Page 5 of Merry Merry Biker
“What?” he said in confusion.
“My name is Lana,” I informed him. “Lana Merry.”
“Beautiful name, Sprite. Suits you. I’m Tommy.”
“I know,” I responded. “You told me when I found you. Do you have a surname?”
Tommy’s face split into a grin, “I do.”
Ugh, this man was frustrating. Huffing out a slightly annoyed breath, I asked, “Well are you going to tell me?”
“Not yet,” he informed me. “But I promise you have nothing to worry about with me, I’d never hurt you.”
That was the one thing I hadn’t been worried about. My gut was rarely wrong, and I’d felt from the start that he wouldn’t hurt me.
“I know,” I acknowledged. “Even injured, you could have hurt me already if you wanted. I have good instincts, and I know you’re dangerous, but not to me. Trust me, if when I found you and my gut had told me that something was off, I’d have ignored your orders, locked myself in my car and called an ambulance. There’s something familiar about you, though. I’ll let you keep your secrets for now. You can tell me when you trust me more.”
He seemed surprised at my words. Knowing I still had a tonne of stuff to do tonight and needing to get away from all thedeliciousness laid out before me, I slapped my hands on my thighs and stood up.
“I’m going to go have a quick shower, then I’ll get us something to eat and drink. I have some antibiotics that I’d like you to take once you’ve had something to eat. It will help stop any infections. I won’t be long,” I assured him as I walked off down the hall to my bedroom, needing to get away before I attacked the man and rode him like a pony.
Jesus, what a time for my libido to make an appearance. Going straight to my bedside draw, I rummaged around until I found my vibrator, changed the batteries, and took it with me into the shower. Some self-care was needed if I wanted to be able to look the man in the face again tonight.
CHAPTER 3
TOMMY
From my place on the floor in front of the roaring fire, I watched, slightly amused, as her little arse sashayed down the hall to where I knew the bedrooms were. I’d recognised the house as soon as I’d opened my eyes. You didn’t live in it for most of your life and not remember your childhood home. Although it had changed a lot since I’d lived here. It looked like she was doing a complete refurbishment. The house had certainly needed it over twenty years ago, so I could only imagine the state it had been in when she’d moved in.
The small pot belly fireplace I was lying in front of was new, as was the flooring. When I’d lived here, the floor had been covered in a god-awful brown carpet with big orange flowers that had been popular in the seventies. My last memory of this house was leaving my father lying knocked out on that very carpet and my mother cowering in the corner.
We’d lived in this house on the charity of my Uncle Colm. Uncle Colm was Dad’s older brother, and the two of them differed like night and day. While Uncle Colm had been a hard-arse and didn’t take any disrespect, he’d loved his wife and boys. He’d never have lifted a hand to any of them. The same could not be said for my father. How he’d fallen so far from the family tree was anyone’s guess.
When I was twelve, I’d watched Uncle Colm as he’d beat the shit out of my father after I’d appeared at their house with broken ribs, a broken arm, and a black eye. The black eye hadn’t been my first by my father, but it had been my last.
I’d known as soon as he’d hit my ribs and heard the crack that he’d broken them, along with my arm that he grabbed and rammed over his leg. I can’t even remember why’d he’d gone after me that day, but I’d been hurting enough to ignore my mother’s pleas and had walked to my uncle’s house. Uncle Colm had taken me to the hospital, and we’d lied through our teeth about a motorbike accident. We’d told him that my cousins and I had gotten hold of a motocross bike, and I’d crashed it while not wearing protective clothing.
The doctor hadn’t believed us, that much I knew. He’d taken Uncle Colm aside to talk to him. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in Accident and Emergency, but it was the first time my parents hadn’t accompanied me. Uncle Colm had said something that had appeased the doctor and I’d left the hospital with him, a brand-new cast on my arm and painkillers for my ribs. That was the day I’d moved in with Uncle Colm’s family. From that day on, I only went home if my mother asked me to and only if my father wasn’t at home.
I don’t know how many times Uncle Colm tried to get my mother to leave, but she wouldn’t. Hell, we’d all tried at one time or another to get her to leave. She’d made her choice and nothing we could do would persuade her that there was more for her out there than to be used as a punching bag.
I’d had plans to join Uncle Colm’s business at sixteen, but he’d wanted me to finish school first before I got embroiled in the illegal arms trade. In the end, I’d chosen the military much to his disgust, but he’d still been there for me when I’d graduated, and he’d been there for me every time I’d come home on leave.
The military was where I stayed for the next twenty years before I handed my notice in. My intention had always been to come back home. But fate had another plan for me and instead I’d fallen into my next job by accident. I’d found being a civilian had been boring. After twenty years in the military, I’d needed the danger. It had been well-known throughout my unit that I thrived on danger. The more dangerous the assignment, the better as far as I was concerned.
Being an assassin for hire had never entered into my thoughts or my retirement plans. But I had all the right training and it paid good money. I was set for life on the money I’d earned while I’d been a man for hire.
I’d earned the name Ricochet. It was a name that was notorious in the underground. My name came about because my speciality was having a bullet ricochet back into the target. The first time it had happened purely by accident, but I’d cultivated the persona and practiced that shot until I could do it in my sleep. The name had stuck.
I’d never been out of work in all the time I’d been freelancing. Between how I got my name and the fact that I made it known that I would only take on a job once I’d scoped it out to ensure that no innocents were involved. I’d started to do this after the first time someone had tried to pull one over on me and have an innocent killed. Instead, I’d gone after the person who’d put the contract up, and by the time I was finished with them, nobody ever tried to get me to assassinate an innocent again. It was also well-known that I didn’t ever take on jobs that involved violence to women or children.
The people I’d been hired to kill were the worst of the worst. The ones that didn’t deserve to be walking on this earth. Funnily enough, I’d done more work for my government after I’d left the military than I’d thought I’d do. Not that they knew who I wasbecause I never met with anyone face to face. All my jobs were done anonymously under my handle.
Taking on anonymous jobs had become much easier now that we had the internet and even easier once news of my death surfaced. If I’d known how much easier it would be to set up jobs once I’d supposedly died, I’d have done it earlier instead of being nearly blown to smithereens by accident. It all worked out in the end because it had allowed me three years to tie up loose ends. Now that I’d done that, I was home to stay. It had certainly been an interesting homecoming so far.
Hearing the shower come on, I groaned slightly as the image of my Sprite naked in the shower entered my head. My cock that had been at half-mast since she’d first put her hands on me rose to the occasion at the thought of all that water cascading down her naked body, across her breasts and down her legs.
“Fuck,” I muttered and restlessly moved my legs under the sheet. Pushing the sheet and blankets down, I slipped my hand into my boxers so that I could take a firm grip of my cock, holding it harder than I usually would to try and stop me coming before I was ready to. You’d think with the amount of pain I was in and the concussion he’d be out for the count …… but NO. Just the thought of my Sprite naked down the hall and he was ready to go.