Page 10 of Love Me, I Dare You

Bailey fucking King. A sinful woman in leather and lace. My fucking kryptonite.

Gone was the naïve blushing girl who acted a fool anytime I looked her way, and in her place was a smoking hot bombshell with gorgeous blonde hair, devious blue eyes and curves that were made for rugged hands like mine to brand. And apparently a fuck you attitude she’d grown over night. Or at least in the last ten years since I’d seen her.

Since I’d taken what she so desperately and willingly gave me and never looked back.

I shouldn’t be standing here. I shouldn't have come to a place I knew I might run into her, but I couldn’t help it. When I heard her name back at the gas station convenience store, when some asshole was talking about the hot new owner of the bar down the road—a sexy babe with tattoos and an ass that looked damn good in leather pants—I had to come and see for myself. There was no way my sweet, innocent Bailey King was the same woman those assholes were talking about.

Yet here she was. In the flesh, standing just three feet away from me. They were right when they’d called her sexy as fuck babe who had a shit ton of tattoos—more than she’d had when I’d last seen her, which were none—and an ass that, fuck me, looked damn good in leather. Even behind the counter, I could tell those pants fit her like a damn glove, one I wouldn’t mind tearing off her with my bare teeth.

Bailey had curves, delicious and tantalizing curves that weren't there at eighteen, but damn if I didn’t want to feel every inch of them now.

Though it was the delicate black lace that peeped out from under her fitted tank that drove me crazy. The tops of her gorgeous, round and perky breasts looked fucking delectable and were tempting the fuck out of me. Her supple ivory skin was a stark contrast to the black lace, and the speckling of freckles across her chest made me ache to trace the patterns of constellations I had once memorized.

But I couldn't. That’s not why I’d come back. Not why I was once again stepping foot in Crossroads after swearing to never come back to the wretched town.

Ten years was all it took for the town who branded me a misfit to come calling. Forhimto summon me. My father—Franklin Bishop. The no-good son of a bitch was dying. At least according to my brother, Monty. That’s what he’d said when he got a hold of my new phone number from Beau.

Three decades of binge drinking, twelve of heavy liquor since the day my mama walked out on him, was all it’d taken to corrode his liver. I wasn’t going to come back. Hell, I couldn’t give two shits about what happened to the old bastard, but Monty sounded completely helpless when he’d called. Not because he gave a shit about the old man either, but because Franklin had run up a debt on the old ranch that would make uscompletely bankrupt if we didn’t run the books right and sell off the land before it was seized from him.

None of my brothers or my sister lived on the forty acre property. Monty and Monroe had been the only ones of my siblings to stay in Crossroads, but they’d moved off the ranch and closer into town the first chance they got. She was living with him since, as the oldest, he’d been the one to raise her when mama left.

Theo had taken full reigns of Nashville and was one of the hottest country singers of the century. Beau was out in California, currently running his own real estate development company, building and designing million dollar homes all along the west coast. Then there was me. I wasn’t amounting to anything newsworthy. I didn’t leave Crossroads by choice, though not that I’d have stayed much longer given the chance.

Some of us are just screw ups. We’re born that way and we die that way.

My siblings and I all received a small sum of cash when my grandfather, my mother's father, passed away. Though it wasn’t much, it was enough to set us up for a few years while we figured out what to do with our lives.

Personally, I invested it into a few businesses of a pal of mine whom I'd met down in Phoenix. My share more than tripled in the first two years and I was off to making a minimum of six figures from the various partnerships I’d made along the way.

They weren’t all legit by most people's standards, but it wasn’t technically dirty money either. I’d come across a club when I first went out to California to stay with Beau, about two years after I’d left Crossroads. Dexter, the club’s president, saved me from a nasty bar fight I’d had after nearly hooking up with some assholes' girlfriend. Not that I knew she was his girlfriend, since the girl was the one who’d come on to me. Regardless, theburly old fucker would have beaten the shit out of me if he hadn’t stepped in.

