Hard Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 1) (12 page)

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R
am did not overhear everything that happened between June and Kyle, but he caught the general drift of it. Nobody could be away from home for very long without building up problems of one sort or another.

After Kyle left her, June was waylaid by relatives and old neighbors, and Ram was caught adrift in the flow of the party with a beer in hand. Dirty looks followed him everywhere.

That was the problem with making sure everyone knew to be afraid of you, Ram realized. It meant everyone knew who to target when they got tired of being scared.

It wasn’t the Wrecking Crew’s policy to terrorize Marlowe. Total opposite, in fact. Howitzer believed that as long as they kept Marlowe free of their brand of crime, they’d have a lot more free reign to do whatever it was they wanted. And for the most part, Howitzer was right—except that Sheriff Colt had a stick the size of a rattlesnake up his ass about the club. For everything that went wrong in Marlowe, Sheriff Colt made sure the populace knew that the Wrecking Crew was who to blame.

It was getting into the evening now, and night had fallen. Tiki torches lit up all across the property and small electric lamps turned on alongside them, hanging from the trees and posted on tall poles. Ram saw Sheriff Colt approaching him from across the field and braced himself.

Be nice. Be calm. No fights. No problems.

This, despite the fact that all he’d really like to do was shove the man’s teeth down his throat. He contented himself with the knowledge that he was almost certainly going to bang his daughter. June wanted him, and by god, Ram wanted her too.

It would be a double-win—it’d piss off Sheriff Colt to no end, and June was fine as hell.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” said Colt, “being with my daughter, but I’m not going to let it continue.”

Ram had to give it to the man for not mincing words. There was a heavy scent of beer on his breath. It had taken him a while to work up the nerve to come talk to him. Good.

Ram felt anger at his words even though he knew the relationship was a big sham.

“I don’t think that’s a decision of yours,” he said. “And I sure as hell don’t think it’s any of your business.”

“My business?
My
business? You come on
my
land with your
War and Peace
record and talk to me about my business? You know my business. It’s to add more chapters to your little book of offenses against the law.”

“
War and Peace
was a big book, Sheriff. I think you’re mixing your metaphors.”

Colt shoved him in the shoulder. Hard.

“You shut your fool mouth,” he said. He shoved him again, more like an open palm strike this time. “You get the hell off my lawn. Outta my house.”

“You need to stop hitting me, old man.”

“Or what?” Colt shoved him again, harder.

Ram saw what he was doing. If Ram hit him back, no one in this crowd would say that they saw the Sheriff hitting Ram first. It would be an assault from an untrustworthy, wild biker on a respectable lawman.

And all the same, Ram’s pride flared. He was ready to murder this old fool.

His glare was murderous. “Stop hitting me, or you’ll find out.”

“What if I didn’t?” Colt slapped him, right across the face. “What if I just kept—”

“Daddy!”

June arrive just in time to save her father’s life. Ram was a steel coil, ready to unload. His cheek stung—Colt's hands were plenty big enough to leave a mark. On the next strike he would have grabbed Colt’s arm and broken it over his knee.

And that was just to start. The other nearest cop was more than thirty feet away, though he was watching close. Ram was confident he could have snapped Colt’s neck in the time it took for that cop to get close.

Colt looked at her, the fight leaving him just a bit. June stood between them, taking Ram’s arm in hers.

“You’re being an asshole, Dad,” she said. “Try and fix that before you see us again, okay?”

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J
une didn’t want to go back inside just yet and let the night end, to send Ram on his way. She wandered with him further out into the wilderness, finding a small clearing in the trees under the moonlight.

It was romantic, she realized, just after pulling him there. Inadvertently so, but romantic all the same.

“I’m sorry about him,” said June. “Are you okay?”

“From what, an old man trying to prove he’s tough?” Ram laughed, stroking his jaw. “I’ve been dealing with that kinda shit since I was a little boy. Cops don’t even like the
sons
of outlaws, did you know that?”

