Tread: Biker Romance (Ronin MC Series Book 1) (31 page)

“GET OFF.” A KICK TO
my shins accompanied the demand and I opened my eyes to Tatum’s head coming towards mine violently. I rolled away with effort considering she was throwing all of her weight onto me at the same time. “Grace? What are you doing, spooning me?” Tatum slurred, sounding drunk. Definitely not the way I woke up, though I didn’t try to talk too much.

It was still dark outside but the moon was bright, allowing me to see the shadow of the woman next to me. “I didn’t want you to choke and die, you ingrate,” I grumbled, still feeling the headache pound at my temples.

“Where are we? What happened? What?” She pulled at her arms, quickly rolling like an alligator on a line and twisting her chains.

“Will you stop? We’re chained to a bed. I don’t know where. I haven’t seen anyone yet.” I watched Tatum thrash around, her hair getting pulled out as she fought to get her arms out of the shackles. “Is your neck sore?”

Tatum stopped finally, and blew a piece of hair out of her eyes. “What? Yeah, everything hurts. I feel like I got ran over.”

“I think we were drugged. I woke up and you were still out. It would make sense, since you’re a lot smaller than me.” I work to push my butt up the bed, digging my heels into the mattress for traction. My shoulders screamed at the new position.

“I feel drunk sort of. Probably drugged. Those assholes.” Tatum twisted to her knees and easily walked up the bed with her chains crossed in a big X. Damn it. That looked way easier than the way I just did it. “I have to pee.”

I glared at her. “Well you better hold it. We have nowhere else to go.”

“What day is it?”

“I don’t know. I woke up as the sun went down. I don’t know which day though.”

Tatum wiggled her head and shoulders trying to move her hair away from her face without using her hands. “Can’t be too long after we were taken. Tread should be back by now. He’ll find us.”

“How can you be sure? We could be in Brazil for all we know.”

Tatum smiled widely, her teeth making her look like a skeleton head bobbing in the night. “Come here, Gracie.”

“What?” I asked skeptically.

“Come here and let me feel your ass,” she practically purred.

“Are you out of your ever loving—”

Tatum pinched my thigh, hard. I yelped and moved my hip closer to her waiting fingers. “Little bit closer, Grace.”

My shoulders were stretched to the breaking point, my hand all the way behind my back, stretched tight by the chain. I panted out a pain-filled breath. “I can’t move anymore.”

I felt her hand skim inside of my jeans. I wondered for a second if she was searching for underwear before I felt the sting of her peeling the plastic away from where it had fused to my skin. My heart practically exploded in my chest as I realized I still had the GPS watch.

“Oh my—” I breathed.

“Hush, Grace. The walls may have ears,” Tatum quickly cut me off.

I clamped my mouth shut and straightened against the headboard. My bladder was full, but what was getting to me worse was the cold. I looked over to the windows again and could see the curtains flutter. I was almost positive it wasn’t open before I fell asleep. This meant someone had been in the room when we were sleeping.

For some reason, that freaked me out more than actually being chained to a bed. I shivered.

“Looks like you had the right idea with spooning before. With that window open, we’re gonna freeze real quick.” Tatum slid closer to me, her hand moving behind her back like mine. I moved closer to her until we were hip to hip.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” I murmured.

Tatum shrugged. “Dunno. Assuming we weren’t put on a plane, and Tread doesn’t lose his fool mind when he finds out we are gone, then it won’t take long.”

The thought of Tread assuming the worst was happening to us brought back the ache in my chest. My fingers twitched to touch it, but couldn’t get far.

“I hope you’re right. Are you hungry?”

Tatum groaned. “Don’t think about it. We’re sitting good as far as I’m concerned.”

“Yeah? How do you figure?” I asked, looking around the barren room again.

“No one’s beat us yet. We aren’t in any pain at all.”

“Speak for yourself,” I grumbled, trying to find a comfortable spot. There wasn’t one.

