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

So, he wasn’t just tired, he was done.

With the club.

With everything.

The surprise of it all had me pausing with my response.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” he teased.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Seems that way, yes.” Blowing out a breath, I leaned back in my chair and eyed him questioningly. “That’s a hell of a thing. You’ve been club your whole life.”

“And you’ve been doing this kinda thing all yours. You really gonna tell me you ain’t never thought about getting out and walking away from all this?”

I shrugged. “Maybe once or twice.”

He scrutinized me. “Nah, you’re lying. Seems I ain’t the only tired one here, yeah?”

This was getting far too personal.

So, I shut it down quickly. Straightening and squaring my shoulders, I held out my hand to him. “I trust you brought the specs with you?”

He gave me a look that let me know he was onto my forced subject change to get the heat off myself. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and tossed a wad of papers onto my desk.

“Is this everything you have on the proposed targets?” I asked, as I began scanning them to see what I was working with.

“Yeah. They ain’t major players, not in life, and not when they were with the Strikers.”

Despite that, as I flipped through the documents, it was clear his research was fairly expansive. He’d certainly come prepared.

“Okay. Let me evaluate the targets and I’ll come back to you with a decision.”

“What?” he barked. “You put me through this bull and you ain’t gonna take on the job?”

“I didn’t say that. I need time to weigh the risks, to determine if a sure-fire plan can be formulated.”

“There ain’t no such thing as sure-fire in our world.”

“I like to get as close to it as possible.”

“Bullshit.”

I leaned forward and told him firmly, “This is my process. You came to me, Slade. You wanted my cautious approach for a reason. If I had to guess, it has a hell of a lot to do with your extremely high-risk takedown of Nik Stone and the major players of the Strikers Motorcycle Club. The fallout has tied your hands. You need to continue to lay low and be seen as operating above board for a long time. You can’t actively target these remaining former members without risking exposure and incurring the wrath of the law. I am your only choice.” I rose to my feet. “So, with that in mind, how about you summon some semblance of patience and let me do my damned job, yes?”

I took in his reaction and he seemed an odd mixture of pissed and turned-on.

His eyes ran the length of my body, taking in every inch of me, like he was imprinting a mental picture in his memory. Or, more like cementing the first one he’d already catalogued of me from a few years back.

He abruptly got to his feet and smirked at me. “All right.”

“All right?”

“Yeah, you got yourself a deal.”

He held out his hand.

Confused by his sudden easy acceptance, I reached out and clasped it.

As we shook hands firmly, he winked at me. “Like your style. Always have.”

“I thought it pissed you off beyond belief.”

“People go out of their way not to piss me off. Takes guts to go the other route, to stand your ground against a man like me. You’re one of the few. I respect that. Plus, it means you ain’t gonna hold back on the truth and I like that, big time.”

I smiled. Just when you thought you’d figured him out, he threw something else out there that had you recalibrating everything.

He pulled his hand away and actually had the good manners to push his chair in before he started for the door. As he pulled it open, he turned back to me and asked, “A week’s time, yeah?”

“We’ll see.”

“All right. Be seeing ya, Willa.”

3

~Slade~

A FUCKING GODDESS.

Curves for days.

Soft, golden hair wrapped around my fist.

Eyes sucking me in deep.

Lips tasting like sin.

Her tight, wet pussy strangling my cock with a vise-grip.

Sweat pouring.

Bodies slamming.

Nails scraping.

Tongues tasting.

Teeth biting.

Hard. Dirty. Rough as all hell.

The kinda fuck that stayed with you.

Shame it weren’t real.

My eyes snapped open and reality came slamming back.

I grunted with agitation at being pulled from such a hot and heavy dream. Normally, when I closed my eyes for more than a few minutes, there was just hell on the other side. Nightmares full of darkness, pain and death.

Somehow, she’d cut through all that.

Willa Rose.

Such a sweet name for a major hardass with balls of fucking steel.

The damn woman had gotten inside my head somehow, affected me. That meeting was supposed to be straight-up business. But there was just something about her.

It’d hit me in the gut the very first moment we’d met and each time I’d encountered her since, I’d gone from being on the verge of exploding with rage to being damn near desperate to fuck her all over, every-fucking-where possible. I’d never met anybody who’d managed to rile me up like that.

I needed to get a grip. I couldn’t be thinking like this. Especially not about somebody I was doing dangerous business with. Not about nobody else either. I didn’t take a liking to a woman. I never let myself connect that way. I got my rocks off when I needed to and that was as far as it went. One shot deals. My life wasn’t built for anything beyond that. It was just more hassle and bullshit stress. Being Prez of Steel Titans brought me more than enough of that.

Sure, if everything went to plan in the next while, I’d no longer have that burden on my back. But even then I couldn’t imagine going that route with any woman again. Been there, done that. And I had the scars to prove it. Going there meant being open, vulnerable. And that weren’t me. That kinda trust didn’t come easy for me, let alone when it came to the