Gravel (MC Biker Romance) (26 page)

“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.”

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.

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.”

Raze smiled, quickly, and returned
to his meal.

“I also thought we could trade in
my bike,” he said. “You know, for a boring little sedan or something.”

I jerked my head to the side.
Raze’s
bike was his baby. It was his life. It was a part of
his identity. I couldn’t expect him to get rid of it.

“That’s your baby,” I argued.
“You’re going to sell it?”

“New life, remember?” he said as he
looked up at me with raised eyebrows. “I don’t want to be in the gang anymore.
I want something new. Something better. Something better for us.”

I
nodded
as I knew he had a point. He was really serious about this.

“Before we leave town, we’ll stop
at a dealer,” he said. “I’ll see what we can swap for it, even-Steven, and
we’ll hit the road and head up north.”

“Okay,” I said as I couldn’t hide
the smile that spread across my face. “Sounds like a plan.”

We showered, watched a bit of local
news for the forecast, and checked out of the hotel. We climbed on his bike and
headed towards a local dealership where they happily accepted his trade for a
Toyota Camry. It was the most boring yet reliable car on the lot, the salesman
told us. It was gray and came with all the standard features Toyota offered. It
wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t attention grabbing. It was exactly what Raze had in
mind.

“I want us to fly under the radar
for a bit,” he said as we walked inside to sign the paperwork. He reached over
and squeezed my hand.

“Of course,” I said.

The salesman slapped a stack of
paperwork in front of us and circled a bunch of lines for Raze to sign. It
almost felt like he was signing his life away, and in a weird enough way, he
sort of was.

We pulled off in our gray Toyota
Camry and headed up to northern California to start our new life. We knew
exactly what we wanted.
A sleepy little seaside town on the
coast.
Not too big, not to small. Friendly people.
Lots
of local shops.
Quaint restaurants. Affordable housing. We wanted a
place with a back yard so we could get a dog. Raze had never had one growing up
and had always wanted a yellow lab. He even had a name picked out for it, but
he wouldn’t tell me yet. He seemed sort of embarrassed about it.