Jailbait Read online

  Table of Contents

  Jailbait

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  Blurb

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part II

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  What's Next?

  Copyright ©2021 Lani Lynn Vale

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To my mom—I couldn’t do any of this without you.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak - Photographer

  My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors

  Cover Me Darling - Cover Artist

  My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million, two hundred and twenty-seven times.

  Kendra, Lisa, Laura, Penney, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  Quit Being Ugly

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help

  Ask Me If I Care

  May Contain Wine

  Joke’s on You

  Join the Club

  Any Day Now

  Say it Ain’t So

  Officially Over It

  Nobody Knows

  Depends Who’s Asking

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Souls Chapel Revenants

  Repeat Offender

  Conjugal Visits

  Jailbait

  Doin’ a Dime

  Kitty Kitty

  Gen Pop

  Inmate of the Month

  Standalones

  Something’ About That Boy

  For a complete updated list visit: www.lanilynnvale.com

  About the Book

  The first time I saw her was across the room at a bar. I had no idea at the time that she was only sixteen. All I knew was that she was beautiful, she was sending me do-me vibes from across the room, and I was fresh off a deployment where there’d been nobody but men for nine of the longest months of my life.

  The second time that I saw her was at a court hearing that would decide how long I’d be sent to prison for. She was a cute little curly-haired blonde with wide, expressive eyes, a banging body, and the reason that I’d gone to prison in the first place.

  The third time I saw her was through a glass divider of the prison visitation room as she waited for her stepfather, my lawyer, to tell me how sorry he was that he lost my case. Especially when I’d been the one to kill the man that was about to kill his daughter.

  The last time, the time that I decided enough was enough, was when I saw her at my bar eight weeks after I’d been set free.

  Unlucky for her, I’d stopped being a good guy about two seconds after those bars closed behind me twelve years ago. Now all that was left was a shell of a man that didn’t see the good in anything. Anything except for her.

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  Did life ever kick your ass so bad that you drive the speed limit home with no music?

  -Trick’s secret thoughts

  TRICK

  “This is the best place there is in town,” my friend, Shawn, declared.

  I looked over at Shawn, then looked back at the bar’s front doors.

  This place didn’t look like the best place in town. The place looked like a giant shithole.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  The last thing I felt like doing was going to a shitty bar. I wanted to go to a place that would have some ladies in it that were willing. I’d been in the sandbox for nine months now, and I really, really wanted to get my dick into a woman in the worst way.

  “They have good beer on tap, it’s not exp
ensive, and I’m fairly sure that I just saw the hottest chick in the world get out of that car. Look at her coming up the walk. She’s behind that truck right now. Oh, holy shit.” Shawn groaned.

  I followed where his eyes were pointed and felt like I’d taken a sledgehammer to the chest.

  The woman was breathtaking.

  The first thing to draw my eye was her hair. It was an almost snow white and so curly that with each step she took, her curls bounced. It was long, down to well past her lower ribs, and she had half of it tucked up into a small ponytail on the top of her head.

  The next thing I noticed was her body.

  She was wearing black leather pants, a black tank top, and black motorcycle boots.

  But holy fuckin’ shit, I’d never seen a woman fill out a pair of leather pants quite so freakin’ well.

  “Dibs,” I said quietly, feeling those words deep in my chest.

  “Hey, I saw her first,” Shawn interrupted.

  “You might have,” I agreed. “But I called her first.”

  He snorted. “Let’s let her decide.”

  Shawn’s words nearly made me laugh.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “But just so you know, I’m not throwing this round. I’m going all in.”

  The last time we’d ‘let her decide’ I’d given up because Shawn was so determined. But this time, that wouldn’t be happening. There would be no giving up this time.

  “You won’t be winning,” he said. “You’re dressed like a loser.”

  I looked down at my attire.

  I was wearing a simple red t-shirt, worn-out blue jeans from my time before the military when I worked on a farm, and a pair of worn-out cowboy boots that had definitely seen better days.

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I asked as I started up the sidewalk toward the bar that the woman I’d been eyeing had disappeared into.

  “Welcome to Happy Jacks,” the bouncer on the inside of the door said. “IDs?”

  I pulled out my wallet and showed him my ID.

  He gave it a once over and then jerked his head toward the door that would lead fully inside.

  “Have a nice time,” he said as he moved to look at Shawn’s ID. “You sure that you’re twenty-one? You look like you’re fifteen.”

  Shawn curled his lip up at the bouncer. “I’m twenty-one, man. Just turned it, actually. Glad you’re being so thorough in checking IDs at the door, though.”

  We both had just turned twenty-one.

  Ironically, we also both had the same birthday.

  When we’d met the first time, we’d bonded over the taste of dirt that the drill sergeant had practically made us eat. During our shared misery, Shawn had shared that it was his birthday. Then I’d shared that it was mine, and that was that.

  “Have a good time,” the bouncer grumbled.

  I walked into the bar, my eyes immediately seeking out the blonde.

  I found her at the end of the bar nearest the door that led into the back. She was belly up to the bar and sucking down what looked to be a lime and Coke.

  She turned to survey the room behind her at the same time that I took a step forward toward the seat two down from hers.

  Shawn was close to my heels.

  But when she turned and saw two men heading toward her, her eyes didn’t go to Shawn. They went directly to me.

  The straw that was in her mouth fell from her lips, and she blinked a couple of times.

  She had freckles. A lot of them. Not an overpowering amount, but enough that it drew my eyes to her cheeks first, right under her eyes.

