Hard Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 1) (7 page)

One crowded her against the soft drinks in the long fridge lining the wall. When she moved away, the other blocked her. They were all smiles, hands out, asking her to calm down.

Possession, hard and furious, filled Ram's mind. They were fucking with
his
old lady.

And that was a mistake.

He stormed into the store, his steps heavy and loud. The shit-kickers looked his way, eyes opening a bit, and then opening wider as Ram approached. They were all solid-sized boys with meat-and-potatoes diets, but Ram was a full size man and then some.

One of them wasn't quite as scared as he should be, given the look of fury on Ram's face. “Can I help you, bud? I'm talking to this lady, here.”

“You got something to say to my old lady you can say it in front of me,” said Ram. “So go on. Talk to her.”

June's face was some heavy mixture of dissatisfaction and relief. He wasn't sure how much of it was for him.

“Your old lady?” said the kid. “Well, it's just...I was saying...she looked good in that outfit.”

“You think my old lady looks good, huh?” He towered over the other man, a head taller than him. “You want to fuck her? Is that what you're telling me right now?”

“Stevie, let's go, man,” said a smart one, pulling his friend away.

“I can say whatever I want,” said Stevie. “It's a free country, isn't it?”

If he looked at Stevie right, squinting his eyes just a bit and tilting his head, he was almost like a smaller version of Beretta.

Ram snatched him by the neck and lifted him up off his feet. His friends followed as Ram continued to carry him, kicking and choking, and tossed him out of the store onto the concrete. He followed it up with a hard kick on his ass—and lucky for Stevie that he hadn't aimed for his ribs. They would have shattered like glass.

“There ain't a goddamn thing free about my woman,” said Ram. “And if I see you talking to her again, I'll shove your teeth so far down your throat the next time you see the dentist he'll have to cut you the fuck open.”

They all cleared out.

––––––––

T
hey pulled up on her street, and Ram came to a slow stop, circling back around when he saw the long line of cop cars in front of her house.

“Lot of cops,” he said, pointing. “There trouble here often?”

The house at the end of the cul-de-sac had about four cop cars in front of it. It was more than usual, but June wasn’t surprised to see them.

“A cop lives there,” she said, her voice tired. “That’s all.”

Ram grunted.

She would have to tell him the truth soon. He would know as soon as she walked into her house. It would end his attraction to her then and there; the ride was nice while it lasted. Perhaps the charade was over altogether, it was hard to say.

Probably not—Ram seemed like a man of his word, if nothing else. A man with a specific code, and one he took seriously. Still, part of that code would involve absolutely hating June's family, and so her with it.

She had been worrying over this ever since the gas station, to the point where even the tactile pleasure of holding on to Ram's heat and bulk had not been as distracting to her as before. But she was also upset, philosophically at least, about his display of dominance at the gas station.

“You know, those weren't the first guys who've hit on me,” she said, stepping off his bike. “Not even the first guys who did it in a trio like that.”

“You're gonna be my old lady, then you're gonna be my old lady,” said Ram. “You're not just yourself anymore. You're an extension of the club. I can't let anyone fuck with that.”

An “extension,” by which he most undoubtedly meant property.

And there was all that heat again, riding up in her against her will, at thoughts of being claimed, being
his
. It went against everything she believed, and yet there was something intrinsically attractive about it.

She would have been lying if she said she wasn't at least a
little
turned on by him grabbing that asshole by the neck and tossing him to the curb. It was an incredible display of strength. But that was something she'd never admit to.

“Have a little faith,” she suggested, “that I won't let anybody fuck with me either. How about that?”

He gave the sort of upside-down grin that people use, considering something for the first time. “Maybe so.”

“But, you can stick around in the rear guard if you want,” she said, sliding her hand unconsciously across his shoulders as she grabbed her bag. “It
was
sort of fun to call in the artillery.”

He flashed her a smile then that was both charming and a bit boyish. It surprised her, this flash of him that seemed so diametrically opposed to what she had seen of him so far. Mischievous, almost, instead of deadly dangerous. It made her heart pulse.

