Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2) (3 page)

BOOK: Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2)
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She'd always felt there was something she could heal in him. Her curse, to think that over and over, with man after man.

There was nothing to heal with Beretta. Not truly. He was nothing but danger. You didn't heal danger—you ran from it.

Just like she had.

The sides of the ambulance were loaded down with storage bays, each one filled to the brim. Tearing through them, he opened up one of the emergency bags the paramedics used when they went on-site. Then he began to fill the bag up with everything he could find—hypodermics, IV bags, medicines, gloves, tubing.

“If you told me what you were looking to fix,” said Helen, “I could help you pick more carefully. It’s not all going to fit in that bag.”

She was serious; she’d tell him what he needed. Too much gone from an ambulance meant a drop in funding for other parts of the hospital, and they couldn’t afford that. Helen didn't need a pay cut, that was for sure.

On top of that, there was still that impulse to help. She knew this man, and though he wasn't being particularly friendly, her desire to make him feel good was surprisingly strong.

Beretta had been with her, had been inside her (and
god
, hadn't
that
been beautiful?), and so she wanted to do right by him even if it was clearly the wrong thing to do.

He was just as breathtaking as she remembered from six months before. Thick lines of ink ran down from his neck across his bare arms. Arms as thick as tree trunks, rippling with huge, hard muscle. But he didn't respond; he just opened another bag and stuffed that one too.

When that one was full, he seemed satisfied.

“I have to go back in,” she said. “They’ll be missing me inside. I’m just on break.”

He nodded, not seeming to listen. He took out a length of tube from the storage bay.

“Hands.”

“You can’t be serious, Beretta.”

“Give me your fucking hands or I’ll break them off.”

She gulped, sticking out her hands. The thought occurred to her, very slowly, that he was a criminal doing a criminal's business. She had seen him doing what he did and that made her a liability. In just a few seconds, he had tied her hands tight and her fingertips started going numb.

He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her over his shoulder. Easy as that. Like she was a sack of potatoes.

“Say a word and I’ll make you regret it.”

This had escalated quickly. The chemicals of that animalistic, physical attraction between them were making it hard to process, hard to think clearly. Now that her hands were tied and she was immobilized on his shoulder, everything that she should have done rushed at her.

Why hadn’t she been fighting this whole time? Why hadn’t she been trying to palm some scalpel, sneak away a shot of morphine to jab deep into his neck?

But no. Like an idiot, she’d just watched him like a panther prowling in a zoo, assuming he’d take what he needed and let her go.

Maybe call you later. Maybe apologize. Maybe ask if you still wanted another ride on his “motorcycle” for the road. Maybe see if you wanted to talk things over and explain yourself. You stupid, stupid woman. What did you think was going to happen?

Now she squirmed, now she fought.

“Let me go!” she screamed. “Help! Someone help! You put me down!”

He sighed, dropping her down and taking her by the neck. “I’m a man of my word, Helen. You’ll see.”

His hand clasped over her face, cutting off her air, and everything went dark.

Chapter 3

––––––––

H
elen Kowalsky.

Her name was on her name tag on her scrubs, but of course he'd known her anyway.

Over the last six months, he'd done a whole lot of his best to forget her, as a matter of fact. She had never been part of the plan—and man, had she ever made that clear to him.

He searched her body as she was unconscious, wishing like hell he'd met her again under different circumstances. Every fingertip on her luscious curves, her sweet skin, was like a steroid injection straight to his crotch, making every part of him strain with ache and need.

She was beautiful. She had always been beautiful. Her breasts, so full and firm; her hips so sexy and wide. It was all coming back to him now in a rush.

Helen left him. She had vetoed his right to touch her like this—to know her in the ways only he knew her. But that didn't mean he didn't want it still. Because having his hands on her so sudden, so soon after seeing her again, all he could think of was undressing her and having his way with her then and there.

Of course, he wouldn't ever. He didn't
need
to. He needed only to say the words and he'd have her a melting pile of putty in his hands. But that didn't stop him from
wanting
to take her, to force her.

