Page 4 of Rebel
“There is no us, and I’m not going anywhere with you, fucker” Rebel spat.
Bolt smirked at her. “Suit yourself,” he said. Savage tossed him the keys to his truck, and he hoisted Rebel over his shoulder. She gave him a fight, but he had expected her to. She shouted at him to put her down, kicking and screaming at him as he walked out of Savage’s office. He swatted her ass, telling her to calm down, but that only seemed to piss her off more. Yeah, Rebel was a handful, and he had to admit, she felt right up against his body—not that he’d break the bro code and do anything about it. He owed his partner at least that much.
Rebel
“What the hell is wrong with you? Put me down, you Neanderthal.” Rebel shouted as Bolt carried her out into the parking lot. She was sure that the guys in the bar had enjoyed the fucking show—especially when Bolt swatted her ass for giving him trouble. Hell, she enjoyed it too, but telling the Neanderthal that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m not giving you a choice about whether or not you’re coming with me. I promised your brother that I’d keep you safe, and this is me keeping my promise,” Bolt said, letting her slide down his body to the ground. Rebel felt every inch of the man, and she wondered if he planned that or not.
“I’m a grown woman and can take care of myself,” Rebel insisted. “Asshole,” she quickly added.
“Yeah,” Bolt drawled, “you were doing such a good job of that, too. I mean, where did I just pick you up?” She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but she figured that he’d find that amusing. The more she insulted the guy, the more he seemed to enjoy it.
“That wasn’t my fault,” she shouted.
“You weren’t trying to outrun a cop?” he asked.
“I was unjustly being pulled over, and trying to get to Jace,” she explained. “I was worried about him.”
“Well, I can tell you that Jace wouldn’t approve of you speeding through town and then trying to outrun the cop trying to pull you over to give you a ticket,” he said.
“Had I known what Jace did for a living, I might not have worried so much, or sped through town,” she countered. “If he hadn’t lied to me all this time, I might not have ended up in a jail cell.”
Bolt barked out his laugh, “You’ve never lied to your brother about something?” he asked. She wasn’t about to tell him that she had kept her working at a strip club, and worse, as a prostitute, from her brother. That wasn’t something that she’d ever willingly share with Jace or anyone else.
“What I keep and share with my brother is none of your business,” Rebel insisted. Her phone chimed, and she pulled it from her pocket, hoping that it might be Jace finally calling her back. But it wasn’t. Instead, she found a name across the screen that made her cringe.
“Kirk Atwood,” Bolt said, looking over her shoulder. “Who’s he?” he asked.
“Again, none of your business,” she spat. She turned off her phone and shoved it back into her pocket. Kirk used to be a client of hers—back when she was meeting her regulars at the local motel in town. Kirk usually reached out to her once a month, and every time he did, she told him that she wasn’t still meeting clients on the side. It had been almost a year since she had seen him, but he still couldn’t seem to take the hint and leave her alone. Every month, he’d tell her that if she changed her mind, she knew how to get hold of him.
But for some reason, Kirk started taking things a step further about two months ago when he found out where sheworked. He’d show up at the clothing boutique, pretending to be shopping for a friend or girlfriend, but he never purchased anything. Instead, he stood by the registrar and talked Rebel’s ear off. Her boss wasn’t thrilled about the older guy hanging around, monopolizing Rebel’s time. And when she’d ask Rebel about how she knew the guy, she would usually just shrug off the question, saying that they had gone out to dinner together a few times. She could tell that her boss wasn’t buying her lame explanation, and she couldn’t blame her.
After Kirk’s first few visits to the boutique, Rebel realized that he wasn’t going to stop—even if she asked him nicely. She promised her boss that she’d go down to the police station and get a restraining order against the guy, but when the officer asked about her relationship with the person she wanted to keep at a distance, she couldn’t go through with it. Her past was quickly invading her present, and she couldn’t let that happen. Especially not after she had finally found a job that she loved at the boutique. So, she made Kirk some unkept promises, and when she didn’t follow through with meeting him at the motel that they used to meet at, he became irate. Her boss finally called the cops to have him removed from the boutique, and he wasn’t allowed to come within five hundred feet of the store.
He hung around the shopping center, waiting for her to get out of work each night, and when she got home to her little apartment, she’d bolt herself inside and not answer the door—even when Kirk tried to pound it in. He was officially stalking her, and the only good thing to come with having to leave town to track down Jace was that she could finally leave Kirk in her rearview—she just hoped that he stayed there.
“You don’t look too happy that he’s calling you,” Bolt assessed. “Is he your ex or something?” Or something was right, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. It would only lead to more questions from Bolt, and all she wanted to do was find a hoteland get some sleep. It had been a damn long day, and the sexy, nosey biker was starting to grate on her last nerve.
“I’m tired,” she admitted, “where is the closest hotel?”
“You’re not going to stay in a hotel around here,” Bolt insisted. “We’ve been through all of this already.”
“Okay, fine, a motel then,” she said. “I’m not picky.”
“No motels either,” Bolt grumbled. “I’m not sure that you understood Savage and me when we said that Jace might have blown his cover, which means that you’re in danger.”
She looked around the parking lot and back at Bolt. “I don’t see any danger, do you?” she asked.
“Be that as it may, I’ve promised Jace to keep an eye on you, and I can’t do that if you’re in a hotel or motel. You’ll be staying with me. The Royal Bastards have a little house about fifteen minutes from here. We’ll be safe there, and Jace will know how to get in touch with me if he needs me.”
“I think you should call Jace and let me talk to him. I can’t stay with someone I don’t know. You and I have only just met, and I can’t be expected to shack up with you, Bolt,” she insisted. Rebel was trying everything she could to get out of having to stay with the biker. She wasn’t kidding when she told him that she didn’t need a babysitter. She had been taking care of herself since she was eighteen, and there was no way that she’d start relying on a total stranger now to do that job for her.
“Jace is off grid. He can’t use his phone. Hell, he probably has it turned off or destroyed it by now. He’ll use burner phones and call me when he can. For now, you’re just going to have to trust me. Jace wants you to stay with me so that I can keep you safe.” Rebel blew out her breath, knowing that she was fighting a losing battle.
“I want my own room,” she insisted.
“There are three bedrooms in the house, but only one bed in the master. You can take the master, and I’ll sleep on the sofa downstairs,” he said.
