“What about Tyler?” I asked, sharply.
The idea of being locked down here while the police continued their manhunt had me ready to start breaking things.
“He’s either hiding from you or hunting you,” Ben replied. “His boys gave the cops nothing, so I’m leaning towards the latter, but we haven’t been able to find him anywhere.”
This was continuing to get worse.
The idea of Tyler hunting me, worse, hunting Sara, had me ready to walk out into the streets shooting all over again. If he was looking for us, I hoped he found us so I could finally kill him for good.
This would all be so much easier if I knew where the fuck he was.
“And Mark?” I asked, trying to refrain from yelling into the phone. I needed to keep my cool or the boys would freak out.
“He’s stable,” Ben replied. Good.
“Call me if you hear anything else, especially if you find out where Tyler is,” I instructed.
Ben sounded more calm when he spoke, as if he knew his place now that he had my commands.
“Sure thing, boss,” Ben said.
I hung up the phone, swearing.
The scorching anger poured through my veins like poison, and for a minute I wanted to say fuck it all, hop on the bike, and find Tyler myself.
When Sara finally entered the room, the look on her face clearly showed what mine must look like. She looked downright concerned.
I probably looked like I was going to fucking kill someone.
For once, Sara looked like she might be afraid of me.
Seventeen
Sara
The version of Ryder that stood before me looked positively lethal. His face had turned a deep crimson, and his eyes were dark. Rigidity plagued his body, and none of it was where I left it. Something had clearly happened, and it was guaranteed not to be positive news.
“Are you—?” I began, if only to encourage him to speak. The sickening thud of my heart as I pondered what could have happened filled my ears.
He took the bait.
“The cops are looking for me,” Ryder said, glowering.
The response seemed a bit extreme for something so inevitable. I mean, it was scary that we were being chased by the cops, but Ryder had just killed two men, so there couldn’t have been any other outcome.
Why was he suddenly so bothered? Was the reality of it too severe?
“My crew can’t find Tyler, and his crew is covering up for me,” Ryder continued, and the fire burning beneath his skin burned brighter as the red in his face deepened. “Which means he’s looking for us.”
Oh.
“That is insane,” I said, though the sinking feeling in my stomach showed that I knew it was a lie. “There’s no way after all this Tyler is still looking for us.”
The look of arrogant annoyance in his face had me ready to throw the spoon at him.
“Of course he’s still looking for us,” Ryder said, sounding positively serpentine. “This isn’t just a game, Sara. People get killed over shit like this. Do you understand that?”
The walls were beginning to feel closer.
Surreal couldn’t even begin to cover it.
“You might have been at that bar because you followed one of your adventurous friends to some grungy bar so you had something to laugh about over coffee in the morning, but that was my bar and those are my people,” Ryder said, his words coming out in a clipped staccato. “Every once in a while a couple of mine and Tyler’s boys brawl. People get bloodied up, and if it gets to bad one of us ends it.”
I didn’t respond.
He continued.
“We have held this endless tension for the sake of keeping anything from going too far,” Ryder said. “And now, having beaten Tyler and shot two of his men… This isn’t just something they will turn away from. I’ve disrespected their leader. I’ve started a war, Sara.”
The faraway gaze in his eyes said: for you.
There was a lightness amid the pain.
“Is Mark okay?” I asked. We could survive being hunted by Tyler, but the pain of loss would be much harder to fix.
“He is stable,” Ryder said. His face looked so sharp.
I didn’t know what to say, but Ryder relieved me of having to figure it out the second his eyes slid down to stare at the spoon in my hand.
A jolt tore through my body and I wondered at my own sanity for a minute. Ryder’s body was coiled like a snake, and the angry tension in his body made him look as if he was ready to strike.
Despite that, I found myself yearning to see what it might be like to watch it happen.
My palm itched with the desire to hand him the spoon and crawl across his lap.
“Go upstairs,” Ryder said, and I felt my senses roar to life. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who wanted it.
The fear and excitement over what was about to happen was intoxicating.
“I need to be alone,” Ryder said suddenly, and I felt my heart drop.
Ryder wasn’t sending me upstairs to come play with me, he was banishing me.
Again.
“I don’t trust myself right now,” Ryder continued, glancing at the spoon again.
It dawned on me that he was afraid he might hurt me out of anger. Indignation poured through me, but I reigned it in. If this was an actual concern for Ryder, I needed to show him that he could trust himself. He wouldn’t hurt me.
“Ryder…” I began, quietly.
“Sara, I’m serious,” Ryder said, sharply. “You’ve pushed me enough today. Go upstairs.”
I took a steadying breath. Even though Ryder was acting like a complete asshole, I had absolutely no intention of letting into him right now. He was angry and upset, and he had every right to be.
“No,” I said, setting down the spoon on the shelf to my left and walking towards him.
“Sara.” Ryder growled my name, saying it as a threat.
It almost sounded like a real one, I had to give him credit.
