Rush - Blue Devils MC Book 2 (Book 1 Included FREE for a short time only!)
Read Rush - Blue Devils MC Book 2 (Book 1 Included FREE for a short time only!) Online
Authors: Ashley Rhodes
RUSH
BLUE DEVILS MC BOOK TWO
By
Ashley Rhodes
Copyright 2016
Rush
is the second book in my Blue Devils MC series. While you can enjoy it on its own, the experience will be improved if you’ve read book one,
Lain
, first. Luckily for you, if you haven’t already read it,
Lain
is included here for FREE for a limited time only! Just click
here
to go straight to Lain.
If you’d like me to let you know as soon as my books, are released, sign up for my mailing list here:
http://eepurl.com/4epDb
Get a FREE book when you sign up!
If you’d be interested in getting my latest books for FREE (and before release!) in exchange for an honest review, you can also sign up for my Advance Review Copy Team mailing list here:
http://eepurl.com/bRizNn
You can check out my Facebook page here for sneak peeks at upcoming books, giveaways, or just to send me a message:
https://www.facebook.com/AshleyRhodesAuthor/
Or, if all else fails, there’s always email! You can get a hold of me anytime at:
OK, enough waffle. Onto the books!
Enjoy!
Ashley x
“I thought I’d lost her forever…but now I have her back, and I ain’t never letting her go again.”
Rush
Thirteen years since I last saw her. Hannah Blue, my highschool sweetheart. We were meant to be together forever – but she left. She moved on. I joined the Blue Devils MC, and she disappeared to god knows where. But then I see her on the evening news – shot by the
Chupacabras,
our sworn enemies. I don’t know how she got mixed up with them, and I don’t care. All I know is that I have to protect her, because those sons of bitches will be back to finish the job.
Ain’t no way I’m letting them get anywhere near her. Ain’t no way I’m letting her out of my sight. We don’t always get second chances in this life, and I’m gonna take this one and never let go.
She’s mine. She’s always been mine. It’s gonna take more than thirteen years and a dangerous Mexican outlaw gang to come between us again.
Hannah Blue
Thirteen years, and he’s still the same guy. Just a little older, wiser, and a hell of a lot more gorgeous.
But I can’t think like that. It didn’t work then, and it isn’t gonna work now. Rush is married to the Blue Devils, always has been. He’s happy spending his whole life in small-town Arizona, I’ve spent the past decade exploring the world.
But I’m in danger now. Somehow I got mixed up with the
Chupacabras
, and Rush is there to protect me. And Lord knows I need it – those guys are stone cold killers.
So, just for a little while, I’ll let him be my protector. I’ll let him back in. It’ll be just like old times…but it’s only temporary.
Maybe if I keep telling myself that, it’ll come true…
The bus bumped and swayed over the potholes and around the corners, almost lulling Isabel to sleep. It seemed like they'd been on the bus for
forever
.
Why does church camp have to be so far away from school?
she thought crossly.
I don’t want to be on the bus anymore! But,
she told herself, remembering the lecture on this topic by the head schoolmaster when they’d been told they got to go on the trip,
I guess it’s okay. At least I don’t have to stay behind like the babies do. Only grown-up 10-year-old girls get to go to church camp.
With a yawn she blinked sleepily, fighting back the urge to nap, and snuggled further into Maestra Hannah’s side. She looked so tired. Isabel sighed happily as Maestra began stroking her arm in a slow, comforting rhythm. There was no better teacher in the world than Maestra Hannah. Sure, Maestra Martinez was fine too, but not like Maestra Hannah. Martinez hit them too much with the ruler. Maestra Hannah never hit them or swore at them. She was the
best
teacher.
Maestra Hannah began to hum a tune low and sweetly in Isabel’s ear, the rhythm matching her strokes on Isabel’s arm. She let herself be lulled, relaxing even further into Maestra’s side. Everyone knew that there were angels in heaven, sure, but
she
knew there were angels on earth, too. Maestra was the teacher who loved her more than anyone else ever had, and Isabel closed her eyes to replay one of her favorite daydreams - Maestra taking her to America. Going together to see the Statue of Liberty. Giving her her own bedroom that she never had to share with anyone who snored.
She knew she was lucky to have been given a scholarship to Santa Maria’s, an all-girls Catholic school - she had been told that often enough. “A
huérfana
like you is usually left on the streets,” the schoolmaster had told her repeatedly. “You’re a
chica con suerte
- a lucky girl.”
