ROMANCE: MC BIKER ROMANCE: Hooked (MC Biker Pregnancy Romance)(Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance) (Contemporary Military Romantic Suspense Thriller)

by Carly White

  Again, she was pretending to be more than she was and he felt like he had to remind her that there situation there was just temporary. “Out.”

  Her face fell and he saw the pout going back on her face. “Oh.”

  “How is house hunting going? You found anything you like yet?”

  Dotty looked a bit alarmed. “No, not yet. I have a couple of viewings tomorrow that look promising.”

  He just nodded his head before he left out the door. He didn’t say anything to reassure her. Dotty’s time at his place was coming to an end quickly.

  Lance didn’t feel any better telling her how it really was. She had been there a couple of months now and though he enjoyed her company sometimes, there was just nothing else there. They were good friends or some sort of roommate, but it was wrong of him to use her in that way, knowing that he would never give her the fairy tale love that she wanted. It was what all women wanted, but Lance was just not capable of it.

  He was capable though, of revenge and the messy business that it usually was. After getting more intel on Sam and his family, the choice to pick up his daughter was not made lightly, but he had to get the drugs back so that he had the money to pay his supplier. Without that, there was no telling what would happen, so Lance didn’t think about that. Instead he thought about picking up the girl and holding her until her father fixed the many mistakes of his son. He would have rather took Carl, but there was just too high of a chance that Sam would let it happen because he deserved it.

  Everyone knew that a daughter was different though and he hoped that the same thing was true for Sam. He wanted to end it without bloodshed, but he was not above it later on. For now though, he had to fix the problem with his suppliers and worry about the rival gang when the problem was solved.

  Chapter 4

  He hadn’t made a move and Stella was giving up hope that he ever would. There was a moment when they had been kissing that she had felt his arm go around her, but it never went lower than her waist or higher than her hips. His tongue was as chaste as the kiss and she was once again left wanting more. Franklin had just dropped her off at her car that was still on the campus. She waved to him and kissed him once more through his car window. He pulled away before she did and promised to call her before he went to sleep. It was just starting to get dark and her date was over.

  Stella had her mind on other things when she was walking through the rows of cars to hers. She had told him to drop her off at the entrance so it would be easier for him to get out. At some point though, Stella’s niceties were going to end. Her body was mad at her and her brain was screaming at him. What was wrong with her that he wouldn’t make a move? It was infuriating to her.

  She didn’t notice the man standing behind her until she turned around to his voice. “Stella Martin?”

  “Yes?”

  When she saw the man, Stella knew instantly that he was not there for anything good. He was tall and dark-skinned, his bared arms looked huge coming out of his leather vest. There was a bike parked nearby that her eyes flicked too and she assumed it was his. The insignia was not hard to recognize from her days when she had gone with her father everywhere. It was the bike of a Black Riders, her father’s rivals.

  “Are you Sam’s daughter?”

  If he knew her name, she assumed that he already knew exactly who she was. The fact that he was verifying it did not bode well in her mind and it made her slightly sick to her stomach. “Yeah, why?”

  “I need you to come with me please.”

  His tone and face showed no emotion. It was like he was asking her what she wanted for lunch, like it was no big deal to walk up to someone and tell them that they had to go with them, a complete stranger. She knew not to get too flippant, but she couldn’t help the words that came out. “I am not going anywhere with a Black Rider.”

  “So you know who I am?”

  “I know your bike.”

  “Good enough. I would have to take your car out of here anyways. With your keys, there will be less damage.”

  She moved back against the car as he approached. “There is no point in making a scene Stella. You can get in on the other side or I can put you there, either way it is happening.”

  Stella looked around, but there was no one to save her and it was somehow laughable to try to use her self-defense moves on him. He was too big and too determined. Since he had not gotten to her yet, she made one last desperate survey of the place to see if here was any way out of it. When she realized that there wasn’t, Stella gave in to the man. She handed him the keys and went around to the front of the car. There was a moment that she thought of running off, but when she looked back to see if he was paying attention to her, he just shook his head. “Just get in. I am going to be pissed if I have to chase after you after the last couple of days that I have had.”

  Stella stopped thinking about it then. For a moment the huge man looked tired and she didn’t want to cause him anymore trouble, even though he was going to cause her one massive headache. She waited for him to unlock the car so she could get in and she sat back slowly. “You know my dad is going to have a fit when he finds out, don’t you?”

  “I am kind of planning on that dove.”

  She felt a chill run through the car and she was pulled between attraction and a real sense of fear. “What are you going to do with me?”

  Lance’s hand that was turning the key in the ignition stopped. He didn’t like the way she had said it. She was young and when he looked back at her, he could tell she was scared. It was not something that he was used to seeing in a woman around him and Lance decided then that he really did not care for it at all. “I am not going to do anything to you, but Sam isn’t going to know that. Your brother took something very valuable of mine and I simply want it back. You are just going to be involved to ensure that it all goes smoothly.”

