Sentinel - Devil Riders MC Book 1 (MC Romance Novel with FREE Bonus Novel!) (9 page)

Trigger grabbed them and grinned broadly. “To be honest, I think Chopper figures that long as you are driving that car he can count on repeat business.”

“Well, with his rates, that won’t do him much good. On the other hand, I doubt I’ll take that beast anywhere else in town.”

She went to the office and got her keys, and came back to slide them across the table. “Watch out.”

“For what?”

“The immense acceleration of that beast can catch you by surprise.”

Trigger scooped up the keys. “If the damn thing accelerates at all, I’ll be surprised.” He carried the beers over to a table and handed one to Chopper. She wondered idly if one of these two was the guy who’d been fucking Trish in the back room. That might explain why she didn’t want Rafe to know. Then she shook her head. Trish liked them both, but not sexually. No, she’d want someone less of what Rafe called the ‘damaged warrior class’. As she watched the two men leave the bar she was overcome with feeling that she was starting to belong somewhere.

Rafe came over grinning. “Watch out. Those chumps like you.”

A warm feeling ran through her. “I think they do. I like them.” She grinned. “I’ve never had big brothers before.” She looked at him. “Did you tell Trigger to keep an eye on me after closing?”

He pulled back. “Me? I would never presume to interfere in the personal lives of my employees. Trigger now, he’s different. He embarrassed himself with you and felt a need to make it right. Did he?”

“Yeah. He and Chopper both, it seems.”

“Well you can sure pick ‘em. Those two are barely domesticated.”

She laughed. “Rafe, a girl doesn’t necessarily want her big brother to be a guy who looks good in a tux. She’s more likely to want them to be bad news to anyone hassling her.”

Rafe raised his bottle. “Well, in that case, Miss James, you got what you want and a lot more.”

“Really?”

Rafe nodded. “I actually hope you never have to find out just how accurate that little picture actually is.”

He said no more and she was just as glad. Some things you wanted to uncover on your own, or maybe just leave buried. Besides, as she waited for another biker to discover his beer was dangerously low, that left her brain free to fantasize about flying down a ribbon of highway with a big bike roaring between her legs and her arms wrapped around Rafe’s waist.

* * * *

CHAPTER SIX

She watched Rafe kick his bike to life. It burped and then enveloped them in the sultry and powerful roar of the big engine. It throbbed, reminding her of the sound of a hungry beast. Even before she’d straddled it, before she’d traveled as far as across the parking lot, Chrissy was beginning to understand the attraction of these big motorcycles. Her pulse pounded in her ears as Rafe sat on the machine and held out a hand to her. It was more than a gesture, that hand. It was a signal that he wanted her behind him. She took a deep breath and moved toward him thinking that somehow, while she was busy tending bar, the world had become a more magical, wonderful place.

She held her breath, took his hand and swung her leg over the broad leather seat. The rumble of the beat underneath them resonated up between her legs. She was transfixed in a whirl that was erotic and intoxicating.

“Feet on the pegs,” Rafe told her. As she struggled to understand his words, he reached back and grabbed her ankle. Tactile shock waves shot through her body as he planted her foot where he wanted it. It was a functional, helpful guiding hand, and it made her think she would melt.

He pointed to a chrome pipe. “That’s the exhaust. It will burn the shit out of you, so keep those sweet and lovely legs away from it.”

Sweet and lovely legs
. Rafe liked her legs. She trembled at the idea.

“Put your arms tight around me and you’ll be as safe as… well, you’ll be safe.”

The invitation, or command, whatever it was, forced her to action, wrapping her arms around his waist. Then she hugged him, her breasts pressing against the back of his vest. She didn’t feel safe at all, but then she didn’t want to feel safe. She wasn’t thinking about just riding with him. Somehow she was embarking on an adventure— she was convinced that being safe was not the path she was taking. Every choice she’d made lately was the opposite of safe.

Getting in step with Rafe was living without a safety net. And she loved it.

Rafe revved the engine. “Ready?”

Although far from ready, she was eager, so she pressed her lips to his ear and said: “Yes.” She could’ve spoken loudly, but she couldn’t resist the excuse to let him feel the warmth of her breath on his neck. She thought she felt him tremble slightly and she hoped it was true.

