Her Hot Ride: A gripping and sexy biker mc romantic suspense novel Read online

  Slowly, I pulled it out, uncorked it, and…

  “Jesus.”

  Letters. I counted them. Eleven. The name on the return address?

  Lisa Lincoln. Emily’s mom.

  Six

  Emily

  I couldn’t relax. Not when I was pretty much a sitting duck in the middle of the highway, on a broken-down Greyhound just two hours outside of Rockford. Maybe this was a sign. One that said I was making a huge mistake by running to try and find Mom. Worse yet, maybe my going was a trap. Like, what if Pops had been behind my mom’s letters all this time? Maybe he’d been making her write them to trick me. Either way, if I didn’t try to go to her and help her escape, I’d never forgive myself.

  “Attention everyone,” the bus driver called from the front. I sat up, looking down the aisle, thankful for the free seat beside me. Surprisingly, the bus was mostly empty, which was great. The fewer eyes to see me leave, the better.

  “I apologize for the inconvenience, but there’s an engine problem that’s out of my control. Rest assured, a new bus will be here within the hour to get you where you need to be.”

  Within the hour? Damn it.

  On edge, I pulled out my phone. Delays were not on my agenda. I clicked on my phone screen, frowning at the text there from an unknown number. Slowly, I punched in my passcode and opened it, only for my breath to catch at what was written there.

  You can run, but you sure as fuck can’t hide.

  Goosebumps ran over my arms. I sat up, looking at the faces on the bus. When I was certain nobody had stealthily snuck on, I peered out the window, my eyes going impossibly wide at what was there on the other side of the highway.

  Oh, God.

  Archer was leaning back against his bike, arms folded, looking almost, well, bored.

  How had he found me? I’d been careful not to draw attention to myself at the bus station. Hadn’t seen a single person there who may have known anyone from the club.

  My phone pinged again. Without even looking, I knew it was him. And then it dawned on me: he’d found me because of the GPS signal on my iPhone. That had to be it. Ugh. I should’ve known.

  “Focus. You’re gonna be fine,” I told myself, eyes shut, deep breath in, deep breath out.

  Biting my lip, I looked to the right, out the other set of windows across the aisle. Fields of soybeans or corn, something to that effect, covered every bit of land I saw. If I snuck off the bus, I could crawl through them, leave my phone here on the seat. Hide out in the middle of the field until the next bus came and he left, realizing I wasn’t on there after all.

  Either way, I knew I had to go. Now. Otherwise I was in serious trouble.

  Lifting my bag, I slung it onto my shoulder then got to the floor, hands and knees. I shoved my phone under the seat and began to crawl my way down the aisle. Not one of my finest moments.

  “Excuse me, pardon me, I’m soooo sorry,” I said to whoever I bumped into, sliding my way through, my stupid duffel hitting legs, thighs, feet. At the front, the driver’s feet stopped in front of my face. I looked up, wincing when I found his narrowed eyes on me.

  “Is there an issue, miss?” he asked.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, contemplating my answer. Ignore him, explain… what the hell do I say? “I, um, I need to smoke.” I smiled. From the ground. Looking like a complete lunatic.

  His lips pursed, but thankfully he didn’t question me. Instead, he nodded and opened the door.

  “Thanks, I’ll, uh, just be a second.” Then I turned over onto my butt and scooted down the steps.

  Yeah. Graceful, I was not.

  The second my feet hit the gravel, I moved in front of a tire, crouching low, praying Archer didn’t see my shoes from under the bus. Cars and trucks passed loudly, the crowded interstate definitely distracting. Hiking my bag back over my shoulder, I took off down the ditch, not watching my step, only to slide down into a heap of mud, my shoe getting stuck in what could only be some sort of animal hole.

  “No, no, no…” I shut my eyes, yanking at my foot, losing the shoe in the process. On my stomach, I reached down into the hole, shuddering and praying that no little critters came out to get me. Once I grabbed the bow on the flat, I tugged and tugged, my arm soaked in mud as I pulled it out. Sadly, my one success was short-lived as the next second I heard the rustle of feet behind me. Followed by that stupid, sexy, annoying voice.