  His tone and carefully chosen words were supposed to make her feel better, but it didn’t. It only made her more nervous and she just shook her head. She was already in the car and she was moving away from the college with the man that had abducted her. “So which of that jerk Lance’s goons are you?”

  “I am Lance.”

  Stella didn’t know what to say then. It was not what she had expected and as she looked at him from the passenger seat, she could tell that he didn’t like the way she had said it. Stella had heard about him, as most of the town had. She knew more intimately what the man was capable of. There was also the worry of him taking an interest in her. So much so that he would have been sent out to personally attend to it was another sign that she was in more trouble than his sweet words made it out to be.

  “So I take it you know who I am. I am surprised your father didn’t keep you out of all of the business, a sweet girl like you.”

  She just smiled back at him, though she groaned inwardly. What was it about bad boys like him that instantly saw her and thought that she was some adorable doll that they could play with? It infuriated her, even at the same time she was conscious that she had wanted her boyfriend to act more that way.

  “Yeah I have heard enough about you that I wish I hadn’t gotten in the car.”

  “We both know that you didn’t have much choice. There is no need for it to get ugly.”

  “Since you know that I am not involved in all of this, why don’t you just let me go? I won’t tell anyone what happened and I will take off for a while so you can get what you want from my dad. He didn’t do anything wrong though, it’s always my idiot brother that messes everything up.”

  She sounded like she knew more about it all then she really should of and it fascinated Lance in a way. In his family, the women were always kept from the dealings of the men. It was assumed that they couldn’t handle what was going on, but she seemed different. Stella seemed far more capable than a woman like Dottie and the ones that he was around more times than not. Stella seemed like the type that could handle anything as much as one of his own could. It was strange to think that a
fter he had admired her for her pretty face and curvy body.

  “Well as much as I would like to trust that you would do that, I am having trust issues lately and I just want to make sure that it all goes well. You can stay at my house for a couple of days, take a break from school.”

  Stella didn’t want to hear that. It was one thing to not be worried about her grades, but another to totally miss the big tests for the end of the year. She needed some score to give the colleges that she was going to apply to. “That’s not really going to work for me Lance. I have tests and if I don’t take them, I am not going to be able to get into college. I don’t care what my brother did, but it can’t be worth me having to retake those test over the summer.”

  “Your brother stole close to a quarter of a million dollars of my product from my truck.”

  “Oh.”

  The rest of the ride was met with silence. Stella wasn’t sure that there was anything that she could say to help the situation. She had already put her foot in her mouth too many times to really comment on anything else. Her mind reeled with the information that she had just heard about Carl. She couldn’t have imagined that he had screwed up that badly.

  “Whatever happens Lance, you can’t do anything to my father. He would have never done anything like that and I promise you that he will make it right.”

  “I hope you are right Stella.”

  Chapter 5

  Sam had been out most of the day and he had finally gotten ahold of the coke from the men that his son had sold to. They were embarrassed to be caught pulling one over on him. They may have had their dealing with Carl, but it was Sam in the end that would take care of the business. The favor or whatever it was, cost him dearly, but when he got home and found it empty, there was more to be paid than a few grand to the twins.

  “Stella?”

  Sam pulled his jacket off and went through the living room to the kitchen and called out her name again. He was at the bottom of the stairs and hollered her name upwards, but he still got no answer. Pulling his phone out, he gave it a ring and when it went right to voicemail, he got a sick feeling in his stomach. Stella was the type to always be home on time, especially after she had been told about what was happening. She knew that there were dangers and he couldn’t believe that she would just blow them off.

  “Stella, this is your father. You need to call me as soon as you get this and let me know that you are okay.”

  He hung up the phone and stared around the house for a few minutes. There were still several bags in the car that he had to get out and get redistributed back to the runners. They had a whole lot of money to make in the next few hours to make sure that they had what was needed for the Dark Riders and for Lance. He knew that the demand was up and Sam was hoping that doing some of the work for him would make him more liable to not kill his son when Carl finally crawled back into town.

  Sam made a few calls and for a while he forgot about his missing daughter, figuring that she had went to see her boyfriend or anything else mundane like that. It was only in the early morning hours when he looked at his phone and there was no call back from her, that he decided to call Franklin.

  The father didn’t really care for the boyfriend and although it was pretty common, Sam was sure that his reasons were anything but common. It was because of the influence he had on his daughter and it wasn’t even bad influence, but a good one that tried to pull her from the life style that he was trying to get her into. Stella had always been a natural at business and have even loved riding for the longest time. But then she got her heart broken and she had turned to straight-laced men like Frank.

  “Hello?”

  “Franklin, this is Sam, Stella’s father.”

  “Yes Sir. Good to hear from you. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you know where Stella is?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her for a couple of hours. I dropped her off at her car at the college a little after seven. She said she had some studying to do tonight. Is she not there?”

