Hard Rider Read online

  Wasn’t it thrilling to think about being claimed by someone like him…even if it was just pretend?

  His hand began to slide up her thigh. She looked down at it with widening eyes. She could see his thigh, and the bulge there growing with alarming rapidity.

  She was doing that to him. All that hardness, that tangible, turgid desire. A heady feeling of power swept through her.

  “You know,” she said, breathing hard. “Obviously, you’re super attractive, but, well, we just met, and I have a sort of a policy—”

  “A policy,” he repeated, bringing his mouth close to hers.

  “Right. A pretty important one. You know. About no kissing on the first date.”

  “This isn’t a date. And you already kissed me.”

  “Uh huh. So that would mean, well—”

  That would mean, she wanted to say, that the policy would have to be enforced even more so. But obviously Ram meant that the policy wouldn’t have to be enforced at all. His mouth brushed against hers, and she lost all resolve. Soon her lips slid back over his, a soft moan escaping her mouth.

  Last time she had kissed him, trying to prove a point. She wasn’t as big of a pushover as she seemed; she had some fire in her that he ought to be careful of.

  But now he kissed her, and she could feel his fire.

  It was a slow, steady inferno, pushing over her skin and sinking her deep into the clutch of his arms. It burned away all resistance, turned all her thoughts of protest to useless ash, and set her passion ablaze so hard that she enjoyed feeling herself giving in.

  Again her legs squirmed to be near him, but this time there was no resolve for stopping them. Her calves wrapped loosely across his leg, pushing against the metal of his bike. A thick palm pressed against the small of her back, crushing her chest against his.

  She felt weak, helpless, trapped—and all in the best way possible. Weak from a flood of lust hitting her brain; helpless to fight the urge to spread her legs and guide his fingers, his mouth, his everything inside of her; trapped by her indecision of whether this was the worst possible outcome or the best.

  Slowly, he retreated, letting her withdraw herself from his hard, insistent grip.

  “How was that?” he asked, a slight mocking lilt in his tone.

  She licked her lips, staring at him hungrily. It wouldn’t be anything to suggest they go back to his place—and she hadn’t been laid in a long, long time.

  And she knew without a doubt that she had never had sex like what Ram would deliver.

  Bad idea, she thought fiercely. God, what a bad idea. Going home with Trouble Man incarnate.

  She smirked, composing herself. “Good enough for pretend,” she said.

  Not wanting this to go any further, she stepped away and started down the cul-de-sac to her parent’s house.

  “You want to be a writer, you’re gonna have to learn to lie a little better than that.”

  “Then maybe I’ll just end up being a cop like the rest of my family, huh?”

  She pointed at the house at the end of the street, the house with all the cop cars in front of it. And she couldn’t help but enjoy the surprise and anger that skidded across Ram’s face.

  “You’re related to cops?”

  She nodded, still grinning despite herself at his obvious displeasure. “My Dad’s the sheriff.”

  Chapter 9

  Her old key still worked. She walked inside, considering dropping her bags loudly and shouting out, “I’m home!”

  But calls for attention were never really June’s style.

  The house was a two-story, one of the larger in the city, though that wasn’t saying much. She dropped her bags down by the staircase and walked slowly through the living room and dining room, looking at the forced smiles on everyone’s faces in their annual photos.

  Her father insisted they take the photos every year, and strangely he was the one who ended up being more upset by the end than anyone. A perfectionist, everything had to be under Sheriff John Colt’s absolute control.

  In the pictures, he always wore his uniform. She could see in the last four years of pictures where her brother Kyle had started to wear his own police uniform with her father. June was noticeably absent from these last photos. Her father never quite invited her to come back to take them, though she told herself if he had, she would have said yes, if only to preserve the peace.

  This willingness was never put to the test, though—he was the sort who expected compliance rather than ever directly asking for it.

