by Rye Hart
I cursed under my breath and did my best to stay cool, even though I was panicking internally. I had to keep it in. I had to keep it quiet. The more I panicked, the more mistakes I was likely to make.
My eyes darted towards the window and after deciding that it was big enough for me to fit through, I pushed it open and climbed through onto the roof. I managed to slide down the downspout into the bushes without hurting myself and jumped up, cursing as I yanked at the branches that had snagged my shirt.
I was wearing shorts and a tank top, which had led to several open cuts on the way down. I wasn't even slightly concerned with that. I had far bigger fish to fry. I had a rival biker gang on my tail and they wanted blood.
My only way out was down the mountain and I knew it. I took off as fast as I could through the woods, my eyes fixed straight ahead. I could see the glistening asphalt just ahead, steam rising from the blacktop like a ghost. It had just rained and the smell of wet dirt was still in the air. My eyes were wide and my heart was pounding. I was so close to safety. Surely there would be someone on the busy main road!
Just as I was about to break the tree line, a sharp pain in my scalp took me by surprise. Someone had a hold of my long curls and was tugging me backwards. I screamed on instinct and struggled against the fingers that were wrapping about my hair and dragging me back toward the cabin.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a switch blade. I reached back and sliced into my hair, cutting it off. The curls fell around me and a man cursed. I didn’t stop to look and see who it was before scrambling away, trying desperately to make it to the road. Something told me that if I could get to the road, I’d be safe.
The same fingers that had wrapped themselves in my hair, wrapped around my ankle. I fell forward and hit the ground hard, suddenly paralyzed with fear. It was just like my dream. I heard a man grunt as he started to pull me back.
“Finally got you, you dumb bitch,” he hissed.
A sob was stuck in my throat, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I somehow managed to get a hold of myself and I started to scream, twisting and turning in a desperate attempt to get away, but nothing I did mattered. He was much bigger than me and this time, size won out. I turned to try and stab him but he caught my wrist with ease, twisting it until I was sure it was going to break. I screamed and the knife hit the ground.
The man, who I could now see was at least six feet tall, threw me over his shoulder and carried me back towards the cabin which was still actively ablaze. He set me down and when I looked up to scream he drew his fist back and punched my square in the nose. The blow made stars explode behind my eyes, but it didn’t knock me out.
I spit out a mouthful of blood, panting and wide eyed. He just chuckled and used my dazed state to his advantage, tying me up to a nearby tree. He somehow managed to force my legs apart and tied them down as well.
“There we go, exactly how I wanted you,” he hummed.
I was doing my best to keep the tears back and keep myself from shuddering. I was more than a little surprised to see that he was the only one around. I grit my teeth and dropped my head forward, shuddering.
“Where are the rest of you?” I whispered, venom dripping from my words.
“There are no others. They ran off after you killed the boss,” He murmured, settling on a stump across from me, looking at me thoughtfully.
My eyes widened as I took in what he was saying. If he was telling the truth, it meant that one of the most dangerous outlaw biker gangs had been taken out and I was the one to do it. That brought me some comfort at least. Maybe I was going down, but at least I’d taken these fuckers with me.
“Can’t say I feel much sympathy,” I murmured.
He stood up, the cabin blazing behind him. “Keep your mouth shut!” he snapped, stepping forward and slapping me across the face so hard my ears rang.
I spit out another mouthful of blood as he continued on his pathetic rant. “They might have just been criminals to you, but those men were my brothers! That was my family.”
“You picked a shit family,” I murmured, looking up at him, my gaze defiant. I wasn’t going to let this jerk off win. If I was going down, I was going to go down swinging.
His eyes narrowed and he closed the space between us, reaching out and gripping my jaw between his fingers. I was forced to look into his face now and I saw a man who looked far older than he really was thanks to years of drugs and alcohol. His teeth had all but rotted out of his mouth and his eyes were red and hazy, while the deep wrinkles in his skin did nothing to help his aged appearance. His breath smelled rancid and it made my stomach turn, but I never broke from his gaze. I wasn’t going to give this up without a fight.
“You’re going to regret every word that came out of your whore mouth. Did you think I was just going to kill you?” he whispered. “Of course not.” A wicked smile came to his lips and I felt a shiver run down my spine. “I’m going to wait right here until that boyfriend of yours comes running. And when he gets here, I’m going to rip him to pieces right in front of your eyes.”
My blood turned cold and I reacted without thinking. I started to scream. It wasn’t a fearful scream, it was an animalistic sound of rage. I pulled at the ropes that held me to the tree and I managed to slam my forehead into his nose.
He howled and stumbled back, holding the broken and bleeding protrusion. “You whore!” he screamed stepping forward.
He wrapped his thick hands around my neck and began to squeeze. I could feel the power and anger in those hands, squeezing and crushing the life out of me. My eyes fluttered and my head lolled as I felt the last of the air slipping from my body. I whimpered weakly and just as the world started to go black he pulled his hands away.
“No, I want you to be awake for this,” he grunted.
