Homecoming

by Tara Lynn

  Homecoming

  A Stepbrother Romance

  Tara Lynn

  Contents

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE-Christina

  CHAPTER TWO-Damon

  CHAPTER THREE-Christina

  CHAPTER FOUR-Damon

  CHAPTER FIVE-Christina

  CHAPTER SIX-Damon

  CHAPTER SEVEN-Christina

  CHAPTER EIGHT-Damon

  CHAPTER NINE-Christina

  CHAPTER TEN-Damon

  CHAPTER ELEVEN-Christina

  CHAPTER TWELVE-Damon

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN-Christina

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN-Damon

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN-Christina

  Thanks!

  Other Novels

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without the express written consent of the author. This book is licensed for personal use only.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ©2015

  Tara Lynn

  Cover Design:

  ©2015

  SilverLight

  Also by Tara Lynn

  In My Stepbrother’s Grasp

  More on the way!

  I love talking to fans. Here’s how you can reach me:

  www.facebook.com/TaraLynn

  TaraLynnAuthor@gmail.com

  Dedication

  Thanks to my super awesome family. You guys are my life.

  Thanks to my friends, who indulge my random creative disappearances.

  Thanks to my fans! I wouldn’t be writing without you!

  Prologue

  I always figured I’d lose my virginity in some sunny dorm room, with the windows open and maybe an ocean breeze blowing in.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen in the darkened booth of some bar. Or with me trying to be quiet so the customers drinking on the other side of the room wouldn’t hear.

  But as a powerful hand moved under my shirt and landed electric on my chest, I really didn’t give a damn. I tried to moan, but hard lips pressed against me and muffled the sound down to a whimper. The man’s throat rumbled with deep satisfaction.

  God, even his voice dominated mine.

  I had always thought myself free from everyone around. Now, I just wanted this man to consume me. I wanted his rippling muscles crushed against me, his bristle etching my skin, his tongue exploring every inch it could reach. I wanted to be invaded.

  I wanted him to make me his.

  His hand finished teasing and turned down towards the main event. It wedged through my jeans and traced the lining of my panties. I whimpered again, just imagining that first touch. It was taking an eternity to reach me.

  How had this even happened? He was just some guy.

  Just some guy with the face of a Greek god and the hard, lean body of a fighter. Just some quick-witted, dashing stranger who had helped me out earlier in the evening.

  I guessed this counted as returning the favor. If giving back always felt this amazing, then I was going to become the next Mother Teresa.

  His mouth left mine, and I found my lips kissing air. We’d been talking about something before. I couldn’t really remember, but useless words came to my mouth anyway.

  “It’s ok,” I whispered. “I don’t care who you are. I’m not as clean as I want to be either.”

  “I can see that,” he murmured into my ear.

  The heat of his fingers almost singed me below. I could feel myself dripping as his touch approached.

  “I’m not that bad,” I said. “It’s all my stepdad. He’s the president of the local MC.”

  All of him went still, like someone had flipped off his power. I opened my eyes and saw him staring at me like I’d confessed to murder. His hand yanked out my pants. I nearly shivered at the sudden chill it left.

  Why the hell had I said that? Of course he hated bikers. That’s why I fell for him to begin with.

  “I don’t like my stepdad,” I said quickly. “I’m just saying I don’t care who you are.”

  The man had not budged. With each passing moment, his look seemed more distant. Was he at least going to tell me what was happening? Or was he just going to walk off?

  Maybe that’s what he should have done.

  Instead, he opened his gorgeous mouth and said the words that would turn my life upside down.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Christina

  The night hadn’t started off any different. I’d been working behind the counter at The Last Stop. My only real goal was to keep the gloom of the place from suffocating me.

  The Last Stop - that name itself should tell you how my life’s going. Marty said he picked it so people would pull in before getting on I-5 North.

  “Get a couple shots in your gullet before you hit the road, you know?” he’d explained at my interview.

  I got the job by not pointing out that wasn’t a good idea. After all, if he stuck by the law, my nineteen year old butt shouldn’t be serving beer here. Drunk drivers weren’t that big a problem in Freemont anyway. There wasn’t much to hit.

  Our little town was located almost right between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The land around was green, rolling and empty. A line of traffic always seemed to be sliding by on the highway. Mostly, it held truckers and people from the rich cities driving from one to the other.

  Only the truckers stopped in our little bar. For some of them, it just might be the last stop till they finished the trip in the Bay Area or Sacramento.

  I’d started here hoping it’d be my last stop, too - hopefully, on my way to UC Santa Cruz. I couldn’t move out of town for a couple more years.

  Ok, not so much couldn’t, just not on any terms I’d consider.

  My stepdad - ugh, I still hated remembering that’s what he was - had offered to pay, but I didn’t want his blood money. Without it though, I couldn’t emancipate myself to get student loans for another couple years.

  Instead, I took classes at a local community college, and spent most nights working here. At least I could save some money and earn some credits to prepare.

