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I watched her cuddled in behind him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, tense from cold or fear. I couldn’t tell. I hoped it was cold. I’d seen the fear on her face those few nights ago and it had reached into my chest and wrenched my heart clean out. I couldn’t bear to see her like that again. She’d been utterly frozen at first, her face filled with horror, and then something like relief kicked in, slogging its way through her veins until she’d come alive under it. We could have done without a fire, though. No time to dispose of bodies and evidence properly, and now we had to rely on her arsehole of a boss to sell a good story. And I fucking hated relying on anyone who wasn’t a King.

Alice shifted her weight slightly on the back of Cade, the tight leather trousers he’d bought her hugging that beautiful little peach of an arse. I was in the wrong position on the road if I didn’t want to get distracted. I couldn’t see her thighs, only the curve of that bum, those tight glutes as if she squatted for hours every day in the gym. Fuck. I was getting a fucking hard-on, and this was going to make this ride the most uncomfortable ride of my life.

Bikes roared behind and in front of me. Reap now on my flank, pulling away from Tez, concentration on the road. Beanz rode next to Cade, and that made me nervous. He swayed about the road, his head moving ever left and right, never fully focused on the riders in front. Riding two abreast at this speed took skill and concentration and if the fuckers in front and behind weren’t paying attention, it quickly became a lethal domino effect of a multiple bike pile-up.

By the time we disturbed the quaint Cumbrian town of Kirkby Stephen, I could see Alice was uncomfortable. She wriggled, shifting her weight from one seat bone to another. Cade patted her leg, the action reassuring, but my stomach dropped, watching him touch her, where I no longer could. His girl on his bike. And all I could do was watch it all happen, knowing I’d had my taste. But that one taste had me hooked, and now I felt an obsession like I’d never felt before, deep in my stomach, and fire in my veins. Fuck.

How had he found her before I’d had a chance to? If only I’d taken Kinobi to the vet that day. If only it had been me. Instead, I’d stayed to help Demon, and she’d met Cade instead of me. And now I sat behind them, watching him touch her. Knowing he was fucking her. Knowing how it felt to be inside of her. Shit. There was that fucking boner again. Fuck’s sake. I was getting off this bike either angry or horny as fuck, and unless there was someone I could find quickly, it was going to have to be a quick hand job in my tent.

We pulled up at the top of the hill, into the space Tomahawk’s crew had made for us, leaving enough room to put up tents and dragging out the beers. It had been a cold, thirsty ride, and I needed something to numb the pain in my crotch and the fiery poker taking stabs at my heart. Cans hissed around me, brothers choosing beer over shelter, and I was pleased my priorities were just about in the right place.

Cade helped Alice off the bike, the black leather trousers pulling even tighter round that magnificent arse and hugging her thighs. My eyes couldn’t leave her. Any of her. Her helmet still covered her face, but I could almost see those light blue eyes concentrating on him, and only him. That deep thrum started in my stomach again, and I took another mouthful from the can in my hand.

Alice’s body shook, just the tiniest of little movements, but as my eyes fixed on her thighs, on her back, on her arse, on the only parts of her I could really see as she concentrated on my brother, I could see the tiniest convulsions of a shiver. He’d barely noticed. He should have done something to warm her up. My cock stirred again in my leather bike trousers. Fuck. I knew how I’d warm her up. She would be shaking, not shivering, by the time I’d finished.

“Freezing,” I heard her murmur, the shiver even in her voice.

And I missed that too. The gentle tone of her voice. The softness and the versatility, the change to soft commands when she talked about her patients. One night was all I’d had. All I’d had to fall head over heels with my brother’s woman.

“I’ll get the tent up and our things in,” Cade responded, and I scowled at his solution. Leave her standing around in the cold while he fucked about with a tent.

“I really need a coffee or something,” Alice continued, her body convulsing.

“There’s some just down there,” I pointed over their heads, to where the tops of marquees peered out from the other side of the hill.

