Summer's Edge (Devil’s Nightmare MC Next Generation, Book 5), page 1
SUMMER'S EDGE
DEVIL’S NIGHTMARE MC NEXT GENERATION
BOOK 5
LENA BOURNE
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Also by Lena Bourne
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Edge
I ain’t had nothing much to live for since I was eighteen years old when my entire family was wiped out over a drug deal gone bad. Mine and my best friend’s and it was all my fault.
So, yeah, there we were, me and Ruin—or Nick, as he still went by in those days, before he got his road name—riding across the country on one bike. My dad’s Harley Davidson Road King to be exact, customized to perfection and the only thing I had left of him. Or any of my family. Nick didn’t even have that much. We didn’t talk about that. Tried not to think about it either. But Nick woke me almost each night by screaming in his dreams and I’m sure I was no better. We didn’t talk about that either.
We turned a lot of heads on that bike and not in a good way. A couple of kids riding a bike we could hardly steer. The little money we had got us from Michigan to California. The plan was to get to a place where the weather was nice year-round. But by the time we reached San Francisco we were broke.
We’d started sleeping in the wild then, on beaches and in parks, sometimes just by the side of the road. And it’s a good thing we did. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been there to save that poor, sad girl from throwing herself off the Golden Gate Bridge. Melody. She had lost her whole family too.
And for a while I tried to fool myself into thinking saving her life was the good deed that erased my guilt over ruining Nick’s life and destroying our families. But a deed like that didn’t exist. My guilt would never be lessened. Not by anything. And it would never be washed clean.
The three of us couldn’t all fit on my dad’s bike. And we couldn’t afford to keep riding it either.
So, I made the decision to sell it at the first seedy biker club we ran across. I thought I was real clever asking ten thousand for it. The bike was worth a lot more than that. Too bad we were just a couple of scrawny teenagers and a pretty girl. Too bad I was too stupid to realize my mistake in time.
By the time I had, the “buyers” lured us into the alleyway by the bar, five towering bikers with leering smiles and soft promises. I figured the bike was as good as sold given how in awe of it and all the customizations they claimed to be. But then a fist collided with my kidneys hard enough to take my breath and make me see stars. It was the first punch of many.
I could hear Melody screaming and Nick yelling and grunting as they beat him up too. But it was as though I was standing beside myself, looking at another mess I made, another thing I’d never be able to fix. If I lived long enough to try.
“What the fuck is going on here?” a man said harshly in a deep, carrying voice.
He was tall and built like a mountain. The tag on his cut said Ice, the back of it said Devil’s Nightmare MC.
“What the fuck is it to you?” the guy kicking me in the stomach growled.
I saw it all very clearly because I was still standing right beside my bleeding, shivering body on the cold ground.
“They’re just kids,” Ice said.
He wasn’t alone. Four other guys in Devil’s Nightmare MC cuts were beside them.
“Not your problem, man,” the guy kicking me said and kicked me again. I almost lost consciousness then. But I still saw it all clearly.
“I’m making it my problem,” Ice said.
Then they did.
And when they were all done, it was the five guys who tried to rob us shivering and bleeding on the ground.
“You all right, kid?” Ice asked me, his face real close to mine. I wasn’t, but I nodded anyway.
“You got somewhere to go?”
I shook my head.
I couldn’t speak, because my mouth was broken.
“Let’s take them back to the clubhouse and we’ll see what’s what after Doc looks at them,” one of the other guys said. His tag read Tank. And Vice-president right beneath it. So I figured we were in good hands.
And we were.
We stayed at their clubhouse, never left. That was ten years ago.
That’s how I became one of the Devils. And that’s why I owe Ice my life. It’s also why I would never do anything to cross the guy. Above all, I would never mess with his daughter.
But that was before I did.
Now I might have to eat every promise I ever made.
Because she’s made me want to live again.
Something I never thought would ever happen.
ONE
Summer
Piña coladas on the beach and one last weekend of partying with my friends before I have to return home to get locked up in my golden cage again. One last weekend of freedom before every halfway decent guy averts his eyes each time I pass, and I have the same five conversations with everyone over and over again. Or maybe it’s more like one conversation because lately all our conversations end up on the same topic: War. Death. Of everyone we love.
Even after Hunter and Trixie’s wedding, the one no one thought would ever happen, that’s all we ended up talking about.
I love my family, I do. But freedom is better. I thought I would finally have that when I got my first real job in LA. Junior makeup artist for one of the year’s top blockbusters and the single best experience of my life.
I got the gig off a makeup video I posted that went viral, but even before that I’d been applying for years to every such job I could find. It took me months to persuade my parents and everyone else to let me do it.