“I’m not going upstairs, and you’re going to deal with it,” I said, standing before him.
More tension than I could fathom gripped his shoulders, and yet he stayed still as I crawled onto his lap, planting my legs on each side of him and facing him.
I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I’m sorry that your friend is hurt and you’re being hunted by the police and an enemy gang-leader-slash-rapist,” I said, giving him a small smile. “What are you feeling?”
Ryder looked at me as if I had struck him, and for a minute I thought I might have pushed too hard.
His gaze softened, and for a second I could imagine the little boy that wanted to be a cop.
“A lot,” Ryder said, after a tiny eternity of silence.
It seemed to take a lot for him to say it, but the second he did his face relaxed ever so slightly. This situation was insane, and we were in danger in a lot of ways. There was nothing wrong with being scared.
“I can’t say I’m surprised by that,” I said, laughing. “We are really in a bad way right now.”
A tiny smile broke out across his face.
“Yeah, it’s gotten a bit messy.”
Ryder chuckled quietly.
This wasn’t his usual chuckle. It wasn’t meant to throw me off guard or make me tense up, wondering what beautiful and terrible thing he was going to do to me. It wasn’t meant to inspire fear, or remind me to stop fighting.
This was a quiet, amused sound.
“I’m still waiting to hear what you’re feeling,” I said, nestling my face against his shoulder.
I felt the gentle pressure of his arms encompass my body.
“I’m worried about Mark,” Ryder said. He’s been my right hand man for so long, I can’t imagine him dying… Especially not as a consequence of my actions.”
My heart sank.
“I want Tyler dead,” Ryder said. His voice was quiet, worried even.
I nodded against his shoulder.
He di
dn’t speak again, just continued to hold me.
“We can’t go back,” I said quietly, testing out the words for his reaction. And mine.
The gravity of what my world had become hit me, full force.
“Never back, but forward if we’re lucky.” His voice was still quiet, reserved.
Later that night, Ryder slept beside me.
I envied him fiercely as I lay there, wondering if I could sleep at all.
The gentle buzz of my phone on the table next to the couch interrupted my attempts at counting sheep, and I felt myself wondering which friend it was frantically asking if I was okay this time. I wanted to reply, but I was too afraid to risk it. Too afraid to accidentally involve anyone else in all of this madness.
I picked up the phone, and nearly choked.
The message on my phone said: We know where you are. We’re watching the house. Try to run or tell Ryder, we call the cops. Sweet Dreams, Sara.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Eighteen
Ryder
I didn’t remember falling asleep, and Sara was not in my arms like I remembered her being the night before. Stretching just long enough for my head to start pounding as a reminder of how much alcohol I’d ended the night with.
The world looks bright enough for me to realize that I had obviously slept through the earlier morning hours.
Sara was sitting and watching TV in the bedroom when I found her. She looked exhausted, and I wondered if her hangover was plaguing her as mine currently was.
“Good morning,” I said, smiling despite the pounding in my temples.
“Morning,” Sara replied, eyes returning quickly to the TV.
My brows raise ever so slightly at the tone in her voice, and I find myself frowning. The stress of the situation must be getting to her too, and I had just sat around fucking whining about how upset I was like an idiot.
“I see you’re really excited to eat some frozen waffles,” I teased.
“Yeah,” Sara replied, with a brief nod before returning to the show.
“Alright, enough of that,” I said, turning off the TV.
Her eyes flitted across the room to me, and the look in her eyes was a combination of exhausted and annoyed.
“I was watching that,” she said, sharply.
A part of me wished that she was doing it on purpose so we could finish what we had started last night before the call came in, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t it.
“You need to eat and we need to plan,” I said, pinning her gaze with mine.
“Fine,” Sara said, looking away and getting up.
She walked past me, out of the room.
The desire to punish her that rose was easily overcome by my worry for her. I couldn’t recall anything about the night before that would cause such a shift, but she had plenty to be upset about.
Once the waffles were ready, I joined her at the table and tried to coax her out of her distracted shell.
“Have anywhere you always wanted to live?” I asked, hoping to draw her out.
“Hawaii,” Sara said, looking up at me.
Some of the tension had slipped from her face during breakfast, but she still looked worried. Beautiful, but worried.
Our world was shattering, but even now I was struggling to distract myself from the thought of her wearing that lingerie.
She had finished washing it yesterday, and I was pretty sure she had to be wearing it again now.
“I don’t know if I can swing that without a really good paddle boat,” I said, shaking my head to distract myself from the countless ways I wanted to make her cry out. “How about New Mexico?”
“What is in New Mexico?” She asked, looking up.
“It’s close and I know a guy who could set us up out there,” I said. “One of my dad’s old friends, Will, lives out there. He could set me up with a good way to make money.”
“How are we going to get there?” Sara asked, looking more awake for the first time today.
“We’ll drive, then switch to public transportation,” I said. We couldn’t stay on the bike forever. Eventually they’d be looking for the license plate.
