Riding Curves

by Roxie Wilde

  Riding Curves (Protective Alpha Male Curvy Gal Book 2)

  by Roxie Wilde

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events reside solely in the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters are eighteen years of age or older.

  © 2019, Roxie Wilde. No portion of this work can be reproduced in any way without prior written consent from the author with the exception for a fair use excerpt for review and editorial purposes.

  This title is for adults only. It contains explicit sex acts, adult themes, and material that some folks might find offensive. Please keep out of reach of children. All characters involved in sexual activities are consenting adults age 18 or older. Cover models appear for illustration purposes only and have no connection with the fictional events of this story.

  Table of Contents

  Riding Curves

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading!

  Riding Curves

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  Chapter 1

  Jet

  There was nothing like the feeling of freedom purring between my thighs.

  Freedom, in this case, was my Harley chewing up the scenery as I roared down the highway. San Diego was in my rearview mirrors, Calexico still an hour away. This was the time I was most alive, the moments alone under the sea of stars above me. Away from people and their problems, away from cities and their lights. I could taste the first hints of autumn on the air, feel a crispness in the breeze as it whipped through my hair. Summer was fading away, although the heat was holding on with a white-knuckled grip. I was sweaty under my leathers, but it was a small price to pay for the feel of the open road.

  I enjoyed the meditation of a solo ride, nothing to distract my thoughts. Like a good shower, all my best thinking was done on the back of my bike, nothing around me but empty hills and shining stars. Zen and the art of motorcycle riding. I smiled at the thought.

  My solitude was broken by the shrill ringtone of my phone blasting through the BlueTooth headset I wore. As much as it pained me to be reachable on these journeys, it was necessary when you were the President of a Motorcycle Club. Too many things could go wrong for me to ever be entirely unreachable.

  “Jet, we’ve got a problem.”

  Case in point.

  Duke was my right-hand man, and the panic in his voice immediately woke me all the way up from my dreamy reverie of riding. The pleasant silence of the night took on a more sinister appearance. Suddenly, being alone didn’t seem like such a good idea. Hundreds of years of instinct raised my hackles. Something was lurking in the darkness, something bad. I could feel it.

  “What’s up?” I shouted over the roar of Freedom and the noise of the wind rushing past.

  “Pip’s hurt bad. We’ve got a situation here. I’m not sure he’s going to make it. He’s not the only one hurt, just the worst.”

  “Slow down, Duke. Take a deep breath. Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”

  I kept my voice calm, the same tone you’d use to soothe a scared dog before it decided that taking a bite out of you was preferable to staying still. I’d had to talk more than one afraid animal down in my life. You had to be careful with them, clear and calm and firm in what you wanted from them. Too often they lashed out, and then you had no choice but to put them down.

  “Okay Jet. Yeah. We were at the tunnel, just holding down the fort. Waiting for you with the shipment. These guys came out of nowhere. Guns blazing, no questions. It’s a miracle we all made it out, but Pip must have got hit because he passed out halfway back to the clubhouse. Ate shit right off his bike. He’s torn up bad, and he’s got a hole in his gut. We stopped the bleeding, but he needs a real doctor, man.”

  I swore softly, counting on the ambient noise on my end to keep Duke from hearing.

  “Alright. You guys stay safe. I’ll go get Little Tony. He’ll be drunk this time of night, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Tony was a shit doctor, worse when he was drunk, which was most of the time. In a one-horse town, you make do with what you’ve got.

  “Lock the doors, shutter the windows, kill the lights. I’ll call when I’m on the way. If anyone else so much as drives by, light them up. Don’t take any chances.”

  “What about the package, Jet? Someone ratted us out. You can’t use the tunnel.”

  I grimaced. “Let me worry about that, Duke. You’ve got your hands full. You tell Pip I order him not to die, alright?”

  He chuckled, relief in his tone “You got it, boss. Stay safe out there.”

  I heard the click of the line going dead and gunned the throttle, my knuckles tightening on it until I felt it creak under the strain. The roar of Freedom filled my ears, but now it had a subtle undertone. Taunting, teasing.

  This is what you get for getting complacent, Jet.

  Freedom, like anything you ride, can be a fickle bitch.

  Chapter 2

  Samantha

  A bar is a hundred conversations at once.

  All of them were clamoring for attention over the thrumming of rock music and the clatter of pool balls being racked. You’d be hard-pressed to find a stretch of untattooed back or bicep within the walls of The Toolbox. The atmosphere was smokey and gritty-- I’d been working here for six months and could count the nights there hadn’t been a fistfight on one hand.

  It was all a welcome relief.

  “Hey Sam, can I get three shots of Jack and a Bud?”

  This place was home. I’d been sneaking into the Box since long before I was old enough to order a drink. It had been a safe haven from home— at least until Evan had come along and convinced me he was Prince Charming on a white Charger.

  I'd practically grown up in this place. So it made sense that it had been my first stop once I’d gotten back into town. I needed it. Needed something familiar, something I understood.

  “Sure thing, Derek.”

