Rush: (Retribution MC Romance) (Carolina Bad Boys Book 5) Read online

  RUSH

  Carolina Bad Boys, #5

  RIE WARREN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  RUSH

  Copyright © 2016 by Rie Warren

  Excerpt from Walker © 2016 by Rie Warren

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations.

  https://www.riewarren.com

  Warren, Rie.

  RUSH / Rie Warren – 1st ed

  1.Contemporary Romance—Fiction. 2. Alpha Male—Fiction. 3. Bikers—Fiction. 4. Erotica—Fiction. 5. MC Romance—Fiction. 6. Suspense—Fiction. I. Title

  ASIN: B01L84WY6Y

  Cover Design

  By Jada D’Lee

  Editing

  By Gilly Wright http://www.gillywright.com

  Table of Contents

  RUSH

  Author Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Keep reading for the first chapter of

  Chapter One

  Connect with Rie

  Acknowledgments

  About Rie

  Author Note

  This is me, keeping it brief (if that’s even possible). As with Boomer’s book—Chrome—certain plot points from the Bad Boys of Retribution MC series overlap here.

  Does that mean you can’t read Rush as a standalone? Nope. Not at all. But if you want the full flavor of my original Bad Boys books the reading order would be:

  Carolina Bad Boys

  Stone

  Ride (a standalone novella)

  Love

  Steele

  Bad Boys of Retribution MC

  Hunter

  Kinkaid

  Bo

  Coletrane

  Back to Carolina Bad Boys

  Chrome

  Rush

  And then check out the other spinoff: Bad Boys of X-Ops complete series.

  As always, happy sexy reading and thanks for your support!

  XOXO,

  Rie~

  Chapter One

  The Girl Next Door

  IT WAS MAY WHEN Boomer and Rayce returned from their honeymoon, and they stepped into the Retribution MC bar nothing short of . . . exultant. Yeah. Pussy word probably learned from a poetry book during my prep-school-good-boy years, but it was true.

  Fuck if the newlyweds hadn’t been through ten thousand different versions of hell—alone and together. Rayce’s dad abusing her. Boomer losing his folks in a car crash he blamed himself for. Then finding out the man who’d raised Rayce—I used the term raised lightly—wasn’t her blood relation after all. Thank fuck for that.

  Boomer, the big man who kept his emotions close to his chest, had been bitten hard by the love thing the second he’d spotted the Ladies of Redemption MC hottie, the only female mechanic at Josh Stone’s booming lowcountry garage.

  They made an amazing couple, and everyone in the joint immediately stomped to their feet to welcome their homecoming. Shrill whistles, loud shouts, beer bottles slamming on tabletops . . . And of course some fucking wiseass started pumping “Another One Bites the Dust” over the speakers.

  Tucker watched all with his big gray handlebar mustache trembling, his bright eyes a little damp.

  The most un-fucking-believable thing of all: Tucker Freeman, our MC treasurer, all around Grandfather MC, and apparently a former preacher man—was Rayce’s real dad.

  How was that for a happy frigging ending?

  Tail looped his long black hair behind his ears, jumped onto the edge of a pool table—abusing the very altar he worshipped at—and hollered, “Drinks for the happy couple on me!”

  “Whose pocket’s that really comin’ out of?” Brodie Steele, Boomer’s younger brother, yelled through hands he cupped around his mouth.

  “Whoever wants up next.” Tail slapped his pool cue against the palm of his hand. “C’mon. Place your bets, losers.”

  The barroom—a color dubbed Whore Red by Tail, who’d taken it upon himself to repaint the place—was one big commotion of men and women dancing, drinks pounded back, music bashing from the speakers, and pool balls knocking on the maroon tables.

  I shook Boomer’s hand as soon as I waded my way toward him and Rayce.

  I couldn’t hear his muffled words above the chaos, but it didn’t matter. Our hands clasped in a firm grip before I turned to beautiful Rayce—she of the smart mouth, the sassy black hair streaked by jolts of electric blue, and the desperate past finally shrugged off.

  I knew something about that myself.

  I gave her my congratulations, not only on her marriage but also her second place finish in the US Nationals Women’s MX event.

  Racing.

  Hell yeah.

  Knew something about that, too. Most of it had landed me in a fuckload of trouble, but the rush of high-octane speed in my sick slick Chevy Nova with the souped-up blower sure as fuck had been worth it.

  Almost.

  At the time, anyway.

  I moved just far enough away to watch Brodie grin at Boomer before shooting off some sarcastic comment Boom instantly rolled his eyes at.

  Goddamn but those two were a shitshow and a half. Full of love and laughs. Been through the worst, now they were at their best.

  Me? I was just lucky Boomer—the prez—and Brodie, my best bud and the club’s veep—had taken me in. That was what they did, the Steele family, their little sis, Cat, included. Those Steeles were all hooked up now, although it was a standing MC joke Brodie still hadn’t sealed the deal with his fiancée, Detective Ashe Kingston—too many months pregnant to keep track of anymore, badass as all get out, former single mom, and . . . uh . . . my arresting officer on more than one occasion.

