Running Wild Read online

  I shook my head, trying to get away from the all-Ryker-all-the-time show. “I know you’re stealing again.”

  Noah didn’t turn away from the stove, like scrambling the eggs was the most important thing in the world at the moment. And while I couldn’t lie that I wasn’t starving, the truth was, he didn’t turn because he was guilty.

  When we’d gotten arrested together at seventeen, the judge told all of us—me and Noah and Billy—to stay away from cars. But come the fuck on—how was that even possible? Fixing, racing, and stealing cars and bikes was what I was good at. My gift, so to speak. Noah and Billy had started because of me, so I didn’t know if they really loved all of it, or just the stealing part of things.

  So when I left the Army, I’d tried to find a way to do some of it. Legally. And when I’d told Noah what I wanted, he told me he’d heard about a new garage here—and he’d gone to meet the owner right before I’d met Ryker. I’d wanted to move to Florida for a fresh start, but Noah hated change. So we’d agreed to stay close to where we’d grown up for a while. Work at Edmund’s on high-end cars. Keep our noses clean.

  I knew we were both fucked up. I thought it was the PTSD. That we missed the Army, missed Billy. I was wrapped up in my own secret, and I made every excuse in the book as to why Noah was acting secretive, when in my gut, I knew what Noah was doing and what the problem was.

  And now, I waited, because we’d spent a lot of nights huddled together—in juvie, in jail, in the Sandbox—at first pretending not to be scared, and then too tired to care about fear. That would normally be the time guys would confess their deep, dark shit, but hell, we already knew each other’s deepest, darkest secrets.

  Until now, when we’re both actively keeping secrets from each other. The only one he didn’t know about was Ryker, and I wasn’t sure why I kept it to myself. There were times I really wanted to tell Noah, ask his advice . . . but maybe I knew he’d tell me to get the hell out of it. He’d force me to realize what I already knew—Ryker left every single time.

  Noah finally turned around. “Are you pissed?”

  “At myself, for not asking you about it sooner.”

  “I only kept it from you because you’ve been fucking white-knuckling it, Rush. I didn’t want to be the one to throw you over that edge. Just because I couldn’t stay away . . .”

  “How long?”

  “How long have you been getting fucked and getting roses?” Noah countered.

  “Nice one.” I stared up at him. “Since we went to Bertha’s.”

  “Same.”

  “See?” I slammed my fists on the table, so fucking pissed at how off I’d been. That would never have happened pre-Ryker. “Fuck that place.”

  “We were both just getting what we needed.” Noah slid a plate of eggs in front of me.

  “So what happened to make it a problem?”

  I started to eat while Noah attempted to deflect with a muttered, “Nothing, it’s fine.”

  I pointed my fork at him and smirked. “Right. You can stop any time you want to.”

  Noah rolled his eyes. “Things got out of control really fast. I mean, for months now, it’s been fine. Odd jobs—small ones,” he added quickly. “But last week, there was a bigger call than I thought I could handle and . . .”

  He paused, like he didn’t want to say anything more, so I added, “Edmund told you that you were in too deep to back out now.”

  Noah’s brows raised. “You know about Edmund?”

  “I know he’s got a rep from before he showed up here.” Just because I hadn’t stolen a car in this area in years didn’t mean I didn’t keep up with this shit. I’d been trained by the best, a guy named Al who’d become a legend because he’d killed himself in a stolen car during a police chase rather than being caught and going to jail. People knew my rep, and they told me shit, kept me up with the business, even when I pretended I was done with it. Because every car thief knew that there was no done with it. We were lifers. “You’ve got to get yourself out of this—he’s going to get you in deeper every time.”

  Noah rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I know. I’ll figure out a way to handle it, Rush.”

  “Right—with my help.”

  “I won’t drag you into it.”

  “I’m offering.”

  Noah sighed. “I’m always getting you into trouble.”

