FLASH (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 15) Read online

  “It was,” she managed to say as she let his hand warm hers.

  There was something there between them that she couldn’t name. She had known him for so long, and she had seen him so regularly, it was bizarre to think of him as anything but a guy about town. One of the bikers. A dangerous man with a dangerous past.

  But there he was with her.

  Looking deep into her eyes, holding her hand, making her skin tingle as she remembered how he’d made love to her the night before.

  What a goddam night.

  “Thank you for the coffee,” she said as she took a sip.

  She honestly didn’t know what else to say. She was overwhelmed with shyness and also the fact that she couldn’t believe he was there with her. He was like a god. And she had him in her bedroom. She had seen him naked and done things with him that she had never done with anyone.

  How would she ever be able to look at him again without feeling not only intense pangs of desire but also the need to run?

  “That’s cool,” he smiled. “How about we go and get some breakfast?”

  He was looking at her with raised eyebrows and a ton of hope and Kady knew she was about to close the door.

  Never a biker.

  That’s what she had always told herself.

  No matter how hot they are. No matter how much you might want it.

  Never get involved with an outlaw. Because they will break your heart.

  She shook her head slowly and her excitement began to ebb into disappointment.

  “I don’t think so,” she said sadly.

  Flash’s expression changed to one of both hurt and shock. But he nodded his head and gave her hand a little squeeze before he got to his feet and bent down to find his t-shirt.

  As he pulled it on over his head and she saw how his incredibly sculpted and tanned body flexed with each movement, she wanted to kick herself.

  What are you doing? You’re a complete idiot!

  But it was too late. She had rejected him and now she was going to have to live with it.

  He came up to her and brushed her hair over her shoulder as he smiled sadly.

  “It was a great night,” he said as he held her gaze.

  “It was,” she whispered, her heart a raging mess inside her chest. “Thank you…”

  She didn’t know what to thank him for. But she knew she wanted to thank him for something.

  For bringing her back to life?

  For making her feel wanted?

  For sticking around?

  She didn’t know, all she knew was that this was hard and she didn’t want to be sending him away.

  “Goodbye Kady,” he smiled sadly as he leaned down and kissed her on the top of the head.

  When he removed his hand and his heat disappeared with him, she instantly felt a sense of loss. She wanted it back but he was already moving toward the door.

  “See you around,” he said as he looked back over his shoulder and gave her a half smile.

  He closed the door behind him and she listened to his footsteps go throughout the house and down to the front door. When he opened it and closed it behind him, it was only a matter of seconds before the roar of his motorcycle screamed out around her street and sent the neighborhood dogs into a barking frenzy.

  She pulled her knees up to her chest and placed the mug of coffee down on the side table.

  She had slept with Flash.

  And then she had sent him away.

  “You’re such an idiot,” she said aloud to herself as she flopped back into her bed and pulled the covers up over her head.

  But the damage was done.

  She had turned him away and now she knew she was going to regret it.

  After the best night of her life, now she was having the worst morning of the life.

  “What a way to ride that rollercoaster,” she said to herself as she blinked away a tear.

  She felt complete and at a loss at the same time.

  “Well, Kady, your fear of men and relationships has really surpassed itself this time,” she laughed as she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to hold herself as tightly as Flash had done the night before.

  But it was pointless, it wasn’t the same.

  She had thrown caution to the wind and let her primal urges take over. She had had the time of her life, but this morning, she had brought them both crashing back into reality.

  “He only would have left you anyway,” she told herself bitterly as she closed her eyes. “At least, this way, you kept the control.”

  And she didn’t know if she truly believed that, but that was the way it was going to have to be.

  He had made her feel alive, and she had turned him down anyway.

  The Kady Curse strikes again… she thought as she tried to convince herself back to sleep.

  But she knew she wouldn’t be able to.

  She had the feeling she was going to be having sleepless nights for a very long time to come.

  2.

  Six weeks later…

  Kady let the hot water from the shower stream down her entire body as she ran her hands through her hair and basked in the heat.

  For a desert morning, it had been unnaturally chilly, and as she had rose and began her morning routine, she had shivered as she waited for the water to heat, leading her to crank it up even higher.

  “Monday mornings,” she sighed as she rinsed the last bit of conditioner from her hair and turned off the tap. “Oh, how I love them.”

  She chuckled to herself as she wrapped herself up in a big fluffy towel and began to wrap her hair in a turban. It was only seven am but she had already been awake for an hour and she knew she had a lot of ground to cover before she headed out the front door and began her hectic week.

  She dressed quickly and smoothed on some concealer and blush, making her skin look dewy and clean. She always loved the feeling of fresh make-up, and as she carried her coffee and her vanity bag down the stairs with her she knew she was going to enjoy spending the next twenty minutes perfecting her look whil she munched on some granola and worked on her accounts.