  “And just where do you think you’re going, JP?” Arms went around my waist, hiking me up and over his shoulders.

  “I’m not going back.” I beat my fists against his back, struggling to kick him as my ankles were pinned to his chest. “Not with you or anyone.”

  A loud laugh echoed from Archer’s throat as he walked behind the bus—likely so the driver didn’t see me. I could scream, yeah, but I also knew what Archer was capable of doing to me if I tried.

  “See? That’s where you’re wrong. You’ll go wherever the fuck I tell you to go from here on out, understood?”

  “I can’t go back,” I tried. “They’ll kill me.”

  “That’d be too easy for what you deserve right now.” He chuckled and started through the lanes of the seventy-five-mile-an-hour traffic like he wanted to get hit. Slow turtle mode that had me so terrified I was forced to close my eyes and press my forehead into his shoulders.

  “You’re pretty stupid, ya know,” he continued. “Rule number one of escaping somewhere is never take your phone. Not that I’m complaining. Easier to track you this way.”

  I rolled my eyes, though I knew he couldn’t see it. “And how was I supposed to know I had a stalker on my hands?”

  “I’m not a stalker, baby. Just smart.” Once we were next to his bike, he set me down on my feet so hard that my entire body rattled. I lost my balance, falling onto my ass with a loud grunt.

  “Don’t you ever call me baby again,” I hissed up at his smug face.

  “What would you like me to call you then, huh?” He crouched down in front of me and winked.

  “My name would be nice.”

  “Talk about predictable.” He tutted.

  “Go. Away.”

  “Nah.” He curled his nose. “I’m starting to like this little cat-and-mouse game you’ve got a fetish for.”

  “I don’t have a freaking fetish.” I rubbed my eyes and grabbed the side of his bike to help myself up.

  Archer reached out and grabbed my arm. “Don’t touch my bike unless you get my permission, JP.”

  I pushed him back and got to my feet the rest of the way on my own. “Same goes for you and me. I don’t want to be touched unless I tell you to touch me.”

  He smirked, eyebrows lifting to mid-forehead. “You plan on doing that?”

  “No, God.” I shuddered and jumped back. “Not ever.”

  “Fine.” He held his hands up in surrender, that same sly smirk playing on his lips.

  “Fine.”

  “Good.” He folded his arms.

  I nodded and said back, “Yes. Very good.”

  He didn’t look angry at me anymore. If anything, Archer seemed to be enjoying our little battle alongside the road. Until his eyes narrowed. “You know, I stood up for you in Church today.”

  “How so?” I frowned.

  “Everyone, except for your brother, is saying you were the one to start the car fire.”

  I winced and shook my head. “It wasn’t me. I swear.” But I knew who it was.

  Sort of.

  “Yet you took off…” He rubbed at his chin.

  “I know it looks bad.” I held up my hands. “But you need to know. I’d been planning on leaving for a while and the car fire was—”

  “A distraction. I get it.” He moved in closer, towering over me, his playfulness erased by the monster I knew he could be. “You working for Pops and your ma? You hiding something for ’em? You’re a damn idiot if that’s the case. Bigger than I thought you were.”

  I jerked my head back, blinking when the backs of my legs
hit his leather bike seat. “No. I swear.”

  “Tell me the damn truth, Emily.” He put his hands on the seat, trapping me between his hard body and the bike. “Are you working for Pops?”

  “No!” I shook my head so fast I grew dizzy. Or that could’ve been the scent of him consuming my senses. The way he smelled, like gasoline and last night’s drink. One half soap, and the other half leather. “Please. I’d never put Summer in danger. Or Niyol. That’s why I left them a note.”

  “I might as well just take you back and let Flick deal with ya. How does that sound?” His upper lip curled and a long strand of his blond hair fell over the side of his chiseled jaw. He didn’t bother to brush it away.

