Midnight Ryde: A Bad Boy MC Romance Read online

  Judging by the tension in his face, he didn’t either.

  “He lost control of his bike,” Ryder said, and I felt my heart begin to ache for him. That must have been terrible. “He was still teaching me all about riding and the culture when it happened.”

  “Shit, Ryder, I’m sorry,” I said, frowning. Poor Ryder, lost and alone at such a young age.

  “Language,” Ryder said, giving me a playful smile. The pain of the memory was still etched in the tension of his forehead as he continued to speak.

  I bit my lip and smiled apologetically.

  “I was kidding,” Ryder said. “I’m not that much of a controlling asshole.”

  Part of me wanted to tease him back, but it just didn’t feel appropriate given how he was opening up to me right now.

  “My dad died before I was old enough to really remember him,” I said, quietly in response.

  Ryder shifted next to me.

  “My mom didn’t handle it so well,” I continued, looking down and fiddling with my fork. “She kind of never got over it. She was in and out of the hospital a lot. She would be fine for a while, then she would get sad again and have to go back.”

  “I’m sorry for you too,” Ryder said, gently.

  I looked up, daring to meet his eyes as he continued to watch me. I didn’t usually talk about my mom, but it seemed like the right thing to do, and I felt really good about mentioning it out loud.

  “Thanks,” I said, giving him a small smile. It was had so much range to look at me so sweetly and still be capable of such cruelty, in bed and otherwise. “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  “We wait for one of my boys to contact me, we eat frozen food, and we lay low, I guess,” Ryder said, shrugging.

  The day progressed slowly with no word from anyone in Ryder’s gang, and we began to wonder what was going on out in the real world. Ryder seemed like he was starting to get notably agitated again, as the hours passed with no word being sent by Ben or any of the other guys in his crew.

  “So what’s your favorite food?” I asked, figuring I could at least get to know the guy who had been absolutely owning my body for the past two days.

  We were both stretched across the couch with our legs tangled together.

  “Steak,” Ryder said, looking at me bemusedly.

  “So manly,” I teased, laughing quietly to myself.

  Ryder raised an eyebrow at me and I felt my body tense involuntarily. It was remarkable how little it took.

  “And yours?” he said, continuing to watch me as if he could figure out if he was going to have to punish me or not. I was trying to decide how resilient I thought my body was, but I had been surprising myself in a lot of ways recently.

  “Pizza,” I replied, immediately.

  “Fortunately,” Ryder said with a laugh. “Pizza is going to be our primary food group while we stay here.”

  “You will not hear me complain about that,” I said, grinning. “I don’t know how you can be in such a miserable mood with a freezer full of frozen pizza.” I made a face at him.

  “Keep taunting me and the next question I ask you is going to be ‘how do you want to be spanked?’” Ryder threatened, flashing me a cocky smile.

  Oh.

  As the day continued to drag on with no word from Ryder’s crew, Ryder and I found ourselves talking more comfortably about our interests and passions. Somehow, I even managed to reign in the taunting, and instead of playing with punishments and sex, Ryder and I slowly wound ourselves together more and more as we talked.

  “What did you want to be when you grew up?” I asked from within the barricade of his arms as he held me.

  “A cop,” Ryder said, laughing.

  “Oh god,” I laughed. “You really missed that mark.”

  Ryder chuckled.

  “Yeah, a bit,” he responded, nestling his face in the crook of my neck.

  I shuddered.

  “Has your neck always been this sensitive?” he asked, teasingly.

  “My entire life,” I replied.

  “It’s fun,” Ryder said, planting a slow and deliberate kiss on the side of my neck that had me shaking and squirming.

  “For you!” I hissed, trying to escape his grasp.

  “I think you like it,” was Ryder’s response. He wasn’t wrong.

  “What did you want to be?” Ryder asked, forcing me to redirect my attention away from the feeling of his breathing on my neck.

  It took a minute.

  “A manager at a toy store,” I laughed.

  “Now I can definitely see the appeal of that,” Ryder said crudely, causing me to correct him on what kind of toy store I meant.

  “That really is adorable,” Ryder said, pulling me closer against him.

  I relaxed, allowing our bodies to mold together. As our bodies aligned, I was almost taken aback by how safe I felt in his arms.

  The reality of how I felt about Ryder was starting to hit me for the first time. These last couple of days had been filled with absolute insanity, but despite all of that I was starting to develop actual feelings for Ryder. Something about him had me wanted to talk to him, had me wanting to bend to his will, and had me wondering if we might be able to survive all of this craziness and actually start something real, far away from this city.

  If Ryder noticed my pensive silence, he didn’t say anything.

  He just pulled me closer.

  Sixteen

  Ryder

  By five p.m., I found myself getting more and more edgy as each hour passed without word from Ben. I needed to know what was happening out there. I needed to know where Tyler was, what the cops were doing, and if Mark was still doing okay.

  I paced around the room, trying to let some of the murderous tension slip out of my muscles despite my growing agitation.

  Sara was watching me as if I was some kind of lion that she was afraid to piss off for fear of getting eaten. That didn’t stop the lusty flush in her cheeks as I stalked around the house.

