Ride Hard (Raven Riders #1)

  When they were putting away the last of the dishes they’d hand-washed and dried, Bunny turned to Haven. “You realize that when you two leave, the guys are going to wonder why they’re not getting any more amazing baked goods. All my marriage proposals are going to dry up overnight.” The older woman was wearing an amused smile and a vintage Harley Davidson T-shirt with a pair of jeans.

  And that was when Haven realized that she was going to miss Bunny almost as much as Dare, maybe more, since she’d never had a mother figure in her life before. Her own mom had fled from Haven’s father when Haven was still in diapers. Guess he’d treated her badly, too. There’d been a time when Haven resented the heck out of her mother for leaving her behind, but after a while it had felt pointless to hold a grudge against someone she didn’t remember and would never again see.

  But Bunny, in just a few short weeks, had offered her friendship, advice, guidance, protectiveness. Haven wasn’t going to forget her any time soon, and it made her ache.

  “I didn’t think of that,” Haven said. “Though I hadn’t actually expected to leave so soon, I guess. What should I do?”

  “I hadn’t expected y’all to leave so soon, either,” Bunny said, her expression sympathetic, almost sad. “But on the baked goods”—she reached behind her and grabbed the plate of peanut butter cookies—“I think you gotta start with telling Dare.”

  Haven stared at the plate like it might bite her. “Really?” The thought of revealing something else she’d been keeping from him made her big breakfast sit like a rock in her stomach.

  “Really,” Bunny said, exchanging a look with Cora that Haven couldn’t read.

  Cora nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

  Haven accepted the cookies into her hands. “He’s going to be mad at me.”

  Bunny shook her head. “I doubt that, honey. You just go see. You two will both feel better after you talk.”

  “Fine,” Haven said, deciding to get this over with sooner rather than later. “But when he’s mad at me, I get to say I told you so.”

  “Deal,” Bunny said, giving her a wink.

  Haven crossed through the clubhouse doling out cookies along the way to guys who saw what she was carrying. The more Ravens she talked to, the less intimidating she found them. They were just guys, guys who were really loyal to one another, as far as she could see. Maybe they wore the badges of their club on their backs and had lots of ink on their skin, but they also took in and helped people like her. And that counted for a lot in her book, because she knew that brand of kindness and generosity wasn’t universal. Not by a long shot.

  By the time she got to Dare’s office, the pile of cookies wasn’t as high as it had been, but she still had plenty to offer up as an olive branch. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” came his voice through the door. His gaze cut up when she opened it. “Haven. What’s up?”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she asked, slipping in and shutting the door behind her.

  “Of course. Is everything okay?” he asked, getting up and coming to her.

  “Yeah,” she said, thrusting the plate into his chest out of nervousness. “Bunny said I should bring these to you.”

  He chuckled and grasped the plate. “That’s because Bunny knows these are my favorite cookies in the world.”

  A wave of satisfaction rolled through Haven’s body at the thought. “Really?”

  Popping one in his mouth, Dare nodded. “So damn good,” he said around a bite. When he swallowed, he added, “I told Bunny she was officially my favorite person ever for making these again.”

  Haven hugged herself and nodded, and something Bunny said came back to her—that it would make both her and Dare feel better to talk. What the heck was that supposed to mean? And why was Haven thinking of it now?

  Dare placed the plate on the corner of his desk and grabbed another cookie. “And you’re my second-favorite person for bringing them to me,” he said with a wink. He took a bite.

  Heat filled Haven’s cheeks, and she shook her head.

  “What is it?” he asked, stepping closer. He ran his knuckles over her cheek, clearly noticing her blush.

  “Um,” she said, fortifying herself with a deep breath to make her admission. She looked up at him, ready to tell him.

  “I didn’t think I could like your hair more than I did before,” he said, stroking his fingers through it at the side of her face. “But you look beautiful, Haven.”

  The words stole her breath and kicked her heart into a sprint. Did he just call her beautiful? “I do?”