“Suck it up, babe. Still sure you want to stay in the dirty south? No urges to go home to the mountains?” she asked with a smirk I didn’t appreciate at all.

I sighed and seriously entertained the thought of going home to Utah. Church, no cussing—which had actually become quite liberating—and no Tread. Despite the danger we were currently facing, and all of the hair-raising moments I had since I was stranded next to the border, I couldn’t make myself regret it.

I felt more comfortable in my skin, whereas before I felt like I was trying to contort my body into what was expected of me. Sure, with the MC, they wanted me to be tougher, but it was different. Take hand-to-hand combat. It was quickly apparent that I didn’t have the talent for knives, so Veesa—who was eerily proficient with knives—passed me to Lola, who taught me to shoot.

Rarely did I feel lacking with my new family, and especially not with Tread. Before, I was playing a game of poker with a checkerboard, and now I was just missing a queen or a jack.

No, I would never feel comfortable going back to my old life, but with some experience, I could definitely have a place by Tread’s side, if he would have me.

However, the thought of never seeing my mother again made my eyes sting and my nose itch. She was the only person who seemed to get that I wanted more, no matter how hard she tried to mold me.

“No. I’m happy. Or I was before this run,” I finally answered quietly.

Tatum studied my face in the moonlight and nodded her head. “You think you’ll want to see them again? You’re family, I mean.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Maybe one day. Not now. Do you think Tread would go with me?”

Tatum snorted. “If he doesn’t want to go, just mention the ex-fiancé. Brother doesn’t share.”

“He doesn’t have to worry about that. I’m his as much as he’s mine.”

“Have you heard from Kit lately?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah. She’s good,” I said shortly. I had never told her, or anyone, about the man she was dating.

“Hmm. Does she sound happy?” Tatum asked, her shoulders starting to shake as the wind picked up.

“It’s hard to tell through a text. I think she’s trying to be.”

“That’s good,” Tatum said, resting her head on my shoulder. I looked over in surprise, but she was already out. I waited another minute before laying my head gently on hers and resting my eyes.

“HEY, YOU DON’T HAPPEN TO
have your gun by any chance, do you?” Tatum asked the next afternoon.

I couldn’t help but snort. “You know, I’m not that stupid. I actually did check when I woke up. Lying flat on my back clued me in right away. Kinda hard to miss a holster digging in.”

“Hey, you forgot about the other thing,” she said with a smile.

“Only because it’s flat.”

Tatum’s chuckle was cut off sharply when the door opened suddenly. “Oh thank God. I’m about to piss this bed, dude.”

I thought that may have been unwise, her speaking first, when the man that had kidnapped us lowered his eyes to glare at her. And here we were doing so good at not getting hurt.

The man walked towards the bed aggressively and I shrank into Tatum. Her muscles were stiff and didn’t give at all. I watched the guy produce a key and unlock the chain at the headboard instead of my hands. When he yanked on the chain, I fell to the floor headfirst. My cheek scraped the tile, making me hiss as it peeled the skin.

“Get up, puta.” The man yanked on the chain behind my back, and I struggled to my knees as my shoulders burned.

“Hey! You’re taking me too, right? Hey! I have to pee!” Tatum yelled, trying to get his attention.

I made it to my feet then was turned and steered out of the room as she screamed. Sweat blossomed on my skin as soon as I realized we were being separated. My eyes darted around the hallway, seeing no one.

Wherever we were, the house was nice. A chandelier sparkled beyond the balcony in front of me as it hung over the foyer. Only twenty feet, if I didn’t have to take the stairs to freedom.

We walked away from the staircase and towards a door down the hall. When I was shoved in, I was prepared for an office, or at least somewhere with people. Seeing a toilet and bathtub was somewhat anticlimactic.

The hands left my back and I spun to see the door close. “Hey, my hands,” I said quietly, not wanting to agitate him further, but how was I supposed to get my pants down?

