Silver and Chrome: A Bad Boy MC Romance (24 page)

“Great,
maybe I can take it for a spin?”

I
can’t help but bark out a laugh. “Not a chance, kid.”

“Sorry,”
he says, still looking at the bike. Then he turns to me with something in his
eyes that makes me tense up. “I didn’t mean for that to come out as a question.
Hand me the fucking keys, douche.”

Is
this guy serious? I look over at his friend who has taken a step forward, his
hands are clenched into fists. Apparently so. Must be my lucky day. I didn’t
get to beat the hell out of Ripper like I wanted to, but these guys will make a
fine stand in.

“Come
get ‘em.”

The
first guy lunges for me, but even drunk, I can see it coming and twist out of
his way, swinging and arm as he passes to clip him in the head. It wasn’t hard
enough to really do any damage, but at least it told him I wasn’t going to make
this easy.

Leather
Jacket is quicker, though, and just as I’m stepping away from his friend, his
arm shoots out and I feel his fist connect with my jaw. I let my head turn with
the punch instead of absorbing it, but even still, it hurts like a bitch. My
own fist flies out and hits him back, reflexively fast despite the booze in my
body, years of fist fights making the action automatic. I connect with his
nose, which causes him to stumble away, clutching at it. It was hard enough
that I expect to see blood seeping between his fingers in a moment.

It’s
only because I’m watching and waiting to see blood that I catch the widening of
his eyes and realize it’s a look of surprise aimed in his friend’s direction. I’m
almost too late when I turn to look, a glint of metal zipping toward my
midsection so close that even when I move, I still get cut. I feel the blade
slice through my shirt and along the side of my chest, but the roar that comes out
of me is more fueled by fury than by pain.

I
grab the arm of the man that just cut me as his body passes mine and twist it
hard, making him stumble and drop his knife as he cries out. I have no mercy
for this fuck, though, and with my other arm, I slam my fist into his face, over
and over again, until he’s crouching on the ground, whimpering in a bloody
mess. Even then, I twist the arm I still hold hard enough to dislocate his
shoulder before pushing him away.

Leather
Jacket had apparently seen enough. He’s already gone.

I
bend down and reach into the pocket of the guy on the ground, fishing out his
cell phone.

I
still need a cab, and he’s in no state to object.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

EVELYN

It’s past one in the
morning when Bash’s rough, calloused hands touch my skin. I’m in his bed, of
course, so it isn’t a surprise to feel him slide in behind me, but there is
something in his touch that seems different than usual. It isn’t the subtle
settling into bed you expect from someone trying not to disturb you. His touch
is insistent, but gentle. He wants me awake.

“What’s
wrong?” I ask, shaking the sleep from my head and starting to sit up.

“Nothing.”
His voice is hoarse. It’s a whisper but there’s an urgency to it. He slides his
hands around my body until they settle on my breasts. I’m warm under the
covers, but I shiver at the touch of his fingers on my nipples. “I thought
about you tonight. I missed having you at the club with me.”

“It
was your idea that I stay home,” I remind him. I want to turn around and look
at him, but I’m enjoying his touch too much, and if I turn, his hands might
slip away.

“I
know. A bad one.” His lips are near my ear now as he speaks, and the hot breath
against me brings about another shiver.

“Are
you drunk?” The smell is unmistakable, the heaviness of whiskey mixed with
beer.

His
fingers tweak my nipple harder, causing it to firm up under his touch, and a
warmth starts to grow between my legs. “A little. Why? Does it matter?”

“Well,
if you’re drunk, you can’t consent to what I’m about to do to you.” I smile,
reaching behind my back. I let out a little gasp as my hand touches his bare
cock. I had no idea he was naked. And quite ready. “Well, hello there.”

“I
think you should be more worried about what I’m about to you,” he growls.

I
pull the sheets forward, exposing my bare behind. “Do your worst.”

“Fuck,
you have an incredible ass.” His free hand skims along my skin until he slips
it between my legs, drawing a moan from deep within me. I was already starting
to get wet before he touched me, and now that his fingers are rubbing along my
insides, I’m becoming drenched. Suddenly he shifts and I feel his cock pressed
against my entrance, and then a second later, he’s inside of me.

He’s
never taken me with such an urgency before. His body is thrusting behind me as
his hands knead my tits and his hot lips kiss and bite along my neck. My own
hand slides back and holds onto his hips. I love the feeling of the muscles
under his skin as he moves, and how I can feel the tension in them as he
tightens and releases inside of me.

It’s
only after I feel his breath start to return to normal and he slips out of me
that I finally turn around to face him. His eyes are gleaming in the near-darkness
of the bedroom.

“What
was that all about?” I ask.

“What?”

“It
just felt different. You were like a man possessed.” I reach forward and touch
his chest, running my fingers through his hair and tracing along the hard planes
of his body.

“Like
I said, I missed you.” I feel his body shift as he shrugs in the darkness.

“That
seemed like more than—”

Bash
suddenly winces as my hands slide along the side of his body. I felt something
there, and my fingers feel wet.

“What
is that?”

“It’s
nothing.” The alcohol has lowered his normal ability to keep his voice neutral
and I can hear the lie in his voice. I reach over and flick on the nightstand
lamp.

“Holy
crap, you’re bleeding. What happened?” There’s a three-inch cut along the side
of his body. It doesn’t look deep, but it does look fresh.

