Rush - Blue Devils MC Book 2 (Book 1 Included FREE for a short time only!) (23 page)

He got in too and started the engine, but didn’t pull forward.

“This is Roger,” he finally said, and patted his hip. “I didn’t have him on earlier because the TSA isn’t exactly happy about seeing Desert Eagles or, really, any handguns in an airport. They get all sorts of twitchy about it. But I get all sorts of twitchy without it on, and…this isn’t the best part of Tucson. I’d hate to be here after dark. Roger and I are inseparable - I hope seeing it on my hip doesn’t freak you out, or you’re gonna spend a week freaking out.”

The choice was clear - accept the handgun or go back to New York. He finally pulled forward and started heading back towards the freeway, giving her a chance to think.

“I don’t have anything against guns,” she finally said, which had the added benefit of being completely true. “I just didn’t expect to see it so it threw me off for a moment. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a big handgun before.”

“That’s actually on purpose. Roger is a fucking cannon. The recoil on this thing is outta control. But it can also be spotted from a mile away and it helps deter idiots who might otherwise think of startin’ something with me. I would hate to have to kill someone if Roger can do my talking for me instead. But when I do need to take care of business, it certainly can. All of our drivers carry a Desert Eagle too. It’s been years since someone tried to hijack one of our trucks. Between the grilles, the paint job, and the handguns, our drivers are damn scary.”

“Does Brock run the trucking part of the club or do you?”

“That’s 100% my job. Brock doesn’t know much more than it pays the bills. Some of our drivers are also Blue Devil members but most of them aren’t. I figure it’s more important that you have a CDL and like to drive a truck for hundreds or thousands of miles than it is that you’ve patched into the club. Back when I first started hiring drivers who weren’t also club members, some guys were pretty pissed but they’re over it now. Loving to ride a motorcycle and loving to drive a semi are two very different things.”

As he spoke, his eyes flitted from the side mirrors to the rearview mirror to the road in front and back again. He was the most alert person she’d ever met.

“Make, model, and color of the last three vehicles we’ve passed,” she said impulsively.

“What?!”

“Without looking in the rearview mirror, tell me the make, model, and color of the last three vehicles we’ve passed,” she repeated.

“Toyota Camry, red. Ford Lobos, dark blue. Peterbilt 579, also red.”

A little too late, Ella realized that she had no way of verifying his answers. Unlike Lain, she hadn’t been paying attention and they’d just crested a hill, so she couldn’t see anything in the rearview mirror. But somehow, she knew he wasn’t lying.

She was saved from having to admit her ignorance when he spoke up. “The Peterbilt 579 especially caught my eye, so that one was a bit of a cheat for me. That’s their new hybrid line and I’ve been contemplating adding one to our fleet.”

“Hybrid semi? Really?” Ella had no idea that those even existed.

“Yeah, they’ve been out for a bit. They’re an electric / gas hybrid and for a company like ours that spends way too much money on filling the gas tank, it seems like a great idea. We don’t buy many cabs brand-new though, so I need to crunch the numbers to see how long it’ll take before we get make back our money on it.”

Ella stared at him in shock. What happened to her Caveman Special? Hidden beneath his five o’ clock shadow, leather chaps, and blue bandana was…intelligence. She’d assumed she’d be spending the week with a group of hillbillies who needed to take their boots off to count to twenty. But Lain…

Lain wasn’t anything like she expected. And that scared her shitless.

~ Lain ~

Okay, so she didn’t have an oversized rat in her purse. And she had all the right curves in all the right places.

But that didn’t mean he liked her. She was too smart, and too beautiful, and too likable to be liked.

When he threw her
Louis Vuitton
bags into the bed of the truck, he was pretty pissed at that point. Who packs
two
bags for a week-long trip? Fucking ridiculous. And her muttered complaints about the heat, the trip, the alignment of the moon…she just rubbed him the wrong way.

But now he wanted to rub her the right way. From her pink toenails up to her luscious thighs and fuck-awesome tits, she was one hell of a package. Her accent was jarring but he figured she’d moan the same way all women did when he got them into bed.

But she wasn’t rubbing her way up his thigh. She wasn’t asking him about his tats. She was asking him about the hybrid engine of a Peterbilt 579. Jesus fucking Christ. What woman asks about semi engines? She was absolutely nothing like any woman he’d ever met, and fuck-all if it didn’t scare the ever livin’ hell outta him. He had the distinct feeling he’d be safer with a Desert Eagle trained on him by a
Chupacabra
member than he was at the moment. He shifted uncomfortably. They needed to get back to where she was annoying him and he was mentally strangling her.

