Gutter (Book 1): The Ashes MC, #1

By Evelyn Glass

This is book 1 of the Ashes MC romance series! Books 2 and 3 are available everywhere now!

He'll drag me to the gutter if he gets the chance.

He's a devil covered in scars, muscle, and tattoos.

A devil that took me, claimed me, and used me for his pleasure until I was screaming his name.

A splash of ink, a tattoo, and now Alex Gordon thinks he owns me.

I should run.

I should get out while I can.

But each time he touches me….

Each time his gravelly voice rumbles in my ear…

Shivers run down my spine.

I know he won't stop.

Not until there's nothing of the old me left.

Not until he's made me HIS.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBook Publishing World
• Release date: Dec 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393731337

Book preview

Gutter: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Ashes MC Book 1)

By Evelyn Glass

He’ll drag me to the gutter if he gets the chance.

HE’S A DEVIL COVERED in scars, muscle, and tattoos.

A devil that took me, claimed me, and used me for his pleasure until I was screaming his name.

A splash of ink, a tattoo, and now Alex Gordon thinks he owns me.

I should run.

I should get out while I can.

But each time he touches me....

Each time his gravelly voice rumbles in my ear...

Shivers run down my spine.

I know he won’t stop.

Not until there’s nothing of the old me left.

Not until he’s made me HIS.

CHAPTER ONE

Krishna O’Sullivan jumped up and did a celebration dance as Anthony Rizzo did what he does best and smashed the ball out of the park for a three-run homer. Her favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, had just finished a three-game series shut-out over the Cincinnati Reds. The only thing that would have made it sweeter is if she’d seen it live.

But she was thankful for her DVR. It was the only true luxury in her efficient apartment on the third floor in an old complex. Then again, there was the detached garage space she paid an arm and a leg for every month to protect her pride and joy.

Her phone rang with an old AC/DC tune, and she went rigid with panic. The alarm was her five-minute warning, reminding her it was time to leave for work. She’d lost track of time, caught up in the game, and she still had to stop at the shop and grab some oil for her baby. The 1969 Buick Riviera had been a present on her 18th birthday, and she and her father had rebuilt it together. It needed an oil change, and she refused to skip any maintenance on her most precious possession.

Krishna rushed around the house, pulling on the cleanest pair of black slacks she could find and donning the unflattering red button down that was the required uniform. Her jet black hair went up in a ponytail on the way out the door, and she was thankful she wasn’t high maintenance. She would never make it out the door on time!

Even in such a hurry, she still spent a moment running her hand across the sleek and shiny body of her mint green classic car, admiring its perfection, even for years after the rebuild. But with a sigh, she threw herself into the driver’s seat and revved the engine with a lovely purr. Something about the sound always calmed her, made her feel a little less despondent at where she was in her life. Behind the wheel of the powerful machine, it didn’t matter than she was just a cashier at some low end department store. Her greatest accomplishment was at her fingertips, and it reminded her that, someday, someone would take her talents seriously, even if she was a woman.

And an ethnic one at that.

Rolling onto the road, Krishna tuned to her favorite station and pumped up the volume, cranking the manual window down. The day was a decent one with sunshine and a mild breeze, and the Black Sabbath song pounding her speakers put her in a good mood. She bobbed her head to the beat of Crazy Train and went to the nearby mechanic’s shop she frequented.

It was family owned and operated, only about four blocks away, which made it convenient, and she preferred it to the big chains staffed with people who relied on a computer to tell them about cars rather than their guts and personal experience. They tended to overcharge customers and sell parts to ignorant targets that weren’t actually needed.

Granted, since ownership of this place had passed to the next generation, they hadn’t been much better. But the mechanics knew not to screw around with Krishna. She just hated to see or hear them cheating others.

Growing up, her parents had instilled values in her, especially teaching her to be honest, and what the mechanics tried to pull went against everything Krishna believed in and made her angry. She had promised she would say something next time she overheard a raw deal, as well as vowing she wouldn’t do that to a customer herself, if she ever got a shot at being a mechanic.

Parking right in front, Krishna watched as the men coming in and out stared at what amounted to a muscle car with admiration. She smiled with pride as she made her way to the back of the store where they kept the oil, ignoring the salesmen who tried to stop her to ‘help’ her. She rolled her eyes at their ignorance. Why was it that everyone insisted a woman – especially a woman who wasn’t white – couldn’t know anything about cars?

To be fair, she’d grown up in the suburbs just outside the city with two Irish parents who had adopted her as an eighteen-month-old baby. They’d flown all the way to India for her and spent her childhood telling the story over and over while showing her their first pictures together. They laughably referred to it as their first family vacation, and they’d taken her all across the country before bringing her back to the United States.

But Krishna always felt a strange sense of disconnect with those images. She didn’t identify with the country that was technically her home and origin. She actually had a much closer connection with the beautiful city of Taos, New Mexico where she lived now. And she was more comfortable with the connection to her adoptive parents and the family tradition of repairing and rebuilding cars than the genetics that shaped a person. Nurture over nature, she supposed.

She’d learned from her father’s love of taking things apart to see how they worked, and cars and motorcycles were his favorites. He’d even owned a couple of Harleys while Krishna was growing up, and while he had a day job as an IT manager, he was loyal to his first love and had instilled the same love of learning about the internal workings of vehicles in her. As a whole, her father had been strict and logical, but when they worked on a car together, he smiled and praised her more than with anything else. She had always strived for that from him and still did.

Now, she scanned the shelves for the right type of oil. She’d used the same brand ever since she’d started driving the car, knowing it was quality that kept her baby going strong. She found what she wanted and picked up two bottles, but a tap on her shoulder made her jump and nearly drop them. She caught her breath and smiled at the man standing beside her.

He was a pretty big guy, probably equal proportions of muscle and fat making up his build. He towered over her by more than a few inches, and he was covered in tattoos, with little skin left unmarked. He wore a skull cap over what appeared to be a bald head, whether shaved or natural she didn’t know. She pinned him as the biker type immediately.

Hey, is that your car out there? he asked pointing toward the glass at the front of the building, his finger aimed directly at the Buick. People were beginning to gather around it. She wasn’t surprised; it happened a lot.

She laughed shortly. Yes, it is. I take it you like it?

Of course. Did you have to ask? He nodded as he gazed at it. Who wouldn’t admire it? I was just wondering where you managed to find a Riviera in such excellent shape. It looks practically fresh from the factory, mint condition. Whoever did the work on it was a genius.

Krishna knew the man’s jaw would hit the floor when he heard the answer. "Well, my father found it at a junk yard in Albuquerque. He brought it home just before my 18th birthday and told me it was my present, as long as I could