Torched: Afterburn (Iron Serpents Motorcycle Club Book 2)
Read Torched: Afterburn (Iron Serpents Motorcycle Club Book 2) Online
Authors: Shay Mara
| Torched: Afterburn (Iron Serpents Motorcycle Club Book 2) |
| Shay Mara |
Copyright © 2015 by Shay Mara
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Inquiries: [email protected]
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.
: 1 :
| LIVIA |
By the time I’d reached middle school, most of the girls my age had already planned the wedding of their extravagant fantasies. The dress, the location, the cake, even the stupid centerpieces. Of course, the man they envisioned was usually some teeny-bopper dreamboat from music or the movies, because who actually has a thing for dentists or accountants at that age?
As for me, I couldn’t remember reading a single Cosmo Girl or Teen Beat or whatever ridiculous rags all those girls devoured. My formative years were spent just trying to stay in school and out of the system. And while I considered the local library more of a home than the one I actually slept in, I preferred medieval history over makeup tips and useful manuals over angst-filled advice columns. Never mind stylish must-haves, I was generally more worried about scrounging up enough change from the couch cushions to buy clothes from the local thrift store.
As for my teenage years, the ones after my own father hung me out to dry, those mostly became about simply surviving from one day to the next, not bringing down even more misery on myself by hoping for things that would never be in the cards. Sure, I loved reading about powerful monarchies and rulers throughout the times, but not once did I dream about some brave knight showing up to whisk me away. If he had, I probably would’ve slammed the door in his face thinking he’d gotten the wrong maiden’s address. For this maiden wasn’t some sweet and soft-spoken lady who could be rescued with a gentle kiss, not even close.
But, sometimes life throws a bone to even the most cynical among us, and—perhaps by some cosmic clerical error—I
did
end up getting my gallant knight. He just happened to ride in on a Harley instead of a horse, clad in worn leather instead of clunky armor. By biker club standards, I even got the extravagant wedding.
It was a beautiful backyard affair, complete with a vintage, white lace dress, wildflower arrangements, a folk-rock band, and a leather runner in the Serpents’ gray and black colors. Out of eighty guests, only two and a half were technically from my side, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My best friend, Lexi, played Maid of Honor; her hubby, Neil, graciously walked me down the aisle; and Chloe, well, that little girl stole the entire show as our flower girl. She rode in giggling on the back of a custom Mini Harley driven by the ring bearer, a ten-year-old son of a club member.
Under a rustic, wood pergola stood my noble groom, the extraordinary man who’d planned the entire thing and executed it within hours of bringing me home. I had no regrets; all eleven months I’d spent in prison were beyond worth it.
Torch Larter made it
all
worth it.
Shitty past be damned, his love shined a warm light inside the darkest crevices of my damaged soul. In the eyes of society, he was far from perfect, but to me he was absolutely everything. Torch may have been a little rough around the edges, but beneath that exterior he was the epitome of strength, substance, and compassion.
I had no idea what I’d done in a past life to deserve such a reversal of fortune, but here we were, riding side-by-side on our way back from an utterly sublime honeymoon. Forget Paris or the Bahamas, I was a simple girl with simple needs, and the gloriously lazy month we’d just spent bunkering down in cozy cabins and cruising around the Rocky Mountains were better than any all-inclusive resort package.
There were bound to be some bumps in the road now that we were heading back to everyday reality, but every time I glanced over at my husband squinting against the sun’s glare, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of inner peace. It made no difference what life threw at us, we would muddle our way through and come out the other end stronger.
Hell, we’d already started mastering the art of compromise. At Torch’s insistence that I not tarnish the club’s image by riding around town on an “embarrassing, piece of shit rice burner”, I’d let my beloved Hayabusa be locked away in storage and was currently straddling a new Harley Night Rod. Piece of shit my ass, I knew he was just weary of how fast the Busa could go; but nonetheless, I’d agreed to switch brands on the condition that I got to choose the model. Naturally, he wasn’t happy with my choice of something bigger and faster than the Sportster he’d tried to sell me on, but rolled over when I reminded him I could always go buy another speed demon with my own money.
