Once Upon a Time in Bliss

by Sophie Oak

  The bartender rolled his eyes. “Really? Where do you think you are, man?”

  “I don’t know. A bar.” He’d been in plenty of shit-ass places, but he’d hoped for some civilization here in the States.

  “This is my grandfather’s bar. He’s still living in the Wild West. I can get you whiskey or tequila or crap-ass vodka or beer. We have two wines. Red or white and they both suck ass. Those are your choices,” the bartender said.

  Bishop sighed. It didn’t matter. He needed liquor. A lot of it. Maybe he would forget just how hard his cock was. He could still feel Nell’s arms around him. He could still feel her breasts pressed against his chest, her hips moving against his. Damn it. “Vodka. Double on the rocks.”

  James Bond didn’t have these problems. Everywhere the fucker went there was a good bar, but that wasn’t Bishop’s life. He was stuck with shit-ass bars. He should have been born British. American assets got shit. The least he should get for his trouble was a decent drink.

  The least he should get as his reward was a soft, sweet, innocent woman to take his cock any way he chose.

  The redhead across from him looked up. She had a pretty face, and he could see a nice rack and it didn’t do a thing for him because she wasn’t Nell. That freaking woman had wrecked his goddamn vacation.

  “Here you go.” The bartender slid a glass his way. At least it seemed clean. His head gestured toward the back of the bar. “She’s a nice lady, you know.”

  Bishop shrugged and took a sip. Yep. It was low-grade, cheap vodka. “She’s pretty.”

  “She just got divorced a while back. Apparently it was a nasty thing. She’s still trying to find her footing. She doesn’t need some asshole tourist to use her.”

  Bishop stared at the bartender. “What’s your name?”

  He frowned. “Sawyer. My granddad owns the place, so if you think you can get my ass fired, think again. I work for free, and I don’t like assholes using nice women. Holly’s a nice woman. She needs someone to look out for her.”

  Bishop felt a smile cross his face. “Good for you. As it happens, I’m not terribly interested. I have my eye on someone else in town.”

  Sawyer crossed his arms over his big chest and leaned back. “I’m trying to figure out who the hell that could be. Harper’s sister is too young. Stella’s a little too old for you. Red back there’s just about right.”

  Bishop had no idea who any of those women were. “I just got in today. I’ve only been out to Mountain and Valley.”

  Sawyer’s eyes went wide. He snorted. “You a nudist?”

  “Nah. I have a friend out there.”

  “Okay. I can buy that. Look, I live out on the reservation, but I have some friends around Bliss. It’s a nice town. The women are cool.”

  He couldn’t help himself. He had to ask. “What do you know about Nell Finn?”

  The temperature in the room seemed to drop by ten degrees. Sawyer’s face hardened and his eyes seemed darker than before. “I know she’s a sweet lady, and I wouldn’t like to see her hurt by some tourist who just blew through town and used her. She’s a believer, you know?”

  He frowned. “No. What do you mean?”

  Sawyer sighed. “She believes in all that good shit. She really thinks she can change the world. Look, I’ve met plenty of people who say they can change things, but Nell believes. She’s one of those people who gives it her all and it matters to her. She’s the kind of chick who might actually manage it.”

  Bishop huffed. Had the guy been drinking his own product? “Seriously? You’re wearing an outlaw MC cut. You believe in that shit?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “I live in a different world. I got no options to escape. Nell is an idealist. She thinks there are always options.”

  “She’s a dreamer.”

  “Dreamers can change the world. Look, man, I’m not that guy, but I also know the world. Sixty years ago, black people couldn’t vote and now we have a black senator running for president. It was people like Nell who did that so don’t underestimate her. And don’t you dare fucking use her. She sounds naïve, but what she says is important.”

  He was serious. And maybe Bishop should be serious, too. He still had a job to do. Just because he’d bailed on her physically didn’t mean he wouldn’t find out who wanted to hurt her. “Has she dated much?”

  Sawyer stopped. “No. I kind of thought she wasn’t all that interested.”

  Oh, she was interested. She just needed the right man. “So there’s no man in her life.”