  After half a year though, it was starting to feel like this might just be my last stop, period. I might have reached the very edges of town, but I’d never escape its pull.

  I looked at the murky interior, at the cheap fluorescent lights crackling around the walls and the weary looks of the men exchanging short words down the bar. My first week here, this place had given me the creeps. Now it almost felt normal, like I belonged here.

  Donna came out from the back room, huffing like she’d run a marathon. She patted her bleach blonde hair down and wiped some sweat off her face before turning to me with a scowl.

  “How’s business, princess?” she asked.

  “Good as ever.”

  Donna was the head waitress, but we barely even needed myself working out here, given the crowd. Marty had found other ways for her to pass the time.

  I watched her adjust her clothes. She had on a bright red tank top, and a black mini skirt that barely covered her panties. At least she was done with her G-string phase.

  “Why aren’t there more people?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Well, maybe you should do something about it, huh? We can’t run this place selling ten beers a night.”

  “If people come in, I’ll sell to them. That’s all I can do.”

  She kept glowering, so I just sank back into the book I had on the counter. It was a fantasy romance with death, devastation and sex more violent than the first two. I’d take any of it over this c
onversation.

  Eventually, Donna left. Maybe Marty had texted her for round two. I knew he didn’t give a damn how well the place did. He had his own little farm. This bar was just a taste of the sleaze that enveloped Freemont.

  If Donna didn’t like me, it was fine. I might be a little curvy and my hair could be euphemistically called chestnut, but it was easy enough to see me as a threat. She was fifteen years older, but looked to be almost double that. Plus, her boyfriend had hired me.

  This wasn’t the biggest mark she had against me though. I really was some spoiled princess in her eyes - the Kate Middleton of Freemont. That made me rage more than any insult she could spit, because that’s what a lot of people thought when they saw me. All because I was vaguely related to the guy who ran the town.

  Not the mayor - the guy that owned the mayor. My stepfather was none other than Lorne Carter, President of the Liberated MC.

  My nose crinkled for the second time that night. Just the thought of him seemed to have a foul odor. I sipped at a beer until the suds wiped it away. At least thinking about him still left me feeling dirty.

  I still lay awake at nights sometimes trying to figure it out. How had my life broken and been reassembled in such a twisted way?

  I’d had a great dad. He had been killed. Now the man who had the biggest part in his death wanted me to call him “daddy.”

  Five years back, my dad had been in a gas station convenience store, buying chips while the gas filled. Some bikers from out of town had chased one of the Liberated bikers into the store and shot it up trying to kill him.

  Their target had survived. My dad died in the crossfire.

  It wasn’t the Liberated that pulled the trigger, but what did that matter? Their presence in this town invited the violence.

  The worst part was that the bed I lay in while thinking these things was in Lorne’s house. It was my bedroom, ever since we moved in four years ago. Staying there made me feel like I was sleeping with the murderer himself.

  Technically, though, that would be the woman a couple bedrooms over: my beautiful, idiotic mother.

  Dad had been amazing. He taught middle school but I’d never been ashamed to be in his classes. That was the kind of guy he was.

  Mom…mom had been vapid even when Dad was still alive. She’d always criticized him for not making more to buy her junk. She’d really let her true colors fly after he died. It was barely a month before she started dating again. She hitched up with her husband’s killer two months after that. I’d wondered more than once if she had somehow arranged it. She sure seemed thrilled to be in the bed she was now.

  I sighed. One of the flabby truckers down the bar perked with attention. Maybe he thought this was the sort of sadness that could be cured with more regretful choices. I returned his look steely-eyed, and he returned to his beer.

  I hid my novel under the counter and passed the night buried in fantasy. It wasn’t really difficult keeping a handle on the dozen people we had in here. Some of the less sociable types hung out by themselves in the booths and tables, but there were only a couple now, though. Neither looked like they wanted anything. One lumberjack looking trucker nursed a whiskey and stared at the empty seat across from him. Another was a local guy slowly going through a pitcher by himself.

  When one of the drinkers at the bar looked empty, I’d slip up to his grizzled face with a fake grin and ask in a sweet voice if they might not feel better with another drink. That usually did the trick.

  Heck, I was a decent enough employee. This job might not be much, but it did have one perk. The Last Stop might be the one place in Freemont without the Liberated reaching into its pocket. Marty had done something for the club a long time ago that had earned him his freedom. I’d asked what it was once, but he’d just told me to sit on his lap if I wanted the story. No thanks.

  The book was heating up. The exiled prince had finally revealed himself to the usurper king’s daughter, and the two of them were planning on creating an army. Part of that involved sealing their union, and…let’s just say that this wasn’t Disney.

  I didn’t even realized the bar door had opened, until I heard men’s laughter pouring in. We didn’t often get groups. There were nicer places in town than this. Even if they paid protection to the Liberated, the bikers themselves were never in there.

  I glanced up and my heart nearly stopped. We weren’t biker free anymore.