  “And I always get you out of it.” It was our familiar pattern, and even though I told myself I was offering to help Noah steal cars because I wanted to save his ass—which was true—I also needed to steal a motherfucking car. I couldn’t deny it any more than I could stop breathing, and it felt good to admit it, even if it was only to myself. “When’s the next one?”

  “Tomorrow night. And I can’t pull it off by myself,” Noah admitted, and he looked as tired as I felt. “It’s the Ferrari.”

  Every car thief has a car that nearly broke them, one they tried to steal over and over and it fucked with their heads. Every car thief except for me, because Al had trained that shit right out of me. “I’ll do it.”

  “Thanks, Rush,” Noah told me, and I wanted to wipe the guilt from his eyes. Until he said, “Now it’s your turn—spill about the roses.”

  “My turn? I’m going to steal a car to help you and that’s not enough?”

  “No,” Noah deadpanned.

  I pushed my plate away. “I’m almost positive they’re coming from the same person.”

  Noah looked at me like I was an idiot. Which I was. “We talking guy or girl here? And couldn’t you just ask?”

  “It’s a he. And we don’t do much talking, so fuck you and your logic.”

  Noah smirked. “Okay, how about afterwards, then? Or in the morning? You must have a few minutes where you actually speak.”

  My cheeks got hot, and Noah was staring. He knew I had very few inhibitions in bed, if I had any at all, which was questionable. I was loud and explicit with what I wanted, what I liked, with men and with women.

  “Let me get this straight. He comes in here in the middle of the night, has sex with you, and then leaves.”

  And that pretty much summed it up, although it didn’t sound that cheap when I thought about it. I groaned and buried my head in my arms, then heard Noah’s quiet sigh.

  When he spoke again, the sarcasm was gone. “It’s going to be all right, Rush.”

  Was it? I honestly didn’t know. But I was done keeping this secret. I lifted my head and looked at him. “After that night at Bertha’s, I came home drunk. I got into bed, passed out, and thought I’d had the best dream ever. And then the first rose came. Actually, when the room was torn apart in the morning, I was kind of suspicious, but when the rose came, I knew.” I got warm just thinking about it—the good kind of warm, like a safe memory wrapped around me, even though what was happening felt anything but safe. “Nothing happened the next night or the next, but then it happened again and again and again. I tried to tell myself that I was going to stop it the next time, but I couldn’t. Didn’t want to, actually.”

  “It’s that guy from Havoc—the big biker you and Linc made the bet about.”

  “Fucking Linc,” I muttered. “Why are we friends with him again?”

  Noah snorted and shook his head like he didn’t know either. “So what’s the actual problem here? I mean, Havoc or no Havoc, you’ve got someone who’s sneaking in here at night, giving you a great ride, and leaving before you wake up.”

  My face got hot hearing my thoughts echoed back to me. They sounded so stark. So exposed. “The problem is . . . fuck. Sometimes . . . most of the time, I want him to be here when I wake up in the morning.” Noah whistled low under his breath and stared at me. “What? Say something. You’re freaking me out.”

  “Sorry. It’s just . . . you’re feeling something, Rush. Fucking finally.”

  He was right. The asshole was right. It’d been a long time since I’d been anything but numb, starting from when Billy was killed in Iraq. Billy, Noah, and I’d been tight since
we’d met in juvenile detention, and when he’d been killed in Iraq, it had ripped me and Noah up pretty badly. We’d both been making shitty decisions since. Shittier than when we were teenagers, so that was saying something.

  I’d been trying to tell myself that I wanted Ryker there because I’d started to feel slightly used when I woke up alone, but that wasn’t it at all. I didn’t feel used. I was lonely. And I’d been coming home earlier, staying in more, hoping for him to sneak in. This past week, he’d visited twice, and that had solidified my feelings.

  But it’d also proven that the guy on other end of the roses only wanted sex. Because eight months of nothing else? How could I justify it otherwise? “Maybe I do feel something.” I picked up one of the roses out of the box, rolled the stem along the pads of my fingers, balancing the sharpness so it had just the right amount of sting. “But he doesn’t.”