But luckier than a place at Santa Maria’s was getting Maestra Hannah as her teacher. Maestra loved her like no one else ever had. Someday, they were going to go America…
Happily replaying her favorite, well-worn daydream out in her mind, a fantasy which culminated in neon pink window curtains in her bedroom and a refrigerator in the kitchen, she heard motors rumbling and the cheers of her classmates. Isabel’s eyes popped open and she pulled away from Maestra’s side, sleepiness gone, peering out the window to see big men on big, shiny bikes pulling up alongside their bus. Her friends had begun waving furiously, enjoying the change in scenery. Here, finally, was something to do to relieve the boredom! The girls chattered excitedly, discussing which bike was bigger. Which biker was uglier.
Isabel noticed that Maestra didn’t join in on the fun, though. She wasn’t waving at the men through the bus windows. In fact, Isabel could feel her begin to tense and sit straight up as the bus slowed down.
The chrome-covered bikes were on both sides of the bus, and then, as the bus slowed down, in front of the bus too.
“Maestra Hannah, what’s wrong?” Isabel whispered as Maestra’s hand began to tighten around Isabel’s upper arm. The bus was almost stopped now, and her two teachers, across the aisle from each other, began to whisper furiously. Isabel strained to hear what they were saying but then they grew completely silent as the bus driver stopped the bus and cut the engines. The cheering had stopped. Everyone held their breath, the excited energy gone, replaced with confusion and fear. Wondering…
The bus door busted open beneath the butt of the gun, the glass shattering into pieces, the frame of the doorway bent. In spite of herself, Isabel began to whimper.
“Shhhhh…it’s going to be okay,” Maestra whispered to her, pushing Isabel down, down to the floor. Why would Isabel want to go onto the floor? Isabel didn’t want to be on the floor, she wanted to be next to Maestra, where she felt safe. She tried instead to wedge herself into her teacher’s side when the men came bounding up the stairs, into the bus. She wanted to hide, hide where Maestra could protect her.
When the first man began waving his rifle around in the air, shouting in an ugly voice, the girls erupted into terrified screams. But Isabel couldn’t scream. The noise was caught in her throat, threatening to overwhelm her, to choke her.
Then, Maestra Hannah and Maestra Martinez stood up. Why were they standing up? Isabel clung to her teacher’s hand, hiding behind the seat in front of her as the man with the rifle shouted threats. She tugged at Maestra’s hand. “Please,” Isabel begged softly, “please, Maestra, please sit down!”
And then she was coming back down and for just a moment, Isabel thought that her beloved teacher had heard Isabel’s pleas but she
kept
falling and the sound of a gunshot finally registered in Isabel’s mind and the blood spread out around Hannah’s head and finally, the sob that had threatened to choke Isabel came spilling out.
She crumpled to her knees on the floor beside Maestra Hannah, her small hands frantically patting her head, trying to push the blood back in. “No, God, please, don’t take her, not Maestra,” she sobbed. She barely noticed when the huge, rough hands landed on her small shoulders, the pain of her grief cascading over her, washing her into a world of death and pain beyond anything she ever knew existed.
Rush
“Goddammit, where are they?” Rush muttered to himself as he walked out the door into the blazing sunlight and accompanying heat of the Arizona sun. After the Blue Devils had refused to sell guns to the
Chupacabras
three days ago, Rush had been anticipating a retaliatory strike. Granted, this current stalking around the edge of the compound, checking behind dumpsters and old broken-down semis for a hidden
Chupa
, was stupid. Even in his agitated state, he knew that the chances that there was a
Chupa
in hiding, waiting to pop out and strike like a jack in the box, was, like, none.
But shit, he couldn’t just sit in the clubhouse and wait. Wait to be slaughtered. Wait for a drive-by to happen.
Lain may have decided to take the last two days off and fuck his new girlfriend -
God, Lain with an actual girlfriend…what has the world come to?
- but Rush couldn’t. Not only did he not have the requisite girlfriend to fuck, which did throw a monkey wrench into that plan, but he also couldn’t relax. The hair on the back of his neck was in perpetual porcupine mode.
Something nasty was going to happen, and he couldn’t just sit still and wait for it. Half of the Blue Devils MC was gone - where they’d gone, no one knew, and how long they’d stay gone was anyone’s guess - and then there were the
Chupas
, who were surely pissed and eager to kill every last one of them for double crossing them.
No, the hairs on the back of his neck weren’t going to lie down, no matter how many times he ran his hand over them.
“Rush! Rush! C’mere!” Dumbo gestured wildly from the door of the clubhouse, prudently staying in the shade as he waved his boss down. It was the fucking Sonora Desert in goddamn July - no intelligent person stood anywhere but the shade this time of the year. With a sigh, Rush walked away from his intensive (and admittedly idiotic) hunt through the pile of rusted semi parts for the nonexistent
Chupa
, to find out what the hell Dumbo’s problem was.
“Rush, it’s your old girlfriend! She’s on TV!”
The words sliced through the air and then Rush was running towards the clubhouse, his mind racing.
