Page 8 of Ash (Dragon Riders MC 3)
The girl snickered. “My hips won’t fit through that window. You can mark my words.”
Sly clicked his tongue. “Yeah, well. Neither will your president’s breasts, so.”
Slash’s eyes widened. “Hey, now.”
The girl scoffed. “I’m not part of this crew. Slash is my cousin, and nothing else.”
Slash balked. “And nothing else? Really, Hannah?”
I sighed. “We can argue and die, or we can run and get out alive. What do you guys want?”
A random voice sounded behind me. “We want to live.”
I nodded. “Then, shut up and follow me. Sly?”
“Yeah, Ash?”
“Meet us around front. We’ll have to do one girl to a rider to get out of here.”
Even though I wanted nothing more than to take—what was her name, Hannah? —in my arms and kiss her stupid, I had to get her out alive first. With a renewed sense of purpose and vigor, I led the girls down the hallway. I cleared every corner we turned until we found our way out onto the porch where Sly waited for all of us.
But I still had this unsettling feeling in my gut.
“Did you see anyone else?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. You?”
“Not a damn soul.”
“You mean to tell me the only guy here is the one I took down in the hallway?”
Link appeared from the darkness. “Seems to be that way.”
Knuckles walked up behind us. “I don’t know. There’s something off about all of this.”
Bowser walked up beside me. “You find all the girls?”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “All of them are accounted for.”
Then, a bullet whizzed by my head.
“Get down! Now!” I roared.
Another muffled bullet whizzed by my shoulder and I turned around. I threw myself at Hannah, taking her to the ground as I covered her body with my own. Gunfire rained down upon us as I reached for the one on my hip. Ready to end the firefight these assholes had started.
“To our bikes!” Link exclaimed.
With one arm wrapped around Hannah, I pulled both of us up from the ground. I held her close to me as her soft body trembled against my own, cursing Slash in an uproar. A shadow moved just beside the cabin and I took aim, popping a bullet off straight in its gut. And when the shadowed figure fell to the ground, I faced Hannah.
“You ever been on a bike?” I asked.
She snickered. “What am I, a princess? Yes, I’ve been on a bike.”
“Great. Come with me.”
I picked her up over my shoulder and she screamed. Her fists beat against my back, and it made me grin. It was a cute endeavor, trying to hurt me. But she wouldn't have enough strength in four of her to hurt me the way she thought she was.
“Fall back! Fall back!” Bowser yelled.
I continued dropping shadows to their knees as we scrambled to get back to our bikes. We let the woods and the brush cover us as we backtracked, following the path of glow-in-the-dark paint Knuckles sloshed on the ground for us to follow. It led us all the way back to our bikes, where I planted Hannah firmly on the back.
And even though her eyes were wild with anger, it didn’t make me want to kiss her any less.
If anything, it made me want to kiss her more.4HannahI didn’t know what just happened and I sure as hell didn’t know who the fuck this mountain of a man was. But all I knew was that I needed to cling to him for dear life. As the engine rumbled between my legs and my hands fisted his leather jacket, I squeezed my eyes closed. My thighs clung to him, trying to stay on the bike as we tore through dirt, rocks, and potholes. I buried my face into his back, hoping and praying we made it out alive long enough for me to slap this man for handling me the way he did.
I mean, who the hell told him he could toss me over his shoulder?
Gunfire rang out in the distance and it scared me. It genuinely scared me. What the hell had my cousin roped me into? What in the world did she expect us to weather for some cash? This was supposed to be an easy in and out sort of thing. No muss, no fuss. Her words, exactly.
I’m never trusting Slash again.
Wind whipped around us as the trees finally broke. The bumbling around of the bike’s tires against uneven dirt finally settled down as we hit the first paved road in four miles. I released my thighs while my legs burned. It felt like a million needles were poking into the tops of my hands. I’d clung to this man so hard everything in my body went numb. And I wanted to tell him to pull the hell over so I could get off.
But he must’ve had the same idea.
