by Ali Parker
Aiden
The Lost Breed MC #8
Ali Parker
Weston Parker
BrixBaxter Publishing
Contents
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Description
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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Copyright
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Description
I’ve never been that great with women. Wait. Hold up. That’s not necessarily true. I’ve always been good with them physically. But at a certain point, that’s not enough. And that point is now. I never thought I would want more, but here I am. Single and living alone, and still missing my dead cousin who, if he were still alive, would give me shit for still being single and living alone. But when I saw her singing along to a song I didn’t know and drumming her fingers on the wheel of her Mercedes, I knew I needed to know more about her. I needed to know her name. How she walked. How her lips looked when she said my name. I never imagined that one conversation with her would change my entire life. And put me in the crosshairs of a man who has been making her life a living Hell for the last few years. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know who the fuck I am and what I’m willing to do for the girl who stole my heart the first second I saw her.
Introduction
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Chapter 1
Aiden
The sun beat down on my shoulders, heating up the leather of my jacket and practically cooking me alive as we sat at a red light in the middle of town in Patchogue. I flexed my fingers on the handle bars, spreading them wide to try to air them out. I should have worn gloves. My grip was sweaty.
The opposite traffic light switched to yellow. I lifted one foot off the pavement, played with the throttle, and sat back a little farther in my seat as the light finally turned red.
I took off over the line and through the intersection before our light went green.
The heat was intolerable.
I needed air blowing into my open jacket and over my face and knuckles before I passed out from heat stroke. When we got to our destination, Mastic Beach, I was going to have to pull over and drink some water. Long rides in the middle of July never went as smoothly as a guy wanted them to.
The engine of my Iron 883 rumbled and then roared as I opened up on the throttle and ate up the pavement. I gently swerved to the right, riding the center line down the middle of the road and threading traffic.
Everyone and their mother honked their horns at me.
My laughter was lost in the sound of my engine as I dove back into the middle of the lane, pulling in front of an old Cadillac with a middle aged female driver who flipped me the bird. She must have thought I wouldn’t catch her in my mirrors, but I did, and I was in the mood for some games.
Liam and Owen, two of my buddies, were a few cars back. Neither of them had taken interest in riding down the middle of the road with me, but they were slowly weaving their way around vehicles, showing better road manners than me.
I slowed down to ride right beside the Cadillac’s driver’s window.
She shot me a dark look, her already pinched features becoming even more squished with anger, and I flipped up the black visor on my helmet to wink at her before I gave the bike all she had, nearly lifting my front tire off the pavement, and peeled away, leaving her horn blaring behind me as I slid around a corner to head out of town and carry on our route to Mastic Beach.
The rest of the ride went smoothly once we were out of the populated areas and out on the back roads where we could push the bikes hard and avoid having to stop for red lights. We hit some four way stops but treated them like suggestions rather than rules, and found ourselves passing the Welcome to Mastic Beach sign at around one in the afternoon.
My stomach rumbled.
Within another eight minutes we arrived at our destination—a quaint little pub at the docks. It’s very unoriginal name, The Dock Pub, was written in faded blue paint upon a sign made of old two-by-fours mounted above the double saloon-style doors, which swung open and closed behind every patron as they came in and out.
After I pulled into the parking lot, I swung a leg off my bike while pulling off my helmet and setting it on the seat. I stripped out of my jacket, dragged my forearm over the sweat on my brow, and fanned my shirt away from my chest to desperately try to cool off to no avail.
Liam and Owen came rolling in behind me and took up the two spaces on either side of my Iron. They got off their bikes and seemed just as perturbed by the heat as I was.
“Let’s get the fuck outta this heat,” Owen grumbled, tucking his helmet under his arm and nodding up at the pub.
Liam seconded Owen’s motion with a short nod. “Yeah. It’s a fucking desert out here today. Why did we agree to go with you?”
I shrugged and we walked across the lot. “Nobody forced you. I just wanted to get out of the city. And this place has the best draft beer. It’s totally worth it.”
“I’m not going to feel that way until I get home and take a cold shower,” Owen said.
I pushed through the saloon doors and found myself blinking in the dim light as my eyes adjusted. The glare of the sun was still imprinted on the back of my eyelids and the three of us had to make our way carefully to the bar.
