Thrash (Rebel Riders MC Book 1) Read online

  “I’ve got to get her home somehow,” I say.

  There’s not much she can do to stop Daisy from riding with me and if the woman wants to have a little bit of fun and a joyride, who am I to stop her? I’m just glad I’ve been keeping a spare helmet with me, ever since I met Alice.

  Paige finally nods, but she does not look happy about it. “Drive really slow, ok?”

  I step closer to Daisy and she slips her arm around me. For support, I’m sure. “Come on, Daisy, let me take you home.”

  I guide her to my bike and help her up. As I get into position and fire the engine to life, she leans in to my ear.

  “Don’t be afraid to push the engine, dear. I like it fast.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alice

  My cell crows at me from my purse as I fight my way through the last vestiges of LA’s traffic. Smog taints the horizon and heat shimmers off the pavement as I slowly snake my way out of the city. It’s only a couple hours to home, now.

  I answer.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Hammer.”

  “What do you want?” I say, irritable enough that I forget just who I’m talking to and let some of my annoyance show in my voice.

  “When you get to Crescent Falls, don’t take the car to the auto yard.”

  “Why not?”

  “There isn’t time and my regular driver is out. You need to bring the car directly to me. Got it?”

  “Is there something I need to know?”

  “Yeah. You drive where I tell you. Don’t disappoint me, Ms. Alice. I like you, but you are still very much disposable. When you get to Crescent Falls, get onto the road to Azul Bay. About halfway to the ocean, near mile marker 42, there will be a turnoff marked ‘Forestry Access Only’. Take it. Follow that road until you get to the machine shop. You’ll know when to stop.”

  He hangs up.

  I follow his instructions to the letter.

  My heartbeat is hyperactive the entire way. I can’t get the tone of Hammer’s voice out of my head — lethal, serious, menacing. Something has him rattled and I need to be very careful, or I’ll soon find myself at best unemployed and at worst… I don’t want to think about that.

  I find the forest road without any problem. The drive is familiar — this is the same road that Thrash took me down on our way to picnic by the beach. An empty expanse of asphalt, filled with trees and moss and wildlife.

  We cruised these roads together and I held on to him for dear life while he tested the speedometer’s upper limits and I felt free. I try to recall that feeling and summon up that courage as I take the turnoff onto a worn dirt road, overgrown with weeds and darkened by the forest canopy.

  At the end of the road, I get out of the car at the appointed place. Quiet, obedient, remembering that, at the moment, I am just a disposable cog in a very deadly machine.

  Hammer’s waiting there with Lucky and a few of the club members that I recognize from the bar but can’t place a name to. They’re armed, they’re wearing their cuts, and they’re not alone.

  Standing a wary distance from the Reaper’s Sons is a trio of men in suits, dressed to kill and armed to the teeth. Their pale skin and generally dour expressions tell me they’re probably Russian or Eastern European. The automatic, military-looking weapons and the look on their faces tells me they’re aching to have an excuse to kill someone.

  Nobody speaks as I step out of the car. Hammer simply gestures to Lucky, who comes forward and motions for me to follow him.

  I trail behind him to his bike and he hands me a helmet.

  We drive back to town and, it’s not until we’re safely in front of The Smiling Skull that he breaks his silence with three words: “Tell no one.”

  Those words linger as I start my car and sit, engine running, in the parking lot.

  My future with the Reaper’s Sons has just gotten a little darker. I’ve seen things I wasn’t meant to see, I’ve been given a peek behind the curtain and I’ve become further enmeshed their dark little part of the underworld.

  I pick up my phone and dial the only person I feel like I can talk to. The only one who makes me feel safe and self-assured despite the mess that my life is. Thrash.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “What’s wrong? Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure? You don’t sound fine.”

  “I said I’m fine. Where’s mom?”

  “Daisy and I are at her home. She’s doing pretty well. We’re watching Jeopardy and having some brownies.”

  My eyebrows rise a little. I can’t remember the last time my mom has actually snacked. “I’ll be right there.”

  Back at home, I step into a living room filled with a pungent and unmistakably herbal smell. My mother is stretched out on the couch, relaxing, with a bowl of pita chips cradled between her legs and a small container of hummus by her side. There’s a plate of brownies on the coffee table. She and Thrash both look supremely content, and bat questions and answers back and forth with Alex Trebek.

  “Welcome home,” Thrash says, catching sight of me standing, gawking, in the entryway to the living room.

  “Oh, hi, honey, how was your business trip?” My mom says.

  I don’t even need to get close to tell that she’s high. Very high.

  “What did you do to my mom?” I say, glaring at Thrash.

  “I’m just helping her relax,” he says. “We got back from the clinic and she was having some pretty serious nausea. Paige said it’s important for her recovery that she makes her calorie counts and actually eats, so, I came up with a solution.”

  “You got my mom high. That’s your solution?” I say. “Get out. Now.”

  Thrash smiles and puts his hands up. “Fine, fine. Goodbye, Alice. And good night, Daisy.”

  He doesn’t fight it — thankfully — and quietly heads out the door. I take a seat next to my mom and put my arm around her.