  Yeah. We’d all been drawn together by the family Steele. Folks who had no right mingling. Ex-cons, lost souls, wanderers, and the Retribution family was growing everyday.

  Case in point was Bo Maverick. The latest member. A Marine suffering from PTSD after returning stateside. Then there was Kinkaid, the ex-male-stripper. And Hunter, who’d worked some kind of deep cover ops he never spoke about.

  Somehow we all fit.

  Even Coletrane, the big, inked dude and tattoo artist who stood behind the bar. We di
dn’t know his story yet, but that would come. As an officer of the club, I had a vested interest in each and every man who walked through the doors.

  The women, too, many a time.

  I ambled to the bar and leaned an elbow on the clean surface.

  Coletrane smirked at the happy couple. “Get you a drink, my man?” he asked me.

  “Sure.” Watching Hunter down the way, I raised my voice enough to be heard. “Get me some of Hunter’s whiskey.”

  Hunter’s gold eyes immediately narrowed on me.

  Deadly.

  But I’d faced a certain kind of death before, and when Cole slid the glass to me, I saluted the cold killer . . . who could barely keep his hands off his wife, JB.

  He flipped a middle finger at me without even looking, in the middle of kissing Jessica.

  “Hopeless,” Cole remarked, still grinning.

  “Yup.”

  “Not gonna happen to me,” he uttered.

  “I hear that.”

  Kinkaid took up a cloth and started polishing the bar again.

  Big and blond, the man’s eyes lit on me. “Keeping up with the workout regime? ’Cause if you get bored I can help you switch it up.”

  He rolled his hips and performed a dance move that left most women in the joint gagging on drool.

  “Thought you gave that stripper shit up,” I said.

  He leaned in close. “Only do it for Sadie now. Makes her hot.”

  “Forget Handsome,” Brodie—who seemed to have preternatural hearing—shouted from across the room—“oughtta start callin’ him Horse!”

  “’Cause I’m hung like one?” I rallied back, and more biker babes salivated for a taste of rough-and-tumble action.

  The dudes laughed, just another night of raw innuendo that usually ended in a bed full of hot sex with one honey or another.

  Hunter approached, his eyes skewering the drink in my hand before lifting to mine. “Lookin’ good, dude. Now that we can actually see your face.”

  “What is this?” Cole, that fuck, flicked at my hair I’d hastily pulled up at the back of my head. “A mun, right?”

  “Man bun,” Brodie turned up, snickering, with his evil blond goatee and big silver rings.

  I’d have blushed if I actually gave two fucks. I’d gotten my hair cut. Started keeping it off my face. Worked out. Not because I needed more female attention. I’d never had a problem pulling the ladies.

  I just wanted to be me again, in some way, shape, or form. Plus Brodie was the most gigantic pain in the ass, so when he decided I had to pony up, I gave in. I’d beefed up, put on muscle, shaved my beard, become visible.

  Which meant I was vulnerable.

  No one would ever know that though.

  Boomer stalked over after leaving Rayce to reign over the dartboards with a loud slap to her ass.

  “Didn’t even know you had ears.” His deep voice rumbled.

  “And gauges, too, huh?” Cole leaned over to inspect the small bone plugs in my earlobes similar in size to his steel ones.

  I knocked him out of my face. “Yeah. And I got mine a long time before you, young buck.”

  “Yessir, Mr. MC Ocifer.” Cole chuckled, backing off.

  With all the attention I was drawing I considered going incognito again. And that was just the brothers. The ladies were completely different animals altogether, and I didn’t have enough hands to handle all of them.

  I’d been lounging against the bar, just taking it all in, refusing invitations to dance or slip into the back for a fast furious fuck that often ended with a nighttime full of regrets, when I heard my name called.

  Not Handsome, my roadname, but my real one.

  “Max? Maxwell Rush?” a familiar feminine voice called out.

  All talk subsided, and Tail jumped onto the pool table again. “Who the hell’s named after a coffee company here?”

  When I located the woman who’d shouted my name, my spine straightened.

  Shiloh stood in Retribution MC central—the last place I’d ever expected to see her. The proverbial girl next door. Shy. A blast from the past that would no doubt dredge up memories and a history better off left forgotten.

  I glanced at Tail then down at my groin. “You know what they say, dude. Good to the last drop.”

  Leaving the crowd to stare and guffaw, I made my way toward Shy. Fuck. Seven years. She’d grown up.

  “That you, Shiloh?”

  “Max!” She flew into my arms. “You’ve gotten . . . bigger.” Her eyes widened as she leaned back and looked me up and down.

  That time I did blush. Before scanning her more closely. More slowly. Gone was the gangly neighbor girl from my past. The teen who’d been my sister’s best friend and become my friend in turn.