  In the kitchen, she saw the source of all the cop cars outside. Despite her flippancy with Ram, having four squad vehicles outside was a bit much for the Colt household. There was her father, John Colt. June’s cousin, Theo. A friend of the family and son of the mayor, Paxton Prince. And, finally, June’s brother Kyle.

  All were cops.

  In fact, nearly every male in her family was a cop. Her great-grandfather had been Sheriff in Turant County. Her grandfather was a deputy. Her uncles had been Texas Rangers. Her brother was now a cop, and of course her father was a cop.

  That wasn’t all, naturally.

  Her great-grandfather had been gunned down in a bar when he was off-duty. Her grandfather lost his life in a gunfight over a robbed bank. Her uncles both were caught in an explosion from a booby-trap left by drug-runners in the desert. One was killed instantly, and the other took a few months to pass on in the hospital.

  Sheriff John Colt’s whole life was law enforcement, and for him, it had always been life or death. He lived a war, and the safest place for his family was for the other men to be fighting the war and the women to be kept safe at home.

  A grim prospect for June, and one of which she intended never to be a part.

  John Colt was a barrel of a man, a thick dark horseshoe ring of hair wrapped around his otherwise bald skull. Like most Texas cops, he often wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat when he worked, but it was off now in his home, as were the hats of the other men there. Each man’s hat hung on a post next to the back door.

  The four cops were pow-wowed around the kitchen table, the Sheriff presiding as he always did. June stopped, just outside the door, able to hear them but not intruding.

  “How many dead, did you say?” This was her father.

  “Three. One cop, two of the Flags. Both Mexicans, from their IDs.”

  “The dead cop being Ranklin, like I said.” Theo’s voice was full of venom. “Those bastard fucks. You gonna let me off the leash or what?”

  Bobby Ranklin was a childhood friend of Theo’s. If he was dead…that was bad news. Real bad news. Her heart filled with sympathy for Theo.

  He was a cop, and so that was a strike against him, but he was a gentle-hearted soul beneath all that. She had called him Teddy until he was sixteen and he took her aside and politely asked to call him Theo from now on. She’d always respected that. A different man would have rankled under the wrong name and never said a word, a worse man would have yelled and screamed at her.

  From her recollection, Theo was polite and quiet, to the point where most who didn’t know him saw him as brooding. To see him so angry now, his face contorting with anger and sadness, made June’s heart wrench.

  “Hold on, Theo. I’m thinking here.” Sheriff Colt wiped his face. “None of the Wrecking Crew dead? Hurt?”

  June’s interest perked up. Ram’s Crew was there? Had one of them shot the cop? God.

  “No,” said Prince. “We didn’t catch any of the Flags either.”

  “I don’t care about the Flags,” said Colt. “This isn’t their type of business. They don’t shoot cops in my county, they know well enough not to. You mark me, if anyone is responsible for this mess, it’s the Wrecking Crew. We got any positive ID on any of them?”

  “Nossir,” said Paxton. “It’s a mess right now. We’ve got some guesses, but all we know for sure right now is it was the Flags and the Crew doing the fighting.”

  “I’ll get you a positive ID,” said Theo. “
You send me over there, I’ll beat a confession out of every last one of those sons-of-bitches, you wait.”

  Theo’s anger held in the air for a moment before Colt continued.

  “Well,” said the Sheriff. “We can’t have it. We just can’t. This was what, fifty miles away?”

  “A hundred, Sheriff.”

  “Even so. That’s too close. That’s Marlowe County. My county. Murder in my county.”

  “It’s been quiet for a while,” said Theo. “Those Wrecking Crew were running a good business, keeping it low. But you’re right. If this is the spark of something, it’s going to be a hellstorm here. In fact—”

  Theo turned, and saw June waiting at the door. His face lit up.

  “Hey there, Junebug,” he said with a grin, clearly forcing it. He was still angry—but he was trying to be kind, now. “When did you get in? Y’all weren’t gonna tell me?” He looked around at the other men, who clearly were as surprised to see her as he was.