  She’d been flustered. It was easier to pay attention to men who didn’t matter. She was a submissive who hadn’t been trained to please her Dom. She didn’t have a Dom. She’d likely never had a Dom so she didn’t understand that a Dom could take care of her and accept all that sweet love she had to give.

  He’d gotten pissed off and walked out too soon. Why had he done that? He was patient. It was his hallmark. He was known for making careful decisions and then plotting out his next move. But he’d taken one look at Nell with that goddamn deputy and he’d walked out because he’d gotten his freaking feelings hurt. Seriously? When had he grown a vagina?

  He’d made a mistake.

  “Look, I only know Nell because she comes out to the rez and helps out,” Sawyer explained. “We have a lot of poverty and need out there, and she puts in a bunch of time. She’s kind of made herself a part of the family. I wouldn’t like it if she got hurt. She doesn’t have a man looking out for her.”

  That didn’t seem to be her problem. The deputy seemed to care, and those two boys had been all over her. But she wasn’t sleeping with any of them. Sex was important. Sex could be the glue that bound people together. A woman would listen to a lover when she wouldn’t listen to a friend or family member. No matter how many well-meaning friends she had, Nell couldn’t really count on a man unless he was in her bed and taking responsibility.

  What the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t someone she should rely on. He wasn’t going to be here in a few weeks. He was exactly the kind of lover she should avoid.

  The redhead across from him took another long drink. She looked over as though trying to gather her courage.

  “That one is going to be so much trouble.” Sawyer’s jaw firmed. “I wish I hadn’t come in tonight. I’m trying to stay out of jail.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be prospecting for an MC.” Bishop watched the woman. She was going to be trouble. She was a lovely woman without a man, and she was obviously emotional. The sharks were already starting to circle. A nasty-looking asshole with a mean tat on his arm started making his way over, a leer on his face. “You going to take care of this?”

  Sawyer sighed. “If I have to. My granddad is going to have my ass if I start a fight. You don’t understand how mean an old Ute can be when his shit gets trashed. He always threatens to go old school with the honey and the ants. My childhood bedtime stories were really horrible.”

  Bishop couldn’t help but smile. He could imagine. The redhead pushed off the bar, obviously making a decision. She was on the move before her insanely large and muscular and very likely criminal suitor made his way over. She rounded the bar and made a beeline for someone in particular.

  Fuck. She was coming his way.

  “Nice. Holly made her choice.” Sawyer looked more chipper than he had before. “Now she’s your problem.”

  Motherfucker.

  “That’s Holly for you.” A cowboy slid into the seat beside him, a Stetson on his head. “She goes for the man who looks like he has a college education every time. It’s why she usually isn’t in real trouble here. I’m going to need a whiskey shot with a beer chaser.”

  “See, that I can do.” Sawyer slapped a hand on the bar. “This guy wanted to know how old my Scotch was.”

  The cowboy snorted. “Tourist.” He nodded the redhead’s way, and Bishop stared for a minute. He’d already met this guy. “Holly Lang. She moved here a couple of years back. Nice lady, but every now and then her ex-husb
and really gets to her and she comes to the conclusion that she should have revenge sex. It’s a real bad idea, so we take turns hauling her butt back to Bliss. It was Rye’s turn, but he’s working, so I got called in when Stella saw her buying that new dress. Apparently a woman in a V-neck means business.”

  Bishop frowned. Holly seemed to have changed her mind and headed for the ladies’ room. She just turned right on her heels and walked away.

  The cowboy next to him sighed. “See. She always changes her mind, but by then she’s got some jerk who doesn’t want to take no for an answer.”

  Yep, there were several sets of eyes on her as she walked away.

  “You’re the deputy’s twin.” They were really identical, but this guy had a deep frown where Rye Harper had been fairly sunny.

  “Max Harper. I run the Harper Stables on the other side of town,” the cowboy offered. “And you’re?”

  “Henry Flanders. I’m a professor of history. Just here on vacation.”

