Ride Everlasting (Demon Riders MC Book 3) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

It would be so easy to fall into bed with Dane now and let their bodies do all the talking.  It would be magnificent and passionate and intense and all the great things that they are when they’re together, when they’re joined.  The world seems to come to a complete stop around them as the kiss makes her knees weak.  But this was partly why Elyse had walked away tonight, and if she just succumbs to the chemistry between them, then she knows she’ll be angry at herself in the morning.

“Stop.”  At first, Elyse barely recognizes her own voice. It’s so husky and sounds like it’s been wrenched out of her. 

Dane goes completely still, as if he’s been frozen in time.  He pulls back and looks at her, his eyebrows raised, making sure that she really had meant to say it.  “Stop?”  The question in his eyes speaks volumes.

Elyse pushes away from him, getting some distance between them before she has a chance to change her mind.  Her body is a complete traitor to her whenever Dane is involved.  Dane is still watching her with a wary expression, looking at her as if she’s a ticking time bomb.

“This is why I didn’t tell you I was leaving.”  Elyse can’t help but feel a little silly now that she’s about to say what it is that’s been bothering her. 

Dane looks at her blankly, the blood seeping back up towards his head slowly.  “I’m gonna need a little more than that, ‘Lyse.”  He folds his arms, never taking his eyes off of her.

“I knew that if I walked in while you were showering, we’d end up doing this.”  She gestures vaguely between them, feeling a little silly that she can’t even say the word after they’ve been so intimate so many times.

A wicked smile breaks out on his lips.  “And that would be bad because…?”

Elyse has to stop herself from falling into the trap of Dane’s eyes.  “Because I feel like we’re either at each other’s throats or falling into bed.” 

Dane frowns at her, looking like he’s trying to process what it is that she’s saying.  “You’re telling me that you’re mad because I want you all the time.” 

His frank words accompanied by his frank stare make her blush and wonder if she’s not being a little neurotic.  “I’m not mad, not about that.”  She shakes her head, trying to get her thoughts into some kind of order.  “I’m mad about you telling me what to do. The reason I walked out was because I wanted to be able to talk about it without it degenerating into an argument or hot shower sex!”

Dane’s mouth tips up in a smile.  “Hot shower sex?”  He watches with amusemen,t as her face starts to burn.

“You know what I mean!”  Elyse folds her arms over her chest, suddenly wishing she was wearing something that gave a little more coverage than the silky camisole and shorts that did nothing to hide how hard her nipples were at the mere thought of Dane in the shower.

“Okay.”  He nods slowly, processing.  “One thing at a time then; I’m not trying to tell you what to do, ‘Lyse. I’m just trying to keep you safe; there’s a difference.”  He holds up his hand to stop her from interrupting him.  “I don’t want you involved in what’s going on between the club and Lance because you’ve done enough already.  It’s up to us to get ourselves out of this mess.  I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Dane.  You can’t just order me around and expect me to obey like a dog!”  Elyse realizes she’s dangerously close to shouting and swallows hard, forcing herself to quieten down before Jen comes out and gives them some more choice words.

“Is that what you really think?  That I’m some kind of Caveman?”  Anger flares behind his eyes.

“You have a way of assuming that I’m just going to do as you say.  It doesn’t sit well with me.”  She shrugs, trying to keep her voice reasonable.

“I want to keep you safe, Elyse; that’s all.  I didn’t realize that was so bad.”  Dane looks so sincere that Elyse has to stop herself from reaching out to him. 

“I want to help the Riders.  I’m part of the reason why this has all happened, and I want to help fix it.  It’s important to me.  You’re all important to me.”  Elyse stops short of saying what’s in her heart; it doesn’t feel like the right time. 
Chicken
. 

“Alright.”  Dane huffs a sigh.

“What?”  Elyse blinks at him.

“I said, alright.  You can help.”  Dane throws his hands up in surrender.  “But anything to do with him getting what he wants out of you is off the table. I don’t even want to hear you talk about it again.”

Elyse considers this for a moment, wondering what other options they have, but she nods.  Pimping herself out to Lance is the last thing she wants.

“And the minute I think you’re in any kind of danger, you back off.  Got it?”  He levels her with a serious look that makes her swallow hard, suddenly nervous about what she’s getting herself into.

Stand up straight, Powell.  You can do this.
  “I can look after myself you know. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.”  She lifts her chin.

