DECKER: MC ROMANCE (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 9)
Page 1
Decker
A Forsaken Riders Standalone MC Romance
Book 9
Samantha Leal
Copyright ©2016 by Samantha Leal. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Introduction
Thank you so much for purchasing my Novellete. All of my stories also contain bonus stories, so please take a look at the other stories I offer here. Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter for updates and free books!
The Forsaken Riders series is a collection of novelette length standalone Bad boy romances that fit together to tell the longer tale of the Forsaken Riders – and the woman they love - as they fight to dominate the town of Slate Springs.
The Forsaken Riders are:
King (Book 1)
Lynx (Book 2)
Steel (Book 3)
Gunner (Book 4)
Hawk (Book 5)
Bull (Book 6)
Stag (Book 7)
Stick (Book 8)
Decker (Book 9)
Ax (Book 10)– Coming Soon
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Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Through the Gateway
Through the Viking Gateway
In the Time of the Caveman
Into The Duke’s Arms
Taken by Aliens
Abducted by the Alpha Alien
Taken by the Alpha Alien
Taken By Alien Lords
KING
LYNX
Saved by the Werewolf Billionaire
Mated to the Highland Wolf
Rescued by the Highland Wolf
What the Outlaw Must Have
What the Outlaw Demands
What the Outlaw Craves
What the Outlaw Needs
What the Outlaw Claims
What the Outlaw Takes
The Highland’s Call
The Highland Dream
A Dragon to Watch Over Me
A Dragon to Save Me
The Highland Locket
Beyond the Highland Gateway
Into the Highlander’s Arms
Through the Highland Gateway
My Holiday Billionaire
My New Holiday Billionaire
Wealthy Famous Hot and Mine
Badass Billionaire
Another New Holiday Billionaire
Babies for the Bear
Rescued by the Alpha Bear
The Bear Wants Babies
My Holiday Protector
A Baby for the Bear
Marked as the Alpha’s Mate
Chased by the Bear
1.
Jamie slammed the door of the diner closed behind her and headed toward the parking lot. It had been one of the worst nights of her life, and she was more than ready for it to be over. Her shoulders heaved with heavy breaths as the relief rolled through her, and as she reached her car and slipped behind the wheel, she let her head fall back as she closed her eyes.
She had worked at that place for almost a year, and she had never experienced anything like what had happened in the past six hours. Her shift had started relatively normal, but as the time had worn on and the regulars she was so used to seeing night in and night out had started filing in, she could tell that the mood in the air was different. The diner was usually the kind of place where people could sit and disappear into the background, but tonight, it had been a hive of activity for all of the wrong reasons. Some of the members of the local bike gang, The Forsaken Riders, had stopped by, and she had sensed the change in them from the second they had walked through the door.
She had waited on them, just like she would any other customer, but it hadn’t taken long for the whole atmosphere in the diner to descend into something icy and dark. She had seen nothing but aggression and tension, and from what she had heard, it was only going to get worse. The bikers were on edge, and they were patrolling each and every haunt in Slate Springs, looking for anything out of place or untoward. She hadn’t truly understood why they were so guarded, but she had heard whispers through the town that they were on the verge of an all-out fight with a rival gang. And from what Jamie had been told about The Forsaken Riders, that couldn’t be a good thing.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes. As she looked ahead and back to the diner, she could see some of the other girls still working away and she was just so glad that she could finally go home and rest. She slid her key into the ignition and started the engine. Music blared over the stereo and her body was so weary it made her jump. She reached forward and turned it back down before she knocked the car into reverse, backed up, and then started to edge forward and toward the highway.
As usual, Slate Springs was alive with activity as she drove through town. A quick glance down at the clock on her dashboard told her that it was nearing 2am, but that didn’t matter. A lot of the residents or truckers that were passing through didn’t seem to emerge from the shadows until that time and make their way over to either The Bleeding Bullet or Tanners, to see some of the dancing girls.
Once upon a time, Jamie may have considered heading out there herself and ordering a drink at the bar amongst all of the outlaws, but after what had happened with her friend, she knew that she had to keep her distance.
And she sighed as she remembered the broken girl who was waiting for her back at home, her best friend Tammy, worn out and heartbroken from who had been the love of her life. Jamie smiled sadly as she remembered the look on Tammy’s face when she had knocked on the door in the middle of the night, tears streaming down her face and unable to even speak through the sobs.
He had been brutal. That much, she had understood. And even though the man in question hadn’t been at the diner that night with the bikers, Jamie knew that he had ruined her friend and kicked her to the curb.
“Fuckers,” Jamie whispered to herself as she swung the car left and pulled down her street.