  Max nodded his way and then shot the whiskey Sawyer put in front of him down in one quick swallow. “That’s got some bite. Where the hell did your granddaddy find that? I think that might strip my insides clean.”

  “Hey, be grateful,” Sawyer shot back, handing him a beer. “Granddad likely would have given you Mel’s shit. He and Mel went to a sweat lodge and Mel convinced him to buy a case of his tonic. God, the thought of sitting in that fucking thing with twelve naked dudes in the heat does nothing for me. If they want me to get all spiritual and shit, they should put a couple of ladies inside.”

  “Damn it. Here comes more trouble.” Max rolled his eyes. “I don’t know that girl, but she’s going to cause a ruckus.”

  A semi had pulled up in the parking lot, and a blonde woman jumped out. She turned, and though Bishop couldn’t hear her, he was pretty sure that everything coming out of the blonde’s mouth was curses. She had a backpack in her hand and as she walked away, she flipped the trucker the finger.

  Sawyer grimaced. “I don’t need this. Where’s the gun? I’m just going to shoot myself and get it over with.”

  “Hi.” Holly was back, and she slid into the chair beside him. “Look, I’m going to admit something horrifically embarrassing to you. I was totally going to come over here and try to pick you up, but then I realized that I would just be having sex with you because my ex-husband is an asshole and that’s really no reason to potentially risk a venereal disease.” She flushed. “Not that I think you have one. I kind of picked you because you looked perfectly disease-free.”

  The door slammed open and blondie walked in. She was wearing jeans and a sweater but no coat. And she had on some seriously high heels. She’d also been crying. Like Holly. He was surrounded by emotional females.

  “No need to give him the whole story, darlin’. You don’t have to hit on tourists. Your escort is here.” Max Harper nodded Holly’s way. “Just let me finish my beer, and I’ll get you back into town.”

  Holly sighed, a look of deep relief covering her face. “Oh, Max, thanks so much. You know it’s really nice that whenever I do something dumb there’s always someone around to help me out. This really is the best town ever. My ex thought it would be a punishment, but I’m good here.”

  The blonde sat down at the bar, a devastated look on her face.

  Holly’s eyes widened as she looked toward the newcomer. “Do you need a phone, hon?”

  The woman turned, frowning. “I don’t have anyone to call.”

  “Hey, I want to talk to you.” One of the muscle-bound idiots who had been stalking Holly had a hand on her arm, turning her to face him.

  “What?” Holly asked, her eyes flaring with a proper amount of fear.

  Max grinned, looking at the redhead and the asshole. “Thank god. I need a good fight. Stef’s been twelve kinds of mopey lately. He won’t even punch me. Artists. I don’t understand them.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Sawyer’s hand slapped on the table as the door opened again. “What the fuck is going on?”

  And Bishop felt a bit of righteous indignation course through his veins. Nell walked in, pretty as she pleased, with her two puppy dogs trailing behind her. Seth Stark looked around the bar, taking it in as though it was all just an experience and not the site of his potential murder.

  Logan just looked scared shitless. He had a Superman T-shirt on, his hands in his pockets.

  But Nell walked in like she owned the place. “Sawyer, it’s so nice to see you. This is a lovely establishment you have here.”

  Sawyer frowned, his eyes moving around the room as though assessing all the ways his day was about to go to shit. “No it’s not. It’s a dive bar and a nest of criminal activity, so you should leave and take the underagers with you.”

  “Uhm, you should really take your hand off my arm,” Holly said politely to the brutish man whose tattoos just might be a roadmap of all his murders. “I’m just about to go home. I don’t have time for a dance.”

  “I do,” Max Harper said, putting his hat on the bar. He had a wide grin on his face as he rolled up the sleeves to his Western shirt.

  “You were teasing me.” The muscular asshole didn’t look at Max. His eyes were on Holly. “I saw the way you looked at me.”

  “Harper, don’t break shit,” Sawyer said before swinging back to Nell.

  “I wasn’t looking at you,” Holly argued. “Not any more than I look at anyone. If you come into my field of vision, I will be forced to look at you, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You were looking at me like a woman looks at a man she wants to screw hard,” Holly’s assailant said.

