by K. J. Dahlen
Her Father’s Sins
Hell’s Fire Riders MC
BOOK FIVE
K.J. DAHLEN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the web -without permission in writing from the author.
K.J. Dahlen Copyright © 2017
Her Father’s Sins
HELL’S FIRE RIDERS MC
BOOK FIVE
Editor: Leanore Elliott
Book & Cover Design:
Wicked Muse Productions
Prologue
The world only knows him as The Priest—not because he’s a holy man but because he can get even the strongest man to confess his secrets. His methods of getting those secrets weren’t always kosher but he does his job well. No one knows his real name or what he looks like. He’s always kept that a secret—his way of protecting his life from his many enemies. They say he’s cold and unforgiving, that he has no heart.
He found her over a year ago, alone, beaten and broken in a dirty warehouse but was unable to get to her at that time. Then three months ago, he simply took her, for she too, had a secret to tell. A secret she’d didn’t even know she had. But then he wanted to keep her, only he’d made a bargain and he had to give her back. They both thought they’d lived a lifetime in just those few days.
But in those three days, not only did he get her secrets but he also gave her something she’s never known before. Sawyer thought those three days were all of him she would ever have, but she was wrong…
Chapter One
Sawyer felt his lips on hers and something strange lit up inside her. Her breath quickened and her heart began to race. She opened her mouth and his tongue slid inside. Colors spun out of control behind her closed eyelids. She groaned as her body heated from within.
She felt something unfurling inside her and she wanted so much more.
“Please…” she begged.
“What? What do you want?” he whispered brokenly. His lips found hers again and his tongue began doing what he wished his body could. It went in and out of her mouth.
“I want you,” Sawyer whispered to his lips. “I need you.”
He brushed his groin against her thigh. “I know it’s too soon for this and you aren’t ready for any of it, but I just want a small taste, just a sneak peek of what we could be together.” His hands went to her pants as he unbuttoned her jeans. His fingers traced a path along her leg inside her jeans. His lips kissed along her skin as he made his way back up her body. “I can smell your arousal getting stronger as is my own.”
She paused then whispered, “It’s insane, truly, but I do want you to show me what passion is. I want you to take me where no other man ever has.”
“Or ever will.”
Sawyer groaned when his lips nibbled their way down her neck to her collarbone. His fingers made short work of the buttons on her shirt. Then his lips were on her unbound breasts. Kissing and caressing her skin. His teeth nipped on her nipples.
He stopped and laid his forehead against hers. “I can’t do this.”
“Why?” she cried out.
“I promised your father I wouldn’t hurt you. I promised Leon.”
“How can this hurt me?” Sawyer asked. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you right now.”
“I just feel as if you may just be feeling fear and its’ not—”
“Please?” She pleaded. “You were right before. I cannot see or touch you, but somehow my other senses know you so well. Like you were meant to be the man for me. I have never felt anything for a guy before. Some tried to kiss me or touch me and it just felt wrong. Your touch is so…” She bit at her lip. “…it’s like I know your touch. I even love your scent. I know just when you are near. It’s like you’ve crept right into my soul.”
“I don’t want you forced or to feel like you need to bargain for your life by—?”
“It is of my own free will. I already know that you won’t hurt me. You didn’t bring me here to hurt me. I feel safe with you.” She shuddered. “You may not understand this, hell I don’t understand it myself but I know deep down that you will protect me, don’t ask me how I know it but I do. You might even love me just enough.”
He tilted his head. “Yes, I will protect you. I feel the same as you. But you are an innocent in all of this. I do not violate certain rules and taking you would be something I would cherish all the days of my life and…It would damn me for the taking...for all of my life.”
Now, three months later, Sawyer still remembered that night. The night her life changed forever. He’d made love to her after she begged and pleaded. She’d known they would part as he intended to give her back to her father. His eloquent and intense words echoed in her mind, It would damn me for the taking...for all of my life.
With the memory, she felt the pleasure again. It wasn’t the same feeling as it had been their first time but she still remembered everything. Although now, the memories were fading into the recesses of her mind. She only brought them out in the darkness of the night. When the dark surrounded her, his words gave her comfort. They stretched over her like a blanket.
Her time with the man they called The Priest was long over but Sawyer still wanted him. She still relived that memory almost every night since she’d been returned to her family. Then three weeks ago, her father Calico had moved them all to Louisiana to introduce her mother and her along with her brother to his family for the first time. Her father had decided to move over to Texas and hook up with Pappy and his boys, moving back to be near his elderly parents after living away from them for the last twenty five years.
Her life had changed since they got back with her father and it was nice to have someone to lean on, someone she and her mother could count on and keep them all safe. But moving half way across the country left her unsettled. Her hands went down and wrapped around her belly. Her secret wouldn’t be a secret very much longer. Her time with The Priest had left her with yet another little surprise. She knew she would love it but she had a feeling her father wouldn’t be happy about it.
