1
1
Liam
Present Day
When I slung open the door to the bar, I’d had to stop at for shelter on my way back to Ocala from Miami, the cool air inside chilled my rain-soaked body. The thunder rumbled louder, and I closed off the storm behind me, wiping what water I could from my cut—not that the leather hadn’t seen its fair share of rain before. Reaching up, I ran my hand over my face and tried to get rid of the droplets clinging to my beard, not that it did much good.
Glancing around, I took in the place. There hadn’t been a lot of options when it got hard to see the road through the downpour. Place wasn’t bad. It wasn’t an actual bar though. It looked more like a pub. A waitress walked by, carrying a tray of food. I wasn’t hungry, but the cheese-covered fries, with what looked like bacon crumbles, were appealing.
The curly-haired waitress turned to me and smiled as her eyes drifted down my body. “You can have a seat wherever you’d like,” she told me.
Too young, darling , I thought to myself as I nodded my head and made my way to the bar. I wasn’t sitting at a table where Miss Barely Out of College could serve me.
The younger they were, the clingier they got. Daddy issues was not for me. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. Besides, I had a daughter who had just turned twenty-five and two grandsons now. For Madeline, my daughter, I chose not to mess around with anyone her age or younger.
I wasn’t a fucking saint. I owned a strip club, and I didn’t include the girls who worked for me in the no-touch zone. If one wanted to suck my dick and I needed it, I let them. Regardless of age. But that wasn’t dating or relationships. It was just club business. A life Madeline wasn’t a part of. She didn’t have to know.
Sitting down on a stool far enough away from another person so I didn’t chance one trying to talk to me, I looked at the whiskey options.
“What can I get you?”
The sexy Southern drawl caught my attention, and I snapped my gaze to the bartender who had just walked up as she slid a cocktail napkin in front of me.
Fucking hell. Long, dark hair was braided and draped over her left shoulder. Brown eyes, the color of warm honey, outlined by thick black lashes. Full red-painted lips. And those big, perfect tits …
Jesus, the cleavage in her tight black tank top made my dick twitch.
“What’s your best whiskey, darlin’?” I asked, giving her a smile that always worked with women.
She glanced back at their selection. “You talking price or taste? Because the two are not the same,” she said, lifting a bare shoulder. The smooth olive complexion didn’t seem like a tan, but the kind of skin tone one had been blessed with at birth.
“Taste,” I replied.
The corner of her lips tugged slightly. “Agreed. One more question: do you prefer rye or wheat?”
“Rye,” I told her.
When the smile finally touched those lips of hers, a dimple appeared in her right cheek.
“Elijah Craig Single Barrel it is,” she said, turning to walk over to the liquor shelf.
My eyes dropped to her ass, and I sucked in a breath. She lifted her arm to reach the bottle, and her tiny waist flashed me, but I couldn’t focus on it because my gaze went back to her round ass. It was the right kind of juicy that would bounce perfectly when she was being fucked.
She turned around, and I jerked my gaze back up to see her eyes narrow as she came back over to me.
“Were you checking out my ass?” she asked.
I rubbed my bearded jaw. “Me and every man in this bar.”
Amusement lit her pretty brown eyes, and she took a glass, then set it in front of her. “Which MC are you a part of?” she asked as she free-poured the whiskey.
“Judgment,” I replied. “What gave me away?”
She nodded her head at my cut. “The leather vest. Patches.” She pushed the glass over to me and studied the patch on front, and then her eyes widened as she straightened back up. “President, huh? Impressive.”
I picked up the whiskey. “You didn’t ask if I wanted ice.”
She smirked. “I’ve been pouring drinks long enough to know a man who looks like you doesn’t want it diluted.”
Unable to help myself, I dropped my eyes back to her mouth, then her set of natural double D’s. She was young. Too young.
A man down the bar called out, and she left me to get him a drink. I turned my eyes and watched her ass and the long, toned legs that were on display. Maybe if I didn’t ask her how old she was, I could take her out of here to the nearest hotel tonight and fuck her. Clenching my jaw, I tore my eyes off her.
The sexy doctor I’d asked out last week before heading down to The Judgment’s sanctuary in Miami to handle club business was thirty-six. Still young, but more than ten years older than my daughter. There was potential with her. She was someone I could bring around my daughter. Possibly settle down with. I was looking at fifty in a few years, and the idea of having someone to come home to was becoming more appealing.
Staring down at the glass in my hand, I tried to remember what Dr. Dillard looked like. Her platinum-blonde hair and big blue eyes had reminded me of Etta. Wincing, I took a drink. Etta was another lifetime ago. Young love that had never been meant to be and ended too soon. Etta would always be nineteen and perfect. She didn’t get to grow old. Her life had been taken before she had that chance, and until I had found our daughter, I’d thought my heart had been taken with her.
“Ready for another?” that sultry voice asked me.
Lifting my gaze, I looked into the eyes of the brunette stunner I had no business lusting over. I was forty-seven. There was a good chance her dad was my age.
“Yeah, might as well. The storm hasn’t let up.”
My eyes followed her as she went for the bottle of Elijah Craig, not giving a shit about her age. That was definitely a prime piece of ass. The man who got to bend her over and fuck that tight cunt was one lucky son of a bitch.
I dropped my eyes back to the glass before she turned around and caught me ogling her ass again.
“Where were you headed when the storm brought you in here?” she asked, pouring another drink into a new glass.
“Home,” I said, looking up at her. “Been in Miami, handling club business, but I moved my home here to Ocala a few years back.”
She pushed the glass to me. “So, you’re the president, but you don’t live where the biker club is located?”
I smirked. That was a really long explanation that started with finding my daughter after searching for nineteen years. “Complicated.”