“It’s
nothing,” he repeats, sitting up and covering the wound with his hand. “Just
some punk kids. One of them pulled a knife as they tried to rob me. It’s just a
scratch.”

“Jeez,
you should put something on that or it’ll get infected. They tried to rob you? At
the bar? Where was the rest of the club?”

“It
was outside, I was heading home and they thought they saw a drunk. An easy
mark. They won’t make that mistake again.”

I
don’t want to ask what he did to them. It seems like there is more to what he
wants to say, but it’s obvious he’s tired. It’s late, he clearly had a rough
night, and he’s still a bit drunk, so I don’t push it. Instead, I clean his cut
and put a bandage on it, even as he falls asleep.

I never brought it up
again because we were so busy the entire weekend. Most of our time was spent
trying to contact some of Piston’s biggest investors. Being the weekend,
Sebastian wasn’t able to contact many of them, and even from those that he
could get a hold of, he could only get a handful of them to commit to not
selling their shares. Edward only gave Sebastian until Tuesday morning to
decide before he would make his move and expose everything. Obviously so that
Sebastian wouldn’t have enough time to rally support.

“Still,”
he argued on Monday morning, “we don’t need that many more. I own a fairly big
block of shares, as does Hans. With the ones that have committed so far, we’re
almost there. I can probably get the rest of the ones I need today.” But by the
end of the day, he wasn’t so sure and in a foul mood again.

“How
close are you?”

Sebastian
is pacing by the window of his office, the darkness on his face more than just
a reflection of the night outside. “Close. Probably close enough that if the
vote came down, enough would side with me at the last minute when they see it will
actually make a difference.”

“But
there’s no guarantee…”

“No,
there’s no fucking guarantee on any of this,” he snaps. “And where the fuck is
Hans?”

The
CEO had been missing all day, and Bash wasn’t one hundred percent sure which
side the man would vote on. Apparently, he had been noncommittal during the
meetings, preferring to hear exactly what the offer was so that he could
evaluate what was best for the company. Sebastian assumed he was hedging his
bets in case it didn’t go their way and he could still cash out, but without a
firm commitment from him before tomorrow’s deadline, he wasn’t feeling
comfortable.

“He’s
probably out meeting with investors, just like you’ve been trying to do on the
phone. He’s the face of the company. People would rather have him show up in
person.” It’s true. Edward always said that a face to face meeting with the CEO
always made a client or investor feel more secure than anything else. It showed
that they were important enough for the CEO to make time for.

“That
better fucking be where he is.”

“Don’t
forget, he doesn’t know about tomorrow’s deadline.”

Sebastian
just growls and continues to pace. There’s no talking to him right now. He’s
too stressed. I would be, too, if I was faced with the very real possibility of
losing everything I’d worked so hard and long to build.

The
biggest problem is what neither of us are talking about. It probably doesn’t
even matter if he does get promises from enough investors not to sell. How many
of them will honor that if and when Edward leaks the news of Sebastian’s double
life? If Edward is right, and Wall Street starts to tank the stock, it doesn’t
really matter how many promises were made. Those companies will do whatever it
takes to minimize their losses.

And
I feel absolutely awful, yet I can’t even bring it up.

Sebastian
has already made it clear that he doesn’t blame me for it, but how can he not? If
I never walked into his life, Edward would never have set his eyes on him or
his company. This entire thing was my fault. Even if he doesn’t blame me now,
he will eventually. Days, weeks, maybe months from now he’ll wonder “what if?” Every
time he looks at me, he’ll be reminded of what he had to give up. What meeting
me cost him. Even if he can live with it, I’m not sure if I can.

How
can I force this man to give up everything just for me? I don’t deserve it. Not
unless I’m willing to do the same for him.

Taking
a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I let the realization sink down into
me. That’s just it. I am willing to do the same for him.

“I
have to go to the bathroom,” I say, ducking out of the room without waiting for
a reply.

I
hurry back to my own office and close the door, pulling my cellphone out with a
shaky hand.

There’s
really only one move to make here. Only one thing that can save everything that
Sebastian has built. The best I can do is try to negotiate. To not lose
absolutely everything. Maybe I can hold onto… something.

“Hello?”

“It’s
me.”

“Ah…
I was wondering when you would call. Nothing like waiting until the eleventh
hour.” Not if, but when. Still as cocky and sure of himself as always. It makes
what I am about to do so much harder, but I think that might be the point. Edward
knows he holds all the power. He always does, and he wants to make sure I’m painfully
aware of it.

“Don’t
be an asshole. Look, fine, you win. All right? I’ll come back to work for you. Just
leave Sebastian and his company out of this.” As horrible as I know it will be,
if I have to give up and go back and work for Edward, that’s a price I’m
willing to pay to keep him from destroying Sebastian and everything he’s built.

“Of
course. That’s what I said, isn’t it? But I think I also said something else. I’m
not just asking you to come back and work for me, Evelyn. I want everything exactly
as it was before. Between us.”

So
now it’s a much larger price to pay. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, that
Edward would feel like just having me come back to work with him was enough. But
part of me knew it wasn’t going to be. I’ve slept with him before, so it
shouldn’t be a big deal to have to do it again, should it?

Except
last time, I didn’t know what a complete scumbag he was. Still, I know better
than to argue about it. When Edward Stonewall wants something, there’s no
negotiation. I’ll need to find a way out of this eventually, but for now, I
don’t see any other option.

“Okay,”
I finally relent. “You win.”