Outlaw's Ride: An MC Romance by Carter Steele (books recommended by bts .txt) 📕

all the same, and despite the near identical sleeveless cut all the men wore, the riders weren't either. So much of my betrayal's justification was predicated on the fact that they were just an outlaw biker gang. Bad guys you hear about on the news. The world would be better off without men like them in it.

That wasn't the case at all.

Buck lit up a cigarette while waiting for his engine to warm up. He was an accountant before joining up with the MC. Buck collected little spoons from every state they stayed in and kept them in a box beneath his bunk. Apparently he had quite the collection. I couldn't help but want to see it.

Buck's brother, Yoga, brought vegan cupcakes to the bar tonight. He made them from scratch and they were fucking delicious. I thought Dreamer got his name because of his immigration status but it was really because he was a published poet back in Mexico. Dunk, Mac... each man had their own story. They were criminals yes, but that's not all they were.

And that's not all Stewart was either.

I had been lying to everyone, but to no one more so than myself.

“I'm not going to forget about you. When this is over.” Wreck straightened, staring confidently into my eyes. The intensity and deliberateness of his resolve made me shiver with a dark and impossible hope. “I hope you know that.”

I could only manage a weak smile in reply as I stuffed my hands into my back pocket, trying my best to cover the cellphone's microphone.

“I don't give a damn what Patrick thinks is gonna happen. I will not leave you as his prisoner. Tomorrow I'm going to—”

I cut Wreck off by kissing him. It was an ugly, abrupt thing that was more me smashing my mouth into his. Anything to prevent him from finishing that sentence. I didn't want him to say something else that Patrick might be able to use against him or his friends. The kiss was also so he didn't see me start to cry.

Wreck was startled at first by the suddenness of it, then he slid a hand behind my back and pulled me closer. In all our time together we'd never actually kissed before, not really. He'd kissed my cheek once and the lingering tingle comforted me for days, but this was something else entirely.

Our first real kiss.

Wreck's warmth, the embrace, the emotion between us, it was all so much more than I ever imagined it'd be. Spiking in a sharp gasp of air, I grabbed his vest with both hands and let him crush into me. His rough lips and searching tongue were all I wanted at that moment, more than even the air in my lungs. With his large form wrapped around me everything else fell away. That parking lot was the north pole and Wreck's arms were a sturdy cabin, fireplace roaring. The bitter cold just outside that door, was all around but forever unable to reach us.

“That's extremely touching you two, but all this sentimentality is going to make Buck cry,” Yoga called out over the rumbling purr of the bikes.

“Me?” Buck coughed out the last of the cigarette smoke, nearly choking.

The ridiculousness of the brothers’ exchange curled our lips in amusement and gave us pause.

“We should go,” Wreck said softly, resting his forehead on mine. I nodded and let him lead me to his bike.

“The gay vegan's right,” Dreamer retorted, not able to resist getting his jabs in. “I see you getting misty-eyed over there. It's like that fucking Pixar movie all over again.”

“Fuck both of you in your stupid fucking faces! That was one time.” Buck sneered at the two men. He stuffed out the cigarette on the side of his gas tank, brushing the ash off the paint and grumbling in a much lower voice about how the movie Up was a legitimately sad story.

Wreck started his bike up, helped me into a helmet, then got us ready to fall in line when the rest of the MC took off. When we pulled out onto the first street, stating a ride that would eventually take us back to their real home. Knowing the cellphone's GPS would lead Patrick to where he desperately wanted to go ate away at me like cancer. None of Patrick's guys had been able to tail the Devil Kings back to their clubhouse. The bikers were just too experienced and careful to ever let that happen. Until today.

Or so Patrick hoped.

I reached behind me, pulled the phone out of my back pocket and let it hit the pavement at forty-miles and hour. I was shocked how easy it was to do. When the phone slipped from my fingertips with it went an enormous burden. Guilt and shame that built up over the past week like a dam holding back a river finally burst. The pressure in my mind and heart was gone, just like that. I had no idea what the repercussions would be but in that one golden moment I just didn't care. For the first time in a long, long time I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I made the right decision.

I had done one small, good thing and it felt amazing.

They lived in a tractor-trailer truck. When we pulled up I thought it was a complete misdirect like they were only temporarily setting up shop there for the time being before moving on. Climbing into the side door of the larger-than-normal trailer I realized just how wrong I was.

I could only describe the trailer as part souped-up college dorm room, part motorcycle garage and part weapons armory. Along the side closest to the truck pulling it were the sleeping bunks. At the opposite end down by the lift gate were everyone's bikes, all the tools to fix them and what looked like weapon racks for rifles, shotguns, pistols and a variety of terrifying-looking explosives. Everything else in between, with