Redemption (MC Biker Romance)

by Wilde, Blakeley

  Maybe an hour or so later, we stopped at a nice, clean, well-lit hotel just off the interstate. It seemed to be situated in a nice neighborhood and looked newer. The parking lot was filled with family SUVs and minivans and happy people going about their business, oblivious to horrors that were going on right next to them.

  We climbed off the bike, grabbed our things from the saddlebags, and headed inside to check in. I stood back as Raze handled everything. He spun around a few short minutes later, handed me a keycard, and pointed towards the elevator. The hotel lobby had smooth, crystal clean marble tile floors, a flowing fountain, and more greenery than I’d ever seen on the inside of a building. It was easily the nicest hotel I’d ever stayed at in my life.

  We headed up to the fifth floor and found our room halfway down the hall and to the left of the elevator. As soon as Raze opened the door to our room, the smell of industrial cleaners and new carpet filled my nostrils. I walked in and sat my stuff down on the bed, sitting down to take a load off. I could tell the comforter was new, and there was not a speck of dust to be seen anywhere in the room.

  “This is a really nice place, Raze,” I said with a smile. “I feel safe here.”

  Raze said nothing but looked satisfied with our surroundings. He walked across the room to where an enormous curtain was covering floor to ceiling windows, and he pulled them back to reveal a beautiful ironclad balcony. He slid the door open, and a breeze of fresh air filled the room.

  I stood up from the bed and followed him out to the balcony where a little bistro table and chair set were waiting for us.

  “Where are we anyway?” I asked as I looked out over the most beautiful city light scape I’d ever seen.

  “Just outside of L.A.,” he said.

  “This is really pretty,” I said as I took a seat.

  He stood, leaning against the railing on his elbows and looking lost in thought.

  “I’m sorry that stuff happened to you, Mia,” he said as he hung his head. I could tell he blamed himself.

  “Raze, it wasn’t your fault,” I insisted. “You did nothing. You saved me. You saved my life.”

  Raze shook his head. “I never should’ve brought you into this lifestyle.”

  “I made a choice,” I argued with him. “And I chose you.”

  Raze spun around, still leaning on the balcony. His face was hardened, and I could tell there were things he wasn’t saying. He was such a closed book sometimes. I stood up and took a few steps towards him until we were almost nose to nose. I leaned in and placed a delicate kiss on his mouth, wrapping my arms around his narrow waist.

  “You saved me, Raze,” I said. “I owe you everything for that.”

  He buried his face in my neck, breathing me in, and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer.

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said. “I never really thought I did. I don’t know what you see in me, but thank you for seeing the best in me. I feel like a monster most days.”

  I knew Raze had done some horrible things in his young, adult life, and knowing him, he was surely eaten up over them every single day.

  “You’ve always done what you’ve had to do,” I said. “You did what you had to do to survive, to right the wrongs. You’re only human.”

  Raze pulled his head back and stared into my eyes, listening intently.

  “Life is all about choices,” I said. “You have a choice now. You don’t have to live that lifestyle anymore. You and I, we can build a whole new life together, just like we planned.”

  He leaned his head back, and I could tell he was fighting back tears. My man, my tough, alpha, razor sharp man, was bleeding open with emotion for the first time in a long time. I loved that he could be himself around me.

  I rested my head on his shoulder and squeezed my arms tightly around him.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I promised him. “We’ve been through too much already for me to just walk away.”

  Raze nodded as he rested his chin on the top of my head. I felt his hot breath on the top of my scalp, and it felt comforting, like a warm blanket on a cold night. A shiver ran down my spine as the breeze of the night air suddenly turned chilly.

  “You cold?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It just got cold all of a sudden.”

  “Let’s head inside,” he suggested.

  We went back into the hotel room, and I threw myself down on one of the cushy beds, resting my head on an overstuffed pillow. He climbed next to me and placed his arm around my shoulder, bringing me close to him.

  We laid in silence, just Raze and I, as we stared at the ceiling. It was the first hotel I’d ever stayed at that didn’t have a popcorn ceiling. I burrowed my nose into the crook of his arm, breathing in the faint scent of his deodorant mixed with the musky smell of the outdoors.

  “Raze?” I asked, burrowing in as close as I could and throwing my arm around him.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “How did you know where I was?” I asked. “Tonight, I mean.”

  Raze adjusted himself and cleared his throat.

  “I have connections,” he said.

  “Can you elaborate?” I asked with a slight chuckle.

  “I know someone on the inside of the Marquis Devils. He’s sort of a dual agent. He’ll do anything if the price is right,” Raze said. “When you went missing, he was the first person I called. I knew it was the Marquis Devils, especially after we ran into them at the bar. And then when we saw one of them at that diner, I knew they were on our tail.”