  Theo and June embraced briefly, hugging tight. June then passed herself around the room, hugging her brother Kyle tight (noticing, though, that he was somewhat removed from the affection), and giving a small half-hug to Paxton who she ardently hoped did not read too much into it.

  Paxton Prince had crushed on June for a long time during high school. She’d turned him down for dates time and again. When her mother found out, of course her father found out, and then her parents shared their displeasure with June’s choices over a series of dinners during her junior year.

  “Paxton has a future in this town,” “Paxton was old money,” all the same old song and dance.

  Finally she got a boyfriend—more to shut them up than anything else—which ended amicably once she graduated and left town.

  June came to her father, who stood up stiffly, arms held out. Their hug—the first time she had seen him in person for more than a year—was cool and short.

  “Good to see you, Dad,” she said, faking as best she could.

  “You too, honeybear.”

  There was a small, awkward silence that swept through the room. It was saved suddenly by the hard, high-pitched twang of her mother’s voice.

  “Is that my June?”

  The door slammed, her mother rushing into the kitchen with her arms full of groceries. She swept them down on the island counter and rushed to June, kissing her on the forehead and pulling her close.

  “It is! It’s so good to see you, baby. How are you? You look so thin. What have you been eating?”

  The rapid pace of questions was normal for her mother in times of excitement—one thought quickly replaced by another, each delivered with great importance.

  Sheila Colt was a small woman with the metabolism of a hummingbird, never quite understanding that others couldn’t tear through baked goods and daily desserts without a body weight variation of more than five pounds like she could.

  She led her neighborhood’s walking group, and the Veteran’s Welcome Home Association, and organized the spin classes at the local gym. Active, active, active—if she sat still, June was afraid she might be dying.

  In June’s last year of high school, her mother had come down with a sick case of kidney stones. She was supposed to be bed-ridden for a week, but sure enough, after two days, she was up and about, cooking meals and spending long hours on the treadmill talking to her friends across town like nothing had happened.

  Sheriff Colt cleared his throat.

  “Boys, you know what I want. You two,” he pointed at Kyle and Paxton. “Keep a good look out. And you,” he said to Theo, “do that thing we talked about, okay?”

  The cops began to clear out, military fashion, obedient to a tee. First Theo left, and then Kyle. June dug into the fridge, looking for a bottle of water, and when she turned back around, she noticed her mother and father were both gone, leaving her alone in the kitchen with Paxton.

  “Hey, June,” he said, holding the brim of his hat over his chest. “You’re looking great.”

  “Thanks.”

  This was eerie and gross, and it had her parents’ complicity written all over it. Paxton was a decent enough fellow. He had pale blond hair that was thinning on the top of his head, too pale for his comb over to be effective. A small paunch sat at the front of his stomach, but he was otherwise broad-shouldered and in good shape, with a pleasant face.

  In sum, he was breathtakingly average, but not in a dull way. Instead, it was the sort of dependable, heart-of-Texas way that put his sort of man into so many marriages after a girl’s wild times in college were finally “out of her system.”

  June couldn’t help but compare him to Ram, though—a living incarnation of every late night, lonely, desperate, dripping wet thought she’d ever had about screwing a bad boy.

  And Paxton simply didn’t measure up. If Ram incarnated trouble, then Paxton incarnated safety, and in the worst possible way.

  “I was thinking, now that you’re back in town, I could take you out one night. Show you around. There’s a new Italian place back from where the movie theater on Rio used to be, and—”

  “I don’t know about that,” June blurted. “I’m not…ready for that just yet. I had a relationship end not too long ago, and I’m still dealing with it. You understand, don’t you Paxton?”

  Ram wouldn’t understand. Ram would barely ask. He would ride up on to her lawn and carve holes into the lawn with his wheels until she got on the back and felt that hot thrill of horsepower thrumming between her legs. He’d take her by the arms and hold her down until she admitted just how brilliantly wet her pussy was for him.

