Her Wild Ride: An addictive, steamy biker MC romance suspense novel Read online

  Her Wild Ride

  An addictive, steamy biker MC romance suspense novel

  Heather Van Fleet

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Hear More from Heather

  A Letter from Heather

  Acknowledgements

  To Bella. You took that picture on the sly from the van, then boom, this story was born. Thank you for being the most awesome nine-year-old a mommy could ever have.

  One

  Niyol

  Club life didn’t leave me many options when it came to the choices I made. And since I’d been born into the world of the Red Dragons, I never really had the desire to find a way out. So in some fucked-up way, the day I was sent to prison two years ago was probably a karmic punishment I deserved for being an outlaw. Technically, I hadn’t done nothing wrong to get put behind bars, but at the same time I’d broken enough other laws for the club in the past that maybe I did deserve the sentence I’d served.

  One thing I didn’t warrant was my stepmom and stepsister’s wrath about my attitude toward women. More specifically, the woman we were sitting in some random diner, at nine at night, waiting for.

  “All we’re saying is that you tend to be a little overbearing when it comes to the ladies. Play nice, and there’s no doubt that things will go great.” My stepmother, Lisa, patted the back of my hand, then pulled a cup of coffee to her lips.

  “I could’ve found another way to get there if you’re that afraid I’ll rough her up.” I glared between the two of them.

  “Like how, hitchhiking?” Emily snorted.

  I gave her the middle finger. “Very fucking funny, smartass.”

  “You two…” Lisa sighed and shook her head.

  “I said it before and I’ll say it again,” my stepsister continued. “Flying him to San Diego is the quickest and safest option.”

  “Which costs money that he does not have, remember?” Lisa argued, sticking salt into an open wound. “Whatever money he’s got tucked away needs to go toward building a new life away from here.”

  I rubbed a hand over my forehead, wishing this was a hell of a lot simpler. Taking my bike would’ve been the perfect way to travel, but my old Harley barely ran no more, and I couldn’t afford the parts to get it fixed. Lisa had offered to help me out financially as much as she could, but she’d done enough already by letting me crash in her basement. The last thing I wanted was for a trail of money to lead from her to me when it might put her in danger.

  It was hell to be broke. One week out of a two-year stint in prison, and I barely had a dime to my name. That was just one of the reasons I’d decided to haul ass and move to San Diego. A second chance, a new location, and freedom from the club that had been fucking with my life for twenty-plus years.

  The other reason I was running? The Red Dragons as a whole.

  My old man—the Red Dragon Club Pres and Lisa’s ex-husband—had all but ruined my life pre-prison. Now, thanks to my mouth, he was locked away in the same Illinois State Pen I’d been in, for the very crime he’d tried pinning on me.

  To get early parole, I’d narked him out, tired of living like the liar he’d made me out to be. Siding with the DEA, turning the name of my father’s biggest dealer over to them, wasn’t one of my prouder moments. But I wouldn’t take it back. It got that fucker off the streets.

  Three days before my release, though, I’d gotten a letter with the RD logo on top. There were few words, but enough to make a point. If I ever showed my face back at the club then I’d be wishing for death compared to what the remaining RDs, the ones who were loyal to my old man still, promised to do to me.

  I didn’t take time to figure out who wrote the thing. I knew they meant business, and I wasn’t stupid enough to think that sticking around town long was a good idea. Already my stepmom, just by giving me a place to lay low for the week, would be on their shit list if they ever found out she was helping me.

  Which is why I needed to leave, tomorrow. A week, post-prison, was already too long to stick around Rockford. Hell, I would’ve been out of here the day after I was released if I could’ve. But finding a ride cross-country wasn’t as easy as I’d thought.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Your mom’s right, Em. This is the only way.”

  Emily sighed, slowly shaking her head as she leaned back in the booth. My guess was, she was worried I’d corrupt her best friend who’d, last minute, agreed to drive me so my stepsister could go on some cruise with the guy she was supposed to marry.

  “Good. I’m glad that’s settled then.” Lisa smiled wide.

  “And I promise to be nice to your friend.” I took a drink of my own coffee, cringing from the lukewarm, bitter taste. I set it on the table and pushed it away as I finished. “Just as long as she’s not a huge talker.”

  Emily’s lips twisted.

  Lisa looked out the window.

  I picked up my fork and pointed the end between them, before stabbing at my half-eaten waffle. “You two aren’t being real encouraging there.”

  “Here’s the thing…” Emily bit her lip, ripping up her napkin. “Summer is kind of the most talkative person you’ll ever meet.”