  Sam told him that he wasn’t and he could hear the concern in his voice. It was clear to him that the man was not in fact with her and that made him nervous. Stella had few girlfriends, but no one that she hung out with late at night. Either his daughter had changed her habits suddenly, or something was wrong. Sam didn’t like the feeling that he had in his gut and he knew that it was the latter.

  As the money started to come in from the runners, Sam had almost all of it collected before the morning and he was still waiting on a call from his daughter. He called Dimitri in and had him go find out what was going on. Her car wasn’t where Franklin said he had dropped her off and she wasn’t anywhere where she usually hung out. She usually didn’t just take of in the middle of the night.

  The man was torn between his two kids. One was missing and hopefully okay, while there was Carl who had caused a lot of trouble. He didn’t want anything to happen to either one of them, but he knew that there would have to be some action taken on the son’s behalf. He also knew that Stella was a smart girl and could get herself out of whatever situation she was in. The very fact that she hadn’t figured it out yet had him nervous, but he tried to remind himself that she was in fact an adult, no longer his baby girl.

  Sam finally got up the nerve to make a call and he was looking at his phone when it finally rang. It wasn’t his daughter’s phone number that came across the screen though, or one that he had ever seen before. There was a dread that settled in his stomach and he answered the phone call with trepidation. “Hello?”

  “Hello Sam.” Sam knew instantly who it was. He hadn’t heard that voice in a long time, but it was hard to forget Lance if a person had talked to him before.

  “Lance.”

  “Ah, you are much like your daughter, very astute. I like her Sam. I like her a whole lot better than your boy right now. He has made me very unhappy.”

  While Sam should have been listening, he stopped when Lance mentioned his daughter. There was also the way he said that he liked her, there was something there in his words then. “If you have done anything with Stella, Lance, this will not end well for you.”

  “That is not really the tone I was expecting after your son got me for a whole lot of money.”

  “I know. I have taken care of it.”

  “Good, then we will have no problem.”

  “If you have my daughter Lance, we already have problems.” Sam was still unable to wrap his brain around the reason that he hadn’t heard from Stella. He knew that it had to be something. “Just let her go and I will give you your money.”

  Lance wasn’t sure how to respond. “We can meet and do an exchange and that will be that.”

  Sam agreed, but he knew then that it would never be okay between the two gangs. One of them was going to have to go and Sam knew that it wasn’t going to be him.

  They set a place for an hour away to meet and Sam was antsy as he hung up the phone. He felt the familiar rage inside of him boiling up. There was no way that he could just let it all go. It was too much and him.

  Chapter 6

  Lance on the other side of town was hanging up with a whole different feeling. He thought that it couldn’t have gone better. Well, besides Dotty throwing an utter fit when she saw him coming in with Stella. She didn’t help the matter by just giving her a look of distain and turning to him to tell him that he should get his yapping dog.

  Dotty was mortified and he couldn’t help the grin that crossed his face. It was something that he had imagined a couple of times. She had not taken either thing well and had stomped upstairs, slamming more doors than was necessary to get there.

  Now he looked at her and she smiled back at him innocently much like she had before. “I take it, it was good news?”

  “Yep. Your father still loves you and you will be back home in your own bed tonight.”

  “Just like that?”

  “You were right Stella. He did want to fix it and it looked like he already has. Fixed my e
nd better than if it had never been taken in the first place, so yeah, just like that. It makes me think that I thought wrong about your father this whole time. If only he didn’t have such an idiot son. If only Carl could be more like his sister. “

  “I told you he wouldn’t let it happen. My father is very big on doing the right thing.”

  His eyes saw her fidgeting with his look and he realized then that maybe he had jumped the gun. She was just perfect and he felt bad for taking her. Lance just hoped that it didn’t make things even harder between the two gangs. He started to think that maybe there could be a peace between them. The thought of having his daughter in his life more, sounded even better to Lance, though he knew that she wasn’t going to just swoon like all the others in the past. He was going to have to work for it and though it peeved him that she wasn’t giving him what he wanted, there was something so tempting about her. Lance felt like it was fate.

  “Well I guess we just need to wait a little bit before we head out.” Lance was still amazed that it had turned out so well, though he knew in the back of his mind that it could all be a trap. He wasn’t ready to let go of Stella for that reason, as well as many others. But he knew that he had to. There was a moment that he wished he had waited a day, sure that if he just had the night with her, Lance would have been able to make her see reason.

  ***

  As the time of the meeting approached, Sam didn’t tell anyone what was going on. He wasn’t sure if everything had worked itself out yet, but there was no reason to take a chance then. There would be time for payback later, he reminded himself over and over again as it all ran in his head.

  When he got to the meeting place, it was a small park on the outskirts of town. There was never any fuzz there and it was a place they both knew well. Sam was already there when he heard Lance pull up on his bike. He didn’t see her car after him and didn’t realize till the end when he was getting off that Stella was riding on the back of the bike with him. She looked too natural behind him and he scowled as Lance helped her off. “There she is, all safe and sound.”