  “Did you know they were following us the entire time?” I asked.

  “Honestly, I thought we lost them that last night,” he said, slightly ashamed with his eyebrows raised. “I really did.”

  “How’d they get in to the room to take me?” I asked.

  “After I came out of the shower that night and saw you were missing and your things were still here, I just knew,” he said with a winced look on his face. “I looked outside, saw nothing, and then ran to the front desk clerk to see if he’d seen anything.”

  “Go on.”

  “He said a couple guys came in and basically scared the shit out of him. Threatened him and what not,” Raze continued. “They scared him into giving them our room info and a spare key. One stayed with the clerk while the other one went to get you. As soon as they left, the clerk got a description on the truck and called the police. Unfortunately I had to stick around and give a statement. It fucking killed me, Mia. Each second I was with the police was a second you were getting further and further away.”

  “So what’d you do next?” I asked.

  “I called my contact with the Marquis Devils,” he said. “Though it took me a bit to track him down since I smashed my phone. I had to go to the cell phone store the following day, the second they opened, and pretend like my phone got stolen. Luckily my contacts were backed up, so I was able to get it in just a few minutes.”

  Raze rustled his fingers through his short, dyed blonde hair and scratched his head as if the thought of those moments put him instantly back into distress.

  “I didn’t sleep at all that night,” he said. “All I could think about was what they were doing to you and why wasn’t I there to prevent any of it.”

  “Raze, it wasn’t your fault,” I reassured him again. “It’s fine.”

  “So I got my guy’s number, gave him a call,” Raze said. “He did some checking and got back to me within a few hours. Said he heard a couple men were headed back to Colorado with a young girl. They were going to pimp her out, make some money off her, and then act like they were going to sell her back to me, but really they just wanted me dead. They were going to use you to kill me.”

  “Yep, that definitely sounds like what they were going to do with me,” I said as shuddered. “They were fucking monsters.”

  Raze began to seethe and breathe through gritted teeth. “When I heard that, I wanted to kill them. I vowed to myself that I would have their blood on my hands
one way or another.”

  “That first night, I almost got away,” I said. “They took me to a bar and I saw Red there.”

  “Red?” he asked. “Our Red?”

  “Yeah!” I insisted. “I never thought I’d be so happy to see him. I don’t think he recognized me though. And as soon as I started making a scene, one of the men hit me on the back of the head and knocked me out.”

  Raze scratched his head again. “I wonder why Red would’ve been there. That makes no sense.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t him,” I said, second-guessing myself. “It sure as hell looked like him though.”

  Raze shrugged it off, like it was no big deal, and I secretly wondered if maybe Red was a dual agent as well. It was hard telling, and nothing surprised me anymore.

  “I was coming to the bar that night,” Raze said in a low voice.

  “What? You were? Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Yeah, my guy told me where they were taking you. I was on my way there,” he said. I could tell he was trying not to make me feel bad.

  “Wow,” I said. “And I fucked that up royally.”

  “Let’s just say you put us a day behind,” Raze said, trying to be kind. “As soon as I found out where they were headed with you, I booked it there. I drove around that little town for hours and hours until I saw their truck parked behind that burger place.”

  “Wow,” I said again. I was clearly at a loss for words. Raze was resourceful. He was strong. He was powerful. He was a force to be reckoned with. “You’re good.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he cocked his head. “Determined, yes. Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER 22

  I traced my fingers up his tatted arm and caressed his soft skin. He was truly something special. He saved my life, and I vowed to myself to never leave his side no matter what. I leaned up and kissed his mouth again, mine lingering on his until our tongues intermingled.

  He flipped to his side then rolled over top of me, pinning me under him. I loved feeling the weight of his masculine physique holding me down. His lips kissed mine, then worked their way down my neck and to my collarbone. He ran his hand down my side, brushing the side of my breast, and slipped it under my ass. He gripped my ass hungrily as he forced himself between my legs.

  His other hand undid the button to my pants and slid them down while I worked on unfastening his. Things were quickly growing hot and heavy, and I’d never wanted him inside me so bad in my life. We still had our tops on, but it didn’t matter. We wanted to be connected. We wanted to be one. We wanted to be as close as we could possibly get.

  His hand reached down and gripped his throbbing cock as he shoved the tip of it into my wet and waiting lady kingdom. Within seconds, I felt the burst of pressure and he was inside of me. He wasted no time thrusting, hard, as if he couldn’t get enough of me.