June let out a breath. “Yes. I knew about that.”

She heard all kinds of stories. Her father and his compatriots would get together at the Colt house every Saturday and play poker, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. June could sit at the top of the stairs and hear them trade cop stories.

Some of them were really exciting—chasing down bank robbers and driving them off the road. Some were funny—arresting men dressed up in banana suits who tried to snatch purses.

And some of them were sad, even though the men downstairs would laugh and chortle—giving drug addicts and suspects “rough rides” in the paddy wagon when they didn't want to be taken in. A rough ride was exactly what it sounded like—the police unloading their frustrations with capturing someone, punching and kicking and shoving him, on the way into the station.

Her father's suspicion didn't extend solely to criminals. Even June had been the subject of it—and on more than one occasion. The final straw, the reason she had decided she definitely would never move back to Marlowe was in her senior year when she discovered that her father had been tapping her phone.

It wasn't difficult for him to do, or even necessarily illegal. He hid his guilt behind both these defenses, telling her that she shouldn't be talking about things he didn't want to know about if she couldn't handle him knowing about them.

But she had talked on her phone to her friends about everything—her hopes, her wishes, her fears; deeply personal stuff happening on her body with everything from zits to her period. He hadn't been
allowed
to hear that from her. She wasn't doing anything wrong when she used a toilet, either, but that didn't mean she wanted it in the living room.

That incident was the end of their friendly conversation. Up until that point, she had been willing to imagine him as overprotective but loving. After that, she realized how deep his paranoia really went.

“I don’t know anything about you,” she said, looking away. “Not really. But I can’t imagine your life has been easy.”

“It’s not so bad,” Ram smiled. “Hey, don’t feel sorry for me, okay? I like my choices. I’m happy with who I am.”

June shook her head. “The way you live. Outside of society. It seems...terrifying. Especially for a little boy. Did he raise you to be someone just like him, your dad? Did he ever want anything better for you?”

“There’s nothing better than being free on the road.” Ram clenched his jaw. “Nothing.”

“It just seems like, being told you can’t trust anyone but your family, that you always have to be suspicious, that as a child, you must have—”

Ram took her by the shoulders and turned her back to face him. “Stop. That. Don't try to piece me together, June. You won't like what you find.”

June looked up at him, defiant, not ready to stop saying her piece.

“Was it just him who raised you?”

He was silent still.

“Come on. You know like, my entire family now. Give me something.”

Ram approached a tree, peeling off a piece of bark. He twisted it this way and that, slowly crushing it in his hands.

“My mom died when I was real young.”

“I'm so sorry, Reid. How?”

“Police raid.”

“Oh,” said June. She put a hand to her lips. “Oh,
god
...”

“Don't worry about it.”

“How can I not worry about that? I've pulled you into this place and
Christ
you must hate me, oh god.”

“It's fine,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “Really. I barely knew her. Not a lot of memories.”

“I mean...okay, if you say so, but that doesn't make it
fine
, I mean...your mother...”

“My sister, Madeline, was more like my mother to me. Seven years older than I was. She raised me more than my dad.”

June felt a spark of hope. This could still be salvaged, then.

“When do I get to meet her?”

“You don't. She's dead too.”

Good god
.
He's got no one.

June's eyes were liquid and full. “Oh...Reid. That's such a burden. I'm so sorry.”

“Not your fault.” He tossed the remaining scraps of bark to the ground. “Can we change the subject?”

“Sure. Sure, of course.”

There was pain in his face now, real pain—and she needed it to be gone. It was her fault it was there, her fault he had been dragged to this place with all her awful people, and he needed to feel better and he needed that
now
.

She pushed herself up against his body, cradling her hands gently against his face. With supreme tenderness, she lifted her face up and met his, kissing him softly on the lips.

He was so much bigger than her that he had to lean down to even properly kiss her—at least, without lifting her up. So when he began to kiss her back, his warm lips moving over hers, his tongue sliding across into her mouth and meeting her own—she knew that this was a welcome gesture on her part.