  He nodded. “Could barely keep my eyes off of you at breakfast. I know you noticed.”

  And she’d thought her blush couldn’t get any hotter. She shrugged. “I guess so.”

  He broke a piece off his cookie and handed it to her. “Want some?”

  She let him put it in her mouth, her stomach fluttering because the look in his eyes suggested those words might not be about just the cookie. Although he could be so hard to read, and she wanted him so much she was always half sure she was projecting her desire onto him.

  “Good, right?” he asked. His gaze ran down her face and stopped at her lips.

  “Yeah,” she said, swallowing the last of the cookie. Now tell him. Right.

  “Shit, I have to . . .” His hand threaded into her hair and grasped the back of her head. And then his mouth found hers and his tongue slid in deep, stroking, twirling, penetrating. She surrendered to the kiss and pressed her body against his, loving how big and hard and strong he was against her. His erection dug into her belly, and she loved that, too, the evidence that she wasn’t the only one feeling so out of control.

  By the time he pulled back from the kiss, Haven was breathing hard and a little dizzy and totally aroused.

  “Had to taste you with that flavor in your mouth,” he said in a gritty voice. “Just as good as I thought it’d be.”

  His words did nothing to cool her off, but still she managed, “Dare, I have a confession.”

  His expression darkened, and he tried to step back, to put that old distance between them again.

  But Haven grabbed the lapel of his club cut. “Don’t go. Please.”

  He glanced down to how she was holding on to him, and it took everything Haven had not to shy away from the intensity of his gaze. “What’s your confession?”

  “I made the cookies,” she rushed out. “And the cinnamon buns.”

  The darkness bled out of his eyes and off his face, only to be replaced by confusion. “You made the cookies? You’re the one who’s been making all the cookies and bars and buns?”

  She nodded.

  “You?” His eyebrow arched as he stared at her, and then his eyes went wide with what looked like surprise. “Jesus, Haven, you’re really fucking good at baking. You know that, right?”

  She shrugged. “I like to do it.”

  “You should be doing it. It’s your thing.” An arm around her waist, he reached for another cookie. Ate it. Closed his eyes and hummed as he chewed it. “So fucking good. And you made it.” He shook his head.

  The whole thing made Haven smile. “So you’re not mad?”

  His eyelids flipped open. “Why the hell would I be mad?”

  God, she loved the feeling of his arm thrown so casually around her, her body still pressed all up against his. “Because I kept something from you again.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t care about that, but why did you? Just out of curiosity.”

  “I bake when I can’t sleep. It calms me, and I really enjoy it. But I didn’t want any attention for it, especially when I didn’t know any of you,” she said, looking down at his chest.

  Fingers gently tipped her chin back up. “I get it,” he said, and then he was quiet for a long moment. Suddenly, he frowned and his brow furrowed. “I’m glad you told me. And, well, I have something to tell you, too. A confession of my own.”

  “You do? About what?” she a
sked, unable to imagine what he could need to reveal to her.

  Sighing, he stroked his fingers through the side of her hair again, his eyes tracking the movement. “So, the other day—”

  Bang, bang. The door flew open, and Phoenix and a man Haven thought was called Caine stepped in. Where Phoenix could be a playful screwball, Caine seemed quiet and severely serious to the point of being kinda scary. But she’d thought that about Dare once, too, hadn’t she? “Oh, shit. Sorry, Dare, Haven,” Phoenix said. Both men seemed upset. Or, at least, Phoenix didn’t seem like his usual smart-alecky, laid-back self. “We got something.”

  Dare looked down at her, and that was the moment she realized that he hadn’t let her go when the men had let themselves into his office. His arm still wrapped around her lower back, holding her to him. “Can we finish this later?” he asked her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Of course. I hope everything’s okay,” she said. She pulled away, only to have him grab her hand and tug her back again.