We each found a stool and the bartender, Jim Bradley, sauntered over to our end of the bar. Jim had a beer belly half the size of a keg of beer, and jowls to match. His nose was big and red, his cheeks covered in a patchy gray scruff. Despite his appearance, he was a cool guy with a small town attitude and a good business approach to guys like us who weren’t always welcomed so warmly in places like this.
Bikers—we got a bad rap a lot of the time.
Jim grinned broadly at us as he threw his bar rag over his shoulder and planted both hands on the bar. “Hello boys. Been a while.”
“Jim,” Liam said. “You’re looking as well fed as ever.”
Jim patted his gut. “Sign of a successful business if you ask me.”
“Undoubtedly,” I said.
“Water for you boys? You’re dripping on my floors.”
The three of us nodded in unison as Jim got started filling giant glasses of ice water for us. As soon as mine was set in front of me I lifted it to my lips and drank like a man who’d been lost in the wilderness for days.
Jim refilled my glass and then without any of us having to ask brought us three draft beers. We had a tradition and came to this place a handful of times every summer. Usually Rhys was with us, but now that he and Quinn were officially together he’d pulled away from some of our r
ides. It made sense. The two of them had been hot and cold for years and now they’d finally thrown caution to the wind and decided to go for it.
I didn’t mind that he hadn’t tagged along. Honestly, I was growing a little tired of hearing how wonderful Quinn was—not that I didn’t agree. There’s only so much a guy can take, though. And I wasn’t alone with this thought. Liam and Owen felt the same way.
We ordered lunch while we sat at Jim’s bar. By the time it arrived I’d polished off my beer and another full glass of water. We dug into our meals—thick, greasy burgers with the works, plus a plate of fries that no man could ever get through but Jim himself. He had earned the hell out of that gut of his.
The pub quieted over the course of the hour and we sat there in the lull between the lunch and dinner rush, catching up with Jim.
“How’s the Mrs. doing?” I asked.
Jim had been married for three decades. He and his wife moved to Mastic Beach after eloping to escape their rigid overbearing families and never looked back. They built this business together and made a life for themselves in the quiet beach town. “She’s good, thanks for asking. Retired from teaching in May and spent the summer out in the garden pruning her flowers and planting vegetables. She’s happy.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said.
“And the grandkids?” Liam asked.
“Starting kindergarten in September.”
Liam whistled. “Time flies, hey?”
Jim nodded. “You can say that again. But those little hellions keep me young. Be right back, boys. I have to do some payroll work. My staff is giving me dirty looks.”
Jim shuffled off into the back and the three of us continued picking at our plates.
My body temperature had finally dropped to a more normal range and I no longer felt like I would throw up or pass out. The water had probably helped with that. The others seemed relaxed and comfortable too, and the sweat stains on our shirts were slowly drying.
Owen, who was sitting between Liam and I, crossed his arms and rested his elbows on the bar. “I stopped by and saw Ryder the other day.”
“How are they?” Liam asked. “How’s Dani? And the baby?”
Owen shrugged, “Good I think.”
“You think?” Liam said, cocking his head to the side.
“I didn’t really ask. Dani wasn’t there and neither was the kid. They were out visiting her Aunt or some shit. I don’t know. I was there to see Ryder anyway. You’re the only one of the three of us who likes kids, Liam.”
Liam looked at me. “Is that true?”
I delayed my answer to the question by taking a sip of water. “It’s not that I don’t like them. I just, I don’t know, can’t see myself ever wanting any of my own. They make me nervous. So fucking small and fragile. Like flower petals.”
Liam scoffed. “Who are you? Hemingway?”
Owen snorted into his glass of water.
I ignored them both.
Liam changed the subject. “Are you still covering shifts at Axel’s shop, Aiden?”
With a nod I said, “Yeah. Not many days. Once or twice a week. It’s a good place to be. The extra cash is nice.”
“I don’t know why you’d want to be in that guy’s shop,” Owen said.
“He’s cool when you get to know him,” I said.
Owen shook his head. “He’s too standoffish. Any time I’ve ever tried to talk to him he blows me off and switches gears to talk to someone else. And he’s not subtle about it.”
“Maybe he just doesn’t like you,” Liam said simply.
“What’s not to like?”
“Should we make a list on a napkin?” I asked.
Owen scowled.
I chuckled and carried on. “Quick tempered. Moody. Ugly. Needy. Whiny. Impatient—”
“Don’t forget bad rider,” Liam interrupted.
“Yeah, can’t forget that,” I mused.