“Don’t push me, Elyse.  Lance may have a crush on you, but that doesn’t mean he won’t lash out if he’s backed into a corner.  I’ve seen it happen time and time again, and I won’t allow you to get caught in the fallout.  And it’s not just him we need to worry about; it’s the Riders, too.  If any of them find out that you’re involved in the Gazette…” Dane doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t need to, they both know what he’s leaving out.  His dark eyes are stormy, and there’s no hint of a smile on his luscious lips.  “Now, do we understand each other?”

Sufficiently cowed, Elyse nods.  This must be what the Riders see when they look at Dane.  Despite the fact that he’s just a prospect, they show him a whole lot of respect.  It’s not hard to see why.  He has an intensity about him that makes his presence known as soon as he enters a room, and it makes it impossible to look anywhere else but directly at him.

“Good.”  He nods, satisfied that she’s not going to make herself a target for Lance to lash out at or for the Riders to make an example of.  He strokes Cat, who has taken up residence by his feet, behind her ears before he stands, moving towards the front door with those fluid steps of his.

“Where are you going?”  She frowns at his back, as he stops just in front of the door he’d been hammering at so violently only a few minutes ago.

“Home.”  He says the word simply, as if there were no other possible answer.

“Oh.”  Elyse blinks at him, surprised.  She just stops short of asking him if he’ll stay, needing to conserve at least a little of her self-respect. 

He raises an eyebrow at her, reading her thoughts the way that he always does.  “You said that we were either fighting or fucking.”  Elyse shivers at how he says the word, imbuing it with a huge amount of sexiness.  “So I’m proving you wrong.” 

Elyse takes a step towards him, stopping just short of actually touching him.  “What do you mean?”  She’s pleased that the panic she’s feeling at least isn’t showing in her voice.

“I mean, that if you think we need to pull back on the physical side of things, then that’s what we’ll do.”  He shrugs, but his eyes are full of amusement.  “You want more middle ground; I can do that.”

Elyse frowns up at him, trying to figure out where the catch is and why he’s acquiesced so quickly.  It takes all her strength not to completely retract what she’d said, to say to hell with it all, she wants him in her bed tonight.  She swallows hard.  “How much more middle ground?”  Her voice isn’t quite as strong as anymore.

“Well, that’s all up to you, ‘Lyse.”  Dane smiles and leans into her so that his mouth is only an inch away from hers. 

“Is it?”  He smells of soap and the warm manliness that makes her stomach do little back-flips.  She licks her lips, straining her neck up towards him, to meet his mouth, to taste him, for that deep kiss that she knows will turn her insides weak.

“I’m not going to touch you, Elyse.”  He pulls away from her slightly so that she’s focusing on his eyes instead of his mouth.  “I’m not going to touch you until you beg me to.”  The wicked gleam in his eye turns her throat dry.  “See you tomorrow, Elyse.”

“Tomorrow?”  Her voice is so husky the word is almost inaudible.

“Tomorrow.  For the car?”  His expression tells her that he knows exactly what her body is going through, and he’s enjoying the power he’s wielding.

“Right.”  She doesn’t think she’d be capable of anything more than monosyllables.

“See you tomorrow, ‘Lyse.”  He gives her one last look, devouring her with his eyes, before he leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

Elyse stands there staring after him, wondering if she’d just managed to screw herself over massively.  When she goes to bed, she stares up at the ceiling, knowing that she should be tired, knowing that she should be overwhelmed after the events of the day, but she’s too tightly wound.  Sleep takes a while to come, and when it does, she knows that she’ll dream about Dane.

***

Elyse squirms, lifting her hips, desperate for him to touch her somewhere it will do some good.  Between her legs she’s dripping wet, she moans, needing him inside of her, filling her up.  She reaches out, her hand closing over his shaft.  She licks her lips, wanting to taste him, wanting to suck on his tip, which she knows will be as hard as rock.

“Not until you beg.”  His voice is low and hoarse, his breath against her ear making her tremble.

“I want you.”  She reaches up to pull his head down to hers, but he stops, a few inches away from her lips, driving her mad with need.  She wriggles underneath him, stroking his shaft, feeling the hardness of his erection against her hand.

“Good girl.”  He breathes approvingly.  “But that doesn’t sound like begging to me.”

“I want you inside of me.”  Elyse writhes, her hand own hand dropping down to her pussy, the need between her thighs turning into a certifiable ache.