  But Paxton did understand. “Oh,” he nodded. “Right. Sure. Of course. I just meant…as a welcome back. A good night out. But I understand. It’s fine.”

  It clearly wasn’t fine; he was blushing and disappointment spiked his face, but she couldn’t bring herself to care that much. She felt nothing for him four years ago, and she felt nothing for him now.

  He left, and June found her father and her mother sitting in the den, small frowns on their faces. She had little doubt they’d been listening in.

  “Kyle couldn’t stay?” June asked. “Get some family time in?”

  “He’s got a job,” said Colt. “You might have heard of those, even in Austin. You two can socialize later on.”

  Aaaaand, it begins. Super.

  It was little use telling him she’d had a job—she’d worked her butt off at it too. He might start asking her whether she was a waitress or a secretary.

  “I’m just so happy to see you,” said her mother, hugging her tight again. “How was the drive? I thought you would have been here a couple of hours ago. You usually get up so early…”

  “My phone died. And my car died. The radiator blew. But it’s in the shop now. I took care of it.” She said this looking in her father’s eyes very carefully. “So I’ll go take a look around tomorrow and see what the damage is.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Sheila. “That nice car you bought, how old was it?”

  “I’ve had it for two years.”

  “Might as well be two hundred, driving around that Asian junk,” said Colt. “How many times did I tell you to get a good American car? You buy yourself a Dodge, you’ll go fifteen thousand miles without even needing a mechanic, and that’s just the first year. Those things get better with age. Why,—”

  “John Colt,” said Sheila, “if you start lecturing the two of us about vehicles, you are not going to have your dinner.”

  Colt adjusted his belt, standing up. He walked to the kitchen and pulled his hat from the post. “Just as well,” he said. “I don’t have the cash to buy you some new car anyway.”

  “You didn’t pay for any car of mine, Dad,” June said, voice false-saccharine, “so don’t worry about it.”

  Sheila was ever the diplomat. She guided June back into the kitchen, toward the fridge, and started pulling out food. “Now, I made you some dip, I know you like it with the carrots and the ranch? And there’s a f
ew cookies in the jar over there. I’ve had drip beef cooking in the crock pot all afternoon, so I think it should be ready to go by dinnertime, and, well—”

  Colt interjected. “She’s going to be having dinner with Paxton, though. Wasn’t that what we said?”

  Sheila made a face, and then flashed an apologetic look at her daughter. “Well,” said Sheila. “That was one of the possibilities we discussed, yes.”

  June fought hard not to start yelling. “Paxton asked me out. I said no. So I’ll be having dinner here tonight.”

  Colt crossed his arms. “I told him you’d go out with him. Let him show you the town. And you, you’re telling me you told him to blow off? That ain’t right. That’s the mayor’s son. I can’t just tell him to—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Both of them looked with some surprise at June.

  Yes, people, I’ve added “hell” to my retinue of swears. Wait till you hear the rest.

  “I’m talking about Paxton Prince. He’s David Prince’s son,” said her father, as if this explained everything. “You know, the mayor.”

  June waited for the rest, jaw set to one side.

  “We just thought,” said her mother, “with you being single and all, why, you must be wanting for some fun. And Paxton is very handsome, and neatly well-to-do, and he’s been asking about you a lot. Apparently he thought you were real cute back in high school.”

  Colt nodded. “The two of you are going out tonight. You’ll have fun together.”

  The way her father said this indicated to June that this was more than a chance encounter, more than something put together at the last minute by Paxton. This felt like some kind of arrangement.

  A sardonic part of her wondered what the dowry was.

  “I really don’t think it’s appropriate for me to go out with him,” said June. “Or for you to make me a date.”

  “Why not?” said Colt. “You’re a woman. He’s a man. Men and women go on dates.”

  This was her chance. This was where she could tell him off. This was the time she could use to put her father in his place, finally, to let her know she was an independent person outside of the bounds of his ever-reaching claws.