Hard Ride (Book 1): Fallen Thorns MC, #1

By Kathryn Thomas

This is book 1 of the Fallen Thorns MC romance series! Books 2 and 3 of this motorcycle club romance series are available everywhere now!

 

I'm about to take this girl for a very hard ride.

 

Selena is a welcome distraction from trouble at the clubhouse.

The curvy librarian thinks she can back me down.

But I like the challenge.

And I'm about to show her just how wrong she is.

 

LOGAN

 

Getting women has always been too easy for me.

It's nice to have a little difficulty for once.

 

The busty librarian thinks she'll turn me down and walk away unscathed.

But her resistance can end in only one way:

With Selena on her knees, begging me for more.

 

But trouble is stirring at the Fallen Thorns MC.

Mysterious threats at our doorstep.

My crazy ex, more unstable than ever.

And a war on the horizon.

 

So be it.

I'll handle this – and her – the way I've handled everything in my life:

Like a god damn biker.

 

SELENA

 

He walked in and changed my life in an instant.

I hated him on sight.

But oh my God, I wanted him so badly.

 

How could I not?

 

Those muscles.

Those tattoos.

That smooth, infuriating smirk.

 

He was used to getting his way with women.

I was determined not to fall for his bad boy charm.

But I never stood a chance.

 

He owned me from the second he burst through those doors.

 

I don't have a choice.

The bad boy biker is about to take me on the hardest ride of my life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBook Publishing World
• Release date: Apr 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393469599

Book preview

Hard Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Fallen Thorns MC Book 1)

By Kathryn Thomas

I’m about to take this girl for a very hard ride.

SELENA IS A WELCOME distraction from trouble at the clubhouse.

The curvy librarian thinks she can back me down.

But I like the challenge.

And I’m about to show her just how wrong she is.

LOGAN

Getting women has always been too easy for me.

It’s nice to have a little difficulty for once.

The busty librarian thinks she’ll turn me down and walk away unscathed.

But her resistance can end in only one way:

With Selena on her knees, begging me for more.

But trouble is stirring at the Fallen Thorns MC.

Mysterious threats at our doorstep.

My crazy ex, more unstable than ever.

And a war on the horizon.

So be it.

I’ll handle this – and her – the way I’ve handled everything in my life:

Like a god damn biker.

SELENA

He walked in and changed my life in an instant.

I hated him on sight.

But oh my God, I wanted him so badly.

How could I not?

Those muscles.

Those tattoos.

That smooth, infuriating smirk.

He was used to getting his way with women.

I was determined not to fall for his bad boy charm.

But I never stood a chance.

He owned me from the second he burst through those doors.

I don’t have a choice.

The bad boy biker is about to take me on the hardest ride of my life.

Chapter 1

Selena

Working in a library is the best kind of a job a writer can ask for. It's always quiet, I'm surrounded by books - their adventures and mysteries and fantasies all wrapped up in the smells that hang between the pages - and it's hardly ever busy, which means I can put all that inspiration to good use.

I studied a degree in Language and Literature and I added Teaching by extending a year. A lot of my classmates had all gone on to become copy editors, linguists, people who believed their titles made them. I ended up in Branciforte Library in the triangle park in Santa Cruz. Of course, this place has internet access and wireless and printing options but that wasn't what drew me.

Sometimes I turned my back to all the modern technology and pretended it was still 1950 when the word 'library' was still what it defined and books were the key to life and the escape from it.

How are things going, Selena? Alicia's voice snapped me back to reality.

Quiet, as usual, but I'm on top of things, I smiled. Alicia was one of those women who always looked immaculate. She only ate salad to maintain her waistline, wore two piece suits and went for a manicure at two o'clock every last Wednesday of the month during business hours. She didn't belong in a library - I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd never cracked a book in her life.

Her hair was an auburn this time with too much red in it - her hair dresser had probably convinced her it was all the rage now - and her lips were a shade redder than the hair was willing to tolerate.

Of course, you're on top of it, she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. I can always count on you.

I smiled back at her and liked to think I managed to make it more genuine than hers. I wasn't loyal because of Alicia. I was loyal because I loved my job.

Alicia turned and teetered back to her office on her high heels. I watched her until the door closed behind her and the blinds turned so no one could see what she was doing in there. I liked to think she dropped her perfect mask and a failure showed its face.

I minimized the window with the book lists and opened up my manuscript. I was the perfect nerd. Behind the scenes, when no one was looking at the shy librarian, I was working on a book I dreamed would one day make the big screen. Of course, it was all wishful thinking, but it was a fantasy I could lose myself in, day in day out.

My book was about a murder, a mystery, a man who was worth dying for. Thrillers were hard to write but I was sure I could do it. I'd read enough in my life. I'd titled it The Coroner's Wife and I was stuck with the climax. This was where everything was supposed to come together.

Instead, my main character, Kylee, was cornered in a morgue with a gun pointed at her head and only dead bodies as witnesses and I had no way out for her.

Go figure. Writer's block was a bitch. It had been a quiet day, it was almost closing time, and I still hadn't come up with any kind of resolution for Kylee's dilemma. There were times in my life where I asked myself What Would Kylee do? I imagined how she would react. Kylee was everything I wasn't, after all. Sexy, seductive, clever, hard to get, and good with a gun. Her intuition was beyond comparison. Her flaws were that of a woman who searched for love and found a murderer instead - trust, loyalty.

I couldn't ask Kylee what she would do next because I didn't know. That meant Kylee wouldn't know, and if I didn't think of something soon the only thing Kylee would know was a premature ending to her story.

I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands.

The door to Alicia's office opened again and she popped her head out.

Jenny can't make it to her shift tonight. Are you all right to fill in?

I nodded. Why not? I didn't have anything to go home to and I could work on my climax some more. Overtime never hurt, either.

You're a star. She disappeared back inside.

One day I will be, I muttered in response. I read over the action scene again. It felt tacky. I stuck my hands into my hair. I wanted to make it big one day but if my writing looked like this? I groaned.

The sun was starting to set and I got up to switch on the library lights. We were open until eleven. After eight very few people came in unless it was raining and then it was only to wait out the weather. This was the best time for me.

I sat down again, huddled in the yellow dim light of the library, surrounded by books and my imagination. It was perfect. I started typing. I felt the cold metal of the gun against Kylee's head, the shivers that ran down her spine. I could taste her heart in her throat. She'd been running after this guy for weeks and she knew what he was capable of, but having a gun to your head felt like nothing she'd been able to anticipate. Her mind had gone blank, perfect for a do-or-die situation. Not.

I took a deep breath and I wasn't in the warm library anymore but in the cold morgue with the drawers of human bodies all around me, the autopsy bodies solidifying under their plastic sheets. There was a scalpel to the side of the autopsy worktop I hadn't seen before. If Kylee could just reach out and curl her fingers around it before her brains were blown out maybe she could slice her way out of it.

The killer cocked his gun. The library door swung open with a bang and I jumped in my seat, snapped back to reality. My heart hammered in my throat and I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself. I was in a library, not a morgue. I was a librarian, not a mystery solver. God, I'd nearly died of fright.

He didn't look like he belonged in a library at all. He wore a sleeveless jean jacket that showed off a spectacular display of inked skin and pants that looked a lot like leather. He