  “I think she was looking at me that way, too.” A second potential mass murderer stepped up.

  “Oh, no, I wasn’t looking at anyone that way,” Holly insisted. “If I was looking at anyone, it was this guy, and I wasn’t thinking about anything like screwing him in a hard fashion. I thought maybe we would start with a little foot massage.”

  He was going to have to kill someone and then Nell would get all pissy about nonviolence and she would probably give him a long lecture on why it was wrong to shove a barstool up someone’s rectum.

  Bishop took a sip of his horrifying vodka. He didn’t need a lecture from her. And he didn’t need to shove a piece of furniture up some criminal’s asshole. Now, hers, yeah that he could do that, although he wouldn’t shove. No way. He would be smooth and slow. He would take his time getting that perky, tight asshole ready to take his dick. She would fight him at first, the muscles clenching to keep him out, but he would have his way. Sooner or later, his cock would slide in and then she would fight to keep him inside. That was what he needed.

  “Are you going to help me with this, professor?” Max’s bark brought him out of his lovely daydream. No one seemed content to leave him be in this place. First, the kids broke up what should have been a nice long fuck, and now the violence was pulling him from thinking about a nice long fuck. The whole town of Bliss seemed intent on cockblocking him.

  Holly was now surrounded by five large men who had started to use the term gangbang.

  Blondie had jumped off her barstool and got to Holly before Max could. She swung her backpack. “You get your hands off of her, you filthy piece of crap. All of you better back away from her.”

  Chaos. Wow. It was just taking over. One minute everything was fairly peaceful, and now it looked like Armageddon was about to happen. One of the assholes screamed as blondie’s backpack hit him in the head. She moved well. She was trained and not in a cardio-at-the-gym way. She was some form of law enforcement. Or she had been before she’d decided to backpack across America.

  “I’m not underage,” Seth said with a confident grin. He stood at the bar talking to Sawyer. “I have the ID to prove it.”

  “It’s a fake,” Sawyer shot back.

  “Prove it.” Seth held out his ID.

  Sawyer rolled his eyes. “I don’t have to. That’s Logan Green. He’s barely nineteen. He just graduat
ed from high school last year.”

  Seth held up a second ID. “You’re wrong. His name is Orion Buchwald. He’s twenty-two. We don’t know this Logan Green you speak of.”

  Logan just sighed. “Please don’t call my moms.”

  Nell’s eyes met Bishop’s and then quickly slid away, refocusing on the bartender. “Do you have any organic liquor?”

  A rough shout pulled him back to the Holly issue. “Look, bitch, I can take you, too.”

  He was really going to have to deal with the muscular assholes. The whole bar was watching the scene play out.

  “You better take a step back.” Max got off his barstool. “These things can get nasty.”

  “Don’t you try anything.” Blondie reached into her bag as Max stepped up. It was obvious she didn’t know he was trying to play savior. “I have pepper spray.”

  “Why would you pepper spray me? I’m trying to help. Damn. I get sprayed too much as it is.” Max took a step back.

  “I don’t think violence is the answer.” Nell just kept coming, her hands out in a placating gesture. “We should sit down and have a sharing circle.”

  Why did he want her? Oh, yeah. Her boobs were really nice. And she had those freaking lips. “Don’t get closer.”

  She was about to get into the middle of this and that meant he would be forced to take over.

  “I’d like a beer.” Seth just bellied up to the bar like he didn’t have a care in the world. Little bastard.

  Bishop got off his barstool. Fuck all. He would just pick Nell up and leave, but she would likely protest that action, too. “Nell. Get back, now.”

  She frowned his way. “Why should I listen to you? You left me.”

  She’d come after him. No doubt about it. So the sweet thing was really interested. Now the only problem was the way the world was kind of falling apart around him. “I was thirsty, Nell. Get back.”

  “You didn’t say good-bye.” Nell crossed her arms over her very nice breasts. He could remember the way her nipples had pressed into his chest before the Stark kid had interrupted him.

  “I’m not giving you a beer.” Sawyer rolled his eyes at Seth.