  Derek Tenner’s grizzled face had been a part of this bar as long as I could remember. Hell, he’d been a part of my life longer than I could recall. The man had been old as long as I've been alive. Much more of a father than my own had ever bothered to be, Derek hadn't hesitated to give me a job behind the bar, no questions asked, as soon as I’d come back into town earlier this year. It was something for which I'd be eternally grateful. He’d pulled some strings with the Toolbox’s new owner to get me hired sight unseen and even set me up in the tiny studio apartment upstairs. The man was a saint in leather chaps.

  Busted knuckles and colorful curses. The rules—spoken and implied—of this bar. It all made perfect sense to me. It turned out that manicured, pampered hands were the real danger.

  As desperate as I’d been to burn rubber out of this town five years ago, I’d been longing for the familiarity of home before the ink was even dry on my divorce. Evan could have New York City. Hell, he could have the entire Eastern seaboard.

  Molly Hatchet warned about the perils of Flirtin’ with Disaster over the well-preserved jukebox in the far corner of the bar.

  “Hey Sam, can— uh— I get two shots of Patron, please? Um. If you can?”

  I smiled at the skinny brunette. She was a sweet thing, a friend of someone’s friend who had started coming in a couple of weeks back. Nervous energy rolled off her brand new leather vest. She seemed to live in perpetual fear of breaking the bar’s unspoken hierarchy. It was the telltale mark of someone who watched far too much network television.

  “Here you go, hon.”<
br />
  I’d give her another two weeks before she either mellowed out or went back to hanging out at the only other option in town. Joe’s closed an hour earlier but made up for it with better parking.

  And no bikers.

  According to the dull ache in my lower back, there were still a couple of hours left before closing. By the time everything was clean and the bar was wiped down, it would be near sunrise by the time I crawled between the sheets on the cardboard-thin mattress upstairs.

  The Toolbox paid well, especially for this town. But leaving Evan the way I had— just running away in the middle of the night— meant leaving everything behind.

  My freedom had been well worth walking away.

  The only thing I really missed was my job at the hospital. But starting over from scratch was expensive, even in border-town California. I’d finally gotten myself a little beater pickup. Now that every penny didn’t have to be set aside for transportation, I could save up for a few luxuries.

  Like drapes.

  I knew Jet Jones had walked into the Toolbox the same way you know lightning just struck the baseball stadium you’re sitting in.

  One minute he wasn’t there. The next instant he was. His presence filled the space, took up all the oxygen until I didn’t know how anyone in the room could breathe. My lungs were slowly being crushed under the weight of it. Electricity crackled in the air. It was a tangible thing.

  I looked up just as the thickest of the crowd parted near the door. It gave me a clear view, let me watch the stranger walk up.

  The bar lights gleamed off his black hair, turned the inky mess into an ocean under the wooden rafters.

  Something I hadn’t felt in close to five years thrummed sharp and fast through me. It was intense and caught me off guard, and it took me a moment to place the sensation buzzing warmly between my thighs.

  Lust.

  Heat rushed my cheeks at the realization, and I ducked my head, suddenly very intent on wiping up a spill.

  It didn’t work. He was burned into my brain. Impossibly tall, black hair and blacker eyes. Cheekbones for days.

  I was relieved when Derek stepped around me, hopeful that it was a friend and I wouldn’t have to take the gorgeous stranger’s order. My relief fled an instant later when I caught the tail end of Derek’s greeting.

  ‘— Jet.”

  Fuck.

  This was Jet Jones? As in Jet Jones, the new owner of the Box— and my boss?

  “Where’s Tony?’

  The fine hair on the back of my neck raised at the strain in Jet’s voice. I recognized that tone. I’d heard it enough times in my life to know exactly what it meant: trouble.

  Without thinking, I set down the glass I’d been drying. Tension coiled tight in my gut, ready to spring.

  “He ain't here. Got locked up a couple of nights ago.”

  Jet swore ripely at Derek’s reply, and I considered walking out before I eavesdropped on any more of the conversation. But before I could move, two pairs of eyes pinned me in place.

  “Sam. This is Jet. He owns the Toolbox. Jet, this is the new bartender I was telling you about.”

  “Derek I really don’t have time right now--”

  “She’s a nurse.”

  What little breath I had left in me was strangled as Jet Jones wrapped his long fingers around my wrist and dragged me right out the front door.

  We got as far as the parking lot before I remembered myself. I dug my heels into the gravel, giving him resistance as he pulled. Remarkably it worked, and he stopped to spin around and meet my eyes.

  “I’ve got a guy bleeding out. Only doctor in town is Tony. Help me.”

  It wasn’t quite a demand, but it was close enough I still felt my stubborn streak rising. I knew it was suicidal with a man like this. A biker as big as Jet was liable to do absolutely anything.

  A part of me wished he would.

  “Alright. But you owe me.”

  He nodded, all business. He didn’t let go of my wrist as he led the way to his bike.

  It had been years since I had been on one, but even under dire circumstances the sound and feel of the beast between my thighs roaring to life sent a thrill shooting up my spine.