I ran with Prez, the name everyone called him, and his club, The Disciples, for a few years, though I made it clear I wasn’t looking for a permanent home. I was deemed the club nomad, grateful he liked me enough to allow me to tag along without the lifetime commitment the club required from its members. Maybe it was because he had his hands full with his sons, who were the next in line to take over leadership of the club.

The various jobs I did for The Disciples and a few other associates were my primary source of income.

After the first year, I refused to dabble in the club's major affairs, the more illegal dealings, and stuck strictly to the buying and selling of luxury merchandise, cars and other goods. The last year and a half I spent in Phoenix hunting down an exclusive painting commissioned for a high-ranking member’s girlfriend. The payout was more than I could have expected and set me up for the next few years, but on my way back to Arizona, I was just supposed to just pass through Crossroads.

Though, that’s when I got Monty’s call. I couldn’t ignore the desperation in my brother’s voice. I knew him, and knew calling me after I refused to ever come back to visit took everything in him, and was surely something his pride could barely look past.

How could I refuse him and leave him and my little sister to fend for themselves?

One reason I’d walked away from here was to protect them. To ensure they didn’t end up the fucked up rejects I had. I couldn’t just leave without trying. Even if it’d cost me everything.

The last ten years came and went with rarely a second thought about this god-forsaken place. Despite what most people believe, I didn’t immediately leave Crossroads after what happened between Bailey and I. The night we spent together I let the gorgeous girl seduce me into taking her virginity. Themoment she’d asked, I thought I was dreaming, or had died and, for some dire misunderstanding, had gone to heaven. I refused her at first, pretending to be offended by the offer, but in reality there was nothing I wanted more than to make her mine.

Since the day I met her, I knew Bailey King was special. There was no one in the world as intelligent, kind, and ridiculously naïve as the beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel. But from the moment we locked eyes, I knew she’d never be mine. An innocence like hers should never be tainted. She was pure and angelic, and I was as corrupt as they came.

For years I steered clear of her, which wasn’t easy given I was best friends with her older brother, but I kept as much distance as I could between us. She was younger than us, only two years, but for Bailey, who’d been sheltered her whole life by her conservative, Christian upbringing, it felt like a lifetime between us. My playful teasing would rile her up and I’ll admit it was entertaining, to say the least.

Jase used to give me shit about how I was torturing the poor girl, who he claimed was in love with me, but I refused to believe it. Although it was embarrassingly obvious she harbored a huge crush on me.

I knew she’d one day outgrow it. Girls like Bailey King crushed hard and often. I was convinced her so-called crush would soon become something of the past she’d look back upon when reminiscing about the foolishness of her youth. I was her dirty secret. The rebellious bad boy, her parents, and everyone in town told her to steer clear of for her own good, which only made me more appealing.

Though I was too selfish to let the girl save herself. I took what she so freely offered, even if deep down I knew I’d regret it for the rest of my life. Not because I didn't want it, because trust me, there’s nothing more I craved than the feel of her lips on mine, her body under me as I tasted every inch of her decadentsweetness. However, when all was said and done and I finally came to my senses, it was too late. I’d claimed her as my own, ruined her for anyone else, and I knew that would be my death sentence.

Soon after, I realized the major fuck up, but there was nothing left to do about it. I told her it was a mistake, that I never should have taken advantage of her and asked her, more like demanded, she left. Eyes brimming with tears, she ran out of my room—a shitty hole I lived in behind my parent’s main house—and into the uncharacteristically warm summer night. I chased after her, only to ensure she would make it back to the party or home safely, but I didn’t make it past the front door before Jameson King blocked my path.

My best friend discovered what I’d done, and to say he was royally pissed was an understatement. Jase looked angrier than I’d ever seen him, but it was the disappointment and disgust that was etched into his expression that felt like a knife to the gut.

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