  He kissed her long and deep and hard, and Haven thought her heart would beat out of her chest from the intensity of it, from the fact that he’d done it in front of his brothers—and that she’d liked that he’d done that. “Later.”

  “Later,” she whispered, her lips still tingling from the kiss. She slipped out—or floated out, more like it—and wondered how she was going to avoid going crazy until she saw him again and heard whatever it was that he needed to confess.

  CHAPTER 17

  “Not a word,” Dare said, glaring at his brothers. He shouldn’t have kissed her in front of them, but they’d already seen them all up against each other and Dare hadn’t been able to resist having just one more taste. It turned out having a little bit of something good in your life just made you want more. “What’s going on?” Dare asked as Phoenix held up his hands as if in surrender and Caine closed the door behind Haven. Now Dare understood the first item on her list a helluva lot better, didn’t he? Have your own kitchen.

  Jesus. She shouldn’t have to wish for something that talent demanded be nurtured.

  “We put out the word about the hardware we want to get rid of like we talked about,” Phoenix said, meaning the guns they’d acquired from the Church Gang a few weeks before.

  “Yeah,” Dare said, the thought of Haven’s list making him regret that they’d been interrupted before he could confess to knowing about it. Maybe it was just as well he hadn’t opened his mouth any more than he already had, though. Because that woman extracted all of his self-control every time they were within five feet of each other. “Any word?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Phoenix said, exchanging dark looks with Caine.

  “Shit, what is it?” Dare asked, shaking off all thoughts of Haven and getting his mind back in the game.

  “We have an interested buyer in Baltimore,” Phoenix said. “A gang called the Iron Cross, one of the top contenders to fill the Church Gang’s shoes in the city. I need to know how to respond here, because if I tell them they’re no longer available, that may impact our ability to sell elsewhere. But if I ignore or say we won’t sell to them, then we risk making an enemy.” Caine nodded, a scowl on his face.

  “Fuck,” Dare said, leaning his hip against the desk. “What do we know about them?”

  “Not a lot yet,” Caine said, “but the guys at Hard Ink might be able to find out more. Didn’t they have some sort of gang contact?”

  Dare nodded. “They do. And I think it’s time to call in some favors.” He rounded the desk and took a seat, and Phoenix and Caine sat in the chairs on the other side of the desk.

  From weeks of working together, Dare had Nick Rixey, the informal leader of the team of elite Army vets, on speed dial. “This is Rixey,” came a voice through the speakerphone.

  “Nick, it’s Dare. How are you?”

  “Dare,” Nick said, his tone indicating he was pleased. “Things are good. Thanks in part to you and your men.”

  “Glad to hear it. Speaking of which, I’ve got Phoenix and Caine here with me. You’re on speaker.” The three of them exchanged greetings.

  “So I take it this isn’t a social call,” Nick said.

  “Wish it was,” Dare said. “But we find ourselves in need of your help.”

  “Name it.” The words were spoken without hesitation, and Dare found himself respecting Nick even more than he already did. Any man who kept his word so unequivocally was a good friend to have in his book.

  “The rest of your guys around?” Dare asked. “If so, it might be easier to put me on speaker on your end, too.”

  “Give me five and I’ll call you right back,” Nick said. They hung up.

  “Good to see they’re keeping their word,” Phoenix said, a dark shadow crossing his normally carefree face. But given that his cousin had died protecting the folks at Hard Ink not even a month before, Dare totally understood why that would be so important to Phoenix.

  Dare’s phone rang, and Nick explained he had everyone present. “What’s going on?”

  “A couple of things,” Dare said. “First, I’ve got some photographs I was hoping Marz could run through his various programs for further identification and information.”

  Marz was their computer tech and had capabilities acquiring information from the web that Dare couldn’t hope to replicate. The guy’s voice came down the line. “That’s not a problem. Send me whatever you want me to search.”

  “If you have their names, can you also find out things like what kinds of vehicles they own?” Dare asked.

