Rush: (Retribution MC Romance) (Carolina Bad Boys Book 5)

by Rie Warren

  “You wanna do this in the daylight, patron?” I asked cuntface number one. “My time’s not up yet.”

  “Just a reminder.” Diablo cracked his knuckles.

  I was gonna crack his skull wide open on the pavement.

  “I got the fucking message.” Pouncing forward, I right-hooked D, catching him completely off guard.

  My blow hit him hard, and he spun away with flesh breaking open across his cheek.

  His backup asswipes attacked, but I’d had just enough training from Bo Maverick in dirty tactics to take one in a headlock with an extra special twist of my forearm while I punched another dickhole in his sternum. The third bitch-boy? He was on the receiving end of my boot to his stomach.

  The three of them breathless, I pushed them toward Diablo who was still crying about his bloody cheek.

  Unchecked fury fueled my system. “You come near Shiloh again and I will fucking tie your tiny nuts around your neck and choke you with them.”

  “Just get me the money.” Diablo looked at his fingers, bloody from nursing the gash on his face, like he couldn’t believe I’d attacked him.

  And I’d fucking do it again. With a gun next time.

  “I’ll get you the money when I’m goddamn good and ready.” I bodily packed all four dickbags onto the street where heavy traffic flowed.

  Maybe moving cars could do them in.

  Vehicular manslaughter.

  That would work.

  I slowed my heart attack in the making before rapping on Shy’s shop door a couple minutes later.

  She peaked outside before letting me in, and she immediately inspected my bruised fists. “You’re hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Who was he?” She found tissues and dabbed at my cut knuckles.

  “Bad news.” I drew my hands from hers, clenching my fists again. “Just make sure you tell me if you ever see him around again.”

  My teeth ground down, and I hadn’t released the pent-up tension, but it wouldn’t do Shy any good to see me lose my cool. I started for the door, a frown marking my brow.

  “Max, wait. Are you okay?” she called after me.

  I pivoted, guiding her face to mine for a long kiss that ended too quickly. “As long as you are.” Crushing her to me, I asked, “You’re not by yourself in here, are you?”

  “Just until April arrives. She’ll be here at nine.”

  “Okay. I don’t want you alone today. Call me if you need anything.”

  “Are you volunteering to be my shop assistant, Max?” Shy’s eyebrows lifted as she leaned back in my embrace.

  Somehow she made me smile.

  “Hey. I’m a fucking people person, you know?” I dropped my lips to hers again. “I can even play nice when I have to.”

  Backing away, she smiled a secret smile. “Be good today.”

  “I’ll be better when I see you tonight.”

  “Are you seeing me tonight?”

  “Yeah. I am.”

  “Okay.”

  “See ya later, baby.” I spun her close for a last, lingering kiss.

  Shaking off the latest shitstorm, I made my way to Chrome and Steele. The run-in with Diablo and his scrotum-trolls turned my good morning mood sour.

  Tried not to show it. Much.

  One month, one hundred Gs. That was all Diablo was asking for.

  Basically my start-up money for the brewery.

  Weighed against Dumbfuck and the possibility he’d hurt Shy.

  The day at work consisted of Brodie bitching at me for fucking up a custom order on a classic Harley. Boomer crawling up my ass about making shit right with Shy, which I’d already done. And Lucy, the bubbly receptionist, giving me the stiff middle finger when I failed to fill in my timecard.

  Good times.

  I headed back to Shy’s at quitting time, pretty fucking stoked she let me right up in the elevator.

  I was so getting a key.

  Then I could key Diablo’s Camaro.

  The only reprieve from the disaster of a day was when Shy propelled me back into my chair after we’d eaten the take-out I’d brought. And she began where she’d left off late last night. Another hot succulent never-ending blowjob.

  Fuuuuck.

  No complaints from me.

  Her lips clung. Her tongue had to be the eighth wonder of the goddamn world, I was sure of it as I started thrusting into the silky surrounds of her mouth. My neck craned back, my arms almost broke the chair in half, and I couldn’t make words work anymore.

  Grunts? Groans?

  Fuuuuuuuuck. Fucking FUCK.

