Sexy Bastards Anthology: Bad Boy, Biker, Alpha, Motorcycle Club, Contemporary Romance Collection (73 page)

Coming Soon:

The Biker's Secret Torment

By

Lisa Ladew

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or organizations, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Copyright © 2016 Lisa Ladew 
All Rights Reserved

Book cover by:
http://www.stunningbookcovers.com/

Special, special, special note. Thank you so much to Kristine Piiparinen, who helped make sure this book happened. You are the best, girl.

And thank you to Anette King, for helping me through a tough spot. With friends like you, who needs husbands ;) Kidding!

Chapter 1

Crystal

I stalked down the campus sidewalk, my thoughts on overdrive. Why was it that spending years mostly away from
him
had done nothing to lessen the impact those dark eyes and that brooding smirk had on me?

I'd turned in my Human Physiology final, then nearly swallowed my tongue when I walked out of the exam room into the lobby of the building and saw
him
on the tiny TV in the corner. They'd only showed him from a distance, but I knew it was him. Only one member of my dad's MC wore a beanie pulled low, swaggered like that, and filled out a Mad Marauders MC cut like that. My heartbeat had tripled as I rushed to the TV and turned the sound up, my eyes plastered on the fiery Viking helmet and sword in the center patch. I clenched my teeth as I listened to the reporter's
human interest
bullshit. Before he disappeared into the clubhouse, I realized he wasn't limping at all.
What in the hell did that mean?

The piece had only lasted another few seconds, but after I saw it I had run out onto campus, shaking with anger for him. They didn't use his name, but some smartass reporter had dug up his past and was now trying to use it to further her career. I wondered if she had contacted him yet. Asked him for an interview. If she had, I wondered how that
fuck you
had tasted to her.

I took a left between two buildings, practically running towards my dorm. But when I got there, I couldn't go inside. What if Sloane was in there? I couldn't deal with her right now. Her special bitch senses would start tingling the second I walked in the door and she would pounce on me, knowing I was upset. No way. I had one more final tomorrow, and then I was done with school for almost a month. When I came back I would have a new roommate. If I never talked to Sloane again, that would be fine with me, and I really couldn't deal with her now.

I turned and race-walked away from my dorm, my eyes on the ground, trying to deny all the old feelings that had come flooding back when I saw him.

I put my hand in my pocket and touched the smooth glass of my phone screen. I wanted to call him. Just to hear his voice. It had been over a month since I had even had a text conversation with him, and that pulled at me. I hadn't heard his voice since my mom's funeral. I was trying to move on. Trying to forget about him. Trying to create a life that didn't hurt so bad when he wasn't in it.

Even so, I wanted to check one more time and see if maybe, just maybe, he felt differently about me, or could learn to. I'd always been nothing more than the little sister of his best friend, I knew that.

In the six weeks since I'd last seen him I'd dyed a blonde streak in my hair, pierced my nose, even gotten a tattoo. Trying to change who I was? No. I mostly liked me, but I was trying to change how I looked, maybe how he saw me. My hand touched my side where the tattoo was. I wondered if he would ever see it, and if he did, would he understand its significance? I was still the same baby-faced, good-girl, overachiever I'd always been. I couldn't change my basic nature, but being on my own had given me the space to branch out a bit. He wasn't a pure bad boy either. He was complicated. Complex. That was one thing I loved about him.

I hit Campus Drive and stopped to look down at my feet. I wasn't dressed for it, but a hard run would clear my head, get some of this off my chest. Then maybe I could call Talon and see if he was ok. After that I could go back to my room and grab my books to study in the library for my last final tomorrow.

I was wearing jeans, a lightweight sweater, and my cross-trainers. They would have to do. I shoved my phone and my keys and my special forces challenge coin that Talon had given me down deeper in my pockets and took off, keeping a light pace at first, then speeding up. My thoughts churned and simmered and I just let them go. They had to burn themselves out before I could find peace. The trail was almost deserted and I wasn't surprised. Everyone was doing last minute studying. I focused on a tree in the distance and ran at it, always switching to a new one as I got closer.

The late morning air was crisp, but sweat formed on my brow, then began to soak my jeans, making them heavier. I looped back around to where I started, feeling my muscles relax and my brainwaves smooth out. I had gone almost three miles, and even though this was at least a six mile upset, I didn't know if I could go that far. My jeans were chafing me already at the insides of my knees and tops of my thighs.