But now he was the biker, in command of his iron beast. He put the bike in gear, let out the clutch, and they roared past her Honda, sitting where Trigger had parked it. They tore off into a dark street where the asphalt was so black that it looked wet and seemed to shimmer. The spring air was warm and sweet, and lights flickered around them until all she saw was a swirling halo of red and green and blue neon, the yellow of sodium in lights in parking lots, the blueish-white glow of halon in expensive headlights. As they roared over the asphalt she smelled the denim of Rafe’s vest, the masculine odors of his body; she felt his hard torso under her tight grip as she clung to him.

Life had never been so good.

Rafe had said he wanted to go to the bluff. She had no idea where that was. She put her trust in him completely. Just getting on the bike had been a commitment. It had exhilarated and terrified her, and she clung to him, her biker, as he drove out of town and took a two-lane blackout road that ran like a ribbon through hills, past farms and up, always up.

She swallowed to let her ears clear. The powerful bike ran into the night, its steady, throaty roar taking them on. On the turns, Rafe would slow, downshift, then the bike would leap up again, racing up the hill.

She’d expected to be frightened, getting on this metal monster and going at speed. But it was glorious. As they left the world of lights, to each side was a blur of rocks and trees, fields and buildings. If she looked down, a swirl of asphalt loomed with a certain menace, but when she pressed her cheek against Rafe’s broad back, she felt that he was in control of his bike, of her entire universe. His confidence and assuredness made any concerns melt into nothing. He and his bike took away all her fears and doubts.

She didn’t know where any of this led, except that for now, and the foreseeable future, she would do anything Rafe asked of her.

Anything at all.

* * * *

Chrissy let out a long sigh. “Beautiful.”

They stood on the bluffs looking out over a carpet of lights that ended at the edge of the city. Beyond that were only a few small pinpricks, marking farms, and to one side a small cluster of twinkling yellow light that marked the processing plant that provided employment for much of the city.

Chrissy stood next to Rafe, and even though it was night, she felt like she stood in the big man’s shadow. He had his arms around her, warm and reassuring, and behind them she heard intermittent crackles of cooling metal from the bike’s hot engine.

“I love it up here,” he told her. “When I can’t get away, can’t hit the road and just ride, I have to come up here where I can at least look out at the horizon, even if I can’t ride off into it.”

“Why can’t you ride off to the horizon?”

He turned and looked at her and she hoped he could see that what she meant was that she wanted to ride off with him. She held her breath, not daring to say that, not yet.

He sighed. “Because I have responsibilities and if I start that ride, I won’t come back.”

She sensed an undercurrent, a hidden story that she knew nothing about, but she guessed it was painful, the way it gripped him, the way it seemed to keep him from following what sounded like his dream.

“Is that what you want?” Chrissy ventured.

“I want to feel free again.” Then he smiled. “Not free of people, or relationships, but freed from the expectations that can come with them.”

“And people won’t let you be free.”

He laughed. “No. People aren’t the problem. I am. It’s my own expectations that tie me down.” He looked into her eyes. “My expectations for my life don’t quite square with what I’ve done. The reality of my past keeps me from taking what I want from life, Chrissy. I’m not a free man.”

She held his arm, leaned her cheek against it and wondered about this man. He was a biker who chafed under the yoke of responsibility, but where did that come from? What sort of past tied you so completely?

“Even if you can’t break free, can’t you move in that direction?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t you slowly shed some responsibilities and only take on new ones that lead you where you want to go?”

His arm tightened around her and something shifted in his eyes. “You’re talking about relationships now.”

She was. She was babbling about herself as much as she was him, although her feelings made it hard to separate the two.

“You talk about the reality of your past. The reality of mine is that I’ve made some horrible mistakes. I’ve convinced myself I could love men who only seemed to promise security. As it turned out, all they offered was pain.”

“That’s a past you can walk away from. You have to choose differently.”

“But I don’t trust my judgment anymore.”

“Then trust your own heart, not promises from other people.”

Those simple words resonated with her but frightened her too.

“The heart isn’t all that smart. It wants passion. The heart isn’t thinking about the future.”

“And the future matters?”

She’d never heard anyone question that idea before, and it startled her. She stared out at the shimmering lights and felt the tug of that horizon, imagined being on that motorcycle, riding behind Rafe as they headed toward it just to see what was there. That was a future, but a vague one. It was more of a promise of the heart than a plan.

He turned her to face him, holding her by the shoulders and she looked up at his face.