  I clasped a hand over her head, my feet stamping on the floor, my cock unleashing come inside her mouth.

  The mouth that kept sucking.

  The throat that kept swallowing.

  The tongue that rasped down to my balls.

  Being nothing less than a gentleman—seven years or so ago—I found my legs, and my feet were still attached to my body, regardless of the pants hobbling my ankles. I kicked them free, picked Shy up, and fucked her sideways on the sofa until she collapsed against the cushions after several wild orgasms.

  I lay down beside her, catching my breath, stroking her back, kissing her neck.

  Smiling against her soft skin.

  Feeling her thundering heartbeat that echoed mine.

  She turned her head to mine, kissing my chin. “Okay. That time you broke me.”

  I punched up onto my elbow, glancing at her prosthetic halfway across the room. “Did I?”

  She rolled toward me. “Please. I’m allowed to joke about it, right?”

  I hugged her to me, so completely taken by her. “Shy? Baby?” Stroking a hand over her blonde curls, I lifted her face to mine. “I—”

  My phone started blaring.

  “You?” she asked, her mouth sending hot waves of wanting against my chest.

  I frowned at my jeans, and I swear the cell was making them jump around on the floor. “I should get that.”

  It was Hunter’s ringtone—“Enter the Sandman”.

  At two a.m.

  The cool dude did not get his call on in the middle of the night for nothing.

  Shy arched against me like a kitten, all naked flesh rubbing against me. “I’d get it for you, but my other leg is all the way across the room.”

  I didn’t even remember the phone when she moved like that.

  And her gallows humor?

  Went sailing right past me, too.

  Then my goddamn phone started ringing again.

  Pushing up, I foraged in my pocket the same time I slid my jeans along my legs. I answered the bleeping thing, and Hunter quickly filled me in on the details, which brought the worrisome day to a gut-wrenching end.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Shit. Fan. Hitting It.

  DOC RONNIE—VERONICA HARTLEY—Bo’s babe, had been kidnapped. Something about her being a Federal witness against one of the most notorious one-percenter MCs in America.

  All Retribution officers were needed ASAP at the club.

  “Fuck.” I ended the call, grabbing my shirt.

  “What is it? It’s not about that guy this morning, is it?” Shy sat up—naked.

  I helped my unsteady state of mind by sliding the throw blanket from the back of the couch around her shoulders.

  I found my keys, combed my hair back with my fingers, sat next to Shy. “No. Not about that dickweasel.” Unbelievably, Bo’s shitshow was worse than my own for a change. “But Shy, you have to call me if you so much as see that bastard again. Promise me.”

  “I will.” She touched my jaw, and I wanted to kiss her goodnight, goodbye, but if I started on her again I’d never stop.

  “Okay. Lock up after me. I might have to go out of town for a day or two.” I caressed her cheek, my fingers following the sensual curve of her lips. “You have to call me, Shy.”

  “I will.” She grasped my wrist, kissing my fingertips. “Don’t get in trouble.”

  “I think that’s my mid
dle name right about now.”

  ****

  Leaving Shy did not make me a happy fucking camper at all, but when a Retribution brother needed help I couldn’t say no. The three o’clock meeting at the MC compound was a grim affair with Bo quickly unraveling.

  Hunter took him in hand, said a few quiet words to the distraught man, and packed him off on some kind of solo reconnaissance he returned from a few hours later.

  By that time, Walker—Hunter’s ex-partner in the special ops field—had miraculously turned up. It was like the longhaired Lakota dude had a sixth sense for danger and bad situations and couldn’t wait to get his C-4 on. Of Tail, Hunter, Boomer, Brodie, Cole, Tuck, and me, Walker was the only one who looked sadistically gleeful about the prospect of the shit that was set to go down.

  Bo filled us in. Long story short: Doc Ronnie wasn’t exactly who she seemed to be.

  She’d gotten involved with the Iron Coffins MC when she was very young, back when they’d been based out of Santa Fe, and she’d been too naïve to know better than to run with meth dealers and gun runners.

  Then she’d started dealing drugs herself.