She chuckled. “Complicated. That makes two of us. That’s why I’m here too.”
The flash of sadness in her eyes caused an uncomfortable feeling in my chest. She was too young for that look just yet. Sure, life was one shit show after another until you were dead, but a pretty thing like that shouldn’t know it this soon. Didn’t seem right. But then I kept imagining her naked and full of my cock, so my sympathy might be a little lust-driven.
“You not from around here?” I asked.
She started to shake her head and stopped. “Well, not really. I was born in Charleston. I like to think that’s where I’m from. My dad brought me here when I was a kid, and bad decisions kept me here.”
“We’ve all made those and suffered,” I replied.
The sigh that she let out caused her tits to lift and fall enough to gently bounce. Fuck! I had to stop looking at her tits. She was clearly going through some shit. An old man perving on her wasn’t what she needed.
“I guess,” she replied, and then a smile touched her lips. “My Mama D used to say, ‘Mistakes happen, and cryin’ a bucket of tears over them is silly. Because wisdom is built from a pile of mistakes.’”
I grinned. “Mama D sounds like a smart woman.”
She nodded. “She was. The older I get, the more her sayings mean to me.”
I wanted to ask who Mama D was and where she was now, but the way she was talking in past tense, it sounded like the woman was no longer walking this earth.
“Liberty! You can leave early. Shawn is here, and we aren’t busy enough for both of you,” a woman with red hair, pulled tight in a bun on top of her head, called out from the other end of the bar.
The girl in front of me sighed. “Great,” she muttered.
“She talking to you?”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s the owner. I was supposed to work a double today. I was gonna get a ride from one of the servers to the bus stop after work.” She looked back at my glass. “Want me to get you another before I leave?”
The defeated look on her face didn’t sit well with me. I liked it when she smiled.
“No, I’m good. Rain has mostly stopped. I’ll close my tab and head on out,” I told her, trying like hell not to say more, but I already knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it. “You need a ride?” Yep, there it was. I couldn’t leave her here to walk to a bus stop in the rain. I didn’t know where the closest one was, but if she was hoping for a ride, I was assuming it was a good distance.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and glanced toward the windows, then back at me. “Yes, I, um, I do, but I don’t want you to go out of your way or anything.”
I slid a hundred-dollar bill toward her and stood up. “I won’t be. Go get your things and meet me outside.”
“I need to get your change,” she said, taking the money.
“No change.”
She frowned. “That’s a fifty-six-dollar tip.”
I nodded. “Yeah. See you outside.”
I didn’t wait for her to argue before I headed for the door.
I shouldn’t have done that. Putting a woman on the back of my bike was something I never did. But here I was, offering to give a ride to the sexy bartender because those eyes of hers did something to me.
Stepping into the humid, thick air that came after rain in the summer in Florida, I tried to take a deep breath.
Think about the doctor . She was who I was taking out tomorrow night. She was old enough. She was also a fucking doctor with an Ivy League degree. I could be proud of who I brought around my daughter and grandkids.
Picking up my helmet, I adjusted the strap so it would fit on Liberty’s head. I was helping out a girl who needed a ride. I’d want someone to help my daughter if she was in this position. Probably wouldn’t want someone like me doing it though. Not that it even mattered. Madeline would never be in this position.
The door to the bar swung open, and out sauntered Liberty, the hot-as-fuck, too-young bartender.
God, that body.
Why wasn’t some man here, ready to pick her up? She should have a guy ready to drop whatever he was doing when she called him. Maybe there was one, and he was at work. I hadn’t asked.
She reached me, and I handed her the helmet.
“Better put this on.”
Her eyes dropped to it, and she glanced back up at me before taking it.
“Your man busy?” I asked.
She paused and looked at me as if she didn’t understand me.
“A girl who looks like you has a man. Where is he?”
The pain was back in her eyes, and I wanted to let out a string of curses. I didn’t like it when she had that sad expression.
“I did,” she said softly. “I … he …” She took a breath. “I walked in on him and his sister-in-law two weeks ago.”
What?
“His sister-in-law? Are you saying they were fucking?”
She nodded.
What kind of idiot had she been dating?
“They’ve always had a weird, flirty relationship, but, well, she’s married to his brother. I didn’t think anything of it until …”
Goddamn.
“Where am I taking you, darlin’?” I asked.
She slid the helmet on her head and struggled to buckle it. I stepped closer and took it from her hands, then fastened it, making sure it was secure before letting go.
“Bus stop. It’s two miles that way,” she said, pointing east.
I shook my head. “No bus. Where is home?” If I was gonna take Little Hot and Sexy on my bike, then I might as well get her home.
“The Ocala Inn on Second Street,” she replied.
I tensed and studied her for a moment. “Why are you staying in a motel?”
“Because I was living in my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend’s apartment,” she replied.
And he’d been fucking his sister-in-law.
I threw my leg over the bike, then held out my hand to her. “Come on, darlin’,” I said, trying to ignore the shit going on in my chest.
I didn’t want to care about this girl. She wasn’t my responsibility. She had a good job, and I was sure she’d find her way.
Her slender hand slid over my palm, and I closed mine around hers so that I could steady her while she climbed on behind me. This was the first woman to ride on the back of my bike, and I didn’t even know her.
“Wrap your arms around me and hold on tight,” I told her.
She leaned forward, and I closed my eyes to breathe through my nose as her hands moved over my abs. My teeth clenched tightly as her soft, full tits pressed against my back. My dick swelled inside the tight confines of my jeans.
Think of something else.
“Is this good?” she asked close to my ear.
I didn’t trust my voice, so I just nodded.
This was probably a big fucking mistake.