When she turns her gaze on me, I feel it right down to my soul. She watches me for a moment, as if I’m a stranger. I guess I am. It’s been almost five years since we’ve been in the same room.
She’ll be twenty-one soon, August fifth is her birthday. I remember wanting to call, to pick up the phone each year and ask her how she’s doing, but I was afraid of the fallout.
“Why are you here?” She finally questions as she lifts the cup to her lips. My gaze is riveted by the way her lips sip the hot liquid. Just like her Daddy, she loves the dark roast of Colombian coffee. She doesn’t take sugar, and she’s lactose intolerant, so no milk.
Nothing like her mother.
“I had to see you.”
“It took you four years to find me?” Her snark and sass makes me smile. She’s always had the ability to make my day brighter by just offering me a grin or wrapping her arms around my middle and giving me the tightest hug until I had to pry her from me.
“I knew where you were, I kept an eye on you,” I admit, lowering my gaze, waiting for her to lose her shit. If she’s anything like me, she will. Her fire burns like an inferno taking out a forest in one go. It’s one of the many things I love about her.
“So you send me away, then stalk me?” Her incredulous tone is warranted. I did push her away and I paid for it. “I loved you, Dad and you acted as if I had the plague.” The hurt in her voice smacks me right in the chest. I caused her pain when all I wanted was for her to move on, to finish her studies and find a career for herself, and one day find a nice young man and get married, have kids. Not be stuck with a goddamned old biker who’s no good for her.
“I shouldn’t have pushed you away, but I wanted you safe.”
“And I wasn’t safe with you?” She asks in shock.
I finally lift my gaze to look at her, to really take her in. There’s still a hint of pain, of hurt, in her pretty eyes. Those same eyes that used to stare up at me in wonderment.
“You’re always safe with me, but things got complicated,” I tell her honestly. I can’t lie to her anymore. I have to admit that my feelings had grown. They were wrong, forbidden, even that would be an understatement. “For years I was happy, raising my beautiful daughter, being the man in her life, the one she always looked up to.”
“But then you got bored?” Her question jolts me.
How on earth could she think that?
“No,” I respond, my brows furrowed in confusion at her words. “I love you. I could never be bored giving you a life that’s safe and happy.”
“Then why send me to mom? She hates me. It was a nightmare living in that house with her. The only thing she cared about was getting her rocks off,” Rylee confesses.
“I made a mistake,” I admit with a nod. “There was more to it than just sending you away, I needed space from…” My words filter off into nothing. Silence is our friend for a while as we both stare at each other.
“Can I get you anything else?” The waitress breaks the standoff, and I turn to her, nodding as I hand her an empty coffee cup.
“Another one of these for me,” I smile, hoping it doesn’t look like I’m sitting here on a coffee date with my daughter. I turn to Rylee. “Did you want anything else?”
“A bagel with cream cheese and cucumber,” my blonde beauty smiles up at the waitress who jots down the order and disappears once more, leaving us with the heavy tension that’s threatening to break me apart.
“I need you in my life, Ry,” I tell her finally. “I was afraid of my feelings for you. They became…”
“More?” She offers. “You looked at me like a woman,” she says nonchalantly. “I looked at you like a man.” Her confession has my dick jolting. Fuck. “I was old enough to know desire when I saw it. And I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I don’t want to leave again.”
“I don’t want you to leave, but this is… it’s dangerous, Ry. I love you so much, and hurting you—”
“You already hurt me, when you sent me away. If you walk out that door again, I’ll never be able to survive without you Dad,” she says, reaching for my hand. The contact sizzles with electric desire which courses through my body. I’m alight with need, with want. “You’re my hero, my knight in leather armor. I want to be yours.”
“Your mother—“
“Doesn’t give a shit.” She interrupts, cursing when she sits back, her hand not leaving mine, and I twine my fingers through hers, needing the connection. Even though it’s not the intimate one I crave, it’s the one I can offer her in public.
The small town I found her in is only an hour from the clubhouse in Arizona, and when I told Jackal I was coming out here, I have a feeling he knew why. Of all the men I trust with my life, he was more like a father figure, even though he’s only a few years older than me.
“You want to be my old lady?” I ask, my brow quirking in question. The waitress appears with the bagel, my coffee, and the check. Once she’s gone, I watch Rylee, waiting for her to respond.
“Do I get to hang out at the club?”
I don’t like it. Her being around all those assholes, but they’re my family, and so is she. It’s time the two coincided. “Yeah,” I mutter. “But you’re going to go to work, not sit around with the club whores drinking all day.”