I sucked in as much air as my lungs would hold, watching him blankly as he started to tear at my shorts. Soon enough they were around my ankles and he was working at his own belt buckle. Blood was pouring from his nose and I could hear him muttering under his breath.
“If she’s going to act like a whore, I’m going to treat her like one.”
The acidic panic was coming up my throat now and I tried to yank my legs closed but it was no use. Luckily, the rancid, rotting man wouldn’t make it very far.
A gunshot echoed through the forest and an explosion of red filled my sight. Blood splattered my ankles, but it hardly registered. The man fell forward, blood pooling underneath him where the bullet had entered and exited his skull.
I was panting hard, laughter exploding from me out of pure instinct. Nothing in this moment was funny, but it was the only way I could vocalize my relief. I slumped against the ropes, my eyes closed. Before I knew it I was wrapped in warm, safe arms and the sounds of police sirens echoed around the mountains. The police weren’t typically the people Ryan and I would have relied on, but this time we didn’t really have any options.
“Kisha, oh my God Kisha,” he whispered, kissing my face over and over again. “I’m here. I’m here,” he whispered.
The words turned me to mush, and all I could do was collapse against him as he untied me. I eventually managed to pull myself together and give the police a statement. As soon as we were cleared of any crimes, we hopped in the truck to head back to Nashville.
Damien’s convoy never came because the fucker had taken the men out before they could arrive. It was how he managed to find us. Even the strongest man could crack under the right kind of pressure. We hadn’t said much to each other since the rescue and I could feel his eyes on me every few seconds.
“Kisha,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” I said simply, my voice even and relaxed. “I’m not mad.”
“I shouldn’t have left you.”
I took a breath and looked at him. “It’s probably better you did.”
“How can you say that?”
“If you hadn’t gone down the mountain, we would
have both been tied to a tree and we’d probably be dead now. It worked out. I’m not mad.”
He was silent for a long time. “How can you be so relaxed?”
“I’m not. I’m shaken up as fuck, but it’s okay. I’m going to be okay and we’re going to be okay.”
Another thick silence. “What did you need to go get in town, anyway?”
“Well, this isn’t the ideal way I wanted you to find out, but no time like the present I suppose.”
He handed me a small hunter green box and when I opened it, there was a delicate diamond ring inside and a small note that simply said.
‘Will you marry me?’
Chapter Fourteen
I said yes of course and in the spring we were married. Despite the horrid events in the mountain, we still went back there for our honeymoon. We weren’t going to let that asshole ruin the place we’d found love.
Our story ended the way so many others do. It was a fairytale, really. We got married, we made love and we had two beautiful daughters who were growing up just as wild and fast as we had. Ryan was teaching them how to play pool and I was teaching them how to drive the little mini bikes we got them for Christmas.
I leaned on the counter, watching as Ryan read to them. It was some outlaw, Western that he had loved growing up and the girls loved it just as much. I smiled softly and disappeared back into the kitchen to toss the first batch of cookies I’d made that night. I’d accidently burned them and had run to the store in order to buy the prepackaged one.
Once we were married, I’d wanted to be a good wife, but cooking was just never a skill I was meant to master. I stacked the cookies on a tray neatly and carried them out to my children and husband, watching Shiloh and Riley squeal with excitement.
Ryan took a cookie off the tray and bit into it, looking at me with a cocked brow. “Kroger?” he asked with a little grin.
“Kroger,” I confirmed.
He smiled and pulled me down onto his lap and the girls made faces of disgust. I just laughed and shook my head, placing a big wet kiss on Ryan’s cheek.
“I love you.”
“I love you more.”
I smiled and nuzzled his cheek, “You’re going to have to prove it.”
He just grinned and pressed his lips to mine and I was instantly transported back to our very first kiss. This was my life and I couldn’t have been happier with the way it turned out. I’d spent most of my teenage years thinking I was unlovable until Ryan came back into my life.
He’d saved me. I knew that without a doubt.
The End
Exclusive Bad Boy Romance: Heart Off Limits
Chapter One
I wasn’t exactly Miss Goodie Fucking Two Shoes. It was more like Miss Wild and Reckless. Highschool suspensions became a norm and it never even phased me. Mom said I carried a big heart, but a hard as hell shell. She tried hard to be patient and deal with my wild antics but I guess everyone has their boiling point. She didn’t want me back after all the trouble I got into on my last year of high school. Looking back, I can’t really blame her; it was a miracle they let me graduate.
She put up with me for another year and then she shipped me off to live in Altanta with Dad. Dad? It was so weird to call him that. I hadn’t seen him in almost a decade, and he was practically a complete stranger until the day I was loaded onto a bus and sent to live with him. It wasn’t the best parenting decision on my mom’s part but she didn’t know what else to do with me.
Soon after moving ship, I dropped the name dad and referred to him by his first name, Mike. Mike preferred it that way. He said dad made him feel old. He was crude and I was pretty sure he was involved in some illegal shit, but he was never home so I didn’t know the details. I preferred it that way.