  An ATF and DEA bust netted the biggest players, but Ronnie turned to WITSEC. The rest was history or some such shit—she got her life turned around, stayed off the radar.

  Until she happened to hook up with the former Marine captain boasting a Medal of Honor.

  Captain Maverick had wrangled all that info out of Ronnie’s FBI handler. The Special Agent showed at her house just in time to be interrogated by Bo, who was so not Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.

  And now we had the plans for the Iron Nails MC compound—recently renamed and relocated to Jacksonville, Florida. Working on the assumption that was where they’d taken Ronnie.

  To kill her?

  Kidnap her to make a point?

  Keep her from testifying at an upcoming trial?

  Not a single one of us had a fucking clue.

  But Walker sure seemed fired up to do away with outlaw MC shit heels or, better yet, the Fed Bo had questioned.

  “What did you do with the Feeb?” Walker grinned with something close to misguided joy.

  “Tied him up and dropped him over the Ravenel Bridge.” Bo’s short hair stood up on end like he’d raked his hands through it a few dozen times.

  Walker gave two thumbs up to the idea of killing a federal agent.

  “Just kidding.”

  “Why not?” The Native American man scowled. “I volunteer.”

  “Knock it off. No unnecessary murders today.” Hunter snarled.

  “Always such a buzz kill.” Walker moaned. “Hate that you’ve gone full legit.”

  “Looks like a road trip.” Brodie peered around.

  “I don’t wanna drag y’all into this shit circus.” Bo squinted at the floor.

  “Too bad. This ain’t a democracy.” Boomer canvassed our reactions to Brodie’s statement and rightly assumed we were all in.

  We usually tried to play it legal, but that didn’t mean we weren’t above fucking up anyone who messed with our women.

  “Reconvene this afternoon. We’ll take Iron Nails by dark.” Hunter took point when Bo looked overwhelmed by the MC’s support. “Get cleaned up, gear up, and move out.”

  “Clean up?” Brodie sniffed his pits then sniggered in my direction. “Hey. I’m not the one who smells like sex.”

  “Sure glad someone else noticed that.” Tail stroked his long black hair behind his head. “Handsome’s got hot pussy action written all over him.”

  “I was with Shy.” With my face shoved against his, I added, “And I already warned you what would happen if you talked smack about her again.”

  “Shee-it.” Brodie stepped between the two of us, his hand on my pumping chest. “We’re just razzing you, brah. We didn’t know you’d finally hooked up with your girl.”

  I drove all ten fingers through my hair and released a small smile. “Well, I did. A couple weeks ago. And none of y’all’s business anyway.”

  “’Bout damn time,” Coletrane muttered. “Thought you were gonna dig my eyes out with a spoon every time I glanced at Shiloh.”

  “Thought about it,” I agreed.

  “Well, that’s one happy ending, at least.” Grandfather MC, Tucker, clapped a hand onto my shoulder. “Let’s say we make it two tonight.”

  “Yeah. It’s all about Doc Ronnie now.” Boomer’s tight grin meant mean business.

  ****

  No more joking once we hit the road, the eight of us on our bikes with Bo in the lead in his stripped-down Hummer. We were all about saving Veronica Hartley, but during the less than four-hour ride to Jacksonville my mind filled with a barrage of thoughts about Shy.

  Her undaunted bravery in the face of her illness. The way she’d donated heaps of money so kids who went through what she did might have it a little bit better.

  The soft curls on top of her head. The even softer ones between her legs.

  Her insanely gorgeous face when she arched back in a screaming climax, and the taste of her skin, her pussy, her sweet nipples in my mouth.

  Hammering down on my ’59 Harley Panhead as we sped toward the Florida border, I stared straight ahead at the endless strip of tarmac rolling beneath my wheels.

  Guilt compacted everything in my chest.

  Maybe I’d do Shy more good if I cut her loose.

  Hated leaving her alone with her on Diablo’s radar.

  Shit, I was already in so deep I hated not being able to wake up with her earlier that morning.

  There was no out now, and I needed to come up with some fucking way to keep her clear of Satan’s League’s dirty paws, get Diablo off my back once and for all.