And speaking of speed, we were coming up on a winding stretch of mountain road. Itching for a little rush, I hit the throttle and sped up, no doubt leaving an overprotective Torch muttering all kinds of shit under his breath.
His bike roared behind me and he soon caught up. I grinned at him and sped up again. Cornering the tight curves aggressively, I was practically daring the bike to slide out from under me as I tested the limits of its lean angle. Torch tried to keep up, but had a few extra pounds weighing him down.
Just my fucking luck, while glancing over my shoulder to see how far back he was, I missed a cop car hiding behind a bush right before the next turn. By the time I spotted the light bar on its roof, it was flashing red and blue and the wheels were inching forward into the road.
Son of a bitch.
It was too late to brake, but I eased up on the throttle and looked back again. With me slowing down slightly, Torch had made up the distance and was right on my heels. He rode up next to me just as we passed by the cop car and it pulled out behind us.
Fuck it, I’d always enjoyed a good chase. Torch was wearing a jacket over his cut and the law was too far behind to read our plates anyway.
At the tail end of the curve, I went to hit the throttle hard again, but this time my husband was onto me.
“Pull over!” he yelled, over the blaring sirens and growling of our engines.
“We can outrun him,” I yelled back.
“It’s just speeding, pull your fucking ass over!”
“Don’t be a pussy, come on!”
I waved facetiously, sped up, and broke away again, hoping he’d follow suit instead of doing the responsible thing.
Within seconds, Torch had caught up and was riding my ass. I could see him shaking his pissed-off head in my mirror.
We’d gotten about a quarter of a mile lead when I spotted a sign for an emergency exit. I pointed at it and made a u-turn hand signal to let him know what I was about to do. We both flipped a bitch, soon zipping by the cop going the other direction. I knew we were golden by then, he’d lose another half mile just trying to maneuver that bulky cage around.
Still, we had to get off the highway before he called for backup to intercept us. I’d noticed an empty rest stop a couple miles back and made that our target. I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face as we whipped down the twisty road, adrenaline and endorphins coursing through my blood and brain. After a mile or so, I knew we were at least three curves ahead of our pursuer. I could still hear the sirens faintly but had lost all visual.
As the sign came into view again, I gave Torch another signal to pull off.
It was one of the nicer rest stops I’d come across; the bathrooms were housed in what looked like a cedar cabin, surrounded by trees and picnic tables. Bringing my bike to a crawl, I maneuvered between bushes and pulled in behind the building so we’d be out of view from the road.
“Are you batshit?!” Torch roared as he pulled in behind me. “What the fuck,
wife
?”
I laughed and hopped off. “Relax, I’ll hack our police friends and wipe the dashcam footage if there is any. That was fun, right?”
“Babe, you just
got
that bike. It’s not a fucking crotch rocket like you’re used to, those curves weren’t a joke.”
“Oh, quit being a killjoy. It’s just physics when you factor in speed, angle, and center of gravity.”
“You’re gonna make me have a fucking aneurysm,” he seethed through clenched teeth. He dismounted, pulled his gloves off, and grabbed me by the waist. “And, by the way,
none
of that was appropriate for an old lady.”
I rose up on the balls of my feet and cozied up to him. “You’d be bored to shit with an
appropriate
old lady. Admit it, you love a rush as much as I do.”
As the sirens wailed louder, he spun me around and covered my mouth with one hand, then used his massive frame to nudge me forward. Before I could figure out his intentions, he’d pinned me against the rear outer wall of the bathroom.
I wasn’t sure what the point of muzzling me was—no one would hear us—but I got the feeling being overheard had nothing to do with it. We both stood still as the sirens passed by. As soon as they did, the hand across my mouth loosened a little and I took the opportunity to draw one of his fingers into my mouth. I ran my teeth across the top and the tip of my tongue along the bottom, before sucking on it seductively.
“Goddamn it,” he groaned, his cock instantly hard enough to feel against my back, “I’m supposed to be pissed here.”
He wasn’t, he knew he wasn’t. I slowly turned to face him and noticed his chest heaving, but it wasn’t from anger or frustration. He was turned on.
I caressed his beard and brushed my thumb along his lower lip. “Guess you have an executive decision to make then,” I murmured.