Missed Chances

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Skylar Hemmings could hear the hog coming up the two-lane road, announcing its arrival.

Or the size of the rider’s penis. Hard to tell.

The rumble of the Harley disturbed the peaceful, morning quiet of the rural area outside of Chance, Georgia. Skylar walked across the dusty parking lot from her car to the entrance of the County Line Bar and Grill, where she worked as a waitress. She wouldn’t glare at the loud Harley’s rider, because it was her job not to glare at people like him. Patrons, the owner called them.

The sound of the oversized, muffler-deficient motorcycle was almost as irritating as the tight T-shirt she was wearing.

Not Your Type was printed across the bosom area, the way- too-tight bosom area of the shirt. Out Of Your League was emblazoned on the back. The owner’s idea of a joke. She was okay with that message.

Because that’s how she felt about most of the bar patrons. They were not her type.

She stuck a hand up underneath the shirt and tried to stretch it out. Did the owner stick these things in the wash on hot and then run them through the dryer until they had no resemblance to what would be normal for this size T-shirt? “Don’t got anything bigger, sugar. I’ll have to order one,” was Arnie’s reply when she’d asked for a bigger size.

The hog blew into the parking lot, kicking up dust into a cloud of micro particles. They filled her nose, and she started a coughing fit that had her running for the bar’s front door.

She yanked on the door handle and almost fell over backward because the door had no give. The owner hadn’t arrived yet to open up. Well, maybe the inconsiderate motorcycle jerk would move on to some other run-down, hole-in-the-wall hangout for degenerates and people who’d given up on life. Who else would go to a bar at this time of the morning?

She pulled her shirt up over her nose as an improvised dust mask. That only served to tighten the shirt further across her boobs, almost exposing them as the cutoff T-shirt rose high over her abdomen.

Just then, the dust cloud subsided and she could see the motorcycle rider clearly since he wasn’t wearing a helmet, despite the Georgia Helmet Law requiring he wear one. And he could see her. With all her feminine glory busting out.

His eyes fixed on her. Yeah, he’d definitely noticed how skintight the black shirt was, with that fixated look male patrons got when they first laid eyes on any of the waitresses’ T-shirts.

Each shirt had a different saying. So, it was the perfect excuse for guys to stare. “What’s that say, baby?” How many times had she heard that already? “Come a little closer, sweetheart. I can’t read your boobs way over there.”

Yeah, how many quips could drunk guys come up with to say, I need a closer look at your chest?

But the steel gray eyes that stared back at her from the biker’s face halted her in her tracks. He wasn’t looking at her chest, but straight into her eyes with the piercing gaze of a wolf. She’d seen those eyes before.

First time she’d seen them had been on a teenaged boy who’d shaken her to her core.

Damn. That could not be Morgan Randall.

The way he stared back at her contradicted that thought. That was indeed Morgan Randall, the bad boy of Lassiter County, a guy who’d driven his motorcycle a bit too fast, screeching tires, leading the way to parties. It was said, he always managed to provide liquor for those parties even though he and everybody else who attended were underage.

Word was he’d cut classes and head out to the lake with the prettiest girls in the county. He got a tattoo at only fourteen, though that was illegal in Georgia.

Not a good influence. That tag followed him around like a dog.

Morgan Randall! The hot-bodied teen who’d almost taken her virginity when she was sixteen and he was eighteen.

Taken wouldn’t be the right word. Almost had her virginity foisted on him was a more correct way of stating the facts.

Morgan settled back in the seat of the Harley, his shirt conforming to a physique that said he still had the hard-bodied part down pat. He was even hotter, now that he was grown. At thirty-one, he was filled out and muscled like a guy who could heft Skylar over his head without even breathing hard.

Well, he might be breathing hard. But then so would she, she figured, from the nearness and how that guy looked.

His dark brown hair was just a bit shaggy, and his beard looked like it had been growing for a couple of weeks. Not unkempt, but casual, like a guy who didn’t schedule haircuts in order to always be well groomed.

His arms were muscled beneath that faded blue, half buttoned-up shirt, and a sheen of sweat added a bit of stick to the cotton garment, so that she could see every muscle on his stomach and chest.

He was definitely a man now.

His gray eyes confirmed he didn’t even need her shirt to be so tight in order to imagine what was underneath it. Hell, he knew full well what was underneath her T-shirt. Or had thirteen years ago.

Those hands had done wicked things to her sixteen-year-old body. He’d fulfilled the fantasies she’d had of him, leading up to their one night together.

He hadn’t known that she’d stalked him, making him the prey, though those wolf eyes had lit up when he’d seen her at the party where her plan had come into full fruition.

But if he’d known how much trouble she’d gone to arrange the meeting, he’d have run from the sixteen-year-old virgin.

His steel-colored eyes looked as if he remembered every hot kiss they’d shared that night, every intimate touch they’d exchanged, until things had become so heated that his friend’s old car had almost exploded with the incendiary sensations sparking through that back seat.

They’d almost had sex. Almost.

The way Morgan Randall looked at her now said he remembered their chemistry. The sizzling spark in his eyes said he was happy she was what he considered old enough now.

About the Book

Men of the Badge Series