Hard Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 1) (3 page)

She had a business idea (and she had dozens of business ideas) of opening a small shop for young women to let them learn how to do all the stuff that was normally relegated to boys. An hour would buy them time with knots. Two hours would fit in basic auto maintenance. Three hours would go on to cover power tools, and so on.

Such a venture was borne, like much of her obsession with getting enough money to never go back to her home town again, from her need to be away from her father for a good long time. Maybe forever.

For four years now, she had been independent of her father’s prying ways. After graduating high school, she set up base in Austin, where she studied English and Philosophy at the University of Texas. Her grades were good; the university had paid for everything.

Now she was returning to Marlowe dead broke, fresh from a break-up, none of her internships or interviews panning out into a job, tail already between her legs—and now, of course, she would have to call her dad to come pick her up and save her skin. An inauspicious beginning for someone hoping to break free of her parents forever.

June's mother had been exultant when she heard the news of her only daughter's return the day before when June made the call.

“That's wonderful! Your room is just as you left it. And, oh!” June could hear her rustling around on her desk in the kitchen. “I'll call Paxton and let him know. Did you know he's single? Son of the
mayor
and he's single, isn't that a shocker?”

“Oh god, Mom...” the thought of dealing with that white bread cowboy sent a small shiver of revulsion through her. “No. Don't even start.”

Her mother quickly changed the subject, but all the same, June was fairly certain Paxton Prince was going to be expecting a date by the time she got home.

She had not missed her mother very much, though more than she did her father. There was a lot about West Texas she had not missed, though it brought on a strange sense of nostalgia to see it about her now—the cactus patches on the side of the road, the deep brown flatness of the land, the long winding sky that went on past the curve of the horizon, wind mill farms positioned every few dozen miles and swallowing up the sky with their long rotating blades.

It was familiar and friendly, yes, but that her mother expected her to want to settle down
here
forever was a bit beyond June's comprehension. It would be like settling on the moon.

After breaking up with Simon, June wasn't entirely sold on the idea on another relationship for a while.

It wasn't that Simon had been awful. It might have been better if he was—then at least June would have a negative picture of everything she
didn't
want in a relationship. But Simon was nice, caring, attentive, and cute—June just didn't
feel
anything for him. The conversation of their break-up felt more like she was changing her checking account than changing her life.

Worst of all, Simon seemed to feel the same way. Leaving June wasn't anything to get excited about for him.

Her life felt devoid of passion—and if she couldn't get that passion from a guy who was on-paper as perfect as Simon, trying again felt like another long series of disappointments already.

Especially with Paxton. Ick.

June's car continued to smoke and she pulled up into the diner. She thought she could see flames flying out from the hood. But she did not panic; panic got a person nowhere.

At school, some of her friends had called her the Icewoman. She wasn't an Ice Queen, that was for sure—she liked boys too much, and up until two months ago she'd had a regular boyfriend besides. But she could still be the Icewoman—the one who took a shovel to the snakes that slithered onto their driveway, or who cleared out the over-sized spiders that landed in their bathroom.

Once she had forgotten to write a history essay, only finding out during class that it was due that day. She rushed back to her dorm, wrote the essay, and turned it in before class was over. The professor gave her an A. June had a way with words.

When the car was safely out of the highway and into the diner parking lot, she stepped outside with a fire extinguisher in hand. The day was hot—hotter than it was supposed to be, even, pushing easily past a hundred and five. It was a dry heat and she could feel the moisture suck from her skin like she had walked under a giant vacuum.

Quickly she had the hood covered in the CO2 mess spewing from the extinguisher. She breathed hard, her knees feeling a bit weak, but her actions were all nerves. From the trunk with all her things, she gathered up a rag and popped the hood. Heat and smoke powered up into her face, forcing her to step back. She sprayed the extinguisher again, knowing that probably it was doing something awful to the insides of her car.

That was okay though. Just so long as it all stopped burning.

After a few minutes the smoke cleared. The soupy sludge of the extinguisher hissed and chattered as it slipped down the engine chassis. She didn’t know a lot about cars, but it looked like something metal had melted. She knew enough to know that was bad.

