Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(48)

“Hey!” she squawked, her tears vanishing as she smacked him repeatedly with her beaded clutch. “Put me down, you big jerk!”

Unfortunately, he did as she requested. Only when she landed, inexplicably she was astride the big motorcycle. Before she could hop off, he plopped the helmet on her head, swung onto the bike in front of her, and started it.

Viper came to life with a guttural roar and a chest-shaking vibration. And before she could squeak another word of protest, he gunned it.

***

They were being followed.

Sitting at a stoplight, Jake glanced into Viper’s rearview mirror at the leather-clad man on the motorcycle who was idling two measly cars behind them. The dude had shadowed their every move for the last two blocks, and Jake was going to make for damned sure that behavior ended.

Now.

A burst of welcome adrenaline burned through his veins as he glanced right and left, gauging the cross traffic.

“Hang on,” he gruffly commanded over his shoulder. As soon as he felt Shell’s arms tighten around his waist, he punched it.

Viper roared through the intersection, the cycle’s fat rear tire leaving acrid-smelling rubber in its wake along with the sounds of angry honking and Shell’s shrill squawk of surprise. Blazing down the street like a bat out of hell, he spied a dark alley and quickly hooked a right, darting inside.

“What in the world?” Shell demanded when he toed out Viper’s kickstand and swung off the bike. His boots were barely on the ground before he was bodily lifting her from motorcycle and carting her toward a rusted-out blue and white dumpster.

“We’ve got company,” he explained, dropping her to her feet on the dirty concrete behind the dumpster as he bent and retrieved the Kel-Tec from his ankle holster. Pressing it into her hand, he tried not to die a little bit at the spark of fear that instantly lighted her eyes when she pushed up the visor on his helmet.

God, I hate this…

This f*cker, whoever he was, was a dead man. Because no one was allowed to scare Shell, threaten Shell, and live to tell about it. The mere thought spiked his adrenaline to the next level.

“Who—”

“Dunno. I can’t see anything under his helmet and visor. Do you know how to use this one? It’s a little different from the one you have at home,” he said, drawing her attention to the silver pistol in her hand.

“Y-yes,” she breathed, her chest rapidly rising and falling. “Frank makes sure I get to the gun range twice a month, and he’s tested me on multiple sidearms. This is a Kel-Tec, right?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, checking his clip. “So if this * somehow gets the best of me—” Her eyes flew wide. “He won’t,” he assured her. “Remember how I told you I’d never let anything bad happen to you?” She nodded. “Well, I meant it. But if hell suddenly freezes over and the sky falls down and this guy somehow does happen to best me, you plug him with this. And don’t shoot him just once. I want you to unload the clip into him, you got that?”

She swallowed jerkily but nodded all the same.

And he couldn’t help himself.

He leaned in and smacked a quick, hard kiss on her fabulous lips before turning and hustling back to the alley’s entrance. Pressing his back against the brick building, he pulled the Glock from his waistband, chambered a round, and waited.

He didn’t have long to wait. The vibrating growl of a V-twin engine sounded out in the street, and a second later the front tire of a custom Harley rolled into the alley. Jake held his breath, focused everything on his next move, and felt his muscles bunch in hungry anticipation of action.

And then, like always, everything slowed.

A motorcycle boot appeared, followed by a jean-clad leg that led up to a thick, black motorcycle jacket. The sight of the black helmet was all Jake had been waiting on. It was his green light to go!

He hooked an arm around the dude’s neck, instantly clothes-lining him and dragging him from the bike. The motorcycle, now absent a driver, rolled a few feet before teetering precariously and crashing to the alley floor with a loud bang!

Smashing the cyclist’s back against the building, Jake shoved his forearm up under their would-be assailant’s chin and used his other hand to shove the barrel of his Glock straight into the guy’s gut.

“Who are you?” he demanded in a low roar, feeling for the second time in as many days the sharp teeth of the monster inside him. The thing was gnawing on his backbone, begging to be free.

The dude lifted his hands, and Jake told himself that if the * reached for anything other than his helmet, he was going to light him up with lead. As it was, his finger twitched on the trigger.

“Goddamn, man!” the guy said as he pushed off his helmet and let it fall to the ground with an echoing crack. “I…I just wanted to get a look at that paint job. It…it’s totally cherry and—”

“Sonofabitch!” Jake cursed. The kid, yes kid—if the fool was over twenty, Jake would eat his shorts—was nothing more than a motorcycle enthusiast. But just to make sure, Jake patted him down. Once he’d assure himself the guy wasn’t packing, he straightened and shoved his Glock back into his waistband.

“Sorry,” he told the kid as he turned to right the motorcycle. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Damn, man. Damn!” The kid panted over and over again.