“I’m not one to talk. I haven’t done well with relationships, Chrissy. I’ve fucked up pretty good and I think part of it was from thinking about a relationship as a thing all by itself. I wanted a relationship instead of understanding the importance of each day. Being with someone because you want to be with them, because doing anything else pales by comparison, makes me feel alive. But being in a relationship, just the sound of that makes the feeling of being trapped, tied down, almost intolerable. So when someone says we should promise we’ll be together forever, I can’t know if that means they’re hoping to feel that joy of being together every day, or if they are trying to lock down something that can’t be even seen or analyzed, even less held onto.”

She swallowed. Her trembling heart made her shiver. She knew he was sincere. He could’ve lied to her, told her she would be his forevermore and she would have happily let him seduce her. She would have let herself believe in a future with him, that he would always be hers. Instead he told her the truth. She sensed his resolve. He brought her to this place to tell her that truth, to warn her off, and let her see who he really was. A risk taker.

Risk takers were trouble. A man who wouldn’t commit to her was someone she could never count on. Rafe was a risk taker and she wanted him with every part of her being. The man Rafe admitted to being, the man who wouldn’t plan a future, was exactly the man she loved—because of who he was.

Her stomach was knotted. Part of it was because they stood at the edge of a cliff and the edge of decision making. She knew that. He wanted her to know the facts.

Chrissy had had lovers before Benny, but she had never had sex casually. For her, sex was always supposed to be part of a relationship, a commitment between two people. Tonight, on this bluff, with the first rays of the morning sun lighting the tops of the hills, she saw things differently. Rafe was different from any man she had ever known. Her situation was different too. She was a new woman, starting a new life, and that new woman wanted him. She lusted after him, and even if he wouldn’t be hers forever more, she wasn’t going to let this moment slip away.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and moved close, hugging him, putting her head against his chest and pressing her body against his. “I don’t care about relationships, Rafe. I want you. Take me.”

She felt him tense. “You don’t mean that, Chrissy.”

“I do.” She turned her face up, watching his. “I’ve lived my entire life making plans for the future, Rafe. I’ve picked men who
had
a future. I’ve stayed in school for what it will mean in the future, not because of what it brought me now. I’ve never really lived in the present. And right now I have a chance to taste that.
You
are my present.”

“And tomorrow you’ll expect things to be different between us. If we make love you will assume it’s the start of a relationship, and maybe it will be, but maybe it won’t. I won’t change and you’ll hate me for that.”

“Tomorrow will be tomorrow. If I can’t look back on tonight and have memories of a night of passion with you, I’ll feel empty.” Rubbing her body against his, she could feel him aroused, knew he wanted her. “I’ve learned that I can’t promise anything about tomorrow. Maybe I
will
hate you then, but I know what I want
now
. I want you to fuck me, Rafe. I want tomorrow to take care of itself for once.”

“I…”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, a long and lingering kiss and he pulled her close. “I’m not a virgin, Rafe. I’m not deluding myself. Take me. You won’t hurt me. I want you. I want you to fuck me. That’ll move me closer to my own horizon, whatever that is. If nothing more comes of it, I won’t feel any differently toward you.”

He kissed her again, this time putting his tongue in her mouth, letting his hands caress her ass through her skirt, and working it up as she rubbed herself against him. Feeling he was still holding back, Chrissy gathered her nerve and fumbled with the front of his jeans, unsnapping them, then forced her trembling fingers to pull his zipper down. If he wouldn’t take the initiative, if he didn’t believe her, she would have to show him—make him understand in no uncertain terms.

When she put her hand inside his jeans she found him hard and hot. She worked his cock out of his pants, stroking it and he broke the kiss to stare at her. The look of wonder in his eyes thrilled her. Her skin burned with desire as she returned his stare. Then she tightened her grip on his cock, felt it swell even more in her hand. “I’m going to make you come,” she said. Then she slowly dropped to her knees on the grass in front of him. His masculine smell was intoxicating as she opened her mouth, and took the head of his hot cock inside and tasted him.

“Oh God,” he moaned and she felt the gentle touch of his hands on her head as he guided her.

* * * *

They were on the top of the bluff that provided a vista of the entire city and the country side beyond. You could see for miles. You could if you weren’t on your knees, sucking the cock of a biker named Rafe. She was bringing her man to a boil, using her hands and mouth on him, trying to imagine any way of touching or sucking him that would increase his pleasure even more. She wanted that even though he was already tangling his fingers in her hair and moaning with delight.