Alice pulled her helmet from her head, loose brown hair falling out from under it. And then she turned, her eyebrows knitting together. A darkness swarming in those beautiful blue eyes and an entire load of emotions hit me all at once. Jealousy, anger, defeat, and this consuming filling heaviness that I felt every time I looked at her, even from the very first day when I watched her walk out the vets with my brother.

“I don’t want her wandering round here by herself,” Cade answered.

“Agreed, brother. I don’t want her alone here either.”

I didn’t think Alice could have glared at me any harder, yet I was wrong. The anger on her delicate features was intense, the narrowing of her eyes, her lips pushing together, a wrinkle on her forehead. Even in the vets, she hadn’t looked at me like that. She’d looked terrified that night as Cade led her away, leaving me behind as the fire built. And now she looked like she might just toss me in that fire herself. In the vets, there’d been hope. The slightest sign she might forgive what I had done to her, that she might remember how much she’d enjoyed it, even though I hadn’t been what she thought I was. But today, watching her shivering in the middle of a freezing cold Cumbrian field, that last little ebb of hope was slowly dwindling.

“I’ll go with her,” Suzy offered.

“Don’t really want Suzy wandering around here either,” Magnet complained.

None of us missed the look the petite blonde woman shot her husband, and all of us except Magnet laughed. Instead, he grumbled something into his beard, and we all watched Suzy lead Alice away.

My eyes trailed after her for ages, watching the way the leather hugged her body, exaggerating hips that were normally hidden under the hideous green scrubs she wore every day. The last time I’d seen her look like this was the night I rode her into Kings’ territory to parade in front of my brother. The night that I’d burned any trust in me, she’d had. The night I wished I’d done something different.

“Brother, take your eyes off my lass,” Cade’s voice was low and intimidating behind me.

“I wasn’t watching…. no, aye, I was watching her ass. Not gonna lie.”

He scowled, the slight movement of something at his thigh. A fist. Quietly rolled ready. I doubt he’d give me another warning. But I felt like pushing my luck, anyway. Or I would have done, but luck had other ideas.

The sound of the exhaust was hideously loud, growing louder as the bike climbed the hill. It didn’t climb slowly and carefully like we did. It fired up, the thick back wheel kicking mud and grass into the air, splattering tents and bikes, shouts and yells following it.

We all stopped. Every single one of us. All heads turning, all beer hands slowing.

“Who the fuck is that?” Indie grumbled, shooting a look at Magnet.

Everyone watched on, stunned, as the screaming angry Japanese racing bike kept coming towards us. Everyone except Fury, who stood, his arms crossed across his chest, with Heidi watching him with interest.

“Who is that?” Reap asked from behind us.

“Can’t tell. Don’t think I’ve seen him before,” Magnet responded. “And he’s asking for fucking trouble approaching us like that.”

“Can you see a cut?” I squinted at the black and red leathers he was wearing.

The bike underneath gleamed. All black other than the silver Japanese decal on the fairing.

“Nah. And if I’m not mistaken, that isn’t a man either.” Magnet smiled, as if he suddenly knew something we didn’t.

Fury still stood with his arms folded, Heidi shaking her head and moving away from him as he continued to stare, growing angrier and angrier.

“Oh,” Cade spoke next to me, a laugh teasing at the edge of his voice.

The person clad in black and red leather kicked the stand out and swung long, lean legs over the back of the bike. They were tall. And slim. And now they stood on the grass in front of us. I could tell they were every bit a woman. She pulled her helmet off. Large, dark, wide eyes and long hair falling to her waist.

“What the fuck, Jazz?” Fury groaned.

“Thought I’d look in and see what was happening.”

“And where’s your kit?”

She tucked her helmet under her arm, smirking.

“What about a tent? Huh?”

“Someone will let me stay in theirs,” she shrugged, a smile replacing the smirk as she looked around at the four encampments, nearly every biker with their eyes on her.

Fury shook his head. “You know The Notorious are here, don’t you?”

Jazz smiled and shrugged. “Aren’t they always?”

“Great,” Indie groaned. “This is all we fucking need.”