I rounded a slight curve and felt a bit of unexplainable panic, almost like my intuition was warning me of a large animal stalking me and about to pounce. But that didn't make sense. There were no animals here. My stride faltered and I almost tripped over my own feet.

Something big and hard and fast hit me from the side, lifting me off the ground and into the trees. My vision blackened as my head snapped to the right and the breath was forced out of me. When I could see again, I was face down in the dirt and leaves on the side of the trail, behind two trees, with something heavy pinning me to the ground, my head and body pounding in pain like a rotten tooth.

What in the hell was going on? Had a car jumped the curb and come on to the path and hit me?
I hadn't heard a revving engine.

A strange ripping noise sounded behind me and I lifted my head and twisted to see what the hell was going on. A man's hands roughly pushed my head forward again and then wound what could only be duct tape around my head, sealing my lips completely shut. Some of the duct tape covered one of my nostrils and I tried to rear back in fear. I was being murdered! Or kidnapped!

The man on top of me was too heavy for me to move at all. The ripping noise sounded again and I went into a frenzy, trying to buck him off of me. I hit at him with my fists and kicked with my feet but I couldn't make even a single connection from my position.

I couldn't scream. I couldn't move. I could barely fucking breathe.

I was done for.

Chapter 2

Talon

Whip ran in front of me, crouching through the unfamiliar, dilapidated building, pointing his gun forward but slightly to the ground, the way we had both been taught in the army forty years apart. The gun I was holding felt strange in my hand, not like it belonged there anymore. That part of my life was over, had died with my military career, had been blown away with part of my leg.

A door slammed in front of us, somewhere down the hallway, the sound reverberating through the dark building. We weren't prepared for this, but we were there anyway. Jaze was in danger.

Whip slowed as the corridor divided in front of us. He stopped and looked to the right, then motioned for me to follow. The second he turned the corner, the corridor lit up with what looked and sounded like fireworks, but I knew they were gunshots. Whip jerked backwards and fell to the ground, even as his gun hand came up and fired off several shots down the hallway. My instincts took over and I leapt past him, looking at him long enough to make sure he would alter his firing path enough to not shoot me in the back. I emptied my magazine as I ran, then dropped it, slamming another one home in less than a second. I ran crouched, with nothing but sheer adrenaline to keep me going. I knew there were only two ways this could end. With me dead, or with me walking out of here with Jaze. Nothing else was an option.

I couldn't see anything ahead of me in the gloom, but the gunshots had stopped. I didn't dare stop firing myself, because I knew as soon as I did, I would be toast.

I saw a dark fabric full of holes hanging in my way, a strange red light shimmering behind it.

God only blesses the bold. I'd learned that many times in the sandbox.

I ran right through the hanging fabric, brushing it aside with one hand and bursting into the room beyond, crouching so much I was almost crawling, feinting left and right to minimize the possibility I would be hit by bullets. In the monstrous quiet, I could hear Whip coming behind me. The rattle of his breath told me he'd been hit in the chest. That would have been bad, except I knew he was wearing a bullet proof vest.

I was on a loading dock open to the outside air. In front of me, tires screeched as a pickup truck pulled away from the dock. My every hope fractured in despair as I saw what was in the back of the truck.

Jaze. Eyes closed. Lifeless. Fresh blood spurting from his head. Smoking holes in his shirt.

I ran as hard as I could and launched myself at the fleeing truck. It had to be fifteen feet away already and gaining speed. My fingers grazed the tailgate, but I slammed into the ground, rolling, my leg screaming in pain. I ignored it and ran hard, praying it wouldn't give out. I put my entire life into my strides.

It didn't matter. The truck pulled easily away from me in the long parking lot.

"The bikes!" Whip shouted from behind me.

I looked up, still in mid-stride and realized where we were in relation to the motorcycles we had left on the street. The truck reached the end of the lot and turned left. My eyes raked the license plate but it was splattered with mud and dirt and all I could make out was a 7 and a K. I ran out of the parking lot, past the chain link fence and turned left too. By the time I was ten feet from my motorcycle, a sick feeling of dread wound through me. My tires were completely flat on their wheels. Whip's were too.

It had all been a setup.