  The kitchen was dark with the blinds down, and when she opened them, the sunlight started to filter its way in and open her up to the day. She sipped her coffee, which was already lukewarm, and flipped through an old newspaper before she settled down at her table and opened her laptop.

  She was always leaving things until the last minute, and her accounts were no different.

  “When will you learn…” she scolded herself as she opened the spreadsheets and cringed at all the numbers and stats that were swimming in front of her.

  She looked up at the clock.

  Seven-thirty.

  She didn’t have to open up the salon until nine so she had at least an hour to lose herself in her work and try and make some headway so she wouldn’t have to waste another whole night on them as she had been doing for the past few days.

  “Today, you are going to finish these and get them filed,” she told herself sternly. “No questions asked. No buts about it.”

  She found herself looking up at the clock again and knew it was going to be one of those mornings. But at least she was her own boss. She always had that to be thankful for.

  She walked down Main Street with her bag slung over her shoulder and a spring in her step. It was already shaping up to be another beautiful day in Slate Springs and Kady had never been more proud or grateful for her little town. She could still remember the moment she realized she had been born into a little slice of heaven, and the feeling of warmth she experienced every time it touched her was addictive.

  Kady had never had the urge to flee her hometown, like so many of the girls she had grown up with. Instead, she had always known there was opportunity right there on her doorstep and she had taken advantage of all the town had to offer. She had started her own beauty business from home when she was nineteen, and it was pure luck that by the time she had turned twenty-two a few of the spaces on Main Stre
et had become available as some of the other members of the town had passed away or retired.

  Kady had been ecstatic when she had secured her space right in the middle of the busiest road in Slate Springs. She had set up shop and rented the store from the local bike gang, The Forsaken Riders, and she had never looked back. And she was even luckier that, in a bid to increase enterprise and keep the town thriving, the bikers had given her a wicked deal on the rent. No sky high fees for her, just honest and reasonable rates. It really had been a dream come true.

  She ducked into the coffee house and ordered her usual latte before she headed back out into the sunshine and walked across the street to her salon. She still couldn’t help but smile each and every time she saw it, and now that she had just had a bit of a spruce up and a revamp, her little store really did look better than ever.

  The sign above the door was a set of big, luscious red lips and the interior was pure decadence and luxe. She slipped the key into the lock and opened the door and as she stepped inside, the familiar floral scent of roses and spice hit her and flooded her nostrils.

  “Mmm,” she smiled as she reached down and adjusted her new display and selection of scented candles. “I’ll never get enough of that.”

  She flipped on the lights and rested her bag down on the reception desk before she went around to all the mirrors and turned on their own lights individually. It was early but she liked to get the right vibe set in the place straight away or it only led her to feeling unproductive.

  She sat down at her desk and pulled her laptop out of her bag. Her accounts were almost done, but she didn’t want them hanging over her all day, so as she sipped her coffee, she continued to chip away at them, and then she checked her diary to see what appointments she had scheduled for the rest of the day.

  She had four women booked in over the course of the day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, and she could generally rely on at least three walk-ins, so she had to prepare herself for a busy one.

  She got to her feet and went to get her board out of the store room and then she went out to the front and placed it proudly on the sidewalk.

  “Morning, Kady,” one of the old ladies from across the street called to her and Kady smiled and waved in return.

  “Idyllic,” she grinned as she walked back inside.

  And she knew she was lucky.

  At the moment, life was pretty damned good.

  By the time the day was done, she was exhausted. Kady leaned back in the chair as she put her feet up on the desk and kicked off her high court pumps. They clattered to the floor and she yawned as she held her arms out and stretched.

  “What a day,” she sighed as she ran her hands through her hair and looked at the aftermath that was still hanging over the salon.

  The sinks were wet and there were piles of used towels in the bins. The place reeked of nail varnish remover and she could see several spillages on the floor next to the counters where she did the ladies’ nails. She got slowly to her feet and started to tidy her way around, and when she finally threw the last dirty towel into her laundry bag to take home, she smiled with a sigh.

  She really wouldn’t change it for the world. For all it was hard work, she loved being in charge of her own life, and she had established something fun and necessary in their small town. Before Kady had come along and opened the salon on Main Street, the only beauticians had been the girls who had gone door to door. Now, Kady was giving them something different. She was providing them with an experience and for pretty much exactly the same price. She had found a niche in a town that had primarily been dominated by men and their needs and she had exploited it. And she was doing more than reaping the rewards financially, her soul was being enhanced too.

  She clicked off all the lights around each of the mirrors and checked the diary for the following day. She only had two appointments but they were longer ones, and one of them was with her good friend, Ashley. The girls hadn’t had chance to catch up in months and it was going to be good to have an in-depth chat and see how each other was doing.