  Turn over my seed money for the brewery I’d been sinking all my spare time into? I was tempted, but fuck. I wanted to prove myself worthy of Shy . . . maybe even to my family after all these years of estrangement.

  Hell, Walker was gung-ho to kill cunts. Maybe I could hire him to make the hit? Shit, I probably just had to ask him, and he’d do it free of charge.

  I didn’t particularly want my MC brethren all up in my past bullshit so that was not an option.

  I shoved all further head-fuck thoughts from my mind when we roared into a gas station on the outskirts of Jacksonville on Bo’s insistence for a quick pit stop.

  Pit stop and pick-up, it turned out. Because a hard-looking motherfucker on a Harley V-Rod slowly unstraddled when Bo exited his truck. Bo’s face grim and bleak, he stalked to the other dude and grabbed him in a backslapping hug.

  “Oo-rah, Marine.”

  “Damn glad to see you, my man.” Bo pulled back to bump fists with the dark-haired man.

  “Hey, send me a call to arms and I come running, right?”

  “Who’s he,” I asked the guys standing beside me.

  “Killian Slade, First Sergeant,” Hunter supplied, watching the reunion of comrades. “The last two men to make it out alive after ten days of torture in the Helmand.”

  “Fucking hell.” I had nothing but respect for the two Marines.

  “Now you know why Bo was a little bit unlidded when he first joined Retribution. Been through hell. And Ronnie brought him back from the brink. So we’re gonna save her no matter what.” Hunter handed down the doctrine like it was law.

  “Copy that.” Walker squinted at the pair as if he knew Slade as well.

  Turned out he did. Both he and Hunter had pulled some hair-raising Hail Marys the rest of us weren’t totally privy to all in the line of duty, in order to save men and women who served our country.

  With Slade enfolded in our ranks, we continued on our path with one single mission: save the lady doc, the love of Bo’s life.

  I didn’t know how he kept his head together through the rest of the evening while we staked out the Iron Nails compound from a close by hillside in the shit-side of Jax-ville slums.

  I’d have been off the wall if Shy was held inside, with no idea what was being done to her, but the man cr
anked down on his rage just enough to rein it in. We kept a quiet watch from that heat-beaten vantage point for a final hour before moving quickly and quietly into place outside the tall chain-link fence surrounding the concrete spread of buildings.

  Coletrane dug out the wire cutters—because everyone carried those around as part of their freakin’ accessories—and started the metallic snip-snip through the fence. He stopped when the kind of guttural growling that only came from foaming-at-the-mouth, bred-to-kill dogs rumbled from beyond the fence.

  “Cujo much?” Walker was the number one smartass on the scene.

  “What now?” Cole sent a questioning glance around as four sleekly muscled Dobermans ranged into view.

  “Make the hole bigger.” Tucker tweaked his mustache. “I got this.”

  “He’s the fucking dog whisperer now?” Hunter asked, watching the big man slip through the opening Cole made.

  Squatting down, Tuck started talking in soft tones, and the dogs’ vicious-killer heads quirked toward him.

  The growling stopped. The ferocious bared teeth retreated. The stumpy tails started wagging.

  I rolled my goddamn eyes. “Looks like it.”

  “Aren’t they sweet?” Tuck straightened up, scratching one of the beasts behind its ear until it stretched out at his feet.

  “Don’t fucking believe it,” Brodie said, stepping through the hole in the fence.

  The rest of us followed.

  And suddenly it was go-time. I headed off with Brodie, Boomer, Tail, Cole, and Tuck.

  Walker, Hunter, Bo, and Slade took the opposite side of the dirty-to-the-core MC compound.

  Bo had advised us to use nonlethal force. The detail was to infiltrate, locate Ronnie, get her the hell out.

  If she was even here.

  If she was even still alive.

  Breaking into the main building, the stench of musty sweat, stale beer, and even staler spunk assaulted my nose.

  “Glad we got Probies 1.0 and 2.0 to take care of our digs.”

  Fucking hell. My eyes are watering.

  With a finger held to his lips, Boomer cautioned us forward down a hall at the opposite end of the compound Bo and his team snuck into.