Ride Wild

by Laura Kaye

  Slider was off her in an instant. But just as she was about to protest, he pulled off the condom and threw it aside, and then he lay down, grasped her by the hips, and pulled her over his mouth. “Ride my face, Cora. Get off on me while I watch.”

  “Holy shit,” she said, the words alone spiraling the arousal she already felt. And then she centered herself over his mouth and he banded his arms around her thighs, forcing her down.

  With one hand on her breast and the other on the headboard, she rocked her core against his mouth. His stubble tormented her. His tongue lashed and licked and penetrated her. His teeth nipped her. Looking down, she found those pale green eyes blazing up at her. He growled against her, a wordless, masculine command. Cora thrust her hips and rolled her nipple and finally, finally lost her mind in a release that was so intense she had to slap her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.

  Gently, Slider shifted her off him and sat up, and then he pulled her into his lap. He stroked the hair back off her face and searched her eyes for a long moment. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  “The man I love just told me he loves me, too. I’ve never been more okay than I am at this very moment.”

  His smile was soft. “I do. I thought it was impossible for me to feel this way, but I do, Cora. I love you, and I would do anything for you.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Just be with me. That’s all I want.”

  “Consider it done for, oh, I don’t know, the next forty years.”

  Cora’s heart was suddenly a runaway train in her chest. Because Slider Evans was talking about forever. Forever with her. “You know you’ll be seventy-five but I’ll only be sixty-three then.” He chuckled and kissed her, and she moaned at the decadence of tasting herself on his skin. “Your mouth is a deadly weapon,” she whispered.

  He quirked a grin. “I’m happy to torment you with it any time you like.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, grinning right back.

  “I’m just happy, Cora. For the first time in years, I’m truly happy. And I owe it all to you.” His big hand stroked her face, her hair, her shoulder. She felt like she must be glowing with the way his words warmed her up inside, that warmth touching places inside her she’d thought might always be cold and lonely.

  “You’re the first person who ever truly wanted me, Slider. So don’t think I don’t feel the same exact way.”

  He ducked his chin, a little smile on his face.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Will you . . . will you be my person, Cora?” he asked, somehow making her fall in love with him even more. Because she didn’t have to ask what he meant.

  When no one had ever wanted you before, ever claimed you, ever valued you, all you craved was that one person who would. Who would give you a place to belong, who would love you no matter what, who would be your safe place to land.

  “I already am your person, Slider. And you’re mine.”

  For the first time in her life, Cora finally had a family, love, her person. And nothing could ever take the specialness of that away.

  Chapter 21

  Slider had taken off work so that he could keep an eye on things until the night of the fight, so he drove Cora to her shift at the animal shelter and was just pulling away when the text came in from Dare.

  PI identified who did the dumping. Meet at the clubhouse in 30 and be ready to ride.

  Fucking finally.

  He beelined it back to the house and traded out his truck for the Cross Bones, making it to the clubhouse with five minutes to spare. Dare, Maverick, Phoenix, and Caine were already there, sitting on their bikes and ready to go.

  “What’s the word?” Slider asked as he braced his heels against the pavement.

  Straddling his matte black Dyna Street Bob, Dare gave him a nod. “Here’s what the PI learned. Our guys are three twenty-something punks with a long list of priors, mostly misdemeanor bullshit, but some drug charges, too. And get this—they’re fucking skateboarders.”

  Caine squinted. “What does that even mean?”

  Dare chuffed out a humorless laugh. “It means that’s pretty much what they do with their lives. Go around taking dares and doing tricks and skateboarding on and off of shit that wasn’t made for skateboarding.”

  “So, what, on the side, they take on low-level criminal jobs to pay for this lifestyle?” Phoenix asked.

  “That and shoplifting, apparently,” Dare said. “Fucking skateboarders.”

  “Jesus, I think I’ve seen these guys around town,” Slider said. “Skating off of railings in front of businesses and over at the park, too.”