  Not half as much as the sparks that I felt as I wrapped my arms around Jet’s waist and held on for dear life. It was stupid to get involved in whatever this was, a risk that I wouldn’t have taken one year ago. Now it felt like something I had to do. Some way to prove to myself that I had put Evan behind me.

  They say the quickest way to get over someone is to get under someone new, and I couldn’t think of a better candidate for that ride than Jet Jones.

  Chapter 3

  Jet

  It’s funny, the things we focus on in a crisis.

  I should have been solely focused on getting my boys taken care of. Figuring out what the hell had happened. My mind should have been completely occupied with the who’s, what’s, and most importantly how’s of the situation. Thoughts of the tightly wrapped cooler on the back of Freedom should have been foremost in my brain.

  Instead, I was savoring the feeling of Samantha’s arms wrapped tightly around my waist. She was clinging to me hard, holding on for dear life. I knew the first time could be scary and intimidating, but she gripped me much tighter than was necessary even for someone afraid. It wasn’t that.

  It hadn’t been fear that I’d seen in her eyes back at the bar. It had been something far, far more dangerous.

  I could feel her curves pressing against my back, her breasts pushing against me, her knees touching my thighs. I tried to think about more important things, but the contact of her body against mine was a constant reminder. My libido dragged my brain into a dark alley and worked it over. I thought about dragging her into an alley and—

  I realized where we were and slammed on the brakes. The wheels skid in a bit of loose gravel as I pulled up outside the clubhouse. I felt Sam’s hands tighten on me, her nails digging in through the thin cotton of my t-shirt, finding purchase on my abs.

  “We’re here.” I waited a beat, but she was unmoving. “Sam, you can let go now.”

  I felt her hands moving, sliding off me in a way that lingered, as if she didn’t want to break the tenuous connection of our bodies either. Seeing the boarded-up windows of the clubhouse had brought me crashing back to reality, though. No time for a stupid crush, not now. Other things took precedence. Promises I had to keep.

  “Keep him safe, Jet. For me.”

  I shook my head, as if that would shut my ghosts up. I glanced over— Duke was already at the door, holding it open. I saw Longshot behind him, his big rifle lowered but ready to snap up at a moment’s notice. Neither of them looked good. Bruised and battered, and worst of all— shaken. Worried.

  The expressions on their faces told me everything I needed to know about the situation.

  “Come on, Sammie. Time to save a life.”

  I dragged my curvy bartender past my men and into the interior of the Freedom Fighters clubhouse.

  It wasn’t much to look at from the outside, just a big flat storefront on a rundown, deserted part of town. Not that there wasn’t a rundown part of Calexico, but this area was extra rough. It suited me just fine, kept us away from people while still being accessible. The nondescript bricks and currently-boarded windows didn’t do much to sell the place, but you know what they say.

  Never judge a book by its cover.

  Sam gasped in surprise as we moved inside, freezing for a moment in shock. I didn’t blame her. The inside was polished, stylish and modern. Shiny hardwood floors were illuminated by low lights. Pool tables and various comfortable sofas adorned the room. It was normally immaculately clean, but currently, things were strewn about chaotically. I would have asked where our patient was, but a blood trail painted the way.

  I placed a hand on the small of Samantha’s back, giving her a nudge to get her moving again.

  “Come on, we’d better hurry. I trust their first aid skills as f
ar as I can throw them,” I said.

  She stopped gawking, gathering her bearings quickly. I appreciated the ability to focus on the task at hand almost as much as her ability to remain calm under pressure. She was in an unfamiliar place with strange people and was handling it better than anyone else I’d ever met.

  I’d known some real badasses, too.

  I pushed my way back, deeper into the clubhouse. The trail led back to my office, where we found Pips reclining on the sofa, a large gauze bandage haphazardly slapped into place over his stomach. The white cotton was already beginning to soak through with crimson.

  “This is some sloppy, amateur work. Who the hell did this?” Sam addressed the room.

  “Ugh. Nevermind. Out, all of you. Bring me whatever you’ve got to work with.”

  I watched as the men scattered, fleeing before the wrath of the angry blonde tying her hair back and kneeling next to the sofa. Her features softened as she addressed Pips.

  “Hey there hon. We’re going to get you patched up, alright?”

  Pips didn’t speak, just nodded at her tightly. His face was pale and drawn, and he was sweating harder than a whore in a nunnery.

  She threw a glance over her shoulder at me.

  “Make yourself useful and find me more bandages.”

  “Someone get some towels from the shower!” I shouted at the backs of my men. I shucked my jacket and pulled my shirt off, pushing the thin cotton into her hands. “Here.”

  She didn’t take it, shaking her head.

  “You hold it. I’m going to feel for an exit wound.”

  She worked her hands under him, making Pips wince, slamming his eyes shut.

  “I know hon, I know. I need to know if the bullet is still inside you, though.”

  He hissed through his teeth, and I decided to distract him.

  “Pips, tell me what happened.”

  He met my eyes, and I for a moment I saw another face superimposed over Pips. Blonde hair instead of red, but the same blue eyes, the same crooked grin. He had been pale and shaking too, but there had been no pretty curvy nurses that day in the sand.