Page 47 of Riding Hard

I go on to explain that every time I ran, Victor would drag me back, and once I was healed enough to run again, that’s what I did. And that I ended up in Vegas, hoping I would be a small enough fish in a big enough pond that he wouldn’t find me.

But he did.

Every single time.

And the night before I came here, he’d found me. “My car broke down right outside Boulder City. I walked to the first gas station and called a tow. It wasn’t worth fixing, but the tow truck driver gave me a ride to the motel, and I let him keep the car for scrap metal.”

“And you haven’t seen him here yet?” Slade asks.

Shaking my head a couple of times, I press my lips together, rubbing them. “I didn’t think about this before, but it hit me that he has to have been tracking me somehow. I’ve been careful about only working under the table, not having utilities or bills mailed. Everything is by email. So either there was something on my piece-of-shit car or my phone.”

Slade growls, but he doesn’t say anything. “Alex helped me get a new phone and destroy my old one.”

“Thank fuck for that,” he barks.

Then, as if he’s done with the conversation—maybe even with me—he stands so fast the chair behind him goes flying. He turns his back to me, walking away, but stops almost as abruptly.

Slowly, he turns to face me and dips his chin slightly, his eyes looking directly into mine. I suck in a breath, holding it as I wait for him to end what’s just begun because I know it’s coming. It has to be, because there is no way in hell he wants all this drama.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

LOOT

Closing the distance between us, I reach down, curl my fingers around her ribs, and drag her body across the bed. Tilting my head to the side, I touch my mouth to hers. She gasps before I slip my tongue inside, swirling it with her own.

Grinding my hips against her belly, I moan down her throat. My cock is already hardening, ready to be inside her. Breaking the kiss, I nibble on her bottom lip, then make my way down her throat, stopping at the center of her chest before I flick my gaze up to her.

“Slade,” she breathes.

I hum against her flesh as I tug at her jean shorts. She reaches down, pushing them off. “Please, Slade. One more time.”

I stop. Lifting my head, I look up at her as her chin dips and her eyes find mine. We stare at one another for a moment in silence. Then I push up a little farther. I cannot believe what she’s just said, and I need clarification.

“What?” I ask. “What the fuck are you saying to me right now?”

She blinks.

Then she clears her throat. “Before you break this off, end this, whatever, one more time.”

“You think I’m ending this?”

Anger fills me. It consumes me. I cannot believe she thinks this is over. How can it be over when all I want is to be inside her? I would fucking live inside her cunt if I could. And I don’t really give a fuck how that makes me sound. I’m quite possibly one-hundred-percent addicted to her.

“Not ending a fucking thing, Juliette,” I grind out.

“But Victor,” she whispers. “I don’t want anything to happen to Cade, and if I’m around and he finds me… I just couldn’t bear it if anything happened.”

I almost laugh, because that shit is fucking ridiculous. “You think I couldn’t protect you and Cade against some little fucker from LA?” I ask.

She pushes up on her elbows, her gaze never leaving mine. My lips twitch into a smirk because it is laughable that she thinks I couldn’t protect them. Even without the club at my back, I could handle this, but with the club at my back, no little pissant woman-beater is going to best me.

“He keeps finding me, and it wouldn’t be right to potentially put Cade in danger. It’s fine when it’s me. But I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to him and it was my fault.”

“He won’t find you anymore, Jules. And if he does, I won’t let him get to you.”

Her fingers curl around my biceps as she holds on to me. “Slade,” she breathes. “This is too much to ask.”