  “Of course you’d take me back there and let them deal with it. You’re lazy,” I hissed out. “Predictable too.” More than anything I wanted to get to him and prove I wasn’t the meek little sister of Niyol Lattimore. Not anymore.

  “How so?” He cocked his head to the side, watching me through hooded eyes.

  My palms began to sweat again, so I rubbed them over the front of my jeans. “I knew you’d take me back to that club, that you’d turn me in like a good little Red Dragon instead of handling this on your own.”

  His eyes narrowed even more, anger rushing through the green hue like sparks of lightning. “You don’t know shit about me.” Then he pulled back just enough to be able to grab me by the waist and scoop me onto the back of his bike.

  “Hey!” I protested, only for him to jump in front of me again. “Let me go or I’ll scream.”

  Ignoring me, he spread my legs over the seat, fingers hot and commanding as they held me in place. His body was flush with my side seconds later, and I could feel something hard growing behind his zipper—that something now pressed against my hip.

  I swallowed down any further comment I had, taken off guard by the shot of lust that hit me low in the belly. Then when he leaned forward and pushed my hair behind my shoulder in a way that I’d always loved a man to do, I stopped breathing. He knew all the buttons to push on me, as if there was a roadmap of them drawn on my body. Curse this man for being so good when it came to doing something so bad.

  Like he knew the effect he had on me, Archer trailed his fingers down my neck, to my shoulder, taking his time down my arm, until he stopped at my elbow and squeezed.

  Lowering his face to my ear, he growled out in a whisper, “Don’t even fucking try to run, you hear me? Not now. Not ever again.”

  I licked my lips, unable to stop the seduction in my voice as I said, “And if I do…?”

  Slowly he pulled back, his eyes zeroing in on my lips. My heart thumped even harder against my chest and the world spun around me in dizzying circles. I didn’t know what was happening or why, but the sudden urge to kiss this man I hated, a man who held my fate in his hands, was so strong that it hurt a little to breathe.

  “You won’t like the dirty tricks I got up my sleeve, Emily. Trust me.”

  Instead of taking me back to Rockford, Archer surprised me as he continued to head south on his bike. He didn’t know where Pops and my mom were at, but he drove like he did.

  Forty minutes later we stopped in a small Illinois town that was comprised of nothing but a single gas station with a tiny diner attached to it. It reminded me of something post-apocalyptic in the sense that none of the pumps worked and there was nobody in the diner besides us, a waitress, and a cook.

  “Sit.” He pointed to a booth. It wasn’t a seat-yourself kind of joint, but Archer commanded a room like nobody’s business and the waitress was too busy smoking to care.

  “No.”

  His lips pursed and he jabbed a finger in the air toward the table again. “What’d I tell you about not listening?”

  I rolled my eyes but did as he asked, not wanting to look or feel like a chastised child. For now, I’d have to give him credit where credit was due: he hadn’t taken me back to the club, which possibly meant he wanted to talk before he did. Maybe if I could reason with him and make him understand what I wanted, he’d let me go. Though I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

  “Talk. Right now,” were the first words out of his mouth as he sat across from me.

  My stomach tightened as I stared into the eyes of my new nemesis. “It’s not what you think. I swear.”

  “Then tell me what the fuck it is, JP. Because I’m gonna need a reason as to why I shouldn’t take you back to the club right now and lock your ass up until we can figure out what to do with you.”

  Part of me wondered why—if he was so in love with his stupid club—he hadn’t just driven me back to Rockford and turned me over in the first place. What was the point of niceties? Why pretend my opinion mattered when it likely never would? I wouldn’t ask him those things though. Not when there might be a chance that he’d hear me out.

  Inhaling through my nose, I leaned back in my seat and thought about how I wanted to explain this. Archer could think whatever he wanted about me, but my loyalties lay with my mom, not his stupid club, and definitely not with Pops.

  I looked at my shaking hands before clasping them together on top of the table. “The first letter came two weeks after she left.”

  “Fucking hell, woman. All these months you’ve been keeping this shit a secret?”