  Dare nodded. “Well, they apparently built some sort of course, and our guy says they’re there today.”

  Maverick’s face was set in a deep scowl. “How’d he finally find these assholes?”

  Putting on his sunglasses, Dare said, “He was tailing Davis and saw him meet with them. Looked confrontational, so the PI talked to them and threw fifty bucks their way. They folded like a house of cards in a strong windstorm.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Slider said, stunned that they kept finding Davis everywhere they looked. Which made him having hassled Cora that much less acceptable. “All the pieces are just lining up.”

  “Yeah, they fucking are,” Mav said. “And I’m going to bury Davis with them if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Twenty minutes later, they rolled up to a fenced-in concrete course filled with hills, dips, curves, rails, and obstacles. About a dozen guys skated around, music blaring over a loudspeaker.

  They dismounted, and Dare said, “We’re looking for Bam, Bucky, and Mikey Mo.” He gave them a droll stare.

  “Seriously?” Phoenix said with a groan, and Slider got it. Because these were the lowlifes who’d landed Jagger in jail? “Mikey fucking Mo?”

  Inside, Dare asked the first guy they came to and he pointed to the far side of the course. They found who they were looking for without any trouble.

  The first of their targets who noticed them scrambled off his board and reared back, his red-rimmed eyes going wide. “Oh, shit,” he said, pushing blond dreadlocks out of his eyes. He wore a pair of knee-length shorts hanging low on his hips, a pair of sandals, and nothing else.

  “We need to talk,” Dare said. “And I think you know why.”

  Luckily, the skate rats read the writing on the wall and didn’t try to run. Before long, the Ravens had them lined up against the fence, Slider and his four brothers in their Ravens cuts, a solid wall of muscle and anger.

  “Tell us about the dumping on our property. And start at the beginning, from how you got involved to what happened after,” Maverick said, his voice tight.

  The one named Bam was apparently their leader, and he spoke first. He had tattoos visible through his hair, piercings . . . pretty much everywhere, and wore jeans hanging so low on his hips that Slider wondered how he could skate with them. “Dude, it wasn’t our idea. That muthafuckin’ sheriff said he’d jack up charges against us if we didn’t help him move a bunch of shit.”

  “And then he promised us payment that he never delivered,” Mikey Mo said. He was the one with the dreads.

  “Yeah, dudes, we didn’t even know what we were moving until the night of the job,” the third guy said. When he opened his mouth, Slider understood his name, Bucky. The guy was missing half his teeth. Add to that his holey clothing and he looked like he lived on the streets. “When we realized where we were, we didn’t want to do it, but the sheriff got all up in our grill, threatening us and stuff.”

  “So he was there?” Slider asked, stepping forward. “Curt Davis was there?”

  “Muthafucker would only come partway,” Bam said. “He took us to this dirt road that led onto your property and then waited there while we unloaded the stuff. Asshole wouldn’t even help. Fucking cops, man, you know?”

  “Did you ever meet with Grant Slater?” Maverick asked.

  “Don’t know no Slater,” Bam said. “We�
��re telling you everything.”

  “Look,” Mikey Mo said. “We didn’t mean no harm. I mean, my dad used to take me to your races, and they were fucking gnarly.”

  “Yeah, and the demolition derbies are epic,” Bucky said with a toothless grin.

  Slider traded looks with Dare and Maverick, who rolled his eyes. These guys were just a bunch of loser kids who’d been pulled in by Davis to do Slater’s dirty work. Hell, Slider would be surprised if Mikey Mo was even in his twenties. He crossed his arms. “You three need to clean up your fucking acts. And I’m not talking about the skateboarding. What are you? Twenty? With arrest records already the length of my arm. Get your damn lives together because the next time people like us come knocking, it isn’t going to be to talk.”

  Dare nodded and stepped closer, getting right up into Bam’s face. “He’s right. Which is why I’m going to let you off with a warning—you ever do something that interferes in our business again, you even think about it, and I catch wind? We’ll burn down your whole fucking world—with you in it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, man. We get it,” Bam said. “It’s cool.”

