by Jayne Blue
“Dex,” I started. “You know how much I love Tora.”
He took a swig of his beer and fingered the label. “Yes.”
“I know we didn’t get off to the greatest start and I understand some of the reservations you have about me. But I do love your daughter and I’ve asked her to marry me.”
Dex looked up at the stars. “You’re right. I do have reservations. Lots of them. You told me you’d do anything to protect her and I watched you make good on that one when you took a bullet for her. You may not be my first choice for her, but if you plan to keep that promise, I suppose that’s all a man can ask for where his daughter is concerned.”
I nodded. “You have my word.”
Tora came back outside. The moonlight shadowed her in blue. She slipped her hands around Dex’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. No doubt she’d heard everything we said to each other.
“Thank you, Dad,” she said. “Can I count on you to walk me down the aisle?”
Dex patted his daughter’s hand and even in the dim light, I could see the corners of his eyes glisten. That would be a moment Dex McLain had never thought he’d get to experience.
“Don’t you think it’s too soon though?” he said. “Don’t you want your own future?”
Tora kissed the top of Dex’s head and shot me another wink. “Dad, I think we all know how important it is to seize happiness when and where you can find it. You never know what might be coming around the corner.”
Dex sighed. He couldn’t argue her point.
“Plus,” she said. “My life doesn’t end when I become Mrs. Jack Manning.”
God, I liked the sound of that. She stepped around Dex and sat on my lap. I ran my hand along the small of her back.
“I was thinking maybe I’d reapply to law school. What do you think about that?” She directed her question to me as much as Dex.
I smiled. “Baby, I’ll follow you anywhere.”
“I talked to Grace Flynn and she thinks there might be an internship opening up with the Justice Project. I think I’d like to talk to her more about that.”
It seemed a perfect fit. That was one of the things I loved best about her. Every day, I found something new to marvel at. Dex’s eyes widened and I knew she impressed him too.
“As long as you promise to keep your nose out of George Pagano’s business,” Dex said though I had been thinking it too. It looked more and more like George Pagano might get away with what he’d done to him.
Tora bristled in my lap. I knew what she was thinking. She wanted to get the same promise from her father. She looked away but I didn’t. Something flashed in Dex McLain’s eyes and I knew he wasn’t the kind of man who could let something like thirteen years of his freedom slide. In his own time, on his own terms, he would go after George Pagano. But for now, Tora and I couldn’t go on that journey with him. She had suffered enough at the hands of Pagano and I worried about the Burnetts too. I knew on this, where Dex went next, Tora and I might not be able to follow. For now though, we found an easy peace and I knew he was the type of man whose respect I’d like to keep earning.
“How long are you two planning on staying in town?” Dex nimbly changed the subject before Tora caught his eyes and saw the look I did.
“A few weeks, maybe,” I said as I rubbed Tora’s back. “It turns out Seth didn’t leave a will and since his marriage to Tora wasn’t legally valid, that leaves me his next of kin.”
Dex whistled. “So after all that you end up with all of Miranda’s stuff?”
Tora reached down and kissed me. “Most of it belonged to Jack’s father anyway,” she said. “You finally got your father’s software patents in the end.”
I nodded. It felt like a hollow victory, but now I could work on rehabilitating my father’s legacy in a way I knew would make him proud.
“Congratulations,” Dex said and I knew his sentiment was genuine and not just about my inheritance.
I reached out and shook his hand. He got up and excused himself, leaving me alone with Tora in the moonlight.
“I love you,” she said. She looked over my shoulder, watching as the Kurtz’s back door shut behind her father.
I slid my hand up her thigh and pulled her down into a deep, slow kiss. She let out that low, sultry sigh that set my blood on fire.
“I need to get you out of here, fast,” I said. She laughed and ran her hands along my shoulders. “God. I don’t think I can wait the forty minutes it’s gonna take to get back across town so I can get you alone.”
Tora looked up. “Hmm. How far are we away from Reed and Margie’s?”
“Less than ten minutes if we take the side streets.”
Tora slid her hand under the hem of my shirt and snaked her fingers across my chest, raising goose bumps and other things lower down. “You think they’d hear us if we snuck back to the tree house?” Tora wiggled her eyebrow up and down and if we were anywhere else, I would have had her on the ground right then and there.