Her guess was the radiator, overheated from the day. Her father used to always prescribe driving during the hot Marlowe summers with an extra tank or two of water in the back. It had come in handy more than once for him. She had forgotten such things—had tried to forget a lot about her life in Marlowe. It was not a friendly place for her.

A heavy-duty motorcycle pulled off the road just behind June and its rider walked toward her now.

June had to stop and watch him approach. He was that sort of man. Tall, heavily built. He wore a tight black t-shirt, practically painted to the heavily chiseled body underneath. Long sexy lines and delicate shapes of ink decorated the steel-hard skin of his arms.

She watched his pectorals shift, feeling something akin to hypnosis. A beard, dark and thick, was cut close under his chin. His gaze stared a hole right at June, and suddenly she felt under-dressed and over-dressed, both.

Under-dressed, because that kind of gaze made her feel close to naked. And over-dressed, because that kind of gaze from that kind of man made her
want
to get naked. He was like sex incarnate, and she wasn't sure if she could even survive a round with him in the bed.

And part of her desperately wanted to find out.

Her hair was long and chestnut and she pushed it to one side as he approached, suddenly not sure of how to approach the use of that fleshy thing between her teeth.

A tongue, was that what it was called? Words failed her, suddenly ending an alliance forged years and years ago when she'd picked up her first book of poetry at a swap meet.

“Radiator’s shot,” he said, taking a cursory look at the damage. “That’s what you get for picking a foreign car.”

She tried to compose herself and say something smart. “Who shoots a radiator?”

Oh, yes, June. Very smart. Let him think you’re an idiot, let him put his guard down.

He smiled, though, and took a long look at her, up and down. Appreciative, making a clear judgment in his head. There was a leather jacket vest in his hands, dark white and red patches on its surface. She couldn’t make any of them out.

June found herself vainly hoping he liked what he saw. It was stupid—
idiotic
, really—she was a woman with a personality and a goddamn college degree. She was more than a long pair of legs in tight jeans and a pair of breasts in a slender shirt, more than a piece of meat. But there was something about this man’s vibe, something about his
scent
, that made her kind of
want
to be seen as a piece of meat.

“I meant it got over-exerted. Probably from—”

“From the heat, I know. I was joking. I’d been driving for six hours and hadn’t stopped. It’s my own fault.” Her clumsy reticence was quickly being replaced with clumsy babbling. “I should have brought some water, but there wasn’t room in the car with everything else. It’s my whole life in there, you know, and I just—well. I’m trying to set up in Marlowe for awhile, and I couldn’t leave anything behind, so—”

“Marlowe?” he smiled. “Hell, that’s where I’m from, too. My name is Ram.”

He held out a hand. It was big and covered in callouses, near twice the size of June’s. She took it, gripping firmly. June had spent a lot of time practicing her handshake on frat boys in Austin and she knew her handshake was easily their equal.

It didn’t seem like it would be Ram’s equal—but then, he didn’t try to squeeze her fingers off like those idiots in Austin did.

“June,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you. Ram?”

He chuckled. “You don’t know anyone else named Ram, I take it.”

“Do you?”

“It’s a sort of a nickname. I’ll tell you about it some time.”

She smiled, cocking her hip just slightly. “Oh yeah? How’s that? You gonna follow me home?”

“Maybe. You’re gonna need a ride.” He pointed to his truck. “I can help you out, if you want. I make it a point to help out folks who need it, especially in Marlowe.”

“We’re not in Marlowe.”

He shrugged. “No, but you’re from there. You want my help or not?”

Not a man who wanted his time wasted. She licked her lips just slightly, imagining herself in the truck with this man. Wondering where his hands might wander. He didn’t seem like a man who heard “no” very often...or at all. Not the sort of man who paid attention if he
did
hear it. The kind of man who always
knew best
...and could back it up.

Her heart fluttered.

“Thank you,” she said, “but no. I have family I can call. They’ll want to see me anyway. I haven’t been with them for quite some time.”

He smiled. “I’ll see you around, then, June. I’ll see you real soon.”