If there was one thing that she knew for sure in her life, it was that she would never get mixed up with those bikers. They were nothing but trouble and a heartache waiting to happen. All of them were bad to the bone.
She pulled up her driveway and turned off the engine. Inside the house, she could see the low lights on in the front room and she was sure that she could see the hunched silhouette of Tammy curled up in the corner of the couch, cradling what looked to be a glass of wine.
Jamie climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind her. Even though it was the middle of the night, she knew that Tammy was barely sleeping and had started to turn to the bottle just to get herself through the day without breaking down.
“Hey!” Jamie called as cheerfully as she could, as she opened the door and walked into her home. The place was totally spotless, which was a major plus point of having Tammy stay with her, but she still felt terrible for her poor love-spurned friend.
“Hey,” Tammy called through sadly. She coughed and Jamie heard the sound of the wine glass clattering t
o the floor.
She wandered through and clocked Tammy bending over, trying to pick up the evidence, but she saw Jamie immediately, caught her eye, and sighed.
“Sorry,” Tammy said with a deep breath and a shrug. “I know you must be sick of me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jamie said as she crossed the room and wrapped a protective arm around her friend. “You don’t ever have to apologize for being you.”
“Ha, yeah, the worst possible version of me,” Tammy said as she sank back into the couch. Jamie sat down next to her and let her rest her head on her shoulder.
“We all have our moments,” Jamie reassured her. “And I certainly can’t deny you this one.”
Tammy sniffed and wiped her eyes.
Since she had turned up at Jamie’s house, two weeks ago, she had been nothing but a broken, emotional wreck. She hadn’t poured her heart out like Jamie had expected her to. But what she had gathered was that Tammy’s boyfriend Lynx, a member of The Forsaken Riders, had suddenly broken off their incredible relationship and had refused to answer a call to her since. Jamie had consoled her the best that she could during the time they had spent together, but she was starting to run out of ideas. Tammy’s mood wasn’t lifting, in fact, it seemed to be getting progressively worse with each passing day. And now she was starting to feel like a ticking time bomb, and the last thing Jamie wanted was for her to explode and do something that she would regret.
“How about I make us a hot chocolate?” Jamie said as warmly as she could.
Tammy sighed and shook her head.
“No,” she whispered. “I think I need to climb into bed and just forget this day, much like the rest, ever even happened.”
She got to her feet and slinked across the room to the doorway. Her shoulders were so hunched and she looked as if she had lost weight in the past few days. Jamie wished that there was something she could do, but she was just drawing blanks. She was as lost as Tammy was when it came to knowing how much of a line could be crossed with men such as Lynx and The Forsaken Riders.
“Good night,” Tammy croaked as she headed down the hallway and up the stairs.
Jamie listened to her footsteps make their way onto the floor above, to the sounds of her friend brushing her teeth and quietly sobbing. It was moments like this when Jamie was glad that she was single and free from the complications that came with falling in love. Even though she was beginning to warm to the idea of spending her life with another person, the second Tammy had arrived on her doorstep, it had set her back fifty paces. Now she knew that she wasn’t ready to give her heart and soul to another. Not when they were obviously so easy to break. She had come to the conclusion that girls who threw themselves, head first, into relationships were crazy and must be a sucker for punishment. After seeing Tammy and the way she was now a broken woman, she couldn’t think of anything worse than letting a man ruin her in such a way. Now more than ever, Jamie was determined to hold onto her independence and never let a man walk all over her and destroy her like one had done to her friend.
She knew that she had to make herself a priority. She had to protect her heart and soul from being ravaged and ruined. Even though the thought of having anything ravaged was creeping into her dreams late at night and rousing her desires. She felt a flush of heat wash over her and she shook it away with a dismissive sigh.
As she poured herself a glass of water and started up the stairs to her bedroom, Jamie really knew that she had to help Tammy as best she could. She had to pull her out of her funk and make her see that there was more to life than some guy and the lawless ways of The Forsaken Riders.
Jamie didn’t know a lot about life, apart from her own tiny little corner of the world that was Slate Springs, but she did know that there were plenty more fish in the sea, and that surely, these bikers couldn’t be all that.
She closed her bedroom door and flopped down on the bed. Her eyes were already heavy with tiredness and she couldn’t even be bothered to take off her clothes and make-up. She pulled a blanket up around her shoulders and felt the warm comfort of knowing that she was where she was supposed to be cocoon her.
She kicked off her shoes, and as she drifted to sleep, she promised herself that she would help Tammy get over Lynx and move on. Those bikers were nothing but trouble, and Jamie was damned sure that neither Lynx nor any of the rest of that damned gang were going to have any more hold over Tammy, or of her.