“Thanks for the ride home,” she said, turning. “You'll bring my luggage back to your shop, right?”

“It'll be there in the morning.”

“Great. I'll pick it up then."

As she started to walk back to her house, his hand grabbed at her waist and pulled her back over to him. 

“You’re really, really pretty, June.”

“I...” she gulped. “...Thanks.”

“And a good kisser, too.”

There it was again—that same submissive, pliant feeling he had given her before. She wasn’t a piece of meat, not something just to be admired. But
God
, didn’t it feel good to be admired by him? Someone like him—so strong and sure, so effortlessly masculine?

Wasn't it thrilling to think about being
claimed
by someone like him...even if it was just pretend?

His hand began to slide up her thigh. She looked down at it with widening eyes. She could see
his
thigh, and the bulge there growing with alarming rapidity.

She was doing that to him. All that hardness, that tangible, turgid desire. A heady feeling of power swept through her.

“You know,” she said, breathing hard. “Obviously, you’re super attractive, but, well, we just met, and I have a sort of a policy—”

“A policy,” he repeated, bringing his mouth close to hers.

“Right. A pretty important one. You know. About no kissing on the first date.”

“This isn’t a date. And you already kissed me.”

“Uh huh. So that would mean, well—”

That would mean, she wanted to say, that the policy would have to be enforced even
more
so. But obviously Ram meant that the policy wouldn’t have to be enforced at all. His mouth brushed against hers, and she lost all resolve. Soon her lips slid back over his, a soft moan escaping her mouth.

Last time
she
had kissed him, trying to prove a point. She wasn’t as big of a pushover as she seemed; she had some fire in her that he ought to be careful of.

But now
he
kissed
her
, and she could feel his fire.

It was a slow, steady inferno, pushing over her skin and sinking her deep into the clutch of his arms. It burned away all resistance, turned all her thoughts of protest to useless ash, and set her passion ablaze so hard that she enjoyed feeling herself giving in.

Again her legs squirmed to be near him, but this time there was no resolve for stopping them. Her calves wrapped loosely across his leg, pushing against the metal of his bike. A thick palm pressed against the small of her back, crushing her chest against his.

She felt weak, helpless, trapped—and all in the best way possible. Weak from a flood of lust hitting her brain; helpless to fight the urge to spread her legs and guide his fingers, his mouth, his
everything
inside of her; trapped by her indecision of whether this was the
worst
possible outcome or the
best
.

Slowly, he retreated, letting her withdraw herself from his hard, insistent grip.

“How was that?” he asked, a slight mocking lilt in his tone.

She licked her lips, staring at him hungrily. It wouldn’t be anything to suggest they go back to his place—and she hadn’t been laid in a long, long time.

And she knew without a doubt that she had never had sex like what Ram would deliver.

Bad idea
, she thought fiercely.
God, what a bad idea. Going home with Trouble Man incarnate.

She smirked, composing herself. “Good enough for pretend,” she said.

Not wanting this to go any further, she stepped away and started down the cul-de-sac to her parent's house.

“You want to be a writer, you’re gonna have to learn to lie a little better than that.”

“Then maybe I'll just end up being a cop like the rest of my family, huh?”

She pointed at the house at the end of the street, the house with all the cop cars in front of it. And she couldn’t help but enjoy the surprise and anger that skidded across Ram’s face.

“You're related to cops?”

She nodded, still grinning despite herself at his obvious displeasure. “My Dad's the sheriff.”

––––––––

H
er old key still worked. She walked inside, considering dropping her bags loudly and shouting out, “I’m home!”

But calls for attention were never really June’s style.

The house was a two-story, one of the larger in the city, though that wasn’t saying much. She dropped her bags down by the staircase and walked slowly through the living room and dining room, looking at the forced smiles on everyone’s faces in their annual photos.