Surely I didn’t hear that right. No fucking way Blue is on TV. Dumbo must mean an old sheep. Or he’s seeing things. Or he’s drunk. Dumbo could be drunk. Was he drinking earlier? Dammit, I can’t remember if he was drinking earlier.
But when he stood in front of the TV, sucking down the cool air of the clubhouse, for the first time in 13 years, he was seeing Blue.
Hannah fucking Blue fucking Wright was on the fucking TV. With a goddamn bandage wrapped around her head, the white gauze contrasting sharply with her dark curls. Rush snatched up the remote and hit the volume button, jacking it as high as it would go, as if hearing the news at a rock concert sound level would make a difference. Fuck, it was
Blue!
“Hannah Wright, an English teacher at an all-girls’ Catholic school in Mexico, went missing four days ago, along with 30 students. Authorities assumed at the time that she’d been kidnapped along with her students, until she showed up at a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Mexico. She has yet to regain consciousness, but police are hopeful that she will be able to assist them in their investigation by answering questions about the harrowing journey she must have endured,” the reporter said dramatically. As if the situation need any more goddamn drama added to it. “The kidnapping of these 30 students has caused an international crisis as the FBI and US Border Patrol joined forces with the Mexican police to investigate the incident that took place on the way to a week-long church camp.”
The screen was flashing scenes of candlelight vigils outside of the hospital, reporters roaming the lawns, and then switched to scenes of parents crying and begging in hysterical-sounding Spanish.
“No one is sure what the purpose of the alleged kidnapping was,” the news anchor said, his voice dubbed over the image of sobbing parents, “or who was behind it. Ms. Wright is from Copper Lode, bringing this story even closer to home. Her father, Mr. Bob Wright, chose to have her life-flighted from Mexico to the University of Arizona Trauma Center in Tucson in order to have the best care possible provided for his beloved daughter.”
Rush hit the power button, the sudden, dramatic silence wrapping itself around him. He could see the other club members watching him, waiting to see what he’d do, but it registered in a faraway part of his brain. He couldn’t focus on them. He couldn’t see them.
Blue.
Hannah Blue.
Gorgeous aquamarine eyes, laughing mouth, brown curly hair, smiling at him, telling him that she loved him. That she would always love him. And he was kissing her delicious mouth, shoving his hands into her thick brown hair, pulling her against him.
But there was a bandage wrapped around her head, her eyes closed, asleep. Maybe forever.
Oh God!
It was like someone had punched him in the gut.
And then his phone was in his hand and Lain was speaking to him and Rush didn’t really know how it happened, except to know that it had to happen. “I have to go protect her, Lain,” Rush interrupted, not trying to figure out what Lain was saying.
“Protect who? Rush, what the fuck are you talking about?” Murmurs and a few kissing noises reached Rush’s ears before Lain came back to the phone. “Okay, now what the hell are you talking about?”
“Blue! Hannah Blue was on TV. She’s in the Trauma Center in Tucson. She was shot. You know the
Chupas
who kidnapped the 30 girls?”
“Yeah, of course. What abo—”
“She was on the bus with them. She was riding on the goddamn bus that got hijacked.” Rush’s voice tightened with panic and he knew, in some distant corner of his mind, that he was in shock. That he wasn’t acting rational. That the men were probably wondering if he’d lost his fucking mind. But Rush didn’t care. He couldn’t care. Not right now. “She was shot—” his voice broke and he cleared his throat, trying it again. “She was shot in the head. She’s in a coma. I have to go protect her.”
“WHAT?!” Lain’s voice roared through the phone. People in the next county over probably heard that yell. “No way, Rush! Hannah is bad news! Let the police take care of her. Let the police protect her. That’s their job. Your job is to protect our clubho—”
“I’ll call you when I get there,” Rush cut him off, and hung up. He couldn’t remember the last time he hung up on Lain. Hell, the chances were real good that he’d
never
hung up on Lain. Lain was his best friend. He’d do anything in the world for him.
Except turn his back on Blue.
He hopped on his bike and revved the engine, tearing out of the parking lot. Oh yeah, it felt fucking good to do something more than hunt through rusted semi parts. He hadn’t said goodbye to the other members; he hadn’t even thought to do it.
He needed to get to Blue. He needed to protect her.
***
“Hey gorgeous, want another?” he’d asked, holding out a glass of champagne to her. Her eyes had widened ludicrously large at his moniker and she wobbled on her high heels, telling Rush that she’d probably already had too much. As the daughter of the groom, no doubt the waiters had been supplying her all evening with champagne. What cop was going to arrest the daughter of one of the richest men in town for underage drinking on the night of his wedding?
Despite her already inebriated state, she reached out and took the flute anyway. Rush figured that his first move on her shouldn’t include acting like her father, so he decided to let her drink whatever the hell she wanted to drink.