It was time that the two girls embraced their single-dom and tried to get their groove back.
2.
The alarm trilled so loudly that it pierced through her dreams and shook her back into the land of awake. Jamie rolled onto her side and reached over to the nightstand and knocked the clock over facedown with a deafening trill.
“No…” she groaned into her pillow. “Too early…”
Even though she had been awake until the early hours of the morning, after work, she didn’t want to waste her day off from the diner by lying in bed like a zombie. If Jamie and Tammy were going to embrace life with both hands, Jamie was going to have to be the one to encourage them both into making a start, and there was no other way but getting up and seizing the day.
Jamie rubbed her eyes and blew a few stray strands of hair out of her face. Her curtains were cracked open down the middle and she could already see the intense desert sun breaking through them and casting warm light around the room. It was inspiring to think that there was a whole world out there to be discovered, even if she knew, deep down, that she would never leave her small hometown. But on the quiet, she still liked to fantasize and have her own secret dreams.
She swung her feet out of bed and they touched down onto the rough floorboards beneath. As she stretched and stood up, she reached for a clip to pin her long red hair up and then she slipped herself into her little silk robe. She approached the curtains and opened them wide in order to look out and down onto her street. She had been lucky to be able to afford a house in such a nice little part of town, and she loved her neighborhood. It was mainly families or older, more established couples that had the majority of residences along there. Jamie had been the youngest person to buy a house along the street and she regularly felt as if, because she had been so fortunate, she was most certainly doing something right in life. It was as if she had a little angel looking down and watching over her, guiding her down the right path.
The houses across the street were well kept and maintained, and she regularly looked to them for inspiration. She knew she was no kind of interior designer, but Jamie certainly loved pretending. And as she stood there looking out across the neighborhood, she wondered if that may be one of the answers to getting Tammy’s mind off her break-up. Maybe they could throw themselves into decorating and revamping the house.
“I could even ask her if she’d like to lease a room here properly,” Jamie whispered to herself as she began to mull over the possibilities.
She stepped back from the window and headed toward the doorway. She knew that after the late night that both of the girls had had, there would be no way Tammy would be awake. Jamie had looked at the work diary for the diner before she had left the previous evening, and even though Tammy hadn’t told her that she was taking a couple of weeks off, the diary had told her everything she needed to know.
“I’ve got to help her,” Jamie thought out loud as she walked down the stairs and made her way into the kitchen. “She can’t just keep taking time off and not expect to see any repercussions.”
She picked up the kettle and filled it with water before placing it on the stove and turning up the heat. As she waited for the water to boil, she flipped through her mail from the previous day and turned on the stereo so that low, gentle dance music began to wake her up even more and bring her back to life.
By the time she had eaten her breakfast of half a grapefruit and a slice of whole meal toast, set some aside for Tammy, and showered and changed, it was almost 10am and she was ready to get the hell out of there. She crept
along the hallway to Tammy’s room with a tray in her hands ̶ her toast and fruit waiting along with a fresh pot of coffee ̶ and she knocked lightly on the door.
It was a while before she heard any kind of stirring from the other side, and so, she eventually pushed the door open and tiptoed inside.
“Tam?” she whispered as she looked around at the crumple of bed covers and her friend’s crooked leg wrapped around the duvet. “Tam, wake up. I’ve brought you some breakfast…”
There was a low moan from underneath the blankets and even though Jamie hadn’t touched a drop of wine the previous evening, she could feel the hangover headache creeping over her in sympathy.
“What time is it?” Tammy croaked as she rolled onto her back with her eyes still sealed closed and her hair a total trussed up mess.
“It’s just after ten,” Jamie said as she sat down on the side of the bed with the tray still in her hands. “Listen, have this and you’ll feel loads better.”
“I don’t think I could eat a thing,” Tammy said as she rubbed her eyes and tried to wake herself up. “All I want to do is sleep.”
“Well, I’m not letting you,” Jamie said cheerfully. “I’m up and about, and I’m giving you approximately an hour and a half, while I go to the gym, to pull yourself together and then we have an exciting project to embark on together.”
“What?” Tammy asked with a half laugh. “The gym? A project? What are you talking about?”
Jamie giggled and nudged the tray into Tammy’s hands so that she had to sit up and rest her back against the headboard.
“All will be revealed later,” Jamie said cryptically. “Eat the breakfast, drink the whole pot of coffee, and get your ass out of bed. Capisce?”
Tammy looked up at her, slightly stunned, and with bleary eyes, but nodded all the same. Jamie jumped back up to her feet and clapped her hands together.
“Jeez, what a wakeup call,” Tammy groaned. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse…”