  I cringed. “You have to understand. That’s my mom and—”

  “I don’t give two shits who she is. That woman is with Pops. So, to me and my brothers, she’s a traitor to our club.”

  I winced at the hatred there in his gaze. This wasn’t the playful man I’d come to know sitting across from me now, not the one who teased me and called me names and threatened me with the dirty thoughts running through his mind.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” I whispered. “She could be in danger.”

  “Of course you had a choice. So did your damn ma.” He slapped a palm on top of the table, rocking the napkin holder against the wall. “We lost two people because of your old man. Imagine what we might’ve been able to do if you would’ve given us these earlier.” He reached inside his cut, yanking out a set of familiar, white envelopes, all held together by a rubber band. “They got zip codes on ’em for fuck’s sake.”

  I pressed a hand to my throat, trying to stay calm.

  “You didn’t stop and think about that though, did you?” His Irish accent grew heavier and thicker, making him almost impossible to understand. “All you cared about was yourself.”

  “I’m sorry.” For so many things. “But you’ve gotta understand. My mom is, and always will be, the most important person in my life. And if she’s in trouble, then I’m going to do anything I can to help her.”

  “So, what then, you just gonna go to wherever the fuck Pops is now? Waltz in there, bat those big brown eyes, and say, ‘Please, Daddy, give my mommy back?’”

  “That man is not my father.” I pursed my lips.

  “Sure.” He laughed. “Tell that to a DNA test.”

  Suddenly desperate for a reprieve, I tugged the envelope filled with money from my duffel and handed it to him. “Here. Take this.”

  “What is it?” He looked at the envelope, his nose curling as I set it in front of him.

  At this point, if I had to try and bribe the guy, I would. Not sure how I’d actually get to Kentucky without money, but I was desperate. So much so that I was willing to do just about anything for him to leave me alone.

  “It’s the money I’ve been saving up. Maybe you can, like, I don’t know, buy something for your bike or put it in a fund for the club.” I took a breath, exhaling through my nose. “I know I messed up by not telling anyone, and I also know people have suffered because of it, but if you take this—”

  “No one wants your damn money, Emily. Especially not me. What we want is for Pops to die and for your ma’s head to be on a pike right next to him.”

  “Please.” I shook my head, eyes welling with tears. “You can’t do that. I know she made a mistake, but she didn’t have a choice but to go with h
im.”

  “Of course she had a fucking choice,” he growled.

  “Did you read her letters to me?” I asked.

  He folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. “One of them. Couldn’t stomach the rest.”

  “Did you read the first letter?”

  “Nope.”

  I motioned for the pile of envelopes, asking without words to pick them up. He nodded, surprisingly, and I took the opportunity to search through the stack to find it. Slowly, I pulled it out from the rubber band, careful not to rip it as I tugged it from its envelope. After I unfolded it, I laid it flat before him, fingers shaking as I pointed to the first few lines.

  “See? She was scared.”

  He leaned forward, read it for a second, then shrugged, disinterest in his eyes when they met mine again.

  I huffed out my frustration. “She didn’t have a choice. It says right there that Pops was going to hurt both me and Niyol if she didn’t get him to safety.”

  “Yeah. And how the hell would he have done that, huh? We had him captured, for fuck’s sake. The woman messed things up for all of us the second she stopped trusting the RDs and helped him escape.”

  Deep down, I knew he was right. But I’d been trying my best not to think about the choices my mom had made and how she’d gone about making them. I’d been suffering the consequences of her choices with the Red Dragons for almost a year now. Granted nobody had hurt me like they would hurt her, but still. Ninety percent of the men in the Red Dragon club had treated me like garbage—a pariah, really. So excuse me for wanting a fresh start.

  “The woman didn’t trust us to take care of things,” Archer continued, shaking his head. “Lisa picked Pops over the Red Dragons. You don’t do that, not even if you think it’s outta loyalty.” His square jaw clenched so tightly I was certain he’d crack a molar. It was dangerous to look at, to the point where I shuddered and forced my gaze to the table again.