  I knew I probably looked crazy, but I had too much pent up aggression welling inside of me as the hands of the clock continued to tick.

  By this point, I began to consider just grabbing my gun and hunting Tyler down. The possibility that he and his boys had already hunted down more of mine only provoked the rage that was getting incredibly close to bubbling over the surface.

  Really, I just needed to ensure that I kept my promise to Sara: that Tyler would never be able to harm her again.

  “Do you want to watch some TV?” Sara asked from the catch, eyes weary.

  There was absolutely no way that I could sit and watch TV knowing that Mark was hurt or maybe dead, and Tyler was still out there wandering the streets freely. As long as Tyler was alive, there was absolutely no way that I would find peace. I wanted him dead. I wanted Sara to know, without any semblance of a doubt, that she was absolutely and completely safe.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little too eager to hurt Tyler for the way his hands had greedily groped her while she was pinned down in that cheap motel lingerie. I was really beginning to regret saving the hotel manager and allowing Tyler to escape. I should have choked the life from him when I had a chance, letting his eyes fall on Sara one last time as he realized that he was going to die for the things that he had done to her.

  The only benefit to the situation was that Tyler, egotistical little shit that he was, couldn’t help but try and use her to bait me. If he wanted, he could have grabbed Sara and taken off with her, and there was a very good chance that he could have done some serious damage before I found her.

  The mere idea of Sara kidnapped and at Tyler’s mercy had me pacing around the room more quickly.

  “Guessing that’s a no, then?” Sara said, quietly.

  “I won’t be able to focus on it,” I replied, a little too coldly. I wasn’t mad at her, but I was mad in general and I had absolutely no idea how to reign it in without going out there and hunting Tyler down.

  Sara�
�s eyes held a soft vulnerability again.

  Fuck.

  The sight of her looking like that did nothing to quell the fire roaring through my veins. My worry for her quickly made my anger shift in that direction, and before long I found myself lashing at her.

  “What do you want to do?” Sara asked, hesitantly.

  “Right now all I want is for one of my boys to call me and let me know what the fuck is going on out there so I can go out and kill Tyler, and hopefully we can escape and hide somewhere while the case goes cold.” My voice was sharper than I intended.

  “You don’t have to kill Tyler,” she said, and I found myself glaring at her.

  Her eyes widened before she visibly bristled like the disobedient little thing she was.

  “And what? Risk you getting attacked a third time?” I said, condescendingly. “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s not fair,” Sara replied, indignantly. She looked pissed.

  She was fucking beautiful when she was angry, and that made me that much more pissed off.

  I couldn’t think straight with her around. I needed to focus. I needed to plan. I felt my old asshole ways beginning to surface, and I knew that Sara was going to pay for it whether she wanted to or not.

  “You know you look pretty hot when you’re mad,” I said, gracelessly. It was a compliment that aimed to mock, and judging by the way her eyes narrowed, I had struck home.

  She scowled at me.

  Good.

  “You’re acting like an asshole,” Sara said, bluntly.

  She was right, but at this point I didn’t give a fuck. My entire world had exploded because of this girl, and I was feeling more than a little volatile locked up in this museum from my childhood.

  “Is that so?” I replied, sharply. “How about you stop playing hard to get and tell me how you actually feel about me, Sara?”

  She looked as if I had slapped her, and guilt immediately poured through me. Unfortunately, all it did was piss me off that much more.

  My words dripped with condescension, and she looked like she wanted to slap me all over again. It wasn’t fair for me to put her on the spot like this, especially with how I was acting, but getting her to admit how she felt about me was as close to getting her to submit to me that I would probably be getting for a while given our tumultuous circumstances, and I was sick of being uncomfortable. I wanted her uncomfortable.

  “I feel like you’re acting like a dick,” Sara said with acidity, glaring at me.

  The fire in my veins faded into a sizzling burn as I stopped my pacing and stared straight at her, smiling viciously. I may not be able to go hunt Tyler down and kill him or force my boys to contact me, but I could certainly punish Sara for her insolence.

  Normally I didn’t like to play when I was angry, for fear of losing control.

  But a part of me knew that I would never lose control with her. Something about Sara felt different than any other girl I’d fooled around with.

  I might make her beg and plead and yelp, but I would never let myself be aggressive enough to actually hurt her. I had my preferences, sure, and more often than not fucking me was like crawling into bed with a fucking beasts, but at the end of the day the decision regarding whether what I wanted to happen actually happened was on her.

  There were girls who liked wild sex from time to time, but Sara liked my sex. She liked my control, and she liked all of the horrible things that I wanted to do to her. And that was great, because I had plenty of terrible, awful things that I wanted to do to her.

  As I continued to stare at her, smiling in silence, she began to visibly cave in on herself. It was empowering, watching the way she transitioned from irritated to mildly turned on at the prospect of her earning another punishment for her attitude.

  The tension slipped from her shoulders and she began to look like a girl who was about to be punished. That was what I needed and craved. The look on her face as she realized that she had pushed me too far and would either be paying for it or she would find herself sleeping alone tonight without her needs being met. That conflict had my dick twitching in my pants, and I was getting decidedly more eager to fuck her.