My dad’s not big on letting things go. Especially his daughters. And now that Devil’s Nightmare MC has gotten wrapped up in an all-out war with too many other MCs to count—as my mom tells it—I doubt I’ll ever see the outside world again.
The bodyguards he had trailing me on set weren’t even trying to blend in, which drove everyone crazy, especially me.
Biker Club Princess was thrown around a lot. Mostly behind my back. Until I owned it. Now it’s an inside joke with my friends—the people I spent almost every waking hour with for the last three months of filming.
You tell your own story. You don’t let anyone else tell it. Just one of the many things my dad taught me over the years.
I just wish more of it was actually applicable to the real world and not only to the biker world he’s so dead set on sheltering me from.
I didn’t think this getaway to Tijuana would be sanctioned, so I didn’t tell anyone I was going. I successfully ditched the bodyguards by dressing up as Princess Staeia, the lead character in the movie. I walked right past them in a sparkling green, skintight evening dress made of latex. The dress they noticed. The lioness mask covering my face they did not.
My plan exactly. I’m not a Biker Club Princess for nothing. And one thing I know is that all bikers will sooner notice a hot body than a pretty face. And my dad’s MC brothers, well, they’ve spent so much time not looking at my body that I could walk past them with just my head covered and they’d wouldn’t recognize me.
None of them followed me as I slid into the back of my friend Marcia’s convertible, and we sped off the studio lot and down the highway to Mexico.
We were already sipping the first round of Piña Coladas before they noticed I was gone. That’s when my dad’s angry texts started coming.
Stuff like,
This is no time to act stupid, Summer.
And, Where are you? I’m coming to get you.
And, At least fucking answer me so I know you’re alright.
I did, but only to keep him from going insane. And I did add that I’m twenty-five years old and would like some damn freedom.
Then I turned off my phone.
“They already missing you, biker princess?” Luis asks, his thick French accent somewhat softened by the amount of booze he’s already consumed.
He’d started drinking in the car and the hot sun beating down on us on this beach isn’t doing him any favors.
“Let them miss me,” I say as I toss the phone into my bag.
“That’s my girl,” he says and toasts me with his half empty bottle of rum.
I smile, clink my glass against it and say nothing.
I could tell him I’ll never be his girl like I’ve been forced to do since we met a month ago. He’s been trailing me like a lovesick puppy ever since then, but nothing’s ever gonna happen between us. He’s a nice guy, but definitely friend-zone material. And if I’m gonna be with anyone while we’re here, it’ll be with one of the buff waiters w
The one who brought our drinks has been casting glances at me non-stop. The kind of glances that promise all sorts of passion in the bedroom later. That’s what I need, fun and laughter and sunshine and a guy who knows his way around a woman’s body.
Because soon enough I’ll once again be surrounded by gruff, brooding bikers who think life is just about killing and who all seem to be under strict orders to never even look my way. I don’t know if my dad ordered this for a fact, but I’m pretty sure he might have.
Luis stands up on very wobbly legs and extends his hand to me. “Want to dance?”
“Oh, leave off, Luis,” Marcia says. “You can barely stand, and Summer is here to have some fun.”
I gave her a grateful smile. She’d been instrumental in keeping Luis off my back these past few months.
“Summer in the summer,” Luis says as he collapses back onto the sand. He laughs like it’s the funniest joke. I barely managed not to roll my eyes.
“I think I’ll go for a swim,” I say and stand up. “My skin’s still all sticky from all the latex in the green dress. How anyone can wear that for more than five minutes…”
That sends Luis giggling and I make my getaway before he regains his composure enough to actually say anything. Sober, he can be a pretty cool guy, drunk, clearly not so much.
“I’ll join you,” Marcia says and falls in step with me, wrapping her arm around mine.
She steers me away from the ocean though and grins when I look at her sideways.
“I thought we could go introduce ourselves to those hot waiters instead,” she says conspiratorially. “I am dying to talk to someone I haven’t spent the last three months living with.”
“I’m with you,” I say and grin too.
Marcia was the assistant to the assistant of the costume designer and worked her ass off fetching stuff and just being at constant beck and call. Just like me for the makeup department. We met on the first day of filming and were besties by the third. It’s gonna be hard leaving her behind.
“Hello, ladies,” the waiter who’s been making eyes at me all day says as we approach. “What can I do for you?”
His co-worker, an equally chiseled, golden skinned adonis with sparkling eyes and lips made for kissing, snickers beside him.
I extricate my arm from Marcia’s hold and extend my hand. “I’m Summer, what’s your name?”