Dane stops the progress of her hand, tutting at her.  “That’s cheating, ‘Lyse.”  His voice is dripping with sex, just the sound of his voice is making her wet.

“I’m so close.”  Her words come out as a plea.  She needs this release, desperately, but the expression on his face tells her that he’s not going to give it to her. He’s enjoying watching how he’s turning her inside out far too much.

“Not yet, Elyse, not yet.”  His voice is soft as a whisper, and she hears her own mewling cries of desperation.

Beep, beep, beep.

Her eyes fly open, squinting against the early morning light streaming through her bedroom window.  She slams her hand down on the snooze button of her alarm, just managing to stop herself from launching it across the room.  Elyse sits up in bed, wishing she could go back in time to the point just before she’d woken up, to the point where she might have received some kind of satisfaction.

Her body is covered in sweat, and she’s breathing hard, her heart racing.  She shifts uncomfortably, knowing that her shorts are soaked through and not just from her perspiration.  She’s woken feeling frustrated, her body craving pleasure and her throat dry. She slumps back into bed feeling wrung out. 

She had been the one to worry over the fact that they couldn’t be in the same room with each other without ripping each other’s clothes off.  She had thought she was being the grown up, the one that was looking at the intensity of their relationship and wondering if it could last for the long term.  Now, she wasn’t so sure. The one thing that she was completely sure of was that this wasn’t going to be the last of the dreams that left her feeling like she was missing something as vital to her as air.

CHAPTER THREE

Elyse spends the morning updating her blog and writing up some notes to add to her ever-expanding list for the novel that she will one day write.  If nothing else, the dramas between her and Dane were giving her some great material for her ‘someday’ book.  It’s been a little while since she’d been able to focus on her writing, pretty much since things had kicked off with the Demon Riders.  This was the first day she has been able to really catch her flow, and she’s so caught up in it that before she knows it she’s worked through lunch and into the early afternoon.  It’s only when her doorbell rings that Elyse gets up from her desk and stretches her tight muscles.  Looking out of the window she sees a familiar face wearing a grease-stained shirt advertising The Shop.  True to his word, a tow truck—complete with one of Dane’s trusted mechanics—was waiting patiently outside her house.

“She really is a beauty.”   Rudy looks at the car longingly, as Elyse hands over the keys to the Mustang.

“Yeah, she is, or at least she will be once Dane’s finished with her.”  Elyse gives him a wry smile, knowing that Dane has been possessive of her car, not letting anyone else work on it.  Elyse had the sense that it wasn’t just because he cared for her; she was pretty sure the caliber of the Mustang had a lot to do with it as well.

“Beautiful car for a beautiful lady.”  Rudy smiles at her and winks, but there’s no hint of anything other than friendly banter in the older man’s tone.  “But if you tell Fletcher I said that, he’ll have my guts for garters.”

Elyse laughs easily and holds up her hands in some semblance of a Girl Scout promise.  “Your secret is safe with me.”

She watches as Rudy gets the car all set up and ready to tow, her mind a million miles away.

“You want a ride to The Shop?”  Rudy’s voice jolts her back to the present and out of her re-visitation of the dream from the night before.

Elyse looks at her watch, figuring she has just enough time before she goes to meet her mom.  It was the first time in weeks that they had seen each other, a fact that felt intensely odd since they spoke almost every day.  That evening Elyse had agreed to meet her mom’s new boyfriend, the guy that her mother had barely been able to stop talking about.  She knew from her mom’s excitement that this guy could be the real deal.  For her sake, she wanted it to be true.  Her mom had put her life on hold for Elyse, barely dating until Elyse had left for college.  Her mother had been through her fair share of dating disasters, but this was the first time that Elyse sensed that it could be more than just a way to pass the time for her mom. This could be the man that she’d been waiting for since Elyse’s dad walked out on them.  Elyse just hoped that he deserved her.

It would be tight, but there’s just enough time to stop by the shop and see how the lay of the land is looking between Lance and the guys.  After their conversation by the lake the night before, Elyse has the feeling that Rick and Dane both might have some issues reining in their distaste for their newest recruit. 
Sure, that’s the only reason you want to go to The Shop, Powell.
 
It’s useless to kid yourself.
  She wanted to see Dane, the rest was just a handy excuse.

“Sure, that’d be great.”  Elyse throws the mechanic a smile and locks the front door behind her before jumping into the truck.