  “I think we’ve already talked about your attitude, Sara,” I said, my tone of voice damn near paternal. She swallowed, hard.

  “Your attitude got out of hand first,” she hissed, glaring at me. She was right, of course. The only difference was I was the one who got to decide when she was punished, not the other way around, so that didn’t matter at all.

  It helped that she clearly wanted me to punish her as badly as I wanted to dole out punishments.

  “I believe we talked about what happens when you act like a brat,” I said, smiling at her like a snake.

  “And what is your punishment for your behavior?” Sara demanded.

  Poor, silly girl.

  “I don’t get punishments, I just administer them,” I said, continuing to grin as she began to look uneasy. I could practically see the memories of her being punished playing across her mind. I had been a little cruel yesterday, but I also made her orgasm four times for it. Sex was all about balance. “And I can assure you right now that you are deserving of quite a punishment and I’m getting really comfortable with the idea of handing it out.”

  “Ryder,” she said, hissing my name as if it was a swear word. Little punk.

  If she kept sassing me, I was just going to continue to spank her where I had yesterday until she felt the ache in her ass for a week. She would learn that there were some very creative ways for me to punish her.

  “You don’t want to be punished?” I asked, lacing my words with cruelty and lowering my voice to remind her what it felt like to be at my mercy and how great it could be.

  Sara swallowed again, looking down as her cheeks began to flush.

  “I thought so,” I said, chuckling. “It’s okay to admit that you need it.”

  “I don’t need it,” Sara retorted. She looked as if she was more interested in making it seem like she wanted to avoid being punished more than she actually wanted to avoid it.

  “Really?” I asked. “So you don’t think you need to be punished for acting so disrespectfully?”

  The conflict on her face was beautiful.

  For the first time, I had blatantly called her out on how much she enjoyed being punished, and just like any good girl she was quick to deny it despite the fact that her breathing was quickening and a gentle red flush was creeping up her neck.

  Curiosity had me wondering if that flush had made its way down to her tits. She had found a men’s shirt in one of the closets and put it on over the motel lingerie.

  Personally, I was ready to see her in that skimpy little outfit again.

  “Go to the kitchen and get a wooden spoon,” I commanded.

  Her eyes widened, and the flush in her cheeks deepened. Clearly someone was interested in learning all of the different ways I could spank her, and I was happy to oblige.

  “Ryder…” Sara began, biting her lip.

  I moved closer to her, watching her tense as I approached.

  “You know you deserve to be spanked for that nasty little attitude of yours,” I said, firmly, looking her in the eyes.

  I could see the effect that my words were having on her even through the shirt.

  “Unless,” I said, reaching my hand to shamelessly grope her breasts over the fabric. “You don’t want to be spoiled later on tonight like you were last night.”

  Her breathing was coming more quickly now as I held her pinned with my gaze.

  She moaned, arching into my hand as my fingers grazed her erect nipples.

  “Go get the spoon, Sara,” I said, my voice nothing more than a low demand as I pinched her nipple lightly before pulling my hand away.

  She groaned, leaning back.

  “Now,” I commanded, smirking like a king.

  It might have been the tone or her desire to reap all of the pleasure that I was going to bring her, but she stood, sau
ntering off to the kitchen in an aroused daze.

  I could hear her moving around the kitchen, opening drawers to find one of the many wooden spoons I had seen. The fact that there was more than one made it even better. It meant that she would have to actually choose the tool for her punishment herself.

  The sadistic dick inside of me was really looking forward to seeing what she came back with and taunting her before administering a long, grueling punishment for her transgressions against me.

  Listening to the sound of her motions, I was already imagining how harsh of a punishment I was going to give her, feeling my dick stiffen at the thought of her pathetic moans as the pristine white skin of her ass began to turn a fiery hue of red.

  Spanking girls with a wooden spoon was a personal favorite of mine. Even the toughest and most disobedient little sluts learned their lesson once I brought a spoon out. It held all of the condescension of a paddle, but the blows tended to be sharper.

  If a girl was particularly bad, the handle worked to administer sharp, stinging blows in addition to the spoon itself.

  Part of me hoped Sara might still have an attitude when she came back.

  As another minute passed and I continued to wait, I realized that Sara was either incredibly conflicted about deciding what I was going to redden her ass with, or she was intentionally dragging it out to avoid her punishment. Either way, her ass was now going to be even more red.

  The sound of my phone pierced my thoughts of Sara squirming across my lap while I unceremoniously brought the spoon down against her again and again.

  Fuck, I thought. Finally.

  I answered the phone immediately, slamming it to my ear.

  “Ben?” I demanded, the anger that had been calmed by the idea of Sara had now regained control of me in a devilish way.

  “The cops are looking for you, man,” came Ben’s hurried reply. He sounded really worried. “They know it was you who killed Tyler’s boys. The cops are making their rounds amongst the groups, but no one is talking.”

  “Fuck,” I snarled.

  “You need to stay hidden wherever you are,” Ben said.