Page 3 of Hard Ride

“Yep.So you should be pissed at him too.Goddamned cock blocker.”Kyra gritted her teeth as she marched through the roadies and fans gathered in the hopes of glimpsing Kason.

Instead of foaming at the mouth, Ollie turned apologetic, making Kyra hesitate.“Look, I shouldn’t have started something tonight without talking about it first.I didn’t mean to make things more difficult for you and for him.I consider both of you friends.Let me fix this, please.”

“Friends?”Was Ollie changing his mind, too?Had tonight been just anothermistake?Maybe he hadn’t wanted anything other than a few stolen kisses.Kyra staggered, giving Ollie a chance to get ahead of her.She followed a few paces behind as he approached Van, who’d stationed himself near Kason once more.

Her stomach churned.Had she read the situation wrong?

Kason looked at the head of his security team and frowned.“Everything okay?He didn’t give you any trouble, did he?”

“Who, Rick?No.”Van gestured at a couple of the Hot Rods—Sabra and Holden—who’d been huddled up, talking with Kason.“But Ollie, that weaselly little shit that works with you?You can take him right back to Middletown.If he doesn’t get out of my face soon…”

Kyra stared, her jaw dropping open.Van never pulled shit like this.How dare he act like some jealous and possessive lover when he’d flatly rejected her?

Ollie caught up to Van, breathing hard, and said, “Van, I’m sorry.I know you have a thing for her.”

What?That was news to Kyra.Ollie didn’t have all the facts.Didn’t know how Van had turned her away.Surely Van was about to set the record straight, which would only add to her humiliation with all their friends and co-workers gathered around.

Except he didn’t tell them how he’d spurned her attention.Nope.

“Then why’d you have your tongue stuffed hallway down her throat?I thought we were friends, asshole.”The entire world went into slow motion then.As Kyra tried to make sense of what Van was saying and his displaced indignation, he pulled back and sucker punched Ollie.

Then everything sped up again and happened in a rush.

Kaelyn and Nola, who were married to two mechanics, Kaige and Bryce, at Hot Rods—the classic car sister shop to Hot Rides motorcycle restorations—swooped in.They protected Ollie from Van’s ire.Their husbands grabbed Van, trying to force him to settle down.

Kyra exploded.

She’d never been spurred to violence against another human being before, but Van brought things out of her, dark and wild and—apparently—potentially aggressive things.

She strode up to him and kneed him square in the nuts.

Kyra shouted over the din of celebrating fans and friends who hadn’t yet caught on to their altercation.“How dare you act like you want me now that someone else is interested?How many times have I thrown myself at you?”

Her voice shredded.She swore to God that if Van made her cry here in front of everyone they knew and admired, she would knee him again, twice as hard.

He grunted and looked up at her like he might try to argue if only he could force words out around the discomfort she’d put him in.

“You idiot!You didn’t have the right to say jack shit to me or ruin my night.Fuck you.”When he didn’t apologize, she sprang at Van again.This time the women surrounding her deflected her.

“Hey, come on.”Wren wedged herself between Van and Kyra.She held out her hand.“You’re going to be pissed at yourself for this tomorrow.Come with us.We’ll eat a ton of that ice cream I saw in your dressing room and figure out how to handle this better.”

Devra, another of their friends from Middletown, spoke to Kyra like she was a wild animal caught in a trap of her own making.She came in close and murmured so Kyra had to relax to even hear her.“Don’t give them the satisfaction of seeing you upset.Let’s go.You can settle this once you’re thinking straight.”

Kyra nodded, her body going numb.The exertion and endorphins from the show, the rush of kissing Ollie, the guilt of being caught, and the rage Van’s confusing reactions had elicited had left her empty.Dazed.Traumatized, even.

Yeah, she needed a big ass sundae.

Ollie shouted her name.She jerked, but refused to look him or Van in the eye.

Devra and Wren steered Kyra toward her dressing room, bolstering her with well-meaning lies about how men were dumb while promising everything would be okay once the dust settled.

Ollie tried again to pierce the wall of people keeping them safely separated.Van shouted her name too.

“Stop.Both of you.I just want to be alone,” Kyra said loud enough to be heard, though still without looking back.If everyone around her knew she was lying out her ass, they didn’t call her on it.

Instead, Devra and Wren ushered her into her dressing room, then shut the door behind them.

---