Break Me In
Part 2 of the Devil’s Host MC Serial
Shari Slade
“Do you get what you deserve?”
Under his hands or on the back of his bike—the freedom I feel with Noah is an illusion.
“No, baby. You get what you take and you keep what you can hold.”
He ties me to him with fear and obligation and lust. Binds us tighter with his twisted sense of honor. I just hope his chains are strong enough to keep me safe.
*
BREAK ME IN is Part 2 of 5. The wildly erotic journey starts with
RIDE ME HARD
. These are short, hot reads, sure to leave you panting for more.
*
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I
look back
at my garage apartment one last time and worry for a second that I’ll turn into a pillar of salt right here in the driveway.
The busted front door hangs crooked from the hinges at the top of the rickety steps.
Noah did that in his rush to have me.
It’s a stunning display of devastation and desire. As I walk toward Noah’s bike, I picture my landlord’s face, purple with rage, when he discovers the destruction. I wonder if he’ll think something terrible happened to me or if he’ll just be happy I’m gone.
The bastard.
I should’ve known anyone who’d rent to a teenager with no references, no bank account and no security deposit was probably not someone who’d value my privacy or honor the terms of a lease. God, I hadn’t even known I was supposed to have a lease.
But I’d managed. And he hadn’t even started to give me a hard time about anything until I realized that he wasn’t supposed to come and go from my place as he pleased. When I finally asked him for a lease last year, he’d laughed in my face. The next time I brought him the rent a few hours late, he’d already printed an eviction notice. I got the message loud and clear: there’d be no more second chances.
I can almost feel the lump of cash I’d slipped from my coffee can on the way out the door burning like a hot coal in my bag. Not quite enough for the rent due next week. Nowhere near enough for first and last on a new place.
Certainly not enough to buy my freedom. There’s never enough for that, no matter how many shifts I work.
Sure, I’ve managed. But I haven’t done much more than that. Almost three years in that shithole and now I’m not managing at all. It’s probably stupid and dangerous to have all my cash with me, but there isn’t a chance in hell I’ll leave it behind.
I don’t know when I’ll be back.
If
I’ll be back. But most of all, I don’t know why I stayed so long.
“It’s not too late to strip you naked again and throw you over my shoulder. Get your sweet ass on this bike.” Noah says but I don’t falter.
“Does a topless ride through town earn me anything extra? Is there a rate card somewhere I can consult?” I slip behind him.
Stone adjusts his sunglasses. “She’s a fucking handful.”
Noah reaches back and claps a hand on my leg, digs his fingers into the thin denim stretched over my generous thigh, and squeezes. “More than.”
I know by the sureness of his touch and the pleasure in his voice that it’s a compliment.
Noah and Stone both rev their engines in the driveway, but we don’t pull away. The sound is loud and forbidding, two snarling beasts, and I see a few blinds snap open across the street. This isn’t the kind of neighborhood where people will help if there’s trouble, but they’ll peek through their curtains and maybe call the cops if it looks like someone is loading a TV into the back of a shady truck.
They’ll leave
me
to my fate, though. If they even notice at all. It’s not like I’m a brand-new flat screen.
It’s still better than the neighborhood I grew up in. In that kind of neighborhood people stay far away from the windows if they think there’s trouble. One like where Harry lives now. Or lived.
Shit, where the hell is that son of a bitch?
I feel the butt of Noah’s gun through his jacket and shiver. People sure as shit don’t call for help in neighborhoods like that. Help only ever makes things worse. They call for revenge, street justice, the kind found tucked into the waistband of Noah’s jeans.
A car the color of my landlord’s caddy slows down as it rolls by, and I squeeze closer to Noah, press my face into the leather stretched across his back and take a steadying breath. “Get me out of here.”
Before he comes home for an early lunch raving about destruction of property or disorderly conduct and tells me not to come back.
I don’t say any of that out loud because I’m not ready to seal my fate just yet. I know I may not have a home to come back to, but Noah doesn’t need to know that.
I swallow down the
please
that’s ready to trip off my tongue. I don’t have to ask him to do something I already know he’s going to do.
“It’s cute how you think you’re calling the shots.” Noah says.
He’s taking me out of here as payment for a debt. And for my own good. Supposedly to protect me from Stone. I study the man beside us out of the corner of my eye. He and Noah are two sides of the same coin, large and intimidating, covered in ink and leather.
But Noah makes me feel safe, even when I’m terrified. And as much as he warns me not to trust him, I can’t help it. He saved me from Officer Wade. He’s protected me with his fists and shielded me with his body. He’s the devil I know.
I curl my fingers around his belt buckle. “Does it cost you anything to let me pretend I’ve got a little control?”
He laughs. “That kind of delusion is expensive, but I think I can afford it.”
We lurch, and then the tires grip the road and we’re off.
Wrapped around him, flying through the streets on the back of his motorcycle with nothing between me and a fiery death on the pavement but the wind and a promise…I’ve never felt more alive.
I
’m surprised when
we slow down after only forty-five minutes. For some reason I’d expected the drive to be long, imagined wherever we were going had to be far, far away. As if we were in some demented fairy tale. My black knight on his black horse whisking me off to a darker realm. But we’re just two towns over. Two exits beyond the bypass choking the life out of Jimmy’s Diner.
A blip on the map. More of the same.
We pull into a run-down strip mall. A Laundromat props up one end, with a handful of patrons visible through the foggy window. A curl of fabric-softener-scented steam drifts beyond the front door and overpowers the leather and exhaust surrounding me. Next to the Laundromat is a tiny pet store, long closed. All in Pawn seems to be doing well with its neon
OPEN
sign and sleek music equipment on display. Somebody’s dream deferred or abandoned for God knows what. A rent check, a sick kid… And Patty’s Clip ’n’ Curl props up the other end. Pink paint peels off the brick facade, making me think of makeup left on overnight.
Stone hops off his bike. “You take Luca, and I’ll go see Patty. Let’s do this quick. I want to head back to the club sooner rather than later. The longer Dev waits, the more fucked-up he gets.”
Noah doesn’t make a move. “I’m not taking her into Luca’s.”
“It’s a pawn shop, not a porn studio.”
“He’s a pig. The last time I collected there, I had to break his nose.”
“This time shouldn’t be a problem then, but leave her to wait by the bikes if you’re worried.”
“You got a leash on you? I’ll just tie her to the handle bar while we go do our business.” Noah’s voice drips with sarcasm, but Stone doesn’t seem to care. A mistake on Stone’s part, for sure.
Stone leans in close to me and rests his hand on my shoulder. I force myself not to jerk away. “You’re not going anywhere, are you, kitten? You know what would happen—”
And then Noah is moving. He’s a wall of angry muscle, and I hang on to the bike to keep from getting hauled along with him. “Hands. Off. Unless you want to lose them.”
Stone raises both offending hands palms out and backs away slowly, grinning ear to ear. “Come on, brother. You got yourself a taste this morning. Patty’s real friendly. And real grateful for our protection.”
“Maybe if you knew her name wasn’t actually Patty, I’d let you take this one. Patty was her grandmother, you dipshit.”
Stone sneers. “Sorry, we don’t have coffee and chat about extended family.”