RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (best books for students to read txt) 📗

Slade shifted his weight, then said, “You ain’t sacrificing yourself. Your time ain’t up yet to go out in a blaze of fucking glory. So get your ass to this safe house right the hell now. You don’t and I guess I’m just gonna have to send Willa down there to drag you back here. That’ll put her in a shitload of danger, which, from how you feel about her, I’m guessing you don’t want. So get up here and bring that truck of yours. I need you to pick my bike up on the way. It’s at the motel I was staying at. I’ll text you the address. You got me?”

There was a brief pause down the line, which had me tensing.

Then Ricky’s voice sounded again, “Fine. I’m on my way.”

“Good. Hurry your ass up,” Slade said.

He hung up before Ricky could say another word and handed the phone back to me. “There. It’s handled.” His gaze darted behind me at the targets in the distance. “Go back to what you were doing. You ain’t gonna get in a solid shot if your head ain’t clear.”

“It still isn’t,” I blurted out, before I could stop myself.

He stilled and eyed me curiously. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

It was beyond clear that he already knew the answer, but he was fishing. He wanted me to admit it, to admit that it had something to do with him. Everything to do with him.

I swallowed hard and put the words out there, words that I hated to utter at the best of times, to anybody, “I’m sorry.”

He remained silent, his only reaction, a slight arch of his eyebrow.

Dammit. He was going to make me work for it.

“I apologize, okay? I shouldn’t have said all of that in your bedroom this morning. I don’t think what happened was a mistake. In fact, I think we both needed it, to break the tension that’s been building so painfully between us.”

“All right, so you’re sorry. That it?”

“I…”

No. It really wasn’t.

But I couldn’t… I couldn’t seem to say it, to put it out there.

I couldn’t really admit it to myself. It was out of my wheelhouse.

Unprecedented.

Dangerous.

Unnerving.

Reckless.

He got the message and shook his head at me, then turned on his heel and stalked away back toward the house.

I scrubbed my hand over my face in distress and no small amount of frustration as I watched him go.

Shit.

15

~Slade~

WHAT THE FUCK?

I stepped out of the shower and reached for my towel, only to find that it wasn’t in its usual place. The blue one was mine. It was always in the same spot, where I always left it. I hadn’t checked when I’d come in earlier, because I’d been in a rush to take a quick shower so I could make it for the strategy meet we had in ten minutes.

I located it crumpled in a heap on the floor, soaking wet, next to a gray guest towel that Rick had used earlier when he’d taken a shower. Fucker.

I strode across the cold tile and ripped open the bathroom door, intending to find him in the basement where Willa had put him up when he’d arrived here last night. I made it down the hall, making a sharp turn toward the basement stairs, barking, “Hey, asshole! My towel’s a wet mess on the—”

A body slammed into mine, cutting off my tirade, and knocking the wind out of me.

“Shit!” a sexy, raspy voice cried.

I looked down to see Willa looking up at me, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open with the surprise of our collision.

She was pressed up against my wet, naked body.

That familiar desire flared between us.

I could feel the heat from her all over my exposed skin.

My cock started to react.

And then something smacked into the back of my head, jarring me from the moment, and making me jerk back from Willa.

I managed to catch what had hit me, finding myself clutching a clean, dry towel. Turning, I found Rick grinning between the two of us.

I took another step back from Willa and fixed the towel around my waist.

“What the—” I started, about to lay into him.

He held up his finger and cut in, “I made pancakes. Want some?”

“What I want is for you to fucking well—”

“Yes, we would,” Willa interrupted, stepping around me and walking to him. She shot me a look. Play nice.

I gritted my teeth and responded, “Fine. I’m gonna get dressed. Meet you there in a few,” I told them.

They both gave me a nod and headed back toward the kitchen.

I strode to my room and threw open the door way harder than I needed to.

Jeez. What was my problem? It was clear that it was about more than a stupid towel. But I was the one who’d asked Rick to come to the safehouse. I’d ordered him here.

I crossed to the dresser and pulled out a pair of boxers, black jeans, and a matching black tee. As I dressed quickly, I tried to figure out what was going on with me and why I was being so hostile. I was aware they’d fucked and I’d accepted it, as much as you ever could those kind of things. So, it weren’t that.

I’d just shrugged my tee on when it hit me.

A roadblock.

That’s what he was right now.

It weren’t his fault. It was just the timing. He’d walked into it without knowing a thing about it. I was sure he’d figured it out even in just the few hours he’d been here. The tension between Willa and me weren’t exactly hard to hide. The thing was, she was welcoming the interruption and upheaval. She wanted to keep pretending this thing between us didn’t exist, that we hadn’t both gotten under each other’s skins. But there was something there.

I hadn’t been looking for it. I definitely hadn’t wanted it. I’d gone twenty-odd years without thinking about going there again with a woman. And, yeah, the timing weren’t the best with me about