Sawyer felt a tear roll down her cheek. In the darkness of her bedroom, she wished with all her heart he would somehow come for her, when in reality she knew he never would. How could he? She wasn’t in New York anymore and he had no clue where she’d gone.
Sawyer got out of bed and walked to the window. Looking out into the black of night, she saw the desolation of the compound. Texas was unlike any place she’d been before. During the day, it was supposed to be hot and dry but living this close to the Gulf of Mexico, it was still hot and very humid
Her fingers grasped the pendant she had found under her shirt when The Priest had left her at the rest stop that day. It was a cross over a cross, very unusual with a red stone in it. It might be a small ruby but she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t shown it to anyone else. It had been her secret, but now in the middle of the night, she caressed it fondly. That and her memories were all she had left to remember the one man she craved more than life itself. Even if she could never tell anyone.
There was a faint rap on her door and she turned to stare at the portal. Walking over the few steps, she opened it a crack
.
Her mother Jolene stood there. “Are you okay baby?” she asked quietly.
Sawyer nodded then opened the door and let her mother come inside. She closed the door quietly and moved over to the bed.
Jolene followed and sat down beside her daughter. She didn’t say anything but she reached out and brushed a strand of hair out of Sawyer’s face. “What is it baby? What’s wrong?”
Sawyer shrugged and admitted, “I’m not sure.” She looked away then got up again and went back to the window. “I know Calico thinks this is the right move to make, and for you and Jordan it might be. I’m just not sure it’s right for me.”
Jolene got to her feet and moved over to where her daughter was standing. Wrapping both arms around her, she whispered, “Honey, please give it some time. He just wants to know you again. He is your father, you know. Can you give him that much?”
Sawyer nodded slowly. “I want to know him too. And you’re right, he is my father. But I don’t know him anymore, not as a man, not as my dad.”
Jolene leaned her head against Sawyer’s. “What else is wrong? This isn’t just about Calico. I know you’re thinking hard about something.”
Sawyer smiled slightly. “Yeah, you always did know when I was worried didn’t you?”
Jolene chuckled slightly. “I may not remember everything but I do remember my children. You and Jordan were all I had for a long time.”
Jolene had been badly beaten a few months ago, almost to death, in fact, death had come for her at one point, but the doctors managed to bring her back. There had been some damage to her brain to the point where she couldn’t remember who she was. Then Calico came back into her life and they had become a family again.
Calico had taken care of them when a very bad man who threatened Jolene and Sawyer had been kidnapped for three days. It was those three days that Sawyer couldn’t forget, wouldn’t forget. In those three days, she’d met the one man who should have terrified her but he hadn’t. He should have left her broken with nothing left to live for but he didn’t. Instead, she had fallen hard for a man she never laid eyes on. All she knew was his scent, his voice and the warm hardness of his body.
“Are you thinking about him again?” Jolene asked softly. “Is that what has you so discomboubled?”
Sawyer chuckled. “Is discomboubled even a real word?”
“Probably not but sometimes, it’s just how we feel,” Jolene admitted. “It’s a feeling we have when nothing in our lives makes sense. We can’t move forward and we sure as hell don’t want to go backwards.”
Sawyer’s hands covered her belly again. This time she couldn’t hide it from her mother and Jolene took note of the action. “Oh baby,” she whispered brokenly. “Is that why you don’t want to be here?”
Sawyer began to sweat as she fiddled with the hem of her shirt. She couldn’t look her mother in the eye, so she stared out the window at the compound covered by night. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re carrying his child aren’t you?” her mother asked gently. The two of them hadn’t had a chance to talk about the three days her daughter was missing. When Calico brought Sawyer back, he tried to talk to her about where he’d taken her but Sawyer hadn’t been able to tell anyone anything about her abduction. She’d been blindfolded the whole time. Calico didn’t want to think about what had happened to her while she was with the Priest, so Jolene hadn’t yet had the chance to ask her anything.
Sawyer felt another tear roll down her cheek. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You guess so?” Jolene asked quietly. “You don’t know for sure?”
Sawyer shook her head. “I haven’t taken a test yet.”
Jolene took her hand and led her back to the bed when they both sat down. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about the time you spent with him have we?”
Sawyer shook her head and waited.
Jolene pushed a strand of hair out of her daughter’s face. “Sweetheart, I’m willing to listen if you want to talk about it.”
Sawyer breathed a sigh of relief. All her life her mother had been her best friend and she could confide anything to her. She just didn’t know how to tell her everything this time but she would try. “When I woke up I was afraid. He had me tied to a bed and blindfolded and I didn’t know where I was or what he was going to do to me. Everyone said he was nothing more than a ruthless killer known for getting people’s deepest darkest secrets. I didn’t know any secrets, so I thought he was going to kill me but he didn’t.”
