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  How could someone so gruff and crude be so soft at the same time? Ripper was perfect. Perfectly flawed and everything I hadn’t known I’d wanted in a man until this…him…us.

  He only wanted me. Only me.

  “Wish I knew what was goin’ on in that head of yours,” he said quietly.

  “Nothing,” I whispered. “I’m just…I think…I’m…”

  Just say it. Say it, you chicken! Just say it!

  “Happy,” I finished breathlessly. And excited and nervous and pretty close to bursting at the seams.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ripper loved riding. It was one of his few escapes from thinking about the hours of torture he’d spent at the hands of Frankie. So when he wasn’t working or sleeping or eating or fucking, he was riding. Constantly. No plan, no destination, no schedule…just him, his bike, and the open road. Riding gave him the peace of mind that nothing else could, not green, not booze, not pussy, nothing. Riding cleared his messed-up head and cleaned his shit-stained soul. For a little while.

  With nothing but road stretched out in front of him and more road behind him, it was just him and his baby, completely in tune with each other. The past didn’t exist, his future didn’t matter; it was only right then, right there, she was him, he was her, they had melded together, had become not man and machine but one entity, lost to an endless stretch of road.

  It was freedom and there wasn’t anything more beautiful than freedom.

  And all that freedom had just been flushed down the shitter.

  All he could feel was her arms wrapped around his middle, her hands resting just above his groin, her tight little body pressed into his, her muscular thighs locked around his hips.

  From the moment Danny had climbed on behind him, he’d been hyper aware of everything about her, every slight movement, every part of her that was touching a part of him.

  His heart pounded as wave after wave of heat rolled through him, blurring his vision, leaving him fairly certain he was going to run them off the road if he didn’t get his shit together.

  Fuck me, she’d said.

  He was ninety percent positive that had been the first time Danielle West had dropped the “f” bomb, making those two little words even hotter than they would have been without that knowledge.

  Then Deuce had called and torn him a new one because he hadn’t gotten Danny back to the club yet. That’s when he decided this shit between them, whatever it was, whatever was going to happen, was going to have to wait until after lockdown, until they could be alone again…

  …until her thighs clenched and her fingers began creeping down his abdomen, to the edge of his T-shirt where she paused, fingering the threadbare material.

  His dick went rock solid. Probably punched a hole straight through his leathers; he was that hard.

  No. No, no, no. Not now. He had to get her to the club before Deuce called again. If she kept this shit up, he was going to throw caution to the wind and be inside of her in about three seconds.

  No? Who was he kidding? He was so fucked. Done for and completely fucked.

  He wasn’t going to make it to the club. He wanted that pussy so bad he could fucking taste it. And he couldn’t keep pretending this was just about pussy either. It was more than pussy. It was Danny. Her pussy, yeah, and there was something else.

  Ripper had been walking around life pissed off, not giving a shit about anything, until he’d made the mistake of fucking a girl he’d never given a second thought to before and everything had changed. Suddenly he cared about what was going to happen next, wondering when Deuce was going to find out, whether he was going to get killed or not, wondering where Danny was when she wasn’t at the club…what she was doing, if she were hanging out with some other dude, and feeling murderous at the thought. Wondering if she were going as motherfucking crazy as he was.

  He wasn’t pissed off anymore, either. He was something else entirely. He was…

  What the fuck was he?

  Fuck it. Whatever he was feeling, he didn’t want to ignore it. He wanted more of it; he wanted to own it.

  Right. Now.

  Fuck that black bitch; fucking threatening him. Fuck lockdown.

  He wasn’t losing this.

  Caution met wind and he pulled off the dark, deserted highway onto a patch of grass and cut the engine.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Or moved.

  They just breathed.

  Hers, quick and short.

  His, loud and heavy.

  Just breathing.

  “Ripper?” she whispered.

  Aw, Jesus, that sweet, sweet voice…

  …and the angelic face and the fucking body that owned that voice.