Instead, I gave her a playful swat on the ass. “Race you to the car.”
When Tora leaned down to kiss me again, I gathered her in my arms and knew I’d never let her go.
###
Epilogue
Dex
Goodbye wasn’t the hardest thing to say. Not anymore. It didn’t have the same meaning. Goodbye didn’t mean steel bars closing behind my back, keeping me from the people I loved. No. Goodbye just meant for now.
Tora came into my arms as I straddled my Harley. I kissed the top of her head and she smiled up at me.
“Two weeks,” she said. “That’s all you get and then I’m sending a posse out to bring you back here.”
I smoothed an errant hair out of her face. She was a McLain through and through, my girl, with her jet black hair, shining green eyes and that rebel streak that got her into as much trouble as it did me. I kissed her head again and revved the engine. She stepped back into the waiting arms of her soon-to-be husband.
Jack wrapped his arms around Tora as she leaned against his chest. He locked eyes with me and gave me a slight jerk of his chin. We were men, nothing more needed to be said between us. I could do this. He’d proven he was willing to die for her just as I was. I could leave her with him for now.
At my insistence, Charlie headed out to Sacramento a few days ago. He wanted to wait but I needed to ride alone. Clear my head. Decide what comes next.
As I finally hit I-80 and the endless open road, I felt something shift inside me on almost a cellular level. Freedom. It came from all sides as I breathed in the warm air, the wind whipping my against my shirt, my face, the smell of exhaust filling my nostrils.
Thirteen years. Rage. Anger. Loss of hope. Despair. I was supposed to push all of that aside now. How could I? How could anyone? Thirteen years and my little girl grew into a beautiful, fierce woman forged by the battles she had to fight all on her own. But she did. She survived. She was whole.
But Tora wasn’t the only one I had to leave behind. My heart clenched at the thought of the other angel in my life.
Ava.
The woman who consumed my thoughts for so many years. She was the face I saw in the dark night after night. She filled my dreams and made my body ache with desire I knew I could never quench. What battles had she been left to fight alone while I rotted in that cage for thirteen years? Fighting to protect her is what landed me behind bars all those years ago even though a deeper betrayal is what had kept me there.
I should just let her go. Whatever she’d done to survive after all these years, she’d had no choice. Neither had I. I should turn the bike around and go back to my daughter and her waiting arms. Take the easier road. I was selfish. Ava was too strong not to have moved on without me. Wherever she was, whatever she’d done, she’d earned the right to it without me storming in to turn it all upside down again.
But this wasn’t over. I could sense it. Evil hung in the air waiting to land on me and those I loved once again. And now I knew it by name.
George Pagano. He would wait. He would bide his time. His reach was long. He’d already snaked his arms around Tora once. It wouldn’t happen again. Only I knew how to make sure of it.
With every mile something else took root inside me. Took root and grew along with thirteen years of stored rage. George Pagano had taken the last thing he would ever take from me. Too many people I loved had been left to fight without me there because of him. I couldn’t let that slide. I would kill for them if it came to it.
I pressed the throttle and chased the sunset. The bike roared between my legs. I would kill for them if it came to it. As the sun dipped below the horizon, I knew it would come to that. Soon.
And you can be damn sure I’ll be ready.
To Be Continued in
DEX
(Book 1 of the Great Wolves M.C. Series)
by Jayne Blue
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A Message from Jayne Blue
Thank you so much for taking Jack and Tora’s journey with me. It was my pleasure to share it with you. While their story has come to an end, Dex McLain’s story is just beginning. Dex has a score to settle and unfinished business with the woman he left behind. Pick up your copy of Dex today!
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Books by Jayne Blue
Torrid Trilogy
Book One
Book Two
Book Three
Call Girl, Inc. Series
The Offer(FREE!) (featuring Jack Manning before “Torrid”)
The Mogul
The Candidate
The Spy
The Prince
The G-Man
Great Wolves Motorcycle Club Series (Biker Romance)
Dex (featuring Tora’s father from the Torrid Series)
Sly
Colt
Kellan
Brax
Sawyer
MMA Fighter Romance Series
Hold Trilogy
Ride Trilogy
The Marilyn Job
Episode One (FREE)
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The Complete Series
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The Rookie Reporter
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