  “Are you ok?”

  “I’m doing very well, dear. I’m feeling so much better. You have no idea how nice it is to actually be able to eat something.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there for you, mom.”

  “Oh, it was fine. Your boyfriend really is quite sweet.”

  “He’s just a friend, mom.”

  “Well, it was really nice to meet him. He took great care of me, and it was nice to have a handsome man like him to lean against. He’s so warm. You really are too hard on him.”

  “I’m sorry he got you high, mom.”

  “Please, I asked him to. I was feeling so nauseous when I got home, I couldn’t even keep down a glass of water. We got to talking about ways to help, and I don’t remember who brought it up first, but we got to talking about marijuana and I said I wanted to try it but I didn’t want to smoke. So, he went to the grocery store and got some brownie mix and we infused some oil and we did some baking together. It was a lot of fun, dear.”

  “I’m just glad you’re feeling better.”

  “You know, you should go easier on him. He might not look like it, but Jake is a good man.”

  “Jake?” I say. Is that his real name?

  “Or Thrash. Whatever you want to call him. He really helped me, and I’d appreciate it if you could give him some credit. Now, hush, the commercials are about over and they’re about to start Final Jeopardy.”

  I sit back next to her, but I can’t focus on the TV.

  I’ve misjudged him. And my mom is right, I was way too harsh on him. I really should apologize. I reach for my phone, but then I realize I haven’t heard that roar of his motorcycle starting.

  Is he still out there?

  “I’ll be right back,” I say to my mom, and she just gives me a dismissive wave telling me to keep quiet.

  I run for the door.

  I throw it open.

  He’s there. In the driveway. In leather, with his helmet in his hand and a smile on his face, the whites of his teeth shining in the light of the rising moon. H
e knew I’d come.

  I run to him.

  I try to think of what to say. How to tell him that I’m an asshole for yelling at him, that I appreciate everything he’s done for me, that he really was wonderful with my mom and that I’m grateful that, for the first time in so long, she’s doing well the day she’s had a treatment.

  I think and I think as I run that short distance to him, but no words seem adequate.

  I stop in front of him. He’s still smiling, leaning there against his bike like he knew that this is how it’d all work out.

  And it’s while I’m standing there that I realize that I how so much to thank him for, beyond helping my mom actually feel better for once. He’s helped me out in so many ways — in the business with the club, and now with my mom — that it’s not just enough to say ‘Thank you’.

  So I kiss him.

  My lips catch fire as they touch his and a shiver subsumes me that is both electric and incendiary, something that lights me on the inside and makes my body flush with heat. A rumble, deep and pleasant, comes from him as he kisses me back and our hands explore one another in this perfect moment on a chill California evening.

  Breathless, I break the kiss and bring my lips to his ear.

  “Thrash, I think I love you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Thrash

  Now I know what a lightning strike feels like.

  It comes to me in those few words that are whispered as loud as thunder: ‘I think I love you.’

  They catch me off guard in their sincerity. And in the echo I hear inside myself, that I just might feel the same about her.

  I learned something today, in spending time with Alice’s mother — that even though she’s struggling in so many ways, she’s got so much going for her and she’s got this connection to her mother that is something that I wish I had in my own life.

  This was supposed to be just a business relationship, a little bit of fun and a whole hell of a lot of cash at the end, but now, I’m starting to feel something more. Something real.

  Alice has the kind of familial connections I’ve lacked all my life. Something that I want for myself. Something I need for myself.

  She brings it out in me, a side of myself and a feeling that I never thought I had.

  Alice stares at me with eyes that could swallow me whole, and I can’t help but open my fool mouth.

  “I think I love you, too,” I say.

  She kisses me again, fiercer and more self-confident this time, and my cock springs painfully hard. What I wouldn’t give for us to have some place to be alone.

  “You need to get back to your mom,” I say. “Daisy might be feeling better right now, but she’s still really weak and shouldn’t be left alone. She’s also really fucking high.”

  “Daisy?”

  “That’s what she told me to call her. Margaret is ‘Marguerite’ in French, and it means ‘Daisy’. She said that’s what the boys called her when she was younger.”

  “Holy fuck, was my mom hitting on you?”

  “A bit, yeah.”

  It was more than a bit of flirting, but it was all in fun. It was gratifying to see her really come alive and laugh after all that she’s been through.

  “Did she do anything else?”

  I grin. It’s cute as hell seeing Alice get both angry and jealous at the same time.

  “She grabbed my ass in the checkout line at the grocery store,” I say, watching with delight as Alice’s eyes flare. “She tried to play it off as an accident, but I wised up to it around the fifth time.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. She’s going through a lot and didn’t do me any harm. Your mom’s a hell of a lot of fun.”

  I get another grateful kiss from her that ends much too soon.

  “I have to get back to her,” she says. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Ms. Alice.”

  I watch her leave. Even by moonlight, her ass is incredible; curves that ruin my resistance. And she knows how to use them.

  I smile the whole fucking ride home.

  I’ve found something special in her. And when this whole affair with the Reaper’s Sons is done, and we’ve reaped the rewards of upending their drug business, I’m going to ask her to stick around and make her my old lady.