Their embrace continued and intensified, her leg sliding against his, opening her pelvis to the hardness developing so rapidly between his legs. His hand came against the small of her back, easily pulling her up and into his body, sliding his growing erection fervently against the inside of her thighs.

June moaned, looping her arms around his neck, sliding her lips down his chin, his jaw. Every part of him was so strong.

“You know,” she whispered, “it would be pretty scandalous if we...got caught kissing, making out, or...”

His hand landed on her hips.

“Or?”

Suddenly her breaths were coming very fast indeed. She hadn’t planned for this—hadn’t planned, really, any of this. It was unlike her—planning was her stress relief, her go-to fixation.

She felt compelled to finish the thought, even knowing where it would take them. “You know...caught having sex.”

“I guess we’ll have to be careful not to be caught, then.”

One big hand fell upon her breast, half on the exposed skin, with his palm pressing intently upon her nipples. She wet her lips, a low groan sounding in the bottom of her throat. She
wanted
him.

Sex was precious to her. Not something given away lightly. Not something tossed out to the nearest alpha male in the heat of the moment.

But Ram was making her forget all about that.

On instinct, her fingers pushed forward to between his crotch, feeling the long, thick lines of his cock beneath his slacks. Her leg skated up against his thigh, the heat of her entrance pushing on his straining erection, and finally they kissed again.

This was stupid and wrong, and they both knew it, and neither of them cared. June reveled in the fact of them not caring, sliding her lips across his with eager delight.

One thing she was coming to understand very intimately was how
strong
Ram was. His hands slipped up underneath her ass and pulled her upward with almost no effort at all. A squeal of delight left her, surprised at how small and weightless he made her feel. June was no waif, but to Ram, she might as well have been. Her legs wrapped around his waist, hair tumbling across his face as they embraced again, kissing harder than before.

She loved the feel of her fingers drifting through his thick hair, his heavy beard, stroking and feeling every part of his handsome muscled form at her leisure.

Slowly, he lowered her down onto the ground, unbuckling his pants along the way. His cock sprang out into the open, bigger than she ever could have imagined. Her mouth watered as she examined its elegant, half-moist turgidity. Hungrily she moved forward on her knees, ready to take it in her mouth with no questions asked—but he pushed her back and down on her back.

“I was just getting tired of feeling it grind against my pants,” he said. “I’ve got another idea first.”

He pushed her all the way back, quickly pulling her tights and panties down around her ankles. They were elastic enough to let him slide in between her legs, his mouth pushing forward like a hound after a hare.

“Believe me,” he said, “I’ve wanted this a lot longer than you’ve wanted to suck me off.”

“H-how long?” she asked. She felt completely vulnerable, exposed.

“Since the second I saw you at that diner.”

His mouth fell down between her folds, his whole face on top of her. The tip of his nose searched blindly for a moment before finding her clit, and once he did, his tongue slid slowly up the area until resting directly on top of the little mound.

The whiskers and heavy scruff of his beard did not scratch between her legs—the hair was surprisingly soft, acting more like a slightly ticklish cushion than anything else.

June bucked her hips as his tongue went to work, flicking up and down across her spot. Pleasure filled her. He definitely knew what he was doing. Her hands latched out against his shoulders, his arms, tracing down the lines of the heavy ink shapes beneath his thin shirt.

Even, rhythmic pace going in the same up-down direction, occasionally accenting on the up or down flick with an extra increase of fluid, easy pressure for just a few seconds. It was building a whirlwind inside of her. A whirlwind of need, of passion, threatening to consume her from the inside out.

She hadn’t been touched
like
this since her ex, Simon. And she hadn’t been touched as
good
as this since
ever
.

No one had ever licked her with so much skill and confidence in her entire life, and for Ram to do it right away—and so voluntarily, with his cock already hard and her desperate to suck it for him—blew her mind.