Goddamn, she was beautiful.

That wasn't a road that he could go down anymore, though. There was too much to lose, too much hurt to give out, and he couldn't do that to anyone anymore.

Besides, now she was his hostage. The rules were different.

On her, there was little else. Just a phone—which he tossed on the highway— a wallet with some ID and a few credit cards, and a pair of keys that he stuffed in his pocket. Maybe he could use them as collateral for her later; maybe they’d come in handy if he needed to pull something from her home or her car.

Helen was gorgeous, with medium-ish dirty blond hair, a strong nose, heavy bust, and the kind of muscle tone that made it clear she could handle herself in a rough spot. Being a nurse in a town full of drug addicts, no doubt she'd built up some of that muscle on purpose.

Of course she was gorgeous. Gorgeous women who Beretta couldn’t have had a way of traipsing through his life and leaving it a mess. Like tornadoes through the trailer park of his emotions.

So he felt nothing for her outside of that initial attraction.

He told himself this over and over—
I feel nothing for her. Nothing at all. I just need to work off my hard-on on my own time, that's all.

If he felt nothing for her, then she couldn’t do a thing to him. He didn’t feel a growing hardness in his loins simply from being in her presence, didn’t feel his heartbeat racing by tracing the lines of her chin with his eyes, didn’t feel how soft and right she had felt in his arms.

Didn't wonder even once why she had left him in the first place.

They were back at the warehouse where the Wrecking Crew had moved in about a month ago. It was a large place, mostly empty, near the edge of town. The only other thing near it was a mechanic's shop where they sometimes rented tools out to work on their bikes. They paid rent for the warehouse in cash and the owner, smartly, didn’t ask any questions.

There was an office in the front. They made their living quarters right behind it, with the largest part of the warehouse emptied out. The members of the Wrecking Crew had figured they would need the space for future members, for shipments of drugs and weapons. So far, there had been none—just their ragtag crew of five.

Beretta walked into the warehouse with Locke hanging off one shoulder, Helen draped over the other.

Ace was sitting underneath a lamp with a magazine in his lap, frowning as ever. If there was one thing Ace had down to a science, it was frowns. He stood up and approached, the frown deepening.

There were frowns for everything when it came to Ace, the President of the Stockland chapter of the Wrecking Crew. There was a frown for bad news, for real shit news, for good news, for a pretty woman, for a challenge to a fight, for a brand new bottle of whiskey.

Beretta hadn’t learned all too much about the ex-marine in his time with him for the past few months, but he had learned that much—Ace loved to frown. He loved it so much he didn’t even know he did it.

“Where the fuck have you been?” asked Ace. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Nurse,” said Beretta. “We need someone to look after Locke.”

“So you fucking kidnap a nurse? The fuck happened to Locke?”

“We were doing the rounds, picking up intelligence, like you said.”

Beretta paused, putting Locke onto a mattress on the ground and then Helen on another.

They had a series of cots and mattresses lined up against one wall where they slept. They had set up two spare ‘rooms’ with curtains where brothers could get their nuts off, either by themselves or with a girl. Beretta figured the curtain might be better for Locke—it was likely to get messy and bloody—but also figured those particular beds would be too unclean for medical work.

He sat Locke down on a mattress and stood up, groaning slightly. The wounds on his hip had been spreading wider since he broke that ambulance open. He didn’t want to think about it. Locke came first; he was fading fast.

He put his hands on his hips, looking at the two. One slowly bleeding out, the other unconscious. As soon as she woke, he'd put her to work.

“I seem to remember telling you to keep a low profile at the time.”

Beretta shrugged. “We came across Rattler. I saw an opening and we took it.”

“Did you get him, at least?” There was sudden hope in Ace's voice. Still frowning, though.

“No. Took out three of his. Dead. But not him. Trashed his bike, though.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Ace. He walked from to the wall and reared back, and for a moment, Beretta thought he would break his fist on it. But he just slapped it and then walked back. “Goddamn. You just started a war, you know that?”