  I tipped my head back and groaned. “Jesus. There is no ‘kind of’ about it. She either talks a lot or she doesn’t.”

  “See? There you go with the douchiness again.”

  “Sorry.” I held up my hands. “Momentary lapse in judgment.”

  “That will not happen with Summer, correct?” Emily asked.

  I nodded, the good little boy in the big asshole body.

  The old me wouldn’t have agreed so easily. But I was reformed now—or trying to be—and ready to prove I wasn’t the asshole she, Lisa, or any other woman out there remembered me to be during my RD years.

  “Good. Glad we’ve cleared that up too,” Lisa huffed.

  I’d only seen this Summer once before, and that was when Emily was in college. It had been six months before I was sent away to the pen, before everything in my life had gone to shit.

  One night, I’d slipped away from the club, a little lost in my head after getting into it with my old man. Pops had been drunk off his ass, like always, telling me I was going soft. After one of our club brothers was busted during a run, I’d asked if we could maybe lay low for a while, back off the drug running to get off the authorities’ radar. I also made the mistake of telling him we neede
d to find other ways to make money. Expand our autobody shops, maybe even open another outside of the compound. Course he’d gotten pissed at that, called me unworthy of the tat on my back, then told me to get the fuck out of his face. And because I was sick of his shit, I was all too happy to oblige.

  I hadn’t thought twice about where I wanted to go when I’d hopped onto my bike and taken off that night. Lisa had been my sounding board since the day she and Pops first met. An instinctual connection was what the two of us had—I couldn’t really describe it as anything but. Her house was the only place that felt like home to me, aside from the compound.

  When I went to leave Lisa’s, Emily pulled into the drive the same time I was pulling out—home for the weekend from college. The only thing I’d seen that night was my stepsister’s wave and the shadow of her friend in the passenger’s seat. Otherwise, I had no idea what my chauffeur was like—except for the fact that she taught at the same middle school Emily did.

  Emily and Lisa started arguing again, talking like I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t good at paying attention, and soon found myself tuning them out.

  The perfect distraction came into focus seconds later, a sexy little waitress working her magic with a coffee pot behind the counter. She was all smiles as she walked from table to table, sporting a pair of sparkly eyes. I couldn’t make out the color, but I could see the happiness on her face; at the corners of those eyes when they crinkled from grinning most of all. There was a natural ease to how she moved, how she spoke to people as well. Fluid like a dancer—a ballerina, maybe. A people person and the exact opposite of who I was.

  On instinct, I scanned her, head to toe. Not just because she was good-looking, but because I tended to compartmentalize every person I met. Label them. Safe, or not safe. Good, or bad. A habit I’d picked up from my years as an RD.

  She wore a pair of white tights, a short little blue-and-white checkered dress with an apron, and white laced-up Converse tied in two, perfectly symmetrical knots. She wasn’t my type at all, too hoity-toity. But there was something about her that drew me in.

  Her long blonde hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck, nearly hitting the top of her ass. The real kicker of it all was the fact that she wore this big white bow around it. She reminded me of a cheerleader.

  Like she could sense I was looking, the waitress’ stare slipped my way. At the sight of her full on, my heart kicked into overdrive. Fuck, she was stunning. Beyond just simple and sweet.

  Emily kept talking, Lisa might’ve said my name, but nothing could break my concentration. Not a damn thing. It’d been a long time since I’d taken up with a woman—felt her soft skin, kissed her neck, tasted her… Had I decided to stick around, not pursue the new life I was aiming for, Hottie Waitress could’ve been my first in a long, long time.

  Curiosity lit the waitress’ gaze the longer I stared at her. Head tipped to the side, she waved at me, slow, tentative, unsure…

  “—and conversation isn’t a bad thing to have, Ny.”

  I blinked, refocusing on Lisa. “Huh?”

  She glanced over her shoulder to where I was looking, but the waitress was gone, like a figment of my imagination. I rubbed at the back of my head, trying to brush the image out of my mind.

  “Are you listening to anything we’re discussing?” Emily huffed. “Oh, wait, who am I kidding? You never flipping listen.”

  “I’m listening.” I squinted at her, then Lisa. “What’d you guys say again?”

  Lisa laughed under her breath, while Emily groaned, probably to try and keep her shit together. I knew I was pissing her off, but I also didn’t care much either. I loved her, but she drove me nuts.

  “What I said was, you have conversations with me and my mom all the time. What’s so hard about making idle conversation with anyone else?”

  I shrugged, then, because I couldn’t help it, looked for the waitress again. She came back out from the kitchen, hips swaying as she moved around the counter to serve some trucker in a corner booth.

  Not a figment. Definitely real.