  His breathing grew labored as his hips did all the work. He buried his face into the crook of my neck while his hands traveled the length of my body repeatedly. His kissed my lips and then my cheek and then nibbled on my ear as my fingers dug into the churning muscles of his back.

  I heard him release a few sighs and some moans, and I knew he was close. All at once, I felt him writhe inside me. A few more thrusts and he had collapsed, staying inside me for a bit.

  “Oh, god, Mia,” he moaned before rolling back over to his side of the bed.

  I had no words. I just wanted to be close to him. The last few days had felt like weeks, and I never wanted to be apart from him ever again in mind, body, or spirit.

  A few more minutes passed and he was soon snoring. I stood up carefully, so as not to wake him, and went to the bathroom to get cleaned up. I double checked the locks on the door and left the bathroom light on with the door slightly ajar. I had never needed a nightlight before, but I wasn’t about to fall asleep peacefully in a dark hotel room. The last time that happened would forever be burned in my mind.

  I tiptoed back to the bed and climbed under the sheets, pulling them over him as gently as I could. He was still passed out, pants around his ankles, and I nestled up close to him. I laid my hand on his chest and took comfort in watching the rise and fall of his chest and the sweet sound of his steady breathing in my ear.

  I fought the sleep that wanted to wash over me. I didn’t want to leave that sweet moment. I didn’t want to ever forget what it felt like to have lost him and to have found him again. I wanted to stay in that moment forever, but eventually my body won over and my eye lids fell heavy. I surrendered to the heavy blanket of the night and fell asleep in Raze’s arms.

  CHAPTER 23

  I awoke the next morning and popped up in bed when I realized it was just me. Raze wasn’t lying next to me. The room was eerily silent. Panic flooded through my bones as I struggled to catch my breath. It was happening again. It was happening all over again.

  “Raze!” I yelled out, hoping maybe he was just in the bathroom. “Raze!”

  Nothing.

  I threw the covers off me and ran to the bathroom, flinging the door open, but it was empty. I ran across the room towards the balcony and flung back the curtains, but it, too, was empty.

  I placed my hand on my heart, which was going a hundred miles per hour, as I looked around the room. All of his stuff was still there, his wallet, everything. I stepped out onto the balcony and saw his bike parked below.

  “Think, Mia, think,” I whispered to myself as I tried to piece the puzzle together.

  A jolt of lightening shot through me when I heard the beeping from the key in the door and the rattling of the handle. The door widened to reveal Raze, overflowing tray of food in hand.

  “Well, are you going to help me or what?” he asked.

  I stood there with my jaw open as I tried to calm myself down.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” I said with my hands on my hips. “Why’d you just leave without saying anything?”

  Raze looked taken aback as he stepped inside and sat the tray down on a nearby table.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “You looked so peaceful. I thought I could slip downstairs and be back before you woke up. I wasn’t gone that long.”

  My face softened as I felt bad for snapping at him. “I’m sorry.”

  He walked over to me and cupped my face in his hands, kissing my forehead.

  “No worries,” he said. “Next time I’ll wake you if I leave.”

  I looked up into his steel blue eyes and all my anger instantly dissipated.

  “I got us a bunch of stuff,” he said as he pointed towards the tray. I saw several boxes of cereal, small milk cartons, a few juice cartons, a couple homemade waffles, two plates full of scrambled eggs, muffins, and some toast.

  “Geez,” I said with a laugh. “You grab the whole buffet or what?”

  “I didn’t know what you wanted, so I took a little of everything,” he said proudly.

  I pulled a chair out from the table and grabbed a few things off the tray, mowing down like nobody’s business. I had to admit that the last few days had made me extremely hungry and given me a new appreciation for food. I never wanted to skip a meal again.

  Raze watched in awe as I gulped down huge drinks of juice and shoved mouthfuls of cereal, scrambled eggs and syrup-drenched waffles in my mouth.

  “What they didn’t feed ya?” Raze laughed.

  I looked up at him in all seriousness and said nothing as I continued to eat.

  “Oh,” he said as he sat back, looking pissed.

  He watched me eat a bit more, almost in awe of how much a small girl like me could inhale in one sitting, and then helped himself to some toast and cereal.

  I ate and ate. I ate until my belly pooched over the waist of my pants and ached with a sick fullness. I leaned back and took a deep breath as I admired the clean plates in front of me.

  “So what’s the plan today?” I asked Raze while he still worked on his food.

  “I thought maybe we could head up north,” he said.

/>   “North?” I asked.

  “Northern California,” he said. “There are some quaint little towns up there. I thought we could drive around and find one we liked. Stake our claim. Start a life there.”

  My face lit up as butterflies swarmed around my stomach. “That sounds awesome. I think that’s a great idea.”