  Golden-skinned, she smelled so good—something like the ocean at Sullivan’s Island when the waves rushed in. Her hair was sun-streaked rich brown and honey-gold and razor-edged from the very nape of her neck to a sharp angle below her delicately boned jaw. No ink marked her sleek flesh, not like me. My most prominent tat on my left shoulder was a motorcycle with the emblem Ride or Die. But I was inked from my shoulders to my wrists—wrenches, skulls, Once upon a wish, not to mention the massive MC backpiece.

  Back to Shy who I couldn’t take my eyes off of. Goddamn. A lot of skin showed between the sheer slouchy top just barely remaining this side of sultry instead of slutty by a flash—a band of bright color—wrapped around her tits beneath the see-through thing that sloped off one naked shoulder. Her jeans were tight, rolled up, and her lengthy legs ended in heels that added to her height but only brought her to my chin.

  Gold jewelry, high quality, at her ears and her wrists. And when she hooked back her hair with a smile tipped up at me, I saw she had a bar piercing the upper cartilage of one ear.

  The only spare flesh was on her ass, in her hips, and her tits, which I was pretty fucking sure I’d never stared at before—and probably shouldn’t start now.

  “Get a long enough look?” Her eyes, the color of polished silver, slanted up at me.

  Shy. Couldn’t even remember why I’d given her that nickname. Maybe to distance myself. Not that there’d ever been or ever would be anything between me and Miss Shiloh Lockhart of the downtown Charleston Lockharts.

  “Been a long time.” I aimed a grin at her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I know Sadie.”

  “Everyone knows Sadie,” Kinkaid muttered.

  I heard the assholes all around making the usual sly off-color comments about the possibility of us hooking up. Towing Shy to the table designated as private, I sent an unmistakable scowl to my brethren to make sure they backed off and laid off.

  “Where you been, girl?” I held out a chair for her.

  And everyone in the place sounded off with wolf whistles.

  The message. They didn’t get it.

  Surprise.

  “Where’d you get them fancy manners, Handsome?” Brodie chuckled, holding a very pregnant Ashe in front of him.

  I already knew my fingers were gonna get a workout tonight as I flipped him the stiff bird.

  “Paris.” Shy sat down. “Then Italy. Then, um . . . studying fashion.”

  A ripple of testosterone-fueled energy filled the room when she stroked the tip of her tongue across her full bottom lip.

  These fucking guys. They weren’t gonna get their hands on Shy, because I’d break ’em first. No goddamn lie.

  I sat next to her, screening her body with my bigger form. “Fashion, huh? What brings you back to Chucktown then?”

  “I’m starting my own pop-up shop.”

  “How’s it you know Sadie?”

  “You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” She looked over, her large gray eyes luminous, and the gold bangles on her wrist shifted when she laid a hand over mine. “Isn’t it my turn yet?”

  I withdrew my hand. Friends and neighbors, that was what we’d always been. She was like a kid sister to me.

&
nbsp; But at that moment? Shy looked something close to pretty serious danger.

  Sexy danger at that.

  Chapter Two

  Shy No More

  “MAYBE,” I HEDGED.

  “Oh, good.” Shy’s features screwed up, just enough to be even more . . . adorable, but then she released a light laugh. “First question: are you going to buy me a drink, Max?”

  “Depends on how hard you like your liquor. The beer probably won’t kill you though.”

  I expected her to ask for some fancy cocktail—a goddamn lemon drop or mojito or something—but Shiloh tapped her nails on the table and said, “Bourbon. Neat.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

  “Oh. You thought I’d turned into a daiquiri kind of girl?”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. Calling over to Coletrane, I added one for myself to the order.

  Dickhead presented the drinks a minute later with a flourish of a towel and a dip from his waist. With his giant chains at the neck and wrists offsetting his at your service service.

  He gave two thumbs up behind Shiloh’s back as he departed.

  The weirdest shit about the MC. The bad-mouthed, loudmouthed fuckheads all thought they were matchmakers. I narrowed my eyes at Cole, Mr. eHarmony wannabe.

  After taking more than a delicate sip of her drink, Shy regarded me. “You’re part of the club then?”

  Her palm smoothed up my black leather cut with the Retribution patch on my chest.

  “Not really South of Broad material anymore.” I sipped more slowly, feeling the heat that beat off of her.

  Denying its warmth on my skin.

  “I blew your cover? No one here knew you as Maxwell Rush?” She pearled her tongue along her lips again, the wafting scent of bourbon billowing around us.

  And her perfume. Or was it just her? Her skin? Her brightness?

  Tucking my chin against my chest, I lowered my eyes. “They call me Handsome.”

  With her hands drawing down my arms to the leather cuffs at my wrists, she whispered, “Handsome, is it?”

  She came close to me, her hair—those sunshiny locks—whisking silkily against my shoulder.