  “Probably,” Marz said. “DMV records are likely a piece of cake next to the shit we’ve had to access the past few weeks. I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Thanks,” Dare said. Having that kind of information would give them other ways to be on the lookout for Haven’s father and associates. “We also have a developing situation that might complicate things in the city. We’re in the midst of finding a buyer for the hardware we acquired, and we’ve got interest from a gang called the Iron Cross in Baltimore. We were hoping you could look into them. We’re not interested in dropping that kinda heat so close to home, but we need to know more about them before we respond.”

  “We’ve got a contact at the city’s gang task force and some resources on hand about known Maryland gangs. That’s not a problem,” Nick said. “Do you expect to do an in-person meeting with them?”

  Dare met his brothers’ gazes across the table. “Haven’t gotten that far,” Phoenix said.

  “Well, let us know if you need backup if you do. Things are volatile with the Church Gang out of the picture, so we want to keep our finger on the pulse of that situation anyway.”

  Dare nodded, this conversation confirming it’d been the right call to bring the Hard Ink team in on all of this. “I appreciate that, Nick. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Good,” Nick said. “Now I have a question for you. Ike said the races were starting back up next weekend. We wondered if you might be up for a visit. Be nice to get out of the city for a few hours.”

  “Funny you should ask,” Dare said. “Since I planned to invite you myself. Though I was hoping you might provide undercover security for the event. Turns out the two women you rescued, Haven and Cora, have a reward out on their heads for a hundred Gs. So we could use the extra eyes to make sure no one’s in the crowd we don’t want there. We’ve got space for all of you to stay the night.”

  There was some murmuring in the background of the call, and then Nick’s voice came through loud and clear. “Consider it done.”

  When the call ended, Dare shot off the photographs to Marz.

  “Well, that went about as good as could’ve been expected,” Caine said, his pale eyes like ice.

  “Agreed,” Dare said. “Now we wait to see what information they’re able to find.”

  HAVEN HAD PROMISED herself no more holing away in her room, so when her full belly left her sleepy in the late morning, she changed into a tank top and a pair of shorts and took a blanket o
ut into the backyard while Cora headed over to the chop shop to hang with Phoenix, Jeb, and Blake. Haven didn’t mind being alone, since she knew she was likely to fall asleep. It was a gorgeous, warm May day, and the views of the mountains and the valley were stunning from the Raven clubhouse. The perfect recipe for a nap that would pass the time until she and Dare could finally talk.

  She found a flat spot with a particularly good view under the long, swaying branches of a weeping willow tree to spread out her blanket, and then she did something that not too long ago would’ve been unthinkable—she lay down and closed her eyes right there in the grass. Her father’s house had a big built-in pool in the backyard, but Haven hadn’t used it since she’d been a kid. No way could she wear a swimsuit and bare that much of her body in that house. Ever. Here, though? She didn’t have a single concern that she wouldn’t be safe.

  With the breeze blowing and the birds singing and the distant strains of music coming from somewhere, Haven fell asleep quickly. When she woke up, she wasn’t sure how long she’d slept, but she was absolutely ecstatic about having done something so simple as laying out in the sun to take a nap. Stretching pulled a long, moaning yawn out of her and—

  “Good nap?” came a man’s voice from behind her.

  She whirled onto her elbows. Dare. Sitting in his jeans, black T-shirt, and cut with his knees up and his back against the willow’s trunk.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  The look he gave her turned the sleepy warmth flowing through her body into something darker, something needier, something hotter. “Watching you sleep,” he said. He gave his bottom lip a long, slow flick of his tongue.

  Haven was suddenly ravenous for a taste of that tongue, that lip, that harsh, masculine mouth. “Why?” she breathed.

  “’Cause I don’t seem to be able to stay away from you, no matter how hard I try.” His blunt honesty did nothing to rein in her arousal. Instead, his declarations made her heart race and her hips press instinctively toward the ground, seeking a friction that wasn’t there but that she wanted desperately.