  “Yeah, baby?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  Her hands slipped under his shirt, her nails dug into the skin on his stomach, and he stopped breathing altogether.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  Ripper moved fast, jumped off his bike and hopped back on facing her. She pulled up the material of her dress and he yanked open his leathers, lifting her over top of him, moving her underwear to one side and positioning himself at her entrance.

  There was just some shit you didn’t get a say in.

  He knew that better than most.

  He’d lost his parents at seventeen, his only family.

  At twenty-seven he’d been captured by Frankie, tortured for twelve hours. He’d lost his eye, a lot of fucking skin, and pretty much all of his self-respect.

  Both of those events had drastically changed the course of his life, each one a wrecking ball that had come crashing into his world, forcing him to watch as everything around him shattered and fell to pieces at his feet.

  That’s how this shit was with Danny.

  It was an accident, a mistake, it was the wrong place at the wrong time kind of shit that had quickly turned into a catastrophe of epic proportions.

  If she’d just been pussy, if he’d fucked her at the lake then forgotten about it…

  But Danny was different.

  A game changer.

  She wasn’t pussy, she was damned beautiful and everything he’d ever wanted in a woman but hadn’t realized until he held her in his arms.

  She was the reason his world was about to shatter again.

  “Ripper…oh my god.” She pushed back against him, trying to take all of him inside of her in one thrust.

  Yeah, she wanted him, the looming wrecking ball.

  And fuck him, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything else, and the wrecking ball swung.

  So he took her, grabbed her thighs, and slammed her down onto him…and that wrecking ball came crashing through.

  God, sweet fucking Jesus; it was better than he’d remembered. She was tight, wet, and warm and fit him like a fucking glove, kissing him and touching him as if he didn’t have scars, not avoiding them, not lavishing attention on them; he was starting to think she couldn’t see them.

  She was making him feel whole again.

  Yeah, no way was he losing this.

  “Ripper,” she cried. “Ripper…” Her head lolled to the right and her eyes rolled back.

  Knowing she was about to come, he gripped her hips, digging his fingertips into her backside, and began slamming up into her, harder and harder, rocking against her faster and faster until her body locked up tight and her cries turned into breathy, panting whimpers and her pussy clenched around his cock, again and again. He kept going, hard and fast, milking her orgasm.

  And…ah, god, she was coming again, her muscles were contracting around him, the incredible feeling spurring him into increasing his already ball-breaking pace.

  That’s when it happened.

  His hair was soaked with sweat, his jaw locked, his teeth clenched, his grip on her bruising, his hips powering back and forth, his cock slamming up into her, again and again.

  It was so motherfucking good; she looked like a goddamn sex angel, face flushed and breathing hard, whimperin
g and crying as he took her hard and fast and she felt like heaven, tight and soft and smooth.

  He felt the walls of his world start to shake and the bricks began to fall…one by one until it was a free-for-all and suddenly he could breathe again when he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath. Breath he’d been holding for the last five years.

  Free from the ropes, cupping his right eye socket, Ripper staggered to his feet. Blurrily he looked around the empty warehouse until he locked on a door. Limping, his right leg dragging, he hobbled as fast as he could across the dirty floor and collapsed against the door. Trembling, he tried the handle and nearly fell over when the door pushed open. Looking around, he had no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered, he’d been overseeing a drop-off in Vegas when Frankie nabbed him, coldcocked him, and he’d woken up here.

  Cursing, he dragged himself outside onto the gravel driveway.

  A creak sounded from inside the warehouse and, gripping his right thigh, he tried to walk faster.

  “Frankie!” a voice bellowed. “Horseman’s on the loose!”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! He limped faster.

  Footsteps pounded behind him, growing closer.

  A road. He could see a road. Crying out, he amped up his speed, bit straight through his lip trying to stave off the pain.