I looked to the sink, the counter was cleared to the last cotton swab. Nothing was on the surface. Looking in the mirror, the scrape on my cheek looked like I fell off my bike. Appropriate, I supposed, since I fell off the bed. Beads of blood were on the surface, but didn’t fall.

Not knowing how much time I had, I looked around wildly for a way to get my jeans down. But the GPS. How could I hide it if he barged in when my pants were down?

Not seeing any other way, I gritted my teeth and thought about the desert as I unbuttoned my pants on the corner of the counter and flushed the toilet with my elbow.

The door sprang open and I turned so that the man couldn’t see my back. With my pants undone, I wasn’t sure if the black band of the GPS watch would be visible.

The man made me pass him in the hall and I didn’t breathe until I was once again chained to the bed.

Tatum eyed me, noticing my pants, but thankfully stayed silent. She sprang off the bed like a graceful cat, even with her hands behind her back. I tried to hum a song to distract myself from the pain in my bladder, but nothing helped knowing Tatum was getting the relief I needed.

When she was locked back to the bedframe and the door was shut again, she turned to me. “What’s wrong with you? Did he touch you?”

I shook my head and swallowed, the spit in my mouth almost too much for me to handle without wetting myself. “I couldn’t chance losing the GPS. I faked it.”

Tatum looked at me blankly for a second before her eyes bulged. “Grace, it’s been like twenty-four hours. At least.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You’re gonna have a mother of a UTI. You better pray your kidneys don’t get infected or some shit.”

“Shut the fuck up, Tate!” I yelled.

She sighed and leaned back, her chains clinking against the metal. “All right. I’ll be quiet.”

I concentrated on my breathing, and not my swallowing, for a long time. I felt my sides begin to ache, and asked Tatum to tell me a story.

She was in the middle of telling me about Tread sneaking out and getting stuck on a branch outside of his window when the door opened again. Probably saved the mattress, too. I wasn’t in any shape to laugh.

A man I didn’t recognize walked into the room with his hands behind his back. He had a swagger that was completely entitled, and his eyes were dead.

“I hope you are enjoying your stay in my casa, ladies.”

We stayed silent. The man veered off to my side of the bed and I started to pant. Please don’t touch me.

“I get so few white women in my home. You can appreciate that you are a delicacy, yes?” he asked, trailing his finger over my calf and up my knee. My heart was pumping blood through my head so fast I could hear it in my ears. It made his next words muffled.

“Where our women are brown, you are pink, isn’t that right, gringa?”

Oh my God. His fingers moved to my inner thigh to cup me firmly between my legs. I groaned involuntarily as the pain in my bladder increased when I clamped my legs closed and flexed my stomach to try to get away.

He took it for something else. “You like that, little blanco puta? You want the Diablo, si?” I shook my head, but his eyes were alight with a fervor that rendered him blind.

“Hey! What are you doing, asshole?! No. Get away from her!” Tatum yelled beside me.

The man shoved his hand down my unbuttoned jeans.

The violation was washed away with the triggered release of my bladder.

That was right. I pissed on the mother freaking Diablo.

It took him a second to realize that the wetness he was feeling wasn’t my actual enjoyment of his rough touch, but something wholly different.

I watched through my bliss of a relieved bladder as his face washed with horror. He yanked his hand from me, and held it out from his body like he was prepared to cut it off as he ran from the room, yelling in Spanish the entire way.

“Holy fuck, Grace. I don’t even care that I’m stuck in a bed with your pee right now. That was the most well timed move I’ve ever seen. I’m actually in awe right now. Of you.”

I sighed and tried not to move in my wet, stinking clothes. “Thanks a lot, Tatum. Not that it was planned, but thank God.”

“I’m gonna remember that. You know this could have gone a completely different way if he had a weird fetish,” she said nonchalantly.

I turned my head to her and laughed in surprise. “Gross, Tatum.”

“Hey, you’re the one sittin’ in piss pants.”

We didn’t see the man again, but were moved into an SUV some time later. They kept the windows down, and I kept my pants and the GPS.