Close-up, he could see that Hannah Blue Wright (middle name helpfully supplied on the program) was fucking gorgeous, even more so than she’d been far away. Her smile was warm, sexy, inviting, her nose cute and pert, but it was her eyes that got to him. A glowing blue-green color that he had a hard time identifying - were they blue or were they green? Aquamarine? - and full of life. Intelligence. Laughter. Enthusiasm for the world around her. And more than a little of the happy drunk glow that told his dick she’d be an easy conquest if he wanted her.
“How’d
you
crash this wedding party full of old people and business associates of my father?” she asked, with more than a little wonder in her voice. He grinned down at her.
“I have my secrets,” he said. “I’m Rush, and according to the program, you must be Hannah Blue Wright?”
“Oh yes, you mustn’t forget the ‘Blue’,” she said in a grave tone of voice, and then burst out laughing.
“Well, Blue, may I have the honor of this dance?” He felt stupidly formal asking her that way but somehow, he knew she’d be charmed by the formality, and he was right. Her eyes lit up with a sexy joy that he knew he’d want to see again and again. They finished off their champagne, placing the flutes on a low retaining wall for the staff to find, and then he escorted her to the dance floor, extending his elbow and walking her over like he’d been trained to do at all of those social training classes his parents had forced him to attend. But unlike all of those painfully awkward classes, here it felt right. It felt natural. She was impressed by his manners and for the first time in his life, he was grateful for his parents’ obsession with tradition and socially acceptable mannerisms.
Fuck, they should’ve told him he’d be able to impress chicks and then he would’ve paid more attention in class.
They began slow dancing to some cheesy oldies tune that Rush didn’t recognize but as they swayed to the rhythm, he was lost to it all. Lost to everything but this girl in his arms, sexy and beautiful and such a turn-on for him, he was a little worried he’d embarrass himself in front of everyone. What would his mother say about sporting a boner at a wedding!
Finally, the slow song ended and she drew back a little and gazed into his eyes. “Wanna go for a little stroll around the grounds?” she asked, her words slurring a little.
“Sure!” he agreed, a little too quickly. Whatever she wanted. Whatever it took to have her back in his arms.
“Let me change shoes,” she said, looking down at her feet ruefully. “These heels seemed like a good idea several glasses of champagne ago, but not so much now.” He grinned at her. The last thing he wanted to do was end the night with an icepack on her ankle, so this seemed like a great idea to him. Practical
and
sexy. It didn’t get any fucking better than this.
She returned quickly, flats on, and they began to stroll around the house and garden. The oleanders were in bloom, and on a whim, he picked one, tucking it behind her ear. “Perfect!” he said and she laughed.
“I feel like a hula dancer,” she said, and began mimicking the sexy rolling moves of a Hawaiian dancer. Fire shot straight to his groin and he wondered if she had any fucking idea how sexy she was in that dress that seemed to be specifically designed to drive guys like him crazy. And God knew, it was succeeding.
He moved closer. “May I have this dance?” he asked rhetorically as he pulled her close against him and they began to sway together, and then grind together. She couldn’t miss his hard-on, pushing against her belly but instead of pulling away, she only ground back harder. He dipped his head down and kissed her and the world stopped and it was only Blue and his tongue plundered her mouth, tasting the champagne and chocolate.
He picked her up, wrapping her strong legs around his waist and then walked further into the darkness, away from the torches lighting up the party, the live band and the laughter disappearing until he found a low wall where he sat Blue down and his hands roamed over her body, her excited moans driving him on, driving him farther. He moved his hands up her gorgeous thighs, up her blessedly short skirt to her pussy and then to her clit, a nub that made her cry out in pleasure as he circled it with his thumb.
She was rocking then, rocking against his hand, against his body, “Yes, oh yes, right there, yessssss,” and she arched her back, throwing her head back, shuddering, moaning, and he knew that the look on her gorgeous face was the look he was going to jack off to that night, when he got home and could take matters into his own hands. He’d close his eyes and imagine just this moment in time.
She finally sat up and gave him a lopsided grin, pleasure mixed with too much to drink. “Wowsers,” she said, and he laughed at her understatement. His cock was throbbing hard against the pants of his tux but he ignored it, for the moment. He knew he better get her to her bedroom before she passed out completely and was fair game to any bastard who walked by.
He picked her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest. He was only 17, sure, but years of sports and working hard for John had meant muscles that other 17-year-old boys could only dream about.
He carried her along the edge of the property, outside of the lights, working to keep her inebriated state a secret from any adult who might care. They got through the back door but then he stopped, perplexed about where to go. He leaned over and whispered, “Blue…wake up…” She opened her eyes lazily, only focusing her eyes on his with great effort.
“Oh hi, Rush,” she said, as if greeting him for the first time. As if they hadn’t just fucked around in her father’s garden 15 minutes earlier.