  At home, after taking an ice cold beer from the fridge, I sit down on my couch and flip on the TV. There isn’t much to watch, but I’m hardly paying attention anyways, beyond listening to the background noise and bathing in the glow. My mind’s stuck on her, how she makes me feel, and how intimidating it is to actually feel this way about a woman.

  Until her, they’ve been disposable. Names hardly worth remembering since I know they’ll be gone in the morning and I’ll be back to my life with the club.

  But she is memorable.

  I finish a few beers thinking about her. I dwell on the nervousness that stirs within me when I think about the fact that I’ve never felt this way about someone, that I need to keep her in mind at each step.

  A loud knock at the door jolts me with so much surprise I nearly spill my beer twice — once as I start up from the couch, and a second time as I pull my gun and head to the door.

  I’m not expecting any visitors.

  Anyone from the club would know to call me, first.

  Reaper’s Sons?

  Have they caught on to what Creole, Riot, and I have been doing?

  With my finger on the trigger, I open the door, ready to kill.

  Smiling eyes, a devilish grin, and a body to kill for greet me on the other side of the doorway. Alice. She’s got her hands held behind her back in a way that makes her tits stand out even more on her chest. She’s fucking perfect.

  “Holy shit, is this a bad time?” She says, staring at the pistol in my hands.

  I quickly put the gun away.

  “No. I just didn’t think it would be you. I thought you’d do the normal thing and call.”

  “Since when do you care about normal?” She says, that smile back on her face, right where it should be. “Besides, I wanted to bring you a surprise.”

  She pulls her hands from behind her back. There’s a small box, wrapped in wrapping paper that says ‘Happy Birthday’.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s not a sexy present, but it is a little something that I put together for you to open when we finally pull off whatever the hell it is you’re planning. And, before you ask, I know it’s not your birthday, but it’s the only wrapping paper I had.”

  I take the present, dumbfounded by her kindness. “Thanks.”

  “I also wanted to give you this-” She leaps forward, wrapping her arms around me and planting her lips to mine and pushing me back through the doorway. With her back foot, she kicks it closed.

  I lock my hands beneath her ass and carry her down the hallway into my living room. She kisses me the entire time and my tongue darts into her mouth, tasting her sweetness.

  A breathless gasp bursts from her lips as I throw her back on my couch and pounce on her, my fingertips sliding underneath the waistband of her jeans and working towards the center, where I pop the buttons free and tear the zipper down. One pull, and they’re off and in a heap on the floor behind me.

  “You don’t waste time, do you?” She says, smiling playfully.

  “Not when I know what I want. I’ve been hard since you kissed me earlier.”

  “You know, if you have an erection that lasts that long, you’re supposed to go to the emergency room.”

  “Thanks for the tip, genius,” I retort.

  She opens her mouth to say something else, but I decide to shut her up; my lips meet her pussy and a brush of my tongue turns her smartass comment into a moan. Much better.

  Her pussy tastes so sweet and the heady scent of her arousal overtakes me and makes my cock pulse with a painfully-hard erection.

  I run my tongue all over her pussy, working in slow circles inward until her clit is full and ready for me
and her hips are moving and grinding her mound against my face with urgent need. I chuckle to myself as I wrap my lips around her most sensitive spot and suck it just slightly, while I flicker my tongue against it in a rhythm that starts slow and builds, rising faster and faster until Alice is a moaning, shivering mess, clutching at my head with her hands and begging me to keep going.

  I love the sight of her when she breaks. When she loses total control and all she can do is quake and twitch while every nerve in her body goes haywire.

  It’s fucking beautiful.

  “My turn,” she says, when the rise and fall of her chest calms and the blush begins to recede from her cheeks.

  There’s a wicked look in her eyes and she surges forward, planting both hands on my chest and pushing me backwards. I hit my carpeted floor and land flat on my back.

  She’s on me in a second, like a predator pouncing on prey.

  “You kept this from me last time. But not now. I’m riding you.”

  How did I get so lucky to have a piece of ass like her fall into my lap?

  My thoughts die for a moment as she lowers herself onto me and all I can feel is how tight and wet and warm she is.

  Heaven is being inside Alice Riley.

  She has this far-away look on her face while she rides me, her eyes half-closed and her lips set in determination, her hips moving in rhythm with mine. It’s beautiful.

  I grab her ass, enjoying the delectable soft roundness of her as she rides and grinds on top of me. My cock feels primed to explode just being inside her tight cunt.

  “You are fucking unreal,” I whisper.

  “Don’t say anything, Lloyd,” she says, in a voice that’s half laugh and half growl.

  “Did you just reference…”

  “Shh,” she says, putting her finger to her lips.

  She pauses, lifting her hips off me just enough that my cock is barely inside her. It’s agony. It shuts me up.

  “I’m almost there,” she says as an explanation.

  Alice lowers herself down again, restarting the rhythm of our bodies. Everything is heat and motion, tightness and moans, while she swivels and grinds on top of my cock, using my stiffness to hit just the right spot inside of her that’ll push over the edge again.