As they rattle along the road in the truck, Elyse tries to make conversation.  She and Rudy hadn’t exchanged more than a few ‘heys’ and ‘how are yous’ so she had imagined that a thirty minute drive in afternoon traffic was going to be a bit of a stretch, but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

“So, you excited about the big party?”  He remains looking ahead, his weathered face squinting against the bright winter sunshine.

Elyse frowns at him.  “Big party?”

“Dane’s Patch Party in a couple weeks!”  Rudy looks at Elyse as if she were a little dim.

Elyse tries not to look surprised, or hurt at the fact that she’s hearing this from Rudy rather than Dane.  Rudy reads her expression and clears his throat, suddenly uncomfortable.  “I’m sure he’ll be mentioning it you soon, probably just been busy.  I wouldn’t worry about it.”  He stares fixedly ahead, not making eye contact with her as if he thinks that she might break down in tears beside him.

“Rudy, it’s fine.”  She waves away his worry, doing an Oscar-worthy performance of not caring.  “I just hadn’t realized he was getting patched so soon.”  She looks out of the passenger window, trying not to obsess over why Dane hadn’t mentioned it to her.

“Soon?”  Rudy shakes his head, as if she’d just said something really funny.  “He’s officially been a prospect for a year now, but he’s really been part of the club for years before that.  He’ll make a great Rider.” The note of admiration in his voice is unmistakable.

“So what happens at a Patch Party?”  Elyse pushes her insecurities aside, reminding herself that she doesn’t have any claim on Dane, not really.  They’d never formalized their relationship. The closest they’d gotten was Dane calling her his when they were making love, but that had just been in the heat of the movement, hadn’t it?

“Well, there’ll be a vote where all the full members have to agree for Dane to become officially part of the Demon Riders MC.  That’ll just be a formality though, Dane’s in for sure.”  Rudy gives her a reassuring look as if she’d gotten that far ahead in her thinking.

“And then?”  Elyse had the impression that things didn’t end there.  She’d been around the bikers in the bar for long enough to know that they like to party, hard, and a new patch sounded like the perfect opportunity.

“Then everyone gets pretty drunk.”  Rudy chuckles deeply.  “Well, that’s what usually happens. Dane’s will be a little different, with what Rick has planned and all.”

Elyse frowns at the man next to her who seemed so unassuming and yet seemed to have his finger on the pulse of exactly what was going on in the club.

“What does Rick have planned?”  Elyse raises an eyebrow, as Rudy looks quickly at her and then away again, probably trying to figure out exactly how much trouble he’s going to be in if he’s said something he shouldn’t have.

“Damn, would you look at this traffic?  I swear there are more cars in Portland every year.”  He shakes his head and looks out of his window, doing a terrible job of subtly changing the conversation.

“Rudy.”  She gives him a meaningful glare, channeling Suzi’s ‘Don’t fuck with me’ stare, and it seems to do the trick, as he sighs heavily.

“Alright, but you’re twisting my arm here, Elyse.”  He shakes his head, as if he were trying to persuade himself that he doesn’t have any choice but to tell her.  Elyse got the impression that he probably quite enjoyed a good gossip.  Some of the bikers that she’d met were bigger chatterboxes than any group of women, especially once they’d had a couple of drinks.  It made her wonder how they seemed to manage to keep their club secrets when they all liked to talk so much.

Rudy drops his voice to a whisper, as if there were someone else in the truck to overhear them.  “Rick’s going to give Dane part of the business, part of The Shop.” 

Elyse’s smile spreads wide, as her eyes blink in shock.  She’d known that Dane was saving up to buy a share of the body shop that he loved so much, but she’d had no idea that Rick was ready to just give it away.  It wasn’t hard to figure out why Rick would do that with something that he had invested his entire adult life in.  Dane was like a son to him, the son that he never had, and Dane looked up to him.  It made perfect sense that Rick would want Dane to have part of his business. 

“Dane might have a hard time accepting it as a gift.”  Elyse smiles wryly, just imagining the good-natured argument that would break out between them; Dane telling Rick that he wants to earn what he gets, and Rick telling him that he’s more stubborn than a mule.

“That’s between them.  They’re both as bad as each other.”  Rudy chuckles, clearly picturing the same scene.  As they pull into the lot in front of the shop, Rudy turns serious.  “You won’t say anything, will you?”

Elyse smiles reassuringly at the nervous man next to her.  “I won’t say a word, Rudy.”  She watches as his shoulders relax, wondering how many more secrets she was going to have to keep; she was starting to lose track.