“So how long have you been a member of the Blue Devils?” she asked, cutting into his thoughts. He responded without thinking.

“I was patched in when I was 21, but you could call me an Acquaintance from birth. My mom swears the first word I said was ‘Boo Dells’ but my dad always claimed it was ‘Da’. They both agree it wasn’t ‘Ma’, much to my mother’s chagrin.”

Dammit! Now she’s got me talking about my family. How the hell does she do it??

“The stages of membership are Acquaintance, Hang Around, Prospect, and then Member, right?”

He just stared at her for a moment, and then remembered he was driving and jerked his eyes back to the road.

Who was this woman?

Other than sheep and Old Ladies, he’d never met any female who knew the structure of the MC membership. She was
supposed
to be a spoiled rich, pain-in-the-ass reporter who snapped her gum and asked ridiculous questions like how many people he killed last week. She wasn’t supposed to be…this.

They fell into an easy discussion ranging from favorite sports teams (Arizona Diamondbacks, obviously, although he was nice enough to let her be wrong and believe that the New York Yankees were worth anything more than a warm beer on a hot day) to favorite temperatures (which, strangely enough, they agreed on - 70 degrees. Not too hot and not too cold).

And then, he was catching the freeway exit for Copper Lode as he listened to her list the many benefits to learning how to eat with chopsticks. They mostly seemed to be some variation on, “Because chopsticks are cool,” but he listened anyway and was stupidly interested and…

“Do you want to go grab dinner with me?” He shot a look at the clock in the dashboard of the truck. “A late lunch?”

What the fuck had he just done…

He had been forced to be in the truck (which he hated) for two hours (which was a complete waste of time when he had better shit to do than be errand boy) and drive in Phoenix traffic (which put him on edge) and listen to a New York accent (which was just awful) and the very last thing he should want to do is continue this torture.

But somehow, Ella made it…not so torturous.

Fuck, fuck, fuck and double fuck
.

Nevertheless, he held his breath, waiting for an answer.

Chapter 5

~ Ella ~

“Yes, I’d love some dinner…lunch…linner!” she finally finished, and blushed. She turned into an idiot around this guy and truly, she should be happy to be rid of him for the day, but there was something earthily sexy about him. She watched his hands on the steering wheel, turning into the parking lot, his tats flexing and dancing on his arms as he moved. She let herself imagine for just a moment…she closed her eyes and bit her lip, imagining him running those hands up and down her body, the callouses skimming over her nipples, him reaching down and wrapping his lips around—

“Do you want to get out? Or would you like to stay in the truck?”

Her eyes popped open.

Mortified. Absolutely mortified. How long had they been sitting there while she daydreamed about him sucking on her tits?

“Coming!” she said a little too cheerfully. She gave him an over-bright smile and hopped out of the truck. The blast of heat was awful but at least she could pull her skirt away from the backs of her thighs.

Fuck.

Unless Lain went for sweaty, he wasn’t looking at her twice. If she wasn’t so hungry, and if her heart didn’t skip a beat at the mere thought of spending more time with Lain, she totally would have begged off in favor of a shower. She was sticking to herself in places that weren’t exactly sexy.

Lain opened the door to the restaurant and two things hit her: The wall of cool air, and the amazing smell of Mexican food. It wasn’t that she never ate Mexican food back in New York, but she was pretty sure it was going to be more authentic here. Plus, there were just so many ethnic food choices in NY, she didn’t often find herself choosing burritos. They seemed so…uninspiring.

But now, they smelled divine.
Everything
smelled divine. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since early that morning, before she’d left for the airport. She didn’t get her curves by eating two celery sticks a day, that’s for damn sure.

She felt weird. Foggy.

She stumbled and then sat down a little too hard in a booth. She stared uncomprehendingly at Lain when he spoke to her. There were words, but they didn’t penetrate the cotton.

Cotton.

Why was she thinking about cotton? She tried to remember but the thoughts were slipping away and she couldn’t hold on.

Then there was a glass in front of her with a straw and Lain was shoving it into her mouth. Why was Lain shoving things at her? She sucked down obediently, and the taste of lemonade exploded across her tongue. Gods, that tasted good! She sucked down faster but then Lain was taking it away and shoving chips and salsa at her.

“Eat!” he said, and she obediently did. Halfway through the chips, she started to feel more coherent.

Fuck!

She did not just do that.

“Ella, you scared me,” Lain said, staring at her intently. Brown eyes. Chocolate eyes. Delicious eyes. She wanted to dive into them.

She ate more chips and salsa. Obviously, her blood sugar levels still weren’t high enough.