  He’d just breached the tree line, could see a pair of headlights off in the distance, when he felt the barrel of a gun jammed into the back of his skull.

  “Where you think you’re goin’?” Frankie laughed. “Date ain’t over yet. Haven’t even gotten to the best part. Where you’re beggin’ me not to end you.”

  The headlights grew closer, the rumbling engine of the truck louder.

  He’d never beg for anything. Not a motherfucking thing. Not even for his life.

  “Turn around slow,” Frankie said. “And—”

  Ripper, with the last of his quickly waning strength and pure determination to die on his own terms, leaped into the road, directly in the front of the truck and impact was immediate. As his body flew through the air, he closed his eyes and thought, Fuck you, Frankie.

  He was jumping in front of that truck again, only this time he wasn’t trying to die on his own terms.

  He was trying to start living again. So he dug his fingertips even deeper into her skin, kissed her harder than he’d ever kissed, fucked her with a determination he didn’t wholly understand and…

  …and something inside of him began to ache. It was painful, yeah, but it was painfully…good.

  He wanted more.

  More and more until there was nothing left of his old world until everything felt as good as she felt and fit as perfectly as she fit him, and so he closed his eyes and thought, Fuck you, Frankie.

  That’s when it happened.

  He lost control for the first time during sex and finished hard, still inside of her.

  What the repercussions of that were going to be, he surprisingly didn’t care. He was too busy staring at the beautiful girl sitting astride him, feeling clearer and freer than he’d felt in a very long time.

  Danny’s eyes blinked slowly open and, Jesus Christ, she was covered in sweat, had tears streaming down her cheeks, her makeup smeared and her face flushed from sex, and she was smiling, the sweetest dimpled smile he’d ever seen.

  She was strikingly beautiful and sexy as shit and…good; she was a good, good girl. She was everything a man like him didn’t deserve to be inside of.

  “I like you, Ripper,” she whispered, sliding her arms over his shoulders, threading her fingers through the hair at his nape, causing a ripple of tiny, pleasant tingles across his skin and a warmth inside of him, the likes of which he’d never felt before.

  “Yeah, beautiful girl,” he whispered. “I’m feelin’ you too.”

  He meant it too. He was over his head into her and he knew it. He didn’t just want to fuck her, he didn’t just want her in his bed…

  He wanted her on the back of his bike.

  Yeah, he wanted to lay claim to Danielle West, ink his name on her body and slap an old lady patch on her ass. And worse, he wanted the world to know it.

  It was at that precise moment that Ripper knew his world had shattered for a third time, had crumbled and turned to dust at his feet.

  Nothing from here on out would ever again be the same.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I hated lockdown. Every single one had always completely sucked.

  Brothers, their old ladies, their kids, young and old, all piled inside the club, filling up every nook and cranny. There was no seat unoccupied, no bed not taken, and in a warehouse roughly the size of a department store, most of which was used for locked storage, there wasn’t a whole lot of room.

  But this time…

  It was day four of prison by Hell’s Horsemen association and there wasn’t anywhere else on earth that I wanted to be other than right there, locked up in a crowded, overheated building…with Ripper.

  Seated at the U-shaped bar, my elbows on the counter, chin propped in my hands, I was watching Ripper move across the room. He was shirtless, barefoot, wearing only his half-buttoned leathers and his cut. His blond hair was pulled back mid-skull in a messy ponytail and a cigarette dangled from his lips. My gaze traveled down his big body, lingering on the trail of blond hair that disappeared inside his pants, and my heart started beating faster.

  I’d never been so intensely attracted to a man before, never felt so aroused in all of my life, and it wasn’t just when he was touching me, it was all the time. All I had to do was think about being with him, and I was crossing my legs and squeezing my thighs together.

  He was an incredibly beautiful man. The scars just forced you to look a little harder to see what was still there, and what was still there was the squared, strong bone structure of a Greek god, the heavily muscled stature of a boxer, and a deviously sexy smile.