Her father insisted they take the photos every year, and strangely he was the one who ended up being more upset by the end than anyone. A perfectionist, everything had to be under Sheriff John Colt’s absolute control.

In the pictures, he always wore his uniform. She could see in the last four years of pictures where her brother Kyle had started to wear his own police uniform with her father. June was noticeably absent from these last photos. Her father never quite invited her to come back to take them, though she told herself if he had, she would have said yes, if only to preserve the peace.

This willingness was never put to the test, though—he was the sort who
expected
compliance rather than ever directly asking for it.

In the kitchen, she saw the source of all the cop cars outside. Despite her flippancy with Ram, having four squad vehicles outside
was
a bit much for the Colt household. There was her father, John Colt. June’s cousin, Theo. A friend of the family and son of the mayor, Paxton Prince. And, finally, June’s brother Kyle.

All were cops.

In fact, nearly every male in her family was a cop. Her great-grandfather had been Sheriff in Turant County. Her grandfather was a deputy. Her uncles had been Texas Rangers. Her brother was now a cop, and of course her father was a cop.

That wasn't all, naturally.

Her great-grandfather had been gunned down in a bar when he was off-duty. Her grandfather lost his life in a gunfight over a robbed bank. Her uncles both were caught in an explosion from a booby-trap left by drug-runners in the desert. One was killed instantly, and the other took a few months to pass on in the hospital.

Sheriff John Colt’s whole life was law enforcement, and for him, it had always been life or death. He lived a war, and the safest place for his family was for the other men to be fighting the war and the women to be kept safe at home.

A grim prospect for June, and one of which she intended never to be a part.

John Colt was a barrel of a man, a thick dark horseshoe ring of hair wrapped around his otherwise bald skull. Like most Texas cops, he often wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat when he worked, but it was off now in his home, as were the hats of the other men there. Each man’s hat hung on a post next to the back door.

The four cops were pow-wowed around the kitchen table, the Sheriff presiding as he always did. June stopped, just outside the door, able to hear them but not intruding.

“How many dead, did you say?” This was her father.

“Three. One cop, two of the Flags. Both Mexicans, from their IDs.”

“The dead cop being Ranklin, like I said.” Theo’s voice was full of venom. “Those bastard fucks. You gonna let me off the leash or what?”

Bobby Ranklin was a childhood friend of Theo’s. If he was dead...that was bad news. Real bad news. Her heart filled with sympathy for Theo.

He was a cop, and so that was a strike against him, but he was a gentle-hearted soul beneath all that. She had called him Teddy until he was sixteen and he took her aside and politely asked to call him Theo from now on. She'd always respected that. A different man would have rankled under the wrong name and never said a word, a worse man would have yelled and screamed at her.

From her recollection, Theo was polite and quiet, to the point where most who didn't know him saw him as brooding. To see him so angry now, his face contorting with anger and sadness, made June's heart wrench.

“Hold on, Theo. I’m thinking here.” Sheriff Colt wiped his face. “None of the Wrecking Crew dead? Hurt?”

June’s interest perked up. Ram's Crew was there? Had one of them shot the cop? God.

“No,” said Prince. “We didn't catch any of the Flags either.”

“I don't care about the Flags,” said Colt. “This isn't their type of business. They don't shoot cops in my county, they know well enough not to. You mark me, if anyone is responsible for this mess, it's the Wrecking Crew. We got any positive ID on any of them?”

“Nossir,” said Paxton. “It’s a mess right now. We’ve got some guesses, but all we know for sure right now is it was the Flags and the Crew doing the fighting.”

“I’ll get you a positive ID,” said Theo. “You send me over there, I’ll beat a confession out of every last one of those sons-of-bitches, you wait.”

Theo’s anger held in the air for a moment before Colt continued.

“Well,” said the Sheriff. “We can’t have it. We just can’t. This was what, fifty miles away?”

“A hundred, Sheriff.”

“Even so. That’s too close. That’s Marlowe County. My county. Murder in
my
county.”