  Noah frowned, glanced at the roses and back at me. “I forgot that you never date—you just screw.”

  I nodded. Never had a commitment, never wanted one. Ever. Until now.

  Maybe.

  “Rush, this guy’s sending you red roses. In the real world of love and dating, that means serious business. You don’t just send them to someone you want to see on a casual basis.”

  “He’s making fun of me.”

  “Seems like a lot of trouble to go through. I mean . . . would you let him fuck you if he wasn’t sending the roses?”

  I closed my eyes and sighed.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. To me, it looks like he’s trying to seduce you, and maybe trying to tell you how he feels about you.”

  “Then why wouldn’t he just come right out and say it? Why the sneaking around, the secrecy? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Noah shrugged. “Guess maybe he knows you better than you know yourself. Although that’s not hard to do, Rush.”

  “Fuck you, Noah.” Because I did know something about myself—both Al and my father had drilled into me—and it was that a guy like me was better off alone.

  In return, Noah placed the roses in the middle of the table, right in front of my face.

  I groaned and buried my face in my arms. Again.

  And then I got ready to steal a car.

  ust before two in the morning, Noah put the cameras on a six-minute loop and we entered the lower level of the luxury car dealership several towns over that housed some majorly expensive cars in need of regular maintenance and minor repairs. Including the ’87 Testarossa that waited for me, her gleaming cherry red a siren’s song.

  “Better hope she runs,” I murmured, more to myself than to Noah, as I ran my hand along the front bumper. Noah glanced over but didn’t say anything. He had his superstitions. I had mine. It was our usual routine, honed over time, and it should’ve felt out of practice, rusty and odd.

  It didn’t, and that worried and comforted me all at once.

  We weren’t using keys, since they were locked up more tightly than the cars. Thankfully, predictably, she was already unlocked, so I didn’t have to do anything but unscrew the panel below the steering column and twist the right wires together. Although alarms and locks were infinitely more complicated on today’s models, there wasn’t much I couldn’t get into, given the time and tools.

  The engine purred to life, the vroom going right to my cock. In the past, I might’ve said stealing was better than sex, but post-Ryker, no way.

  Ryker.

  I’d debated telling him about my propensity for car theft, and how the need had been getting stronger every damned day, but decided that he wasn’t my keeper or my conscience. Hell, maybe he would’ve encouraged me. Or maybe he wouldn’t answer if I told him anything real about me.

  Although what was more real than sex?

  I heard Al’s voice inside my mind, clear as day, snapping me back into reality.

  Mind on the game. Eyes on the prize.

  “She’s in for new brake pads,” Noah informed me.

  I pulled out of the space by the lift and went forward a few feet, then hit the brakes hard. They responded with a slight slip, but they’d be fine. One of the first things I’d learned was never to rely on the car, but rather what I could make the car do for me.

  And I didn’t need brakes to stop a car.

  Granted, things turned out better when I did have them.

  “Let’s go.” With fifty seconds to spare, I eased the car out into the darkness and the garage shut behind us automatically. We waited a beat, and when no obvious alarms rang, I started out along the back roads. The last thing we needed was a police chase—I would’ve aborted the job in a hot minute.

  The rain had just started, a drizzle that left the roads slicker than normal, but I really wanted to open her up.

  So I did. We fishtailed a few times, but hell, that was part of the rush. Noah laughed, probably the first real laugh I’d heard from him in a long while.

  The engine was perfect—inaudible—and the ride was as it should be from a car of this magnitude, a smooth, supple dance on the road. It was almost too smooth, too slick for my tastes, something I didn’t mind visiting but wouldn’t want to drive on a daily basis. I needed rougher. Harder. I was American muscle cars, all the way.

  We were twenty minutes out from the docks in Shades, where we’d deliver. And then the familiar dull ache would begin as soon as the adrenaline wore off.