Owen looked back and forth between us with a scowl. “Fuck you guys.”
“See?” I said, chuckling as I fished my wallet out of my pocket to pay our bill. “Moody.”
Owen kept his mouth shut after that, brooding in silence as I paid the tab and we said goodbye to Jim. He waved us off and told us to come back before the summer ended. We assured him we would—but on a cooler day. This heat was too much to bear.
We left the pub shortly after three. Owen grumbled about it being even hotter out than it had been when we arrived, and Liam reminded him about how whiny he was being. This led to a shoving match in the parking lot while I put my helmet on and got back on my bike.
“See you clowns back in the city,” I said. Then I tore out of the lot, letting my back tire slide across the cracked pavement as I swung out onto the road.
I had no intention of letting them keep up this time.
Chapter 2
Cheryl
I ran the tip of my finger along the inside of the page, following it all the way down the length of the recipe to the part where I had to add the last bits of spice to the simmering sauce on my stove.
“Basil, salt, and cayenne pepper,” I muttered, tapping the page before straightening up to face the daunting sight of all my new cupboards.
Trying to cook in a brand new house with a kitchen three times bigger than what you were used to was no easy feat. I couldn’t remember for the life of me where I’d put the spices.
They might even still be in a box somewhere stacked up in the dining room.
I sighed and began walking the whole kitchen, opening cupboards as I went and peering into their pristine white depths in search of my spice rack. With everything going on with the move, I couldn’t even remember if I’d unpacked my spice rack or not.
I found it in the most obvious place—the corner cupboard with the rotating wheel inside. Upon it sat the three pieces of my stackable spice rack. I spun them around, pulled out the ones I needed, and added them to the sauce. As soon as I lifted the lid off the pot the kitchen was flooded with the smell of the rich tomato sauce.
Vince loved spaghetti.
Today was his first full day at his new company since moving from Georgia to New York City. He’d been so stressed this morning and confessed about his anxiety while I straightened his tie. I promised him that he was going to kill it today, and when he came home I would have dinner on the table.
Then he left with a kiss and I waved from the front door as he pulled out of the driveway in his new Range Rover.
My life had changed a lot over the last couple of years.
Vince and I started dating in my last year of college. He was in finance and business, and I was taking a little of everything trying to find my path: sociology, psychology, anthropology, and even poetry just for kicks. I’d enjoyed most of my classes, save for that one semester I made the terrible decision to take algebra, but none of them called out to me as my destiny, so I was still lost.
But Vince solved all of that for me.
He wanted a girl to come home to, and when I first looked into those deep brown eyes of his, I knew I would do whatever he wanted to make him happy. We’d been together since meeting at a dorm party and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Vince was by my side when I lost both my parents over the course of a year and a half. My father passed away first of a sudden heart attack that nobody expected, and my mother, bless her soul, followed him in death within eighteen months. People thought I was crazy, or simply reaching for an answer where there wasn’t one, but I swear she couldn’t continue living without him. He was her everything, literally. They’d been together since they were fourteen and he passed at seventy-two. How could someone carry on after that?
I didn’t blame her for wanting to go with him, but holy hell I missed them. My life was hollow for a long time, and it was Vince that took care of me. He made sure I ate—though I ate a bit too much out of sheer misery and grief, and had packed on a good twenty-five or thirty extra pounds that I still hadn’t managed to drop. He also saw that I showered a
nd went out at least once every few days, even if it was just to the grocery store.
I wouldn’t say I was healed yet, but I was on my way, and I owed it all to him.
That didn’t mean our relationship had been perfect. We’d had our struggles. There were things and people we’d left behind in Georgia that I had decided to do my best to forget. If our relationship stood a chance out here in this new home and new city, I simply had to let go. Carrying around the bitterness and the resentment of what had happened over the last few months back home would not serve either of us. We had agreed to give this thing one more shot, and so far everything was going great.
I loved my new home, an elegant two story colonial with black shutters, white siding, and a long driveway down the middle of a very green lawn. There was even a pool in the backyard, something I had only dreamed of having. We each had our own sinks in the bathroom, a walk-in closet, and a rain shower.
We had two new cars, Vince’s Range Rover and my Mercedes, a pearl white convertible. So long as things went well with his new job, our income was only going to grow, and Vince, true to his word, would continue to spoil me.
I loved this lavish lifestyle. With everything I could ever need and more, plus living in New York City to top it all off—what girl didn’t dream of this life?