  The four rough men who walked in had different sleeves on their t-shirts, but wore identical vests. I knew the prints by memory. The white stitching curving along the back read ‘Liberated.’ A giant skeletal eagle dove out below it, wings wide, claws and beak aimed at whoever was reading. The front was even more overdone, with a grim reaper clutching a US flag.

  They acted like they were fighting for freedom. They were just dragging our town into the grave. The only thing they were ‘liberated’ from was human decency.

  The men approached, still chattering. I wished I had a mask, but not as much as when I caught sight of who was leading this group.

  “Hey princess,” the guy in front growled. He pushed up to the counter in between two truckers. They read him correctly and nudged their stools away.

  “What do you want Reggie?” I asked.

  “Same thing as always, girl. You.”

  He propped himself up on the counter by his elbows. It was probably some attempt to look dreamy. I had to admit that plenty of girls would swoon. He had a hard face that suited his dark mind, with a powerful square jaw and piercing blue eyes. His hair spilled out above him in dark rich curls, and his smile looked like it could flick the clothes right off you.

  The part that got girls around town most wet, though, was the little patch right above his heart that read ‘Vice President.’

  Yep, my crown prince had arrived.

  “I’m at work,” I said.

  “Oh, is that the only issue?” he said. “I can wait another couple hours.”

  “Actually, I might be busy all night.”

  His smile faded just a bit. He looked around. “They sure need you working. Hell, four people just walked in a moment ago. At that rate, you’re gonna be packed in minutes.”

  My throat ran dry at the idea of this place filling with bikers. I got enough of that during the few hours I spent at home, and I couldn’t lock myself in my room here.

  Reggie barked out a laugh though, and I relaxed an inch.

  “Marty’s fine with what he’s got,” I said. “Now if you boys want to stay and drink, I’ll serve you, but don’t read too much into it.”

  Reggie rapped the counter. “Fine, get us a pitcher of your best. Or whatever passes for that here. Let me see your plump little be-hind sidle on up to me.”

  They all shoved into a booth. The trucker by me gave me a comforting smile again. It kind of worked. He might want in my pants too, but at least he wasn’t pressing it.

  I filled up a pitcher with low grade stuff and hustled over to drop it on their table. Reggie reached out to pinch my butt, but I dodged him. The other three lackeys hooted, but their sounds choked out when I glared at them.

  The one perk I accepted as Lorne’s stepdaughter was protection from other bikers. I wouldn’t put it past Reggie to just grab a girl he wanted, but he wouldn’t dare do that to me. Instead, he came around here once in awhile hoping to wear me down or catch me at a bad moment. It was starting to turn into a frequent thing.

  I tried to get back into my book at my bar, but I couldn’t focus. I just did not know what was going in Reggie’s head. The more I thought about him though, the more messed up my own head felt.

  Maybe he knew what he was doing. Maybe I would just give myself to him one day. I’d managed to stay a virgin away from all the dirtbags in this town, but maybe I was destined to end up with one. It would be so simple to surrender to this town, to this life. To him. Reggie would take me rough. I didn’t know sex, but I could see it in him.

  Maybe I’d even like it eventually. My mom’s moan
s at night seem to suggest that it was pretty good.

  Christ.

  I pinched myself to break free.

  That was plan Z, with plan Y being death. Maybe reading fantasy was starting to make me entertain worse and worse realities as a possibility. I should just bring my community college homework here. Maybe if I did well, I could get some sort of academic scholarship and be out of this town sooner.

  Truckers came and went, but the bikers stayed. I served one, two, three more pitchers, and they got noisier with each. They were celebrating something. I saw a couple miming gunshots. Reggie set off in roaring bouts of laughter that had me on edge. In between, he stared nakedly at me. I’d never seen him like this.

  Then, one time, I looked up from my book to see him right in my face.

  “You’re fucking gorgeous,” he slurred through drooping eyes.

  “You’re drunk,” I said.

  “It’s still true.”

  “Thanks. You all done for the night?”

  He smiled insanely. “Hell, na, baby. You and me are just getting started.”

  He swooped toward me with his mouth. I barely stepped back in time. He hung over the bench looking dumb, but I was still coiled and ready. Reggie was out of control tonight. His boys just hung at their table watching dumbly.

  “Marty?” I asked down the cracked-open back door. No one heard me.

  “Hey, hey,” Reggie said. “You don’t need that fat fuck. You got me right here.”

  “I’d rather, I didn’t. Could you go back to your table?”

  “Not till you give me a kiss, baby.” He thrust harder over the bar. I had no more space left to back up.

  “Hey, buddy,” a voice to our side barked out.

  One of the truckers at the bar had come over.

  No, he hadn’t been at the bar. He was the guy with the whiskey off in the booth.

  He stared at Reggie with a tired look, as if he just wanted some peace and quiet. He almost looked more homeless than a trucker - there was several days’ worth of a beard on him. The olive green jacket and jeans he had on only sold the look more.