  I steered the car off the next exit instead of continuing along the highway.

  Noah grumped, “You were worried and now you’re pushing our luck. Just head for the docks.” He always got this way with the Ferraris.

  “We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Rush, what the hell are you planning?”

  I glanced at him. “We’re racing her.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Noah asked. “No, you’re not— Christ, you’re supposed to get me out of trouble, not in deeper.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I told him, and I was calmer than I’d been in a long while, like the weight was finally off my chest. “There’s a race starting in twenty minutes.”

  “You planned this,” Noah accused.

  “I got us an invite. We can race and still make the drop-off with time to spare.”

  “Dammit Rush, we can’t afford . . .”

  “First prize is inching up to ten thousand. Serious cash. On top of what you’ll make for the boost . . .”

  “Fuck you, Rush,” Noah muttered. But I noticed he’d stopped protesting, so I turned up the radio and found some eighties music. I liked to match the music to the car. I swear they performed better when they recognized their own decade.

  I took the back roads that wove together the towns of my childhood. I’d lived in this general area my whole life, just outside of Shades Run until after the Army. I’d been worried that moving too close would bring me too much temptation. And here I was, ready to race where I’d first learned to.

  Who said you couldn’t go home again? Although I’d always thought the expression should be, You can’t ever really leave home. Ever.

  Granted, these days my home was more of one than I’d had growing up. I’d done that purposely. I wasn’t going to live hand to mouth, scraping by, and I wasn’t even attempting a relationship, never mind kids. All I’d ever wanted besides a clean place of my own was fun, minimal responsibility, and enough money to keep myself out of debt and trouble. And I’d succeeded, and enjoyed it, even after the arrest and the forced enlistment. I thought I was fine, that I’d left behind the stealing and the scars of childhood.

  I got the first inkling that I wasn’t fine when I left the Army. I thought maybe the military had disillusioned me, but turns out I’d been severely disillusioned all the fuck along.

  I’d always had trust issues. Post-Army, they were a hell of a lot worse. But I’d settled into working at Edmund’s with Noah, along with going out and pretending I had all I needed. Because hell, it was more than a lot of people had.

  The nights Ryker came into my bed were the only
times I didn’t have to pretend—didn’t need to pretend. Of course, that scared the fuck out of me, but not enough to stop it from happening.

  Sex with Ryker was a lot like stealing cars. The first time, I was also scared as hell, but I still wanted it. Badly. And the fear was overridden by the pure fucking pleasure of it all, the rush, the fix, the pulse-pounding grind of all that power under me, vibrating through me like it needed to become a part of me. Which it did.

  The second time? Fucking heaven. Because I knew what I was doing. Knew what I’d feel. And all the times after that? My body learned to recognize the signs of an impending boost. I craved it like a junkie . . . the same way I craved Ryker. Make no mistake, both were an addiction, and I honestly wasn’t sure which was more dangerous. Or if it mattered.

  “We’re almost there,” I said to Noah. I had to cross the main drag, keeping an eye out for any police presence. The guys who ran the illegal races would be monitoring the channels for any activity, so we were relatively safe, but I wasn’t taking chances. Even Noah was back into the old rhythms, which included watching the side mirrors while checking for alerts from his phone. The players might change, but technology was always on our side.

  I went down two quiet streets, and then it opened up into something that looked like a movie set with the requisite muscle cars, brooding guys, bad girls, and music. Set ups like this happened in a matter of minutes and they were broken down just as quickly, all parties knowing that scattering when the cops showed was the only way to freedom.

  The lights—street, head, and some interiors—kept things feeling more intimate than they ever could be.

  A quick glance was all I needed to see that the game had changed in the last six years, and I didn’t recognize a lot of the faces here. Good. Before, I’d usually raced farther from home, but we couldn’t have risked a longer trip tonight. This was a one-off. I just needed to bleed this shit from my system.