Jolene patted her hand to nudge her to go on.
She cocked her head to one side and stared at her mother. “He never hurt me. He kept me tied and blindfolded but he didn’t hurt me. His voice was all I could hear in that tiny room but after a few minutes, I knew I would be okay. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. When he came in there with me, he gave me a feeling I was safe. I knew he would protect me from harm. Then he questioned me about the day you and I were at Max’s place.” Sawyer shuddered. “I barely remembered any of it. I’d been so scared that day I didn’t want to remember it. Max scared me but when I saw him again, just before we left that day he terrified me.”
“What do you mean you saw him later? I didn’t see him after we left his study,” Jolene claimed.
Sawyer shook her head. “No you didn’t and neither did I. I saw his brother, his twin brother when I was there and just a little girl at the time, but I didn’t know it at the time. His brother really was his evil twin. They looked so much alike I thought he was Max at first, but then he came to my room later that night and I thought he was pure evil.”
“Max came to your room? He came into our house?” Jolene gasped.
“No…” Sawyer shook her head. “It wasn’t Max who came to my room it was his brother. I’m not sure what his name was but whoever he was, he was evil. He told me not to tell anyone he’d been there and to forget even seeing him. God knows I was scared to death. He told me if I told anyone about him, he would come after us. He’d kill you first and make me watch you die a horrible death and then he’d kill me.”
Jolene wrapped her arms around her daughter and began to rock. “Oh, my god baby, I’m so sorry.”
Sawyer reveled in the safety of her mother’s arms for a moment. “When the Priest found out about him he did some checking. He found out Max had a brother, a twin brother and that he had secret rooms at the mansion. Then he went after the Hand. I remembered we stopped at the church that day and when he traced our footsteps, he went there and found it. He also faced Max’s brother. He didn’t say what happened but it must have been bad.”
“Go on. Finish your story,” Jolene urged.
“Just before he brought me back, he came to me. He told me he’d been following me for a while. He said he had a job to do but he just couldn’t hurt me. Instead he kissed me,” she admitted. Then she got a half smile on her face. “He kissed me and we couldn’t help it. We couldn’t stop at just a kiss. I kept pushing him for more. He told me he couldn’t…that I was an innocent. I don’t know how I did it but I got him to love me. He said he would cherish it all the days of his life and that he would be dammed for it too.” She paused then added, “I’ve never felt anything like that before, and I know I never will again, not from anyone but him.”
Jolene smiled as if she remembered that feeling. “You fell in love with him didn’t you?”
Sawyer nodded. “I did but now, I have to wonder if any of it was real? Or was it all my imagination?”
Jolene sighed heavily. “I’m so sorry.”
Sawyer turned to her mother and frowned. “Sorry about what?”
Jolene looked away. “I’m sorry you didn’t have a good life. It was my fault. We should have had a better life but every time we got a little bit ahead, Max stepped up and took that away from us. If I had given in to him, maybe we could have had a better life.”
“Don’t you even think that!” Sawyer told her mother angrily. “If you have given in to that horrible man, our l
ives would have been shit and you know it. He would have used us both or separated us. He would have beaten me and Jordan and broken you. He would have given me to Micah and that would have been worse than death. You were the strongest woman I ever knew. You told him no each and every time he came around. You gave me the courage to tell Micah to go to hell. That brought Calico back into our lives and that was a very good thing.”
“I just didn’t want you to regret that,” Jolene admitted. “I love that man with every breath I take but what I want isn’t what you want is it?”
Sawyer shook her head. “No it isn’t. But I can’t have what I want. When I look at you and Calico together again after being apart for so long, I can see the love the two of you still share and I want that kind of love. I want the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. But I know I won’t ever see him again. He told me he had to protect who he really was. He told me he couldn’t afford ties to anyone else for their own safety.” She shrugged. “So I guess what happened those three days between us…is all I’ll ever get.” Then she smiled and rubbed her belly. “But it was so worth it. I’ve never had that feeling before and I know I never will again with anyone else.”
Jolene smiled. “That’s love baby. That’s what it feels like to love someone.”
“Then my child was conceived in love,” Sawyer told her mother. “And I will love him like I loved his father.”
Chapter Two
Bastian sat alone in the dark. The lights from his communication center gave off a pale blue glow from the monitors but otherwise, he was in the dark.
He fought it but he knew he would lose again, he allowed the sweet memory in…
“Please? Please make love to me,” Sawyer pleaded. Bastian let out the breath he’d been holding, as he couldn’t believe this woman was saying what she was. “I don’t want you forced or to feel like you need to bargain for your life by—?”