“I do. It's about time someone did.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“What are we doing here if not to start a war? We're moving in on Copperhead territory. They know it. Howitzer knew it when he sent us up here. In fact the only person who
didn't
seem to know it was you.”

Ace stood right in front of Beretta. “You got a fucking problem with the way I'm leading this outfit, why don't you just come out and say it straight?”

“Hey,” said Locke, his voice weak. “Not to break up your little lover's quarrel, but I think I really need to get sewn up, and fast.”

He was pale, his lips turning blue. Sweat poured down his body.

“Goddammit,” said Ace, sitting down over him. He snatched up the bags that Beretta had gathered and started shuffling through him.

From his time in the military way back when, Ace had a decent understanding of first aid. But Beretta suspected it wouldn't be enough. That was why he had picked up Helen.

Sure
—he told himself.
That was why I picked her up.

In the bags he had brought together were some smelling salts. He broke one open under Helen’s nose, lightly slapping her face to get her awake.

“Hey,” he said. “Get to work.”

She took a moment to adjust herself, to sit up and scramble backward. Her hands were still tied together and her movements were awkward and slow. Ace, sighing and standing up from his place next to Locke, moved in from behind her. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“You fucker. You absolute
fucker
. I’ll fucking...I’ll call the cops! You let me go, right now, or I call the cops!”

“Our brother is hurt,” said Beretta, like she hadn’t said anything. “You’re gonna fix him. Okay? His name is Locke.”

“I’m not doing
anything
for you,” she said. “You fuck. You fucking choked me out! What the hell is wrong with you? I’ll—”

She got the idea, then, mid-sentence, to run. She tried, limbs flailing all over. Ace tripped her and Beretta lunged forward and grabbed her before she fell down. If he hadn’t, she would have busted her chin wide open.

He took her in his arms, shaking her until she was still. “Nobody here’s going to hurt you if you do like we say.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Ace.

Beretta glared at him. Ace frowned and looked away.

“You’ll be fine,” Beretta insisted. “But you gotta do what we say.”

She squirmed again. Beretta most certainly did not feel how good she smelled, how soft her skin was, how deeply her blue eyes pierced down into his soul.

He didn't feel any of it, dammit. He didn't remember any of the good times with her. There was only right now, only the emergency.

If he didn't have a past, then he couldn't have hurt in his soul. That's how it worked.

“Do like we say,” he said again. “He’ll die if you don’t. You can help him, can’t you?”

She shifted away from Beretta, swinging her arms out wide, and then walked over to Locke. He was pale and bloody, and looked at about the end of his rope. For several long moments she examined him, circling, biting her lip and tonguing at her cheek.

“I can’t help him if my hands are tied.”

There was sense enough there. Beretta cut her loose.

“Try anything,” he said, “and you’ll regret it.”

She knelt down over Locke, emptying out the supply bags Beretta had put together. She searched through them, grabbing what she needed.

“This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with being a good person. You understand?”

“Girl, I told you when we first met. Being a good person isn't something I know anything about.”

Chapter 4

––––––––

J
ust a few hours had passed since she had arrived in the warehouse. It did not take long to patch up the young biker, Locke. He was handsome in a movie starrish way; that, combined with his bike, probably meant that he had all kinds of girls swooning after him.

Not Helen’s type, though. She didn’t go for pretty boys.

No, she had to be the sort who was attracted to the exact
wrong
sort of man—the kind who kidnapped her and put her to work, the strong and silent type with a jaw like a lantern and a body built like a mountain.

It drove her fucking crazy that even after all this time, even after doing her best to sever him from her life, she had feelings for him. They were convoluted and confused and illogical, but they were feelings all the same, and they couldn't be fought off with cold logic any more than she could remove sunlight with a scalpel.

Locke’s shoulder had been punched through with a bullet and he had multiple contusions up and down his side and back. The contusions would heal on their own; all she had to take care of was the bullet wound. She stitched it up without too much trouble and then sat back, looking up expectantly at the two biker brothers above her.

BOOK: Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2)
13.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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