  “And if we ever call on you to do something,” Caine said, that icy gaze as intimidating as Slider had ever seen it, “your answer—your only answer—is yes.”

  Mikey Mo held up his hands. “Sure, sure. Whatever you say.”

  Slider sighed. Goddamn kids with no idea of consequences. This could’ve gone so much worse for them, and it still could, now that the Ravens knew how dirty Davis was. “You need to watch your backs around Davis, too,” Slider added. “He’s not a friend to you. You need help with a police matter, you ask for Sheriff Martin.”

  “And tell him we told you to,” Dare said.

  They left the skaters cowering there and headed back to the clubhouse.

  In Dare’s office again, he said, “We’re going after Davis. Someway, somehow, he’s going down. The question is, how dirty do we want the club’s hands in doing it?”

  On a troubled sigh, Maverick shook his head. “This sucks ass. With Jagger in jail, I feel like we’re on the radar too damn much to take out a cop ourselves, as much as I’d fucking like to since it’s that prick Davis. I say we go after him, not to kill, but to get him put away.” Slider nodded. The club had lost too much the past few months to take such a big risk themselves right now.

  Caine palmed the cap on his head and let out a noise like a growl. “If we’re building a case that Martin might be able to use then we need more ammunition against Davis. The word of three druggy skateboarder freaks isn’t going to cut it.”

  “Which means that dogfight just became even more valuable,” Phoenix said. “We place Davis there, and he’s toast. I think Mav’s right. It’s time to bring Sheriff Martin into this.”

  Dare’s cell phone buzzed against the desk, and his eyebrows shot up. “It’s Marz.” He answered. “Marz, hey. You’re on speaker. The gang’s all here.”

  “Yo,” Marz said. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m feeling like Santa Claus today.”

  Slider stepped closer, the promise of good news luring him in.

  “What you got for us, brother?” Dare asked, trading looks with the rest of them. The weight of their collective anticipation was thick in the room.

  Marz’s voice came down the line. “A hit on that same truck. Two different cameras. Right by the Ravens’ property on the night of the dumping.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Maverick said, voicing the excitement they all felt.

  “Am I your favorite person right now or what?” Marz said, making them all chuckle.

  “There it is,” Caine said. “There’s the kind of solid physical evidence Martin’s going to need.”

  “I’ll shoot it over,” Marz said. “And one more thing. I’m not finding anything criminal on the suit your PI talked to at Slater Enterprises, but what I am finding is that the guy is way behind on paying his taxes. Like, six figures kinda behind. And Davis seems to have a gambling problem, because he’s on the radar of some of the bookies here in the city. Which is making me think that Slater was in the habit of finding out and exploiting the dirty little secrets of the people around him to get them to do what he needed.”

  “Or, at the very least, to keep them quiet or get them to look the other way,” Slider said.

  “Roger that,” Marz said. “Anything else, hoss?”

  “That’s a good haul for a Monday morning, Marz,” Dare said. “Thank you.”

  When they hung up, the five of them erupted into an impromptu celebration. Whoops and hell yeahs and clasped hands.

  “We just might be able to take Davis down and bring Jagger home all at once,” Maverick said. “God, that would be some justice right there.”

  “And long overdue,” Dare said. “So let me tell Martin what’s going on and see how he wants to be involved.”

  Caine jabbed his finger into the desktop. “But you tell him, either way, this is happening. With his help on the up-and-up, or our way without.”

  Slider nodded, his gut clenching with the need for this to finally be over, and for them to be able to know that the people they cared about would be safe once and for all. “Davis framed the club, arrested Jagger for it, and threatened Cora. We can’t let this sonofabitch hurt us even one more time.”

  Cora came out of the shelter to find Slider sitting on his bike, legs spread wide, boots braced on the ground. Wearing his cut and a pair of dark sunglasses, he was so freaking sexy she could barely handle him. And then he saw her and smiled.