  Kady walked toward the front door of the salon and pulled it open before she stepped out into the late afternoon sun. It had been a hot day and she welcomed the breeze that was rustling its way through the trees as she locked up the store and started to walk back down Main Street.

  Every time she did, she wondered if it would be the day she would bump into him again. Since their wild night at The Bleeding Bullet, and Kady waking up to find him still there with her, Flash seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

  He had been nothing but a gentleman and she had screwed it up. And now, she couldn’t help but think of him every time she was out and about in town. But she had yet to see him. And even though it could slowly drive her mad, she knew she would still keep looking.

  She rounded a corner and suddenly, as if by magic, she saw a familiar truck parked on the opposite side of the street. And she waited just around the side of the building, trying to gauge if she knew who was inside.

  Sure enough, the first person that Kady saw was Breaker. One of the town’s toughest outlaws and her friend Ashley’s boyfriend. She knew that he and Flash were good friends, and so she loitered some more, holding her breath and wondering if he would be there with him.

  Since her night with Flash, it hadn’t just been him that she hadn’t seen around town, it had pretty much been any of the bikers. She hadn’t felt their presence anywhere, which was highly unusual. The streets had been quiet all day long and the nights hadn’t been as wild as she had known them. Main Street was quiet and from what she had heard from various women who had come into the salon, the other side of town had been dead too.

  Something was happening but no one seemed to know what.

  It kind of made Kady uneasy. It may have had nothing to do with her, but she didn’t know how it could affect her business if the bikers were in trouble. And that was the impression she was starting to get from the gossip that was slowly working its way around town.

  She stood there in a daze, looking at the truck but not really taking in what was happening around her when suddenly she heard a set of heavy footsteps behind her and she felt her heart hit the floor.

  She knew those steps.

  Flash.

  She spun around and came face to face with the man she had crushed on forever, had finally won, and then had rejected like the idiot she was.

  “Kady,” he said.

  His eyes fell onto hers and held her there, and her stomach felt as if it were about to flip.

  The last time she had seen him he had been walking out of her bedroom in the early morning after a night of passion. She felt her face burn bright red and the tips of her ears begin to tingle. She was wild with embarrassment, but she didn’t want to show it.

  He looked so goddam good. Better than she remembered. And even though she didn’t know him very well, she knew she wanted him just as much in that moment as she always had.

  Their night between her sheets had not gotten it out of her system. That much she now knew for sure.

  “Flash,” she smiled.

  He looked even more tan than he had when she last saw him, and as they stared into each other’s eyes, fragments of their time together came flooding back to her in a hot burst of memory.

  She remembered his tongue against hers. The way he had pinned her down on the bed. She remembered the feel of him, the way he had nibbled her neck and kissed her so hard it took her breath away. She remembered what it felt like to be wanted, and to want.

  She knew she was blushing and she swept her hair over her shoulder before she could bring herself to look into his eyes again.

  “How’ve you been?” he asked her.

  She could still sense there was some hurt there. She had turned him down after they had shared a wonderful night together, but what he didn’t know was that she had regretted it ever since.

  “I’m good,” she smiled as she took a step closer to him. “Wha
t about you? I feel like I haven’t seen you around town for ages.”

  “I’ve been away,” he said. “Work stuff.”

  And she saw him motion toward the truck that Breaker was waiting in.

  “Oh,” she smiled and clutched her bag tightly.

  “Good to see you,” he smiled as he walked past her and touched her tenderly on the arm.

  She turned and watched him leave and she wanted to shout after him but she knew she couldn’t. He was a biker and he wasn’t going to chase her. She’d had her chance and blew it.

  As she walked home, she wanted to bury her head in her hands and scream, but she kept moving and held her head high. He’d looked so good. So, so good. It had reminded her of the first time she had ever seen him and she had felt that pull. It was as if she was finally experiencing desire for the first time in her life, and when she had zoned in on him, all other men in the world ceased to exist.

  That had been months and months ago… And now they’d had their drunken night together and Kady had gone and sabotaged a potential future.

  She was such a moron.

  She moped home and slinked inside before she flopped down on the couch and sighed. Maybe it was impossible to truly have it all. She could have a beautiful home and an amazing career, but she couldn’t have both of those and a boyfriend. Life just didn’t seem to work like that. However unfair it may be.

  She picked up the remote and flicked on the news.

  Headlines flashed before her eyes and she scanned them before she slammed off the TV and got to her feet. She could tell it was going to be a long night. One that was going to wind her up and pull at the inner workings of her mind.

  She had thought about Flash and how he had appeared. And now she was going to be haunted by visions of him walking toward her, looking as sexy and menacing as ever.

  And she wanted to scream and bang her head against the wall.

  “Why were you so cold with him?” she said to herself as she looked at her reflection in the hallway mirror. “Do you really have such a problem letting someone be good to you?”