  Waitress dropped her head back, laughing at something Trucker Man said. Even over the low Elvis music playing on the speakers, I could hear the sound. It was cute as hell, warming my chest like fire. I put a hand over my heart, trying to scrub the sensation away.

  She captivated me. And I didn’t have a damn clue why.

  “—and Maya. You used to talk to her all the time.”

  At Maya’s name, I refocused on Emily and scowled. “Not the same.”

  Maya Davenport was the reason I’d chosen San Diego as my place to escape.

  She’d been my best friend when I was nineteen. The first girl I’d ever slept with, too. Maya was also one of the only women I’d ever been able to count on in my life—the reason I’d decided not to write off all women in general.

  Once a month during my stint in prison, she’d always manage to call me—talk me through my shit. Maya had given me a reason to want to get out of prison, when most days I’d felt like death. She’d been my everything once; my savior from the past, and the main reason I was finally able to nut up and do what I had to do to get out of jail in the end.

  Now I was hoping she’d accept me back into her life, minus my cut. As a guy alone, no brothers, no future, and not a dime to my name. If she was smart, she’d tell me to stay away. But I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do if she did. Which was why I hadn’t bothered to call her and tell her I was coming yet.

  “We love you, Ny.” Emily moved out of the booth and stood. “But it’s time to re-evaluate your stance on communication.”

  I grunted in response.

  “I’m going to the bathroom. Try to be nice if she—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be nice to the chauffeur when she gets here.”

  I searched the rest of the diner once Emily left the table, wondering why this Summer hadn’t bothered to show yet. Besides two waitresses, the trucker, a chef, and us three, the restaurant stood empty. It worked out well, seeing how I wasn’t looking to be discovered. But still, places like this gave me a horror-movie vibe.

  “We know this is hard for you,” Lisa said, her voice softer than her daughter’s had been. “But it’s for the best that you go with Summer. I promise, she’s a really nice young lady.”

  “But nice doesn’t necessarily mean much in my world.”

  Nice was the prison guard who snuck me in smokes, then turned me in the following day for having the things illegally.

  Nice was my old cellmate—the guy who claimed he had a woman back at home he was getting out for, only for me to find out he was mental and talking to his dead wife in his sleep.

  The one he’d killed.

  And nice was my father. Charles-Motherfucking-Lattimore. The one who put me behind bars in the first place for the sole fact that he didn’t think I was the proverbial son after all.

  Sighing to herself, likely pissed that I couldn’t find a reason to be positive, Lisa picked up her purse, claiming she needed to make a phone call outside. I nodded, barely giving her the time of day. It was her idea I ride with Summer, while Emily had been against it. Between the two of them, Em was the one who didn’t trust me, while Lisa was the one who couldn’t seem to get rid of me fast enough. Either way, I’d be out of their hair for good come tomorrow.

  “You look like you could use a piece of pie,” a soft voice piped up from my left.

  Two long legs, covered in those white tights, leaned against the side of the table. Nostrils flaring, I inhaled the scent of something flowery, just as I jerked around to find the culprit.

  Waitress.

  One blink, then two. My mouth opened and shut.

  This woman, Jesus… She wasn’t just beautiful. She was epic.

  And her eyes? They were even prettier up close. Thick with emotion, shiny like the sea… one-hundred-percent baby blue. She was young, too, twenty-three, maybe twenty-four, no older than Emily. Innocent. Untainted. Ready to be dirtied.


  Just not by you.

  “Pie, huh?” I grinned, ignoring my inner voice.

  She set a plate in front of me. One side of her lips curved. “Well, in the words of Ms. Jane Austen, Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.”

  “That so?” Jane, who?

  “Of course. Though with pie, you also have to have a good cup of coffee.” She pointed to my cup, nose scrunching. “And it looks to me like your waitress screwed you in that department.”

  I picked up the cup and looked inside. “It is pretty fucking bad.”

  “I’ll fix that for you.” She cracked her neck from side to side, like she was readying for a battle, and damn if my cock didn’t instantly react. Hard, shifting against my zipper, imagining what exactly it’d be like to sink inside—

  “Do you want cream or sugar?”

  I shook my head, watching as the top button of her dress popped open. Not realizing she was showing me her goods, she leaned over the table to pour me a fresh cup. I stifled a moan in the back of my throat and looked away, vowing to keep myself from going there.

  Gorgeous or not though, I needed to keep my priorities straight. Which meant getting out of this town and starting over as someone other than the son of a really bad fucking man.

  After she finished pouring, Waitress untied her apron and sat across from me in the booth. I froze, eyes narrowed, watching her, my mind racing.