  “Hey, handsome,” she said, coming up to his side.

  He put his arm around her waist. “Handsome, huh?”

  “I just call ’em like I see ’em,” she said, pressing a kiss to the scruff on the side of his face.

  “As long as you call me ‘yours,’ anything else is gravy.” His hand slid up to her hair and pulled her in for a kiss. Slow, thorough, almost lazy in the way his tongue explored her mouth and curled around hers. He moaned low in his throat, and the sound hit her right between the legs.

  “Slider,” she whispered. “You’re making me wet.”

  “Jesus,” he bit out, handing her a helmet. “Get on. And hold on tight.”

  He drove them through town, the cool breeze making her chilly and giving her the perfect reason to snuggle in against all Slider’s heat. That closeness turned her on even more and sent her hands wandering over his chest and down to his stomach. His muscles clenched under her touch, and that drove her on to torment him more, until finally her fingers found the bulge filling out the front of his jeans.

  Slider’s hand clamped down on hers. He didn’t push her away, but he held her still. And since that meant her hand was full of his denim-covered cock, that was fine by her.

  But by the time they pulled into Slider’s garage back at the house, she was a needy mess. And what she most needed was to make him fall apart. Cora removed her helmet and was off the bike in a flash, and then took his helmet and hung it on the handlebars.

  “What are you up to, sweetheart?” he asked, grinning as he pushed his sunglasses up on his head.

  “Pleasing you,” she said, planting a hand against his chest and forcing him to lean back.

  Watching her with an animalistic glint in his eyes, he braced one hand against the small second seat on his bike.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this,” she said, unzipping his jeans and freeing his cock.

  “Have you now?” he gritted out as she took him in hand.

  “So much.” Cora didn’t play or tease, she just wet him with her tongue from root to tip before sucking him in deep.

  “Fuck,” he said, a hand falling on the back of her head. “Fuck, that’s good.”

  Bracing one hand against the gas tank, Cora stroked him with the other as she lifted and lowered her mouth over him. And, oh, man, he was a delicious mouthful, so long she couldn’t fit him all in her mouth, but she sure as hell wanted to try. Again and again, she took him to her throat, ringing groans and c
urses out of him that stole her breath as much as his cock in her mouth.

  “Christ, Cora,” he said. His hand tightened in her hair, holding her, guiding her, urging her on. “Taking my cock so good.”

  She moaned around him and debated pushing a hand inside her own jeans, but she was enjoying his pleasure too much to worry about her own. She sucked harder, took him deeper, until he was thrusting his hips and fucking her mouth.

  “Gonna come. Oh, hell, gonna come,” he said, his fingers twisting in her hair. “Cora,” he rasped, his cock jerking inside her mouth. She sucked down everything he gave her and licked and mouthed at him long after the last drop. He shuddered and stroked her back. “Damn,” he said, his tone so appreciative that she couldn’t help but grin.

  “You can pick me up on your motorcycle any old time you like, Mr. Evans,” she said, wiping at the corner of her mouth.

  His smile was immediate—and devastatingly sexy. “You can bet that pretty little ass that’s happening every chance I get.” Righting his clothes, he dismounted, and then he took her face in both hands and claimed her mouth in a plundering kiss. “Your turn.”

  “We only have fifteen minutes until the bus,” she said, grinning.

  Slider arched a brow. “You suggesting I can’t have you screaming in ten? ’Cause that’s a bet I’ll take.” He opened the button on her jeans, then the zipper, and then he shoved his big hand down under her clothing until he found her wet heat.

  “Oh, God,” she said, clutching at his shoulders.

  He kicked one of her feet wider, and then his fingers stroked and circled and penetrated deep. His other hand moved to her hair, holding her to him and forcing her to meet his aroused gaze. “That’s it,” he said. “Chase it, sweetheart. Ride my hand and get it.”

  Cora tilted her hips and strained against the maddening friction of his fingers and palm. She held her breath and gasped in turns, sensation tightening and spiraling and gathering inside her.