AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Seen my jeans?”
They both look at Ripper.
He sighs. “Fine. Gimme cash. It’s a sad day whenI’mthe respectable one around here.”
Alpha gingerly fishes a wallet out of his jacket, and that’s when I notice his shoulder. The leather’s torn and there’s dark dried blood in the hole. The Pit Vipers got him.
He got shot for me.
I wiggle in Blade’s arms until he finally has to either put me down or drop me. “Are you okay?”
Alpha shrugs, then winces again. “It’s not going to kill me. We’ve gotta get the bikes out of sight.”
The only upside to this seedy roadside motel is that they don’t waste much money on landscaping. Big, overgrown bushes line the back, making good cover. Blade pulls out a tarp that they spread over top of everything, creating a shapeless lump. If I didn’t know better, I think it was covering a small car or maybe a pile of building materials.
When we come back around, Ripper meets us with two keys. “I got two next to each other at the end.”
“They give you any trouble?”
Ripper snorts. “You kidding? I paid cash and twice the hourly rate for him to skip over the ID check.”
Alpha holds out his good arm and Ripper tosses him a key. “I’ll take the room with Faith.”
“Wait. Why do I have to share? You said you had two rooms.” I’m only standing because everything is still catching up to me. As soon as I stop, I’m afraid of how bad it’ll be. The last thing I want is to show these guys how fragile I really am.
“If you think we’re going to leave you alone overnight, you’re not nearly as smart as your daddy made you out to be,” Alpha grunts, then gestures at one of the doors. “That one.”
The door clicks shut behind us, and I flick on the light. “There’s only one bed.”
“Take it,” he says. “I’ll use the chair or the floor or something.”
“Right.” The chair looks like someone stole it from a waiting room in the seventies. I couldn’t fit on it without curling up, never mind someone Alpha’s size. “Want me to look at your shoulder?”
He drops a bag he brought from his bike onto the couch. “I’m gonna take a shower and check the damage. It’s moving fine so probably just a scratch. There’s a first aid kit in the bag. Dig it out and you can help me afterwards.”
It takes about five seconds to find because that’s pretty much all that’s in there. I sit down on the bed with the little case in my trembling hands. There was a shootout. Wild motorcycle chase. And now Books & Crannies is gone. All my stuff. There’s no way there’s going to be anything left even if the fire department got there right after we took off.
I don’t know what to do with myself. Where do I even start?
I hear the shower, and it’s obvious when the water hits his shoulder. “Mother-fucker,” he spits out. The door’s so thin, I even hear his sharp indrawn breaths afterwards.
The first-aid kit is small, but well packed, with bandages, antiseptic wipes, tweezers, scissors and even a needle and thread. There are a couple of baggies with pills that look prescription only. Someone scrawled “antibiotics” on one, and “pain” on the other. Handy, but it says something about their lifestyle.
The water stops, and a few moments later Alpha appears with just a towel around his waist.
Holy crap.
Where do I look when every spot is a little better than the last? His chest is a vast expanse of smooth skin, inked in places, but not as densely as Blade and Ripper. A howling wolf decorates his left pec. A hint of a trail of downy hair leads the way from his tight belly button, down into the towel. His nipples are tightly puckered in the cool air, and a deep, powerful V of muscle pushes at the front of the towel. With every step, his powerful thighs threaten to push the split in his wrap open to reveal an area of his body I shouldn’t be thinking about as intently as I am.
That dream I had the other morning? My brain is playing it back in full color.
Oooooh my.
He raises an eyebrow, dark with threads of red just like in his beard.
I pat the bed. “Sit here, and I’ll look at it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smirks crookedly, and I don’t hate it. It softens his expression so much that you could almost forget for a moment that he’s huge and deadly. Almost.