  We’d spent the past three days sneaking off together, deftly avoiding the club security cameras, and finding secret places to be together. The kitchen pantry, the communal showers, the shed behind the clubhouse…

  I was waiting for Ripper’s signal, eagerly anticipating day four of being together.

  “This sucks,” Tegen pouted, walking up next to me and folding her arms across her chest. Startled out of my Ripper stare-a-thon, I glanced over at her and winced.

  Even her attempt at dressing like a girl had somehow gone hideously wrong. Her plain black sundress hung loosely on her, the straps had fallen off her shoulders revealing two white bra straps, she’d spilled something on the skirt of the dress earlier and hadn’t bothered to wipe it off, and…I looked down at her feet. She was wearing flip-flops. Not cute, stylish ones but a plain pair of black foam flip-flops that I wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing, not even at the beach.

  “What does he see in those fucking sluts?” Tegen hissed.

  Knowing she was talking about Cage, I started rolling my eyes until I saw where she was looking. It wasn’t just Cage talking to a pair of club whores, it was Cage and Ripper. I shot into an upright position. He wasn’t giving me the signal because he was too busy talking to…those whores?

  Jealousy swamped me, followed closely by panic. He’d lied. He was still interested in other women and here I was forced to sit and watch it happen right in front of me, just like Dorothy had to watch Jase with his wife while she pined for him from afar. Oh god, I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be an old lady or, even worse, a secret old lady that no one knew about.

  Without warning he glanced my way, a small smile on his face that instantly fell the minute we locked eyes. I bit down on my bottom lip and attempted to school my expression, hoping my inner turmoil wasn’t showing through.

  I knew I’d failed when his eyes narrowed.

  The next thing I knew Ripper was crossing the room, heading toward the bar, toward me. Taking the space to the left of me, he leaned forward, placing his forearms on the counter top. I went rigid, suddenly completely at
a loss as to what I should be doing with myself, where I should be looking. God, I didn’t even know what to do with my hands or how I should be sitting. He’d made a point to never be less than twenty feet away from me, and this new development had caught me completely off guard.

  “Yo,” he said, nodding at ZZ who, as usual, was playing bartender while he kept an eye on the security monitors.

  ZZ lifted his chin. “Tequila?”

  “Naw, dude, gimme a brew.”

  Nodding, ZZ reached below the bar and pulled a bottle of beer from one of the small refrigerators underneath. Popping the cap off on the bar, he handed it to Ripper, who took a prolonged swallow during which I moved my hands from the bar to my lap and back to the bar again. Twice.

  “Uh, are you okay?” Tegen asked, eyeing me queerly. The expression on her face clearly showed that she thought I’d completely lost my mind.

  I nodded jerkily. “Yes.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, sure. So, you’re suddenly acting like you have Tourette’s for no good reason?”

  I glared at her. Just because I wasn’t dressed like a secondhand clothing reject who’d had her hair done by an electrical socket, and didn’t pout in corners staring at a guy who’d never give me a second glance, didn’t mean she had to hate on me.

  “I’m fine,” I gritted out.

  “Right,” she muttered. “Fine, whatever, no need to give me your prissy angry face.”

  I gaped at her, furious, Ripper’s close vicinity instantly forgotten. Who did she think she was?

  “What is wrong with you?” I demanded. “Why can’t you ever just be…normal?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Normal?” she asked, her tone scathing. “What the fuck is normal, Danny? This? The club? My mom crying in the corner, staring at Jase and Chrissy? Or Adriana over there,” she said gesturing to where Mick’s wife was sitting. “She’s talking to her husband’s favorite club whore and she doesn’t even know it. Is that normal?”

  Whether Tegen actually cared about the virtueless bikers and the lack of morality that went on inside the club was debatable. Her bad moods, as often as they were, nine times out of ten were usually related to only one biker. My brother. If she wasn’t angry, which was rare, she was just outright sad.