Page 44 of Ride Hard
Sloane
The next morning,we were back on the road before the sun had a chance to peek over thehorizon.
I leaned against the window, watching the sky lighten and the stars disappear. Red, orange, and gold streaked overhead, the beauty dulled by the proximity ofdanger.
I didn’t like not speaking toChaser.
Even though he pissed me off more often than he turned me on, the silence made me uneasy. The things he’d admitted to last night should’ve settled some of the gnawing in my chest, but it hadn’t. Questions had been answered with words that’d stirred up even more unknowns. About the men who were trying to kill me, about Chaser and his involvement with Fortitude, and about his feelings towardme.
How was I supposed to know if he was telling the truth when there were so many secrets betweenus?
Shit, the man was even more fucked up than Iwas.
“Have you ever seen that movieThelma and Louise?” I asked sometime between dawn andmidday.
“No.”
“Because you’re Louise, and I’m Thelma.” I waited, but he didn’t react. “Wanna knowwhy?”
He glanced sidelong at me. “Notreally.”
“Louise is the levelheaded one,” I said, not caring if he wanted to listen or not. I just needed some noise. “She’s got the clear-cut plan. Thelma is an abused housewife who goes on a trip with her best friend—that’s you—only to become the victim of an attempted rape. Louise saves her by shooting and killing the guy, so they go on this road trip across America to escape thelaw.”
“I can see the parallels, but it’s not the same,” Chaserdrawled.
“Since when do bikers use the wordparallels.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re not doing a good job of hiding your educated ex-marinepast.”
“Who said I was amarine?”
“I don’t know. Were you?” I gave him a pointed stare, which only earned me another full minute ofsilence.
Nothing. He didn’t even flinch. I glanced at his cock but couldn’t decide if he was hard ornot.
“Stop looking at my cock,Sloane.”
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, as the movie goes along, Thelma awakens as this law-breaking badass. She robs a gas station, and they blow up a tanker after the driver makes a lewd gesture at them. Does female empowerment make youhard?”
He gritted his teeth. “Is there a point tothis?”
“I’m not going to peer over my shoulder all day,” I said, staring at my reflection in the side mirror. “Or for the rest of this road trip to the seventh layer of Hell. Fuck ’em. I want a gun, Chaser. Specifically mine. I want to beThelma.”
“No.”
“Why not?” I was on the verge of pouting and stamping my foot, but I’d already promised to stop the ‘too stupid to live through stubbornness’ routine. Besides, it wasn’t appropriate to give a firearm to achild.
“I don’t need to explain myself toyou.”
And there he was being all alpha asshole again. Up and down like we were on the mother of all seesaw moodswings.
“Don’t you like me challenging your masculinity?” I asked. “I said I’d let youfu—”
“Sloane.” He sighed and tightened his grip on the wheel. “I told you already. I care about you, I do, but it’s my job to protect you. Mine alone. You’re not making it easy forme.”
“Ditto.”
I could go on all day and night about how he was wearing a mask. About how he was hiding some big secret about the douchebags hunting us. I could crap on about a lot of things, but when it came to me having a gun? It should be a no-brainer.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” I said. “I want to beThelma.”