“I’m Mario,” he says and the touch of his warm, callused hand in mine instantly sends shockwaves all through my body. Or maybe that’s from the way his soft brown eyes are caressing every inch of my face.
“This is Paolo,” he says, introducing his friend.
“And I’m Marcia.” She shakes hands with both of them too. “But the real question is, what are we doing later?”
She’s so damn forward. I love that about her. But right now, I’m hoping the heat in my cheeks doesn’t mean I’m tomato red in the face.
“Anything you girls want,” Mario says, his eyes swallowing me whole. “We get off at eight.”
“And then you’re taking us out on the town,” Marcia announces. “This place is nice and all, but I want to see the real Mexico.”
The two guys exchange glances, both grinning ear to ear.
“Anything you want, ladies,” Paolo says.
I’m sure they’re both thinking they’re getting some tonight, and they might very well be right, although…
“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to go wandering around a strange city with a couple of guys we just met,” I say to Marcia once we’re walking back to our group.
“Oh my God, you are such a princess,” she says and laughs. “Come on, we’re a couple of street-smart chicks and Tijuana isn’t exactly LA. And it’s certainly not New York City.”
That’s where she’s originally from and I’m dying to go visit her there. But between my dad wanting me home for the foreseeable future and her talking about staying in LA indefinitely, I don’t know when I’ll get that wish.
“We can handle it,” she says and grins.
“It’s not that…”
I haven’t told anyone about where I’m from or that my dad’s a member of one of the most notorious outlaw biker clubs in the country. I certainly didn’t tell them that the MC is currently in the middle of an all-out war and that we’re all in danger of becoming casualties in said war. Especially us children.
Hunter almost died, Chance survived only because he’s the luckiest guy alive and bullets seem to just bounce off him, and Harper came so close to being sold off I don’t even want to think about it.
But isn’t that all the more reason to live it up now, while I still can?
“You’re not chickening out on me, are you?” Marcia asks.
I shake my head and smile. “Nah, we’re good. I can’t wait to get to know Mario and Paolo a little better.”
She nods approvingly.
My dad’s not wrong about me needing to be careful.
But who’s gonna look for me in Tijuana? It’s all tourists and college kids partying hard down here. I blend in perfectly.
Tijuana is not just beaches, it’s actually a city of two million people. But you’d never guess that from the side of it Mario and Paolo showed us. They’re actually neighbors and we started the night at their houses where they spent an hour getting ready, while Marcia and I sat on plastic chairs in the back yard talking to their grandpas, and moms, and a bunch of cousins, some barely a year old.
Then they took us for some real Mexican tacos, which were so hot and spicy my mouth’s still burning hours later. Then it was tequila and dancing. The Latin passion is something I could get used to very fast. I danced more tonight than I had in my whole life before.
I’m sitting at one of the outside tables of a small dance club called La Copa, enjoying the breeze on my overheated face and sipping water. I have a good view of Marcia and both the guys, dancing a slow dance on the nearly deserted dance floor just inside the club. Most of the patrons have come out to the sidewalk for a breather and no one seems in a hurry to get back to dancing. It’s almost two AM. I’m dead on my feet and I’m thinking I could just let Marcia have both of the guys tonight.
They’re nice, attentive, and passionate. But here I am, wishing I was surrounded by those brooding, gruff bikers that never look at me.
It’s just my way to want what I can’t have.
Since the party is dying down, it’ll soon be time to go. Either to another club, or, as Mario has been suggesting more and more loudly, to his house. I don’t know how to tell Marcia I’d rather just go back to the resort.
“You got a cigarette?” a hoarse voice asks, sending shivers down my spine. The voice belongs to a bearded guy with biceps for days, wearing a leather cut over a black t-shirt and baggy jeans. He’s kinda hot, though there’s an unforgiving kind of iciness in his eyes too. I go wishing for brooding bikers and one appears. But this one looks a little too brooding for my taste.
“No, sorry,” I say. “I don’t smoke.”
“Good for you,” he says and sits down on the stool next to me, bodily blocking me from leaving the table with his hugeness.
I stand up anyway and try to get past him. “I should go back to my friends.”
He grins and eyes me up and down. “Come on, stay a while. You’re the prettiest woman I’ve seen all night.”
“Yeah, right,” I say. Because that’s a blatant lie. The women around here are all much prettier than me, both the locals and most of the tourists.
“You don’t like being called pretty?” he asks, disbelief in his cold eyes.
All the warnings my dad’s been filling my ears with since I took the job in Hollywood are a jumbled mess in my brain. My face is overheating all over again and the breeze isn’t doing anything to cool me. I raise my hand to wave to Marcia and the guys, but the biker grabs my wrist and lowers my arm back down. And now it really is panic city in my head.