“With what money?” Sara asked.
For a minute, I hesitated. Telling Sara that I had a fuck ton of cash from selling drugs seemed like a pretty shitty thing to own up to, but after everything there wasn’t really any way to pretend that I was an innocent guy.
I grabbed my wallet and tossed it to her.
She gasped.
“How?” She asked, finally.
“Drugs,” I replied, a little annoyed that I was afraid of her reaction. “There’s enough to support us for a year if we’re smart.”
“We can actually do this, can’t we?” Sara asked.
The sudden hope in her eyes was staggering, as if she had believed we had already lost and just realized that we were still in the game.
“We can,” I replied. We had a plan. “I figure we’ll lay low for a couple more days and then head out. What do you think?”
Sara looked worried again, but it quickly disappeared from her face.
Instead of pushing for an answer, I decided to take the tried and true route. I felt her eyes on me as I stood up, walking to the kitchen.
When I returned, setting down a large handle of vodka and two shot glasses, she looked tired and amused.
“Are we eighteen?” Sara asked, raising treasonous eyebrow at me.
God, she was so lucky I was trying to play nice.
“You’re barely older than that,” I pointed out, filling the shot glasses.
“I’m twenty-one!” Sara said, heatedly.
The tones. So many tones I could punish her for, and probably would in the future.
“Then you’re the perfect age to do shots,” I said.
She glared, but she took the shot.
After a few more, we were back on the couch.
“Do you want to watch TV?” I asked, grinning as the alcohol made its way through my system.
Sara nodded, and crawled over me towards the remote.
Once she was positioned over my lap, she grabbed the remote and grinned back at me over her shoulder, clearly acknowledging the fact that she was stretched across me.
“You sure you want to be in that position after all the attitude you’ve been giving me today?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and grinning.
“Pretty sure I do,” Sara said, matching my grin with a wicked one of her own before sitting back.
Fuck.
The spoon was on the table where she left it, and it was in my hand before I even had a second to process it.
“Bend over,” I growled. I was done playing around with her. I’d wanted to feel the spoon slamming again her ass since last night, and I was done waiting. If she was going to be practically begging for it, I was happy to oblige her salacious needs.
Sara fucking giggled, and I found myself wanting her that much more for her insolence. Something about the way she refused to fully submit to me had me wanting to pleasure her until her heart nearly stopped.
“And why should I obey you?” Sara taunted, laying her legs across my lap.
That was certainly a line I’d never heard from a girl I was about to fuck before.
The desire to make Sara mine in the truest form flooded my senses as I envisioned what it would be like to have her obey me at will, where she knew that he teasing and taunting would lead to her bent over my knee before I made her beg me to take her.
The smirk that crossed her face settled it.
“Because if you want to be with me, then you have to surrender to me,” I said, locking her gaze down with my own.
Sara’s eyes widened, and her lip was between her teeth again.
“What do you mean surrender to you?” She asked, looking hesitantly at me.
Her eyes filled with vulnerability again, but not like they had before. This was different. There was a need in it now.
“You submit to me,” I said, and
the way her body shook ever so slightly in response flowed through me. “You obey my commands, you accept your punishments, and when you’re good I’ll reward you.”
“And if I don’t?” Sara asked, already looking like she had.
“The decision is always yours,” I replied, smirking like she’d already consented.
Sara ran her hand through her hair, looking down.
“Sleep on the couch and think about it,” I said.
She nodded, her cheeks gently flushed again.
Nineteen
Sara
Ryder’s voice echoed through my mind in an infuriatingly tantalizing chorus of: you submit to me.
As I laid on the couch, staring at the ceiling, I began cursing myself for not immediately saying yes and begging him to take me. My body burned for him, and the fact that he was an entire floor away was nearly unbearable.
I debated going upstairs to surrender myself, but my debate was cut short when the sound of my phone quietly buzzing on the table tore me back to reality.
My stomach dropped.
It was Tyler again.
The thunderous beat of my heart as I read Tyler’s message explaining that he was outside, and I was to come meet him once Ryder was asleep, pounded in deafening thuds. I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t go, he would call the cops and Ryder would be taken to prison.
I couldn’t let that happen.
The sound of snoring coming from the room upstairs became my cue to finally go outside and face Tyler. Tension plagued my muscles as I forced my way to him, step after step. Quietly slipping through the front door and out to the car where he waited for me.
As I approached the car, the back door opened.
Whatever Tyler was about to do to me, I could handle it if it meant that Ryder and I might have an actual chance at making it to New Mexico, away from all of this.
I took a steadying breath, and crawled into the car.
“Sara,” Tyler said, and I immediately felt nauseous hearing my name on his lips.
I remained silent.
“I prefer you not talking, actually,” Tyler said, cackling at his own crude joke. “Close the door.”
Midnight Ryde: A Bad Boy MC Romance Page 15