“Are you diabetic?” he asked. “My mom is, and if she doesn’t eat for too long, she goes all fuck-weird on me, like you just did.”

“I…uh…” she stumbled. “I don't know, actually. I know that sounds weird, but I keep putting off the testing because I don’t
want
to know. I usually just make sure that I eat regularly but I forgot to today and between that and the heat and the traveling, it got worse than normal.”
Rambling! Shut up
…“I…I’m sorry to have scared you,” she finally finished lamely.

He stared at her a moment longer, obviously trying to decide whether to push the issue or let it go. Finally, he shrugged.

“I ordered lunch already. When the waiter came by, you didn’t seem capable of making a decision so I made one for you. Speaking of which, it sounds like lunch is on its way.”

Ella cocked an eyebrow at him, confused, but then she heard it too. She turned to see a waiter making his way towards their table with a platter of food that still seemed to be cooking. Popping and sizzling noises were emanating from the platter as if it were alive. The short Hispanic man placed the platter in front of them along with containers of tortillas, sour cream, guacamole, and extra salsa. Ella’s stomach rumbled at the sight.

The waiter disappeared as Ella stared at the mountain of food in front of her. Good thing she wasn’t a timid eater, right?

“What is it?” she finally asked as the cast iron pan continued to sizzle and pop.

“Fajitas. Beef. You know, for a girl from New York, you sure seem to know shit about Mexican food. They have Mexican food in New York City, right?” He opened up the container of tortillas and offered her one before pulling two out for himself. He loaded them up and began eating, watching her intently for a response.

“To be honest, in New York, there’s so many different kinds of ethnic food available, Mexican just seemed a little too…boring. Why eat a taco if you can eat a
Kachumbari
for lunch?” She dug into the fajita platter and served herself. God, it smelled delicious.

“Ka — uh what?” Lain stared at her as if she’d grown another head. She chewed and swallowed - yup, as delicious as she’d expected - and explained, “
Kachumbari
. It’s this tomato and onion dish from Madagascar that is just delicious. Light and fresh and yummy.” His expression did not change. Somehow, Ella guessed he was not a big veggie eater.

“I think I’ll stick to my beef fajitas.”

“I thought Mexican food was hotter?” she asked, confused. She was used to spicy food but this food barely registered on the heat factor. She glanced up and stopped, heart thumping again.
Fuck
Lain was hot. He had this tiny dab of sour cream on his upper lip that she ached to suck off. His eyes did not seem any less chocolatey brown than they had before. Apparently, the desire to dive into them was not related to her blood sugar levels after all.

“I ordered mild salsa because I didn’t know what heat tolerance you had. If you like it hot, you should talk to Chili.” His tongue swiped out and caught the bit of sour cream, disappearing back into his mouth again and she sighed inwardly. She suddenly found herself strangely jealous of sour cream.

“I need to talk to chili?” she repeated, confused and just a second too late. He’d been talking but she’d only half heard him. Damn sour cream.

“Chili is our ride master for the club. I honestly don’t remember what his real name is. He loves anything hot, and wears a ghost pepper around his neck.” He scooped up the last of the fajita filling into a tortilla. She settled back, happily full and feeling much better about the world in general.

“What is a ghost pepper?” she asked.

“One of the hottest peppers on the planet. If you’ve managed to eat one, and God only knows why you’d want to, then you can wear a dried one around your neck as a badge of honor. Chili’s worn a ghost pepper around his neck for as long as I’ve known him. And all of his tats have a pepper in them somewhere. If he knew you liked heat, you'd find yourself in a pepper eating contest in 30 seconds flat.”

“Oh
hell
no!” she laughed. “When I say I like heat, I mean the spicy dish at a restaurant, not a pepper hot enough to burn my tongue off. I’ve never understood the fun in that.”

“Me either,” he said and grinned at her. Oh God, her stomach seemed to be suddenly full of butterflies.
Twerking
butterflies.

What is he going to do when he finds out that I’ve sold an expose article on the Blue Devils to the
Huffington Post
?

And just like that, the dancing butterflies were gone, replaced with a dread that filled her, pushing everything else out. All of the excitement, all of the joy, all of the fun - gone.

Lain would never forgive her for betraying the MC like that, she knew that already. She’d only known him for a few hours but she could already tell that the Blue Devils were his whole world. Anyone who betrayed that trust would be written off without a backwards glance.

When she had been brainstorming and researching in her studio apartment in New York, everything had seemed so straightforward, so simple. Get the story, expose the group for what it was, get a
real
journalism job.

Suddenly, her black-and-white world had so many shades of gray in it, and Lain was a part of every shade. She could ruin his life, but in doing so, would she ruin hers?