Page 8 of Her Obsessed Biker
This was never a real plan. I left everything behind chasing a ghost. Just a name in a letter and a place scribbled in the margin.
Jackson Ridge.
I haven’t eaten since this morning. I’ve got thirty-seven bucks to my name, a phone with a cracked screen, and a growing suspicion that this whole thing was a huge mistake.
God, I’m such an idiot.
I stop next to the driver’s side door and lean my forehead against the window, closing my eyes. Maybe I should just sleep in the truck tonight. Save the money. Hope no one decides to rob me while I’m parked behind a gas station.
Before I can make up my mind, I hear the sound of boots scraping against the gravel. I look up to see three men walking toward me.
Bikers.
They round the corner of the building like they’ve been waiting for me to be alone. I don’t recognize them from the bar. They’re older. Dirtier. Cuts hanging off their backs like afterthoughts. One’s got a face full of piercings, the second has a tattoo of a bleeding skull across his throat, and the third looks like he hasn’t blinked since Vietnam.
“Well, well…” the pierced one drawls, stepping closer. “Look what wandered out all by herself.”
My spine stiffens as the others fan out around me like wolves circling a rabbit.
“You lost, sweetheart?” the throat-tat guy asks, grinning with brown teeth. “We could help you find your way.”
I take a step back, pressing against the truck door, my fingers curling into fists.
“Back off,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “I’m not interested.”
They laugh. Loud, obnoxious. One of them makes a kissing noise. Another whistles low.
“I think she’s shy,” says Piercings, his eyes crawling over me like slime. “Maybe we should help her loosen up a bit.”
My heart kicks against my ribs.
I’m just about to yell, just about to make a run for it, when he appears.
Rock.
No warning. No sound. He just steps out of the shadows like a goddamn phantom, all muscle and menace, the streetlamp casting his face in hard lines and steel.
The air shifts, all three men freezing like prey who just spotted the alpha predator.
Rock doesn’t say a word at first. Just looks at them with that cold, calculating stare that could cut granite in half. His arms are loose at his sides, but I can feel the violence radiating off him like heat.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” His voice is quiet. Controlled.
Lethal.
Piercings takes a half step back. “We—we didn’t know she was with the club—”
“She’s not,” Rock says, still calm. “But she’s in my territory. That makes her mine.”
The way he says it sends a shiver right through my spine.
Not an offer.
Not a threat.
A statement of fact.
“Sorry, man,” mutters Throat-Tat, holding up his hands. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