  Then my gaze caught her eyes, and the breath left my lungs for a short moment in time.

  Her eyes.

  My God, were they unreal.

  She had a dark green eye on one side, and a half a green eye, half an ice blue eye on the other.

  The top half was the ice blue part, and my gaze kept jumping back and forth to the two halves.

  I hadn’t even realized that I’d come to a halt a few steps from my seat until she said, “I know. It’s weird.”

  I found myself grinning. “Not weird, exactly. Just different.”

  She rolled her eyes. “If you say so.”

  Her voice was husky. Almost as if she’d smoked for a time before quitting. That, or screamed out about a hundred orgasms that day.

  Whatever it was, the woman had an intoxicating voice, and it was drawing me in like a moth to a flame.

  “Hi.” Shawn grinned as he looked to the girl that’d caught and held my attention. “My name is Shawn. This is Trick. We’re just off of deployment and really in need of a drink. Do you mind if we take the seat beside you?”

  The one directly next to her. Dammit, Shawn.

  “Sure,” she said hesitantly, not even taking her eyes off of me to look over at Shawn.

  “You come here a lot?” Shawn asked as he took the seat directly next to her, forcing me to take the one that I’d originally been planning on taking, putting him between the two of us.

  Asshole.

  “You could say that,” the woman drawled, inching further away from him.

  “What’s your name?” Shawn asked.

  “Swayze,” she answered. “Where were y’all deployed to last?”

  “Iraq,” Shawn answered for the both of us.

  “Oh, that’s no fun. I’ve heard horror stories about there from my stepfather.” Swayze looked sad for a moment. “He really hated it over there.”

  “So did this one.” Shawn slapped me on the shoulder. “That’s why he’s decided to go into the Reserves. He’s no longer active-duty after today.”

  Thank fucking God.

  But that wasn’t why I was going reserve. I was going reserve because I needed to be home to help with bills and shit so that my little sister actually went to school instead of having to take care of my mother—the laziest piece of shit you’d ever meet.

  Not that Shawn needed to know that. The less Shawn knew, the less he could share. Seriously, I loved the guy, but Shawn somehow always seemed to share every single detail about my life when he was talking, yet none of his. Which, I supposed, was by design. Shawn didn’t have a much better home life than I did. The only difference was, Shawn seemed to care a whole lot more than I did at this point.

  Swayze’s eyes came to me. “What’s next for you, Trick?”

  What’s next? What was next was for me to go home to Vermont, help my mother raise my little sister, and hope that I didn’t get sucked back in like last time.

  “Going home,” I said. “To school, most likely. I have a job lined up at a bar.”

  Her eyes sparkled at my words. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  She was teasing me.

  She was also leaned so far forward on the bar so that she could see me that it was comical.

  Shawn needed to take a hint.

  Shawn would stick it out to the bitter end, though.

  He didn’t like being told he’d lost.

  “Tell us about yourself, Swayze,” Shawn urged, leaning forward slightly.

  “I…”

  The bartender interrupted us.

  He was a stout old man with hard, uncompromising eyes.

  Former military.

  There was no doubt about that.

  “What can I get you two?” the hardass bartender asked, shooting Shawn a disapproving look.

  Shawn leaned away from Swayze almost on instinct.

  “I’ll take a beer. Dark. Whatever you have on tap,” I rumbled.

  The bartender’s eyes flicked to me, then to Shawn. “You?”

  “Bud. Tap,” he stammered.

  My lips twitched.

  “I’ll have another, Papa,” Swayze held up her empty glass. “Have you seen Dad? I was supposed to meet him here, but he’s not in the back room.”

  Something shuttered over the bartender’s eyes. “Haven’t seen him, honey girl. Just sit right there and wait for him.”

  The man was lying.
/>   I knew that without a shadow of a doubt.

  The bartender knew where Swayze’s father was, he just didn’t want her to know where he was.

  Or maybe what he was doing.

  Whatever the reason, I had a feeling Swayze’s father wasn’t a good guy.

  My eyes went back to the woman once the bartender left to get our drinks.

  She looked pissed.

  “Wow, he was intense,” Shawn declared the moment he was out of earshot.

  “Former military. Marines,” Swayze admitted. “He’s a lovable guy. To women. Men don’t find him nearly as lovable.”

  “I would think not,” I teased.

  She shot me a warm smile and then turned her gaze on the bar top, her fingers absently picking apart a napkin.

  Shawn got up and slapped me on the back. “You can have her, man.”

  Then he was moving toward the end of the bar, leaving the spot empty between the two of us, and heading in the direction of another blonde at the opposite side of the bar. This one looking a whole lot more attainable for him… and looser.

  One with quite a few less morals.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Swayze questioned as she glanced in my direction.

  I gritted my teeth, wanting to curse Shawn.

  He couldn’t win, so he didn’t want me to win, either.

  But, since I was honest to a fault, I told her the answer anyway.

  “When we got out of our truck, we saw you walking inside.” I shrugged. “I called dibs but he whined because he saw you first. It’s a stupid game that he likes to play. One that annoys the piss out of me.”

  “So you weren’t playing any games?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “I find that it works out better for me in the long run if I’m completely honest and open about my intentions,” I admitted. “It allows for fewer misunderstandings.”

  She tilted her head slightly. “What kinds of intentions are you having right now?”

  My lips curled up at the edges.

  “Ones that have you in my hotel room at the end of the night.” I shrugged. “I’d offer you more but, as of eight tomorrow morning, I’m on a flight home to Vermont. Unfortunately.”

  She blinked owlishly at me.