It almost sounded like a threat, coming from him. But if it was a threat, then why was her heart beating so fast—and why did she watch his large frame so intently as he walked inside the diner?

––––––––

O
ut of the heat and in the diner, Ram put his colors back on. After the brawl and the shootout last night, there was bound to be a hell of a lot of heat on the Wrecking Crew, and as much as he loved his club, he wasn't stupid enough to ask to be pulled over.

The design of the vest was simple; a wrecking ball on a field of fire. “Wrecking Crew” on top with “Marlowe” on the rocker.

He had meant to put it on the second he got off the road. When a brother walked around, he was supposed to wear his colors no matter what. The girl had distracted him.

Goddamn, she was a classic beauty. His dick was still pulsing, threatening to get harder and harder, just remembering the tight curves of her body, that white shirt she was wearing plastered against her breasts from sweat.

For all he knew, she was the reason the day felt so damn hot.

He didn't give a damn if she was single or not, he was going to make her his business. There was no way someone like her would shack up with him for long—too clean cut, too goody-goody. Probably a college girl, to hear her talk.

But goddamn, those
legs
. She was a vision, standing over that steaming car. He’d had trouble not pouncing on her then and there.

The diner was the standard roadside fare. Vinyl seats, uncomfortable stools at a counter with their cushioning seeping through cracks, an A/C unit at each end blowing with small ribbons tied to the vent. It was not heavily populated: a few truckers sat at the counter, half of their thick butts hanging off the sides of the stool as they downed greasy burgers and fries.

In the back of the diner were the party he had come to meet. Four men, his brothers, all representatives from the Wrecking Crew.

The sight of them pushed the image of the tempting June from his mind and brought his mind around to more serious affairs.

The Hammerin' Nail
. Beretta. A war with the Black Flags.

As much lust as he felt in himself building for June—and after so short a time—that passion had a long way to go if it wanted to meet his desire to smash the Flags into the dirt and grind Beretta under his boot for days.

His brothers at the booth waited for him to sit before saying anything.

Cattleprod, the Wrecking Crew Secretary. He managed the accounts and kept a clean record; the guy who talked to the cops and arranged bails when brawls got too heavy. He was a small man, but thickly built with a dome head and a long black and gray beard.

His sense of humor was more macabre than even most of the other outlaws could handle. Last Halloween he had decorated his house with roadkill to keep trick or treaters away.

Next to him was Rowdy, their Road Captain. A man nearly as wide as he was tall, but none the worse for wear for it. He swore by his diet of bacon and whiskey and breathed every breath for the life of the club. Four times a year, the Wrecking Crew made runs—two that stretched out into other states and two that crossed the length of Texas—and it was Rowdy's job to keep everything running smooth on the road.

All the Wrecking Crew hated cops—cops hassled outlaw bikers nonstop, finding any reason to pull them over and write out citations—but Rowdy in particular hated them.

When he had first started biking, he'd landed in a brawl with some local police and they confiscated his bike. When he earned enough scrap to pick up a new one, they confiscated that one too. Ever since, he'd run his own private guerrilla campaign against the cops, availing himself to the world of the internet to become well-versed in traffic and automotive law. Every citation he got, he took to court, and usually fought it until it got up to the county, where it would inevitably be thrown out because the county court had things like murder and grand larceny to worry about.

“Freedom ain't shit if you ain't fighting for it,” Rowdy would always say.

And he had his pettiness to him too. He had a small bottle in his lap for spitting tobacco juice. The only reason he had started chewing tobacco at all was that so when a cop pulled him over, he could spit heavy on his shoes.

Mikhail was there as well, having beat Ram to the diner. He didn't look any the worse for wear after the brawl last night outside of a fresh shiner on his left eye. A good soldier.  Mikhail had been a patch holder for a little over three years now. It gave Ram a great deal of pride to give him the patch himself, and to lead the vote on the matter. A lot of folks thought Mikhail wouldn’t make it—almost nobody in the club came from a family as well-off as his—but the man had carried himself as a righteous brother in too many scrapes to deny him the patch.