Page 1 of Wicked Wishes
Chapter One
Harley
Temptation is for the wicked.
Never figured myself a wicked man. Even if I look the part. My tattoos and leathers make a statement I suppose. Being almost seven foot tall, almost as wide as a truck, and tooling through Harmony Hollow on my bike, I look like a one-man gang. I guess in a way, I am. But I am not depraved.
No, I am a good man, who once thought I had my life set. Married my high school sweetheart after we finished college. We settled down in our hometown with plans to build a life and a family together. Plans that are nothing but painful memories for me now. Losing the love of my life when our lives just began seemed like a cruel joke, but I never got the punchline.
Dealing with the loss of my wife and the fallout of that loss me took some time. Sometimes I still do not think I am over it. I take flowers to her grave every other week and have mourned for years. I never even considered trying to start my life over. I just figured I would live it however it came. I don’t date or take women home. Romance for me died when I lost my wife.
All around me, I see other people living good, full lives. I do not resent them because most folks here in town are good people. They deserve good things. But I do envy them when I sit and let myself think about it. I wonder what it's like to get to have it all. What it feels like to come home to your wife and child and know you get the good stuff.
“How’s things with you lately?” Benji Hooks wonders as he brushes a hand through his beard.
We are at the lone bar in town, Dirty Habit, nursing some pints and listening to the shitty local band. Friends of ours, we come whenever they play even though they have more heart than talent. Who cares—they are doing something they love. A lot more than most folks can say. Grumbling as we clap as their set finishes, I nod at Benji and take a sip of my beer.
“Same shit different day for me. Do you or do you not have a pretty thing waiting at home while we nurse beers and shoot the shit?” I say with a grin, ignoring the quick flash of envy I feel.
“Yeah well,” his voice smiles but his whole face lights up, “Got lucky with that one and we both know it,” he says with a heavy sigh before that grin is back, “because I am shit at reading women.”
They had a back and forth for a few months before she decided she wanted to be his wife. Can’t make sense of that one, but he is happier than I have ever seen him. He would do anything for her and that includes inviting me out for a drink to check up on me.
“Clearly you can’t,” I chuckle and sip at my beer before it tastes sour in my mouth as my heart stops beating right.
Standing near the stage talking with the bassist is a raven beauty I am all too familiar with. My fist clenches on the pint in my hand until I hear the glass creak. My blood runs hot in my veins and it all heads south. I tear my eyes away because I know I need to before my gaze swings back again.
Hanna Potter.
Not just another girl in a bar, no. Only the first woman to make me wish I could get her beneath me so I could sink inside her since I lost my wife. Sure, I may have taken a second look at someone over the years, but this is different. From the second I saw her, head tipped back as she laughed in the sunshine, I was hooked. And I cannot be hooked—not on her.
She is too sweet, too perfect, and too young for me.
“She can’t be here,” I growl the words, knowing how crazy they sound.
“Who? Hanna? Uh, buddy she is of age. Here to see Beckett play because, you know, he’s her cousin,” Benji states with a chuckle.
Well, that makes me feel better. Not that she is of age. I mean, yes that does too. But it should not. No, that the man she is talking and laughing with is her family. Good. No other men here should even know her name let alone talk to her and get her laughs. Least of all me. Even if I want her smiles and her laughs all to my damn self.
“Didn’t know they were related,” I mumble even though I should, I know Beckett Potter.
“Hanna came back to be closer to the other Potters. Stays here, in Harmony, not over there in Crystal Cove with the others,” he rattles this information off as if I don’t already know it.
Of course, I know it—she lives right next door to me and has been a constant source of temptation for months. Which means I should know she is not just too young and too sweet, but a friend’s little cousin.Totally off limits.Not that I thought otherwise. Or thought about her that way at all.
Except since I laid eyes on her that is all I think about. What her golden skin would feel like beneath my touch or how her eyes would look when I am deep inside her. It is wicked and wrong, and I know it. I am old enough to be her.... bassist cousin, I guess. Plus, I swore that shit to another woman and I kind of like to keep my word.
“Hot little thing,” Russ, the bartender calls behind us, wiping down the counter for no reason.
“No, sir,” I bark, turning to level a glare at him, “not for an old fuck like you, she is not.”
“Just calling it how I see it, brother. I mean, look at that ass,” he praises, and I slam my fist on the counter so hard I think the entire bar hears.
“Do you good to watch your fucking mouth,” I warn, pushing from the bar and tossing some cash at him.
Storming from the bar, I ignore Benji and Russ calling after me. Guys talk shit at the bar that is one of the reasons we go there. Though I have never heard Benji talk about women that way. And not since Tori.
Stalking the few blocks to my place, I pause in front of Hanna’s house. The day she moved in I was outside working on my bike. Suddenly there was no way I could tell you what a wrench was if you asked. Pulling up in a mustang that growled with each gear she shifted, she was like a wet dream come to life.