I’d been here for about two years now and the relationship between the two of us hadn’t gotten any better. We were still estranged since we spent little to no time together, though I learned to expect nothing less from him. He proved to be the type of guy who didn’t care about anyone but himself. It was better that way though; at least he never got my hopes up anymore.
Mom sent me to live with him to show me that life could be worse. She wanted me to experience the hard life my father lived and she expected I would call her crying and begging her to take me back, but that little plan backfired. Here I am two years later. My family situation may be far from the Brady Bunch, but atleast I liked it here. To be honest, I liked my freedom here and I was too stubborn to go back. I had freedom like I’d never had with my mother. Mom could be a real hard ass. She became tougher as I reached the age of maturity and I assumed it was because she was afraid of losing another person in her life. I loved her with every fiber of my being but we never seemed to get passed our screwed up communication. We were two stubborn women under one roof and it was a bad combination.
I missed her everyday. If only I could tell her that.
I’m just a few months from my 21st birthday now. Mike managed to remember all my birthdays, leaving me a cupcake on the dining room table and a weird gift I never really understood. Alteast he tried when it came to my birthdays, even if it was half ass.
He had a habit of buying me presents that I’d never use. For the longest time it was nail polish, all kinds of nail polish, mostly in baby blues and pinks; colors I would never dream of wearing. He finally got the hint at some point and he bought me black. Now it was black everything, which I didn’t really mind.
I rolled onto my stomach and glanced down at the hard wood floor, running my hand over it for a moment, almost wincing at the heat that emanated from it. I liked the south, but I didn’t like the heat. Not one bit.
The sun was high in the sky now, and I figured I ought to get out of bed. I was up all night cramming for finals the night before and luckily didn’t have to be to work today but that wasn’t an excuse for me to lay in bed. I changed into black skirt and a shirt that I got at some concert I could barely remember. I threw on some boots and then I placed a black beanie over my blonde hair.
Just as I was grabbing a Pop-Tart from the sparse pantry my phone began to buzz. I pulled it out of my back pocket and answered without looking at the screen.
“Yo,” I gave my standard greeting.
“Alex?”
“Hey Gina! What’s up girl?”
Gina was my best friend. A Southern girl through and through with a kick-ass punk attitude. I loved her dearly. Being around Gine made this heat almost bearable.
“Are you working today?” she asked.
“No ma’am. I actually just got out of bed,” I hummed, popping my breakfast into the toaster. “Why?”
“There’s a big biker rally this weekend! People are coming from everywhere, even as far as Nashville. How fucking rad is that?”
“A biker rally? What would be so fun about a biker rally?” I grumbled.
I had an aversion to bikers as it were. In my mind bikers represented a community of bad news. They were dangerous, unpredictable, and had no redeeming qualities as far as I could see. I had goals of paying my way through college and graduating on time. That meant going to community college at night and working full, so I wasn’t stupid enough to get tangled with bikers. Not like my mom in her wild years. She ending up regretting every minute of it and that made a lasting impression in my life.
“Don’t be such a baby, Alex. It’ll be fun,” Gina whined.
“I don’t think so.”
“God, you’re such a downer. Fine, let’s go grab lunch and hit up some bars? That sounded like a better idea. I could use a break.
I grabbed the Pop Tart as it popped from the toaster and stuffed it in my mouth. “Where are we going to meet?”
“Did you really just ask me that?” she drawled.
“Majestic?”
“Duh. I want a milkshake. See you soon boo.”
I chuckled and hung up the phone, tucking it away in my pocket. Let’s see where this takes us.
Chapter Two
I
t was just as hot outside as I expected it to be. The air was oppressive and sweat was already starting to bead on my forehead. I brushed my fingers through my blonde hair, secretly thankful to Gina for talking me out of dying it a dark color. She warned me that it would attract the sun and get way too hot and I was grateful to her for the warning, though I’d still acted petulant about not having dark hair.
The streets were as busy as you’d expect on a hot summer afternoon. A few people were walking up and down the street in shorts and tank tops, but most people were holed up in the mall or at home where cold AC units offered relief from this fucking heat. It was the one thing I hated about Atlanta. I hated the heat. I hated the way that even the branches on the trees seemed to droop in utter defeat against it.
Luckily I didn’t have to walk too far. I lived close to a tram station and hopped on happily. I sighed with delight as the cool air hit my face. I collapsed into one of the seats and stuck headphones in my ears, not really interested in talking to anyone. People had a tendency to think that public transport was a place to make friends. They would talk your ear off if you didn’t have headphones in. It was the most annoying thing I’d ever experienced in my life.
I’d grown up in a small town just outside Boston and I wasn’t used to people poking around in my business for no reason. Folks in small towns do love to gossip but they have a tendency to do it behind your back and never to your face, so it was less invasive than what I faced here in the big city.
I got off in the heart of downtown Atlanta and walked through the street, taking in all the people. One of my favorite parts about living in a big city was people-watching. Coming from a small town where everyone looked the same, and there was little to no variation, Atlanta people-watching was like hitting the jackpot. I couldn’t go more than five feet without seeing a new look. There were Goth kids, glamour moms, and even the occasional drag queen. I loved taking in all the colors and looks.
