.
She was twenty-four, I was forty-two. When I was enlisted and going through fucking boot camp, she was taking her first few breaths.
I knew the world wouldn’t approve, and as much as I wanted to know her, I didn’t know if I wanted the judgmental bullshit falling on her shoulders. Or mine.
Did I fucking care that much about being accused of being some kind of predator? No. I was a predator. A wolf among sheep. I didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought about me to that end because I knew the truth.
As interested as Rarity had made me, which was a rare thing, I wasn’t interested in her just because she had a bangin’ body. She was beautiful – sure, but this was Florida . There were a shit ton of beautiful women here. No, her iron heart, her brass pair, her caring nature, and her total bravery were what had my attention.
…and yeah, maybe even the fact she was, by all appearances, some kind of a daddy’s girl. I had the kink. I wasn’t ashamed to admit that. I know a lot of people thought it was fuckin’ weird, but again, I didn’t much give a fuck what citizens thought. My brothers’ sure – I cared what they thought of me, but for sure, when it came to things, we were a more… enlightened lot than most. If not downright unbothered about being hedonistic fucks.
Shit, look at Skull & Bones. They were biological brothers who liked to fuck the same woman at the same time .
The Ocala chapter had their little porn empire, so they were as open-minded as you got when it came to sexual proclivities. Pud was all for diving into the industry as one of their new stars, so I didn’t see any stones coming from their direction.
No one said shit about any of that, so I didn’t think anyone would blink at a Daddy/little girl dynamic.
Renegade…
That was my only concern. He had a daughter about Rarity’s age. Dusty was pretty much the club’s princess. All the guys would kill for that girl in a fuckin’ heartbeat.
I think that was what wasn’t sitting right with me.
I was worried about what Renegade would think – which was fuckin’ stupid, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he been the one to give his blessing to return to the Iron Horse so early on just so I could try and slide in across Rarity at her bar and shoot some kind of shot?
Of course, did he know how old she was? Had he really gotten a look at her?
Fuck, man, what the hell was wrong with me? I’d never worried about shit like this before.
I let my thoughts meander all over hell and gone over the subject of Rarity, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever been in such a damn tizzy over a woman. It was confusing and yet… delightful.
She gave me butterflies in my stomach, and I couldn’t remember a time that’d ever happened… except back in high school.
I made it to the lighthouse and sat astride my bike in the parking lot, my mind just churning . I had no idea if the object of my new obsession even spared a single thought toward me.
Probably not… I thought. I wouldn’t be able to know until the Iron Horse reopened and that still depended on if I was recognized as one of the “bad actors” and tossed before I could even shoot my shot.
I could do things, get around it. I knew what her car looked like. I could leave a note like I’d said.
I thought about that, got off my bike, and stretched. I went into the Ponce Inlet giftshop and wandered around sightlessly for a while until I ran into a rack with notes and postcards on it.
I turned the rack and looked at the art, then stopped at one of the postcards.
It had a mermaid on it, and it made me smile. It was in the old-school art style of old travel posters and magazines from the ’40s or ’50s. Illustrated, watercolor painted, framed in white, the undersea background in the blues and turquoises of the waters around here.
The mermaid was beautiful, but a brunette, but still… she reminded me of Rarity and how I’d thought of her as a little mermaid, with her hair still wet from the shower, her face fresh and free of makeup, making her look younger, more innocent if it was possible.
I bought a handful of the cards and my ticket to go out into the yard that housed the lighthouse and its accompanying lightkeepers cabins down below. I wandered out and looked up at the light. It wasn’t nearly as tall as St. Augustine’s light, but it was still impressive. While Augustine’s light was painted in a black-and-white barber pole swirl with a fire engine red cap, Ponce Inlet’s was much more sedate. The tower was painted a uniform color. It was closest to a brick red, a few shades darker than terra cotta, with a tinge more earthy tone to it. The window cross bars and the lighthouse cap were black, but the window sashes and the framing of the door at the bottom were a gray stone hinting at tan.
The doors were flung wide and there was a beautiful golden wood with just a hint of red to them. The window above the door had classic gold block lettering and read Ponce De Leon Lighthouse, 1887.
There was one thing I loved about the Ponce light more than the St. Augustine light, and one thing only… the design and beauty of its spiral staircase.
It was imminently more photographable than the Augustine light, even if capturing it was tricky as the bottom of the staircase was cordoned off. You had to lean way over the railing to get the camera centered to get the snap, and it sometimes took several tries. But if you could get it, it was chef’s kiss fuckin’ perfect, the ridges and swirl up to the top as perfect as a nature-made nautilus shell.
It was wild to me that the Ponce lighthouse was taller than Augustine’s light by a mere ten feet, but to reach her top? She had two-hundred-and-three steps to get to the top, which was sixteen steps less than it took to get to the top of St. Augustine’s light.
I imagine it was some engineering thing but nothing that I thought too much about.
I started the steady climb to the top, and it didn’t take long for the burn to set into my legs, my already stiff body from the explosive fighting of the night before protesting every riser as I worked my way to the top.
To say I had some serious fuckin’ regrets about undertaking the climb by the time I reached the top was a major understatement of the facts – but by the same token, the view over the Atlantic couldn’t be beaten from up here.
I leaned on the railing, catching my breath, the wind ruffling my hair and plastering my shirt to my body, cooling and drying the sweat on my back.
While the ride had let me work through a lot of thoughts, worries, and concerns and let me wonder and daydream freely – standing up here at such an unearthly height with the wind washing over me, the vastness of the water out in front of me, feeling like I was standing at the edge of the world itself?
My mind went blessedly quiet. Silent in its awe of the view and the churning waves ahead of me. I slipped into what could only be described as a meditative state as tourists snapped pictures beside me and made fools of themselves by playing up their fear of heights… which I thought was stupid as fuck. If you’re that afraid of heights, why make the fuckin’ climb in the first place?
I had respect for the one girl, though – she was afraid but was genuinely there to conquer her fear. I listened to her tell the attendant at the top how she had been to all the lighthouses you could climb in Florida, taking them from smallest to tallest, and she’d made it. She was here at the tallest, and that meant something – even if she clung to her boyfriend and shook like a leaf.
It brought me back to my fearless little mermaid and the peace I’d felt with her in my arms. Safe, cuddling into me like I was her prince… I liked it. Maybe I’d let my imagination run wild… maybe she’d meant nothing by it… but it sure felt like she’d craved that feeling as much as I craved to give it.
I didn’t know.
I stood up there and let the wind and salty breeze carry my thoughts and troubles off over the water and trees out there. I took my time making my descent.
When I reached the bottom, I lingered, wandering over to the wrap-around porch of the lightkeeper’s cottage and dropping into one of the rocking chairs on it for guest’s enjoyment to look up at the lighthouse from down here.
I pulled the postcards out of my pocket and a pen out of my cut and sat with my thoughts, which were much calmer but fleeting now.
I had no idea what to write, but I was sure I would come up with something .