Standing with my shoulders against a brick wall as I scanned the bar, I thought about where my life had landed me.
Two months ago, a man had visited me in prison.
He’d told me that he needed my help. He’d then found a way to not only get me out of prison eight years early, but he’d also given me a job. Sure, that job was menial, but it was enough for now.
Of course, that job being menial was on purpose. Because Lynn pulling me out of prison, pulling strings, had come with conditions.
One, I helped him ‘clean his town up’ so to speak.
Apparently, there was a trafficking problem in his neck of the woods, and he was convinced that I could help.
As well as helping when and where I was needed, he’d created a motorcycle club to help hide our presence.
I was now officially a Souls Chapel Revenant.
At least, that was what the cut on my back declared me as.
I scanned the bar again, my eyes halting on the door when it opened wide.
That was when the breath left my body.
Because she was there, filling the doorway, looking like someone had run over her, backed up, and run over her again.
She still walked with a slight limp.
Oh, and she could still fill out a pair of jeans.
Very, very well.
Much better than she did at seventeen.
At twenty-nine, she was even more my cup of tea than she used to be.
Her hair was pulled up into a low bun at the base of her neck, and her eyes were faced directly forward as she all but strutted to the bar.
She had no clue that she was drawing every man’s eyes in the room.
Had no clue that even with her prim and proper blazer covering her back and top half of her butt, she was still the sexiest thing in the room.
She had on high heels, and even with a limp, she still managed to rock them.
She took the seat closest to the wall and then waved at the bartender to get his attention.
The old man jerked his chin up, smiling wide at Swayze.
She took the seat with a thump of her ass onto the chair, then immediately jerked her blazer off and tossed it onto the barstool next to her.
That’s when I saw her back.
Though she had a tank top on, it was one of those racerback styles, showing off a fair amount of skin.
Skin that was covered in tattoos.
From this far away, I couldn’t see what those tattoos were, but I knew that they were sexy as hell.
I looked down at my own tattoos.
Ones that I’d gotten before prison, during prison, and after prison.
They were a mismatch of colors, lines, and words.
But I liked them.
I hadn’t realized that Swayze had tattoos.
I wondered when she’d gotten them.
They looked great, but in the dark of the bar, I knew that they had to be more magnificent than they appeared.
“Who’s that?”
I looked over at Sin, who was standing against the wall next to me.
Sin, Lynn, Bruno, Laric, Trouper, Hunt, and Zach were all in the ‘motorcycle club’ with me.
We were the men that made up the Souls Chapel Revenants MC. We were also mostly people that had served hard time.
Most of us had committed felonies.
Though, those felonies had been committed for a good reason.
In Sin’s and my case, if you counted saving a girl a good reason.
Sin had literally broken a guy’s spine because that guy, a fellow drill sergeant, had decided to take it upon himself to show a female recruit a little extra special attention. Extra special attention that was not wanted that had almost killed her.
Sin had gone off like a bottle rocket, very similar to what I had done.
“What makes you think that it’s someone I know?” I grumbled.
“Because the moment that she walked through the door, you looked like your heart was just ripped out of your chest and shoved up your ass,” Sin joked.
I shot him a withering glare.
One that didn’t affect him in the least.
He looked at me with a grin on his face, then turned his eyes back to the bar.
“She’s pretty,” he murmured softly.
She was.
In fact, I hadn’t realized that the damn woman could physically get any more attractive.
But I was wrong.
She’d gotten some hips and ass on her since I’d last seen her.
I’m not saying that she didn’t look pretty as hell before, but now? Now she was all woman, and that was making my dick harder than hell.
I needed to get laid.
But the problem was, even now, all these years later, I didn’t just get hard for any woman.
I got hard for her.
Always for her since the damn day I saw her.
Even sitting in that courtroom, getting sentenced to years in prison, I’d been staring at her with a hard-on.
Who the hell has a hard-on when they are getting sentenced to twenty fucking years?
Patrick Moore Wheat, that’s fucking who.
“She’s fuckin’ gorgeous,” I grumbled. “You need your eyes checked if you think she’s merely pretty. That’s the face and the body that got me into trouble all those years ago. Remember, she was fuckin’ seventeen when I saw her the first time.”
“I was thirty-six when I first saw the girl that’s twisting my dick into a knot. And she was fuckin’ eighteen. So, I’m not doing much better than you. At least you were closer to her age,” Sin grumbled.
He had a point.
“You only spent a few years in prison, though,” I pointed out. “I had twelve.”
He hummed under his breath. “How old is she now?”
“Twelve plus seventeen is…” I waited, hoping he’d fill in the blank.
He flipped me off.
“Twenty-nine in case you can’t add up that high,” I joked.
He sighed. “I think I’ll go have a drink.”
I tensed as he moved away, walking straight to the bar where my girl was sitting.
My girl.
Son of a bitch.
She wasn’t my anything.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I had to stop thinking about her.
“Hi, who are you?”
Why had I heard Sin’s question all the way the fuck over where I was standing?
That’s when I looked over at the end of the bar to see the music in the process of changing songs.
Shit.
That was why.
“I’m drinking alone,” came Swayze’s reply. “Go away.”
My lips twitched.
I would’ve laughed, but I didn’t want her attention on me.
The music started up, and whatever Sin said in reply was lost.
I moved toward the bar where the old man, the one that usually worked the door taking the cover charge, had taken my place.
“Thanks, Kenny,” I said as I rounded the end of the bar.
Kenny looked up. “It was good being back. But shit, my feet hurt, and I was only back here long enough to give you a dinner break. I much rather my space by the door.”
I slapped him on the back as I retook my spot behind the bar where I’d made it my home away from home since I’d gotten out and walked to the man holding up two fingers for another shot.
After I poured it for him and he said thank you, I moved to the middle of the bar and listened to Sin’s conversation with Swayze.
“Your eyes are very different,” Sin drawled. “What’s that called?”