Chapter 1
Harper
“Harp! Catch!”
I snatched the beer bottle out of thin air before I popped the top. The alcohol flowed down my throat effortlessly, leaving behind a sting that matched the bruises on my hips. Cade’s hands were around me, holding me close as I chugged the beer down. I wanted to wash away the taste of my former life as the leather-bound shorts I wore wrapped around me tightly.
“Those shorts look fucking hot on you,” Cade said.
“Ya think?” I asked, winking. “Figured you’d like them.”
“Oh, you figured, huh? And how’s that?”
I tossed my beer bottle and turned around in his arms. I threaded my arms around his neck and crashed my lips into his, feeling the warmth of him underneath me. His hands helped me onto his bike, our tongues dancing like wildfire as he struck up his bike.
I clung to him tightly as we rode off down an alleyway coated in darkness.
I felt so free during that biker rally. Like I could be my true self. Happy and carefree. Sassy and strong. There was no one there to well me what I was supposed to be doing or how I was supposed to look. No one was coaching me on how to talk or trying to get me to put makeup on. My father wasn’t chirping in my ear about lady-like tendencies, and my mother wasn’t trying to stick me in ruffled fucking dresses.
I loved that place, and I didn’t want to leave.
I graduated from The University of New Mexico six months ago. My parents were pushing me to go to law school, but I convinced them to let me take a year off. They were against it fully, with my father being screaming angry at the idea. But when I offered to help with his election campaign for Mayor of our small little town, he seemed to warm up to the idea.
He thought to make the campaign efforts a family affair would boost his poll numbers.
At the biker rally, I wasn’t the daughter of Ryan Thomas. I wasn’t the prim and proper college-educated daughter who could do no wrong. I didn’t have to mind my manners, address anyone with any ounce of respect, and I sure as hell didn’t have to keep my mouth shut. My pencil skirts and tasteful heels were traded for leather shorts and roughed up boots, and the wind that whipped through my hair on the bike of a motorcycle gave me my own personal definition of ‘freedom.’
I partied how I wanted, I flirted with whomever I wanted, and no one was judging me for spreading my legs with carnal desire.
Cade had been fantastic. Hot as fuck with a body that left me breathless. His rock hard abs matched his strong shoulders, and he tossed me around in bed like I was nothing but a ragdoll. I had my hair pulled while he called me all sorts of disgusting names that fluttered my pussy and warmed my skin. His green eyes penetrated me every single time they landed on me. His brown hair fell in his face, shaggy and soft despite his chiseled demeanor. I couldn’t get enough of his body that weekend, and when the rally ended I found myself missing him.
I loved every second of that man. From his protective attitude to his gravelly voice to his calloused hands that gripped my tits a little too tightly. The way he marked my body as his own with his teeth and the palms of his hands haunted me for weeks. His throbbing cock filled me in ways I’d never experienced. The men I had been with before him were boys compared to the girth swinging between his chiseled thighs.
And oh, how he loved sex on his bike.
He’d ride me into dark alleys and take me right there. He’d bend me over it or sit me right down onto his lap. His cock would stake me, causing unearthly moans to fall from between my lips. He would bite into my shoulder before licking the marks he caused, bringing me pain before soothing me into a heady orgasm that left me breathless.
That was what Cade was.
Breathless.
I knew I’d never see him again, but I kept up hope. Bike rallies happened multiple times during the year, and I had planned on going to the next one. I was already setting up a hotel room and transportation as well as planning outfits. I was dreaming about Cade and those lips of his. How they wrapped around my clit and brought me to endless orgasms that left my body begging for mercy.
But all my plans were halted when I found out I was pregnant.
Now, I was sitting up at night wondering where he was. The heartburn was becoming unbearable, and it was getting harder to eat. Our little boy was jumping around on my bladder, kicking the shit out of it whenever he got restless.
A fighter, just like his father.
Now, I was a pariah to my family. Now, I was a nuisance my father had to spin for the media. Now, I was the charity chase my parents had to take on. The fallen college graduate who had big plans in front of her before they were destroyed. Now, I had to stand by my father while he made me a point in his speeches. While he campaigned underneath the assumption that he would always be a family man and love his family no matter what.
Even though he berated me for my choices behind closed doors.
I slid out of bed, allowing dreams of Cade to slip into oblivion as I went to get some milk. I had to get this heartburn to stop. Otherwise, it was going to make me sick. I was gaining weight every week, two to three pounds each time I turned around. This pregnancy was kicking my ass and the farther I got into it, the more I thought about him.
I wondered if Cade would stand by my side or if he would cast me out like my father. I wondered if he would hold me close at night and get me milk whenever my heartburn became too much. I wondered if he would be angry with my father for how he was treating me. How he was isolating me from the world, not allowing me to leave without an escort, and constantly telling me how foolish of a girl I was.
Maybe I had been foolish, and maybe I had been selfish, but I wouldn’t take back that rally for anything. Even with the outcome being what it was now, that weekend was the freest I’d ever felt. I was out from underneath my father’s thumb, I was out from underneath my mother’s prying gaze, and I was free to be who I wanted. I was free to drink what I wanted and eat what I wanted and wear whatever the fuck I wanted.
I clung to those memories as I laid in bed at night, crying myself to sleep while holding my five-month pregnant stomach.
I wondered what he would think if he found out I was pregnant. Then, I found myself hoping he never did. Though my dreams whisked me away into his arms at night, I woke up relieved he didn’t know. I knew enough about men to know that something like this was never good. Wild men stayed wild at heart. They never settled, they never stopped, and they always consumed. In the back of my mind, I knew there was another woman right behind me. Another woman willing to spread her legs for that rippling body of his at the next rally. I knew I was nothing but a notch in that man’s belt.
But it didn’t stop me from hoping that he thought about me like I thought about him.
Either way, it didn’t matter. He was living his life, and I was living my nightmare. He was out riding with the wind in his hair while I watched the wind blow through my childhood room window. He was traveling and drinking and laughing it up with friends while I laid here in the confines of my room, begging for permission just to go into town.
Maybe one day I could experience freedom again like I had that weekend.
Maybe one day I could be happy again.