RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (ebook voice reader .txt) 📕

But you also know you can’t stay where you’re at no longer. You’re trapped. And that’s where all this rage is rooted.”

Her eyes locked with mine, grief and misery coming off her so strongly it was hard not to react, not to reach out and try to comfort her.

But she wasn’t ready for that.

It weren’t much of a surprise when she broke eye contact, shook her head to herself, then took off silently down the corridor.

“Fuck,” I muttered, scrubbing my hand over my face.

“You never settled it.”

Jesus!

I spun to see Rick had come up behind me, out of fucking nowhere.

“Wow. Never seen you so off guard before. You really do love her.”

“Nobody’s using that word, asshole.”

“Sure,” he said, with a roll of his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall as he eyed me all curious.

“What?” I snapped, not in the mood for it.

“Like I said, you never settled things with her. She never agreed to stand down on her Nolan plan. What if she takes off in the middle of the night to execute it?”

“I’m a light sleeper. I’ll hear her trying to leave.”

He smirked. It was the kind of smirk that told you he knew something you didn’t know. Goddammit. I hated the smug side of him. “Nah, you’ve got a contingency in place. In fact, you engineered it.”

“What are you getting at?”

“You’ve gotten to know her real well over the years and then being stuck in close quarters here day in and day out.”

“Is there a point coming any time soon, fucker?”

“You know she don’t do nothing if she ain’t real close to being one-hundred-percent sure that it’s the right way to go, without knowing she can control it for the most part.”

“Yeah, that was made clear damn quickly.”

He nodded. “Right. And you used it tonight. You planted doubt in her, about her plan. Just calling it out in the vehement way you did had her questioning it. You know she won’t act now with that there. She’ll find another plan, another way to go with this whole thing, maybe even your way.”

“I did what was needed to protect her. She ain’t thinking right at the moment. Is this you trying to call me out on it for manipulating her, or some other irrelevant bull?”

Shaking his head, he said, “Nah, I’m not calling you on it. Nothing like that.” He pushed off the wall, his smug smile fading and a seriousness taking over. Even his tone was real earnest as he shook his head and told me, “You might’ve just saved her life tonight.”

I frowned.

“I mean, this ain’t like her. I’ve never seen her this way. She don’t do reckless and unhinged. She’s always so calm and cautious, able to think three steps ahead and see the way through even the worst and most complicated situations.” He blew out a breath. “You’re right about those cracks. She needs to get away from all of this.”

“She’s real stubborn, though.”

“She’ll do it,” he assured me.

“How do you know?”

“Because, at the end of the day, she respects logic and reasoning more than anything else. She’ll see the truth to what you’re saying and that the only obvious solution is getting out.”

“Let’s hope so.”

He grinned. “By the way, you two stubborn asses were made for each other.” He turned and headed back down the corridor to his room. “Don’t fuck it up, Slade!” he called over his shoulder.

Easier said than done.

Weren’t fucking it up with her all I’d been doing?

16

~Willa~

 

HE WAS IN HIS ELEMENT.

Leaning against the open front door, I watched Slade for a while.

He was over by the garage working on his bike that he’d had Ricky haul up here a couple of nights ago. Since he’d been here, he’d spent a lot of time walking through the surrounding forest in order to de-stress and clear his head. Now that his bike was here, that was where he went to do that. It was his peace.

I frowned as I mulled that thought over.

What was my peace?

It’d been all about my work for so many years, I hadn’t really explored much else. Hobbies and interests kind of eluded me. And I didn’t really do leisure time. Everything I did had a purpose. I didn’t do things just for fun. I was all about efficiency and accomplishment.

Damn that bastard for being right. I was an intense person, exceptionally tightly-wound.

But being that way had made me successful and it had also kept me alive. I wasn’t ashamed of it. I’d never seen anything wrong with it either. Until recently.

Until Slade.

The big, bad MC president had ridden back into my life and turned everything about it upside down, challenging what had been the status quo for me for a hell of a long time. Too long.

The evidence was stacking up so quickly. There were cracks beginning to form. Denial was no longer a viable option.

Sucking in a breath, I pushed off the front door and strode out through the porch toward Slade in front of the open garage twenty feet away.

I’d only just made it down the steps when he startled me by calling out, “Finally worked up the nerve, huh?”

Great. So, he’d known I’d been standing back and watching him for quite a while then.

“We both know I’ve got plenty of nerve.”

He chuckled, the tone clearly verging on bitter, which had me cringing and feeling more at ill at ease about what I was planning to do than I already was. “For sure,” he said, offhand, not turning to look at me and still keeping his attention on his bike.

Come on, Willa. You’ve never been a chicken-shit. Don’t start now.

Just do it! Say it!

My words came blurting out, painfully raw.

“I’ve never gotten close to anyone.”

They hung there heavily, making my fists and teeth clench against the sheer awkwardness.

Slade stilled, stopping work on his bike altogether.

It had gotten to him, I was certain.

I just didn’t know in what sort of way.

Time stretched.

I couldn’t take