Noose (Road Kill MC #1) by Marata Eros Read Free Book Online

into mine, providing warmth. My hands tighten around his narrow waist. The smell of WD-40, mint, smoke, and bike wafts from his leather coat. It's his smell.
    I don't even know his name.
    He could be a murderer.
    But my heart says no.
    We're way east of Kent, almost to Ravensdale, by the time the bike slows, and we're rolling to a stop in front of a little cabin. The pipes rumble, their heat warming my left leg.
    I glance at my sports watch.
    I'm late —because I'm on the back of a bike with a man I don't know, in a place I've never been.
    I slip off the seat. I'm so cold, my teeth chatter. I was smart enough to put my hair back in a semblance of a bun, but my fingers were shaking so badly that I did a crappy job.
    He gets off and turns around as the kickstand sinks into the sparse gravel that blankets the dirt road.
    The sun has fallen low and burns red across the trees, coating them like spilt blood. Fingers of the seeping light trail over his skin, coating it in tangerine edged by scarlet.
    I think he'll come for me, peppering me with more questions. Instead, he leans back against the seat of the bike and crosses his feet at the ankles.
    He digs inside a little pouch attached to the front of the bike between the handlebars and jerks out a pack of cigarettes, forearm muscles rippling with the movement. He flicks one out the top and clamps his lips around it.
    A lighter appears, and the flame is a spot of gold in the dying light surrounding us.
    “I don't even know your name,” I say quietly, trying to look everywhere but at him.
    Impossible.
    Like a magnet, his gaze seizes me again. All of me. To all of him.
    “Noose,” he replies, blowing smoke rings at the sky. The twilight closes around the pale ring of smoke, darkening it to nothing as the breeze carries it away.
    Noose. That's not a name, but an object.
    My disquiet returns. “I guess you know my name.” My voice sounds disgruntled. I cross my arms, which are still warm from the heat of his body, but chilled by the ride.
    His chin kicks up. “I know everything about you.”
    I retreat a step.
    His eyes narrow at my tense body as he takes another drag of his cigarette. “Not gonna hurt you. Thought we figured that part out.”
    I blow out the oxygen I've been storing up in a shaky exhale. “I want to believe you.” I do. So much. “I have to text my parents. They have—”
    “Charles?” His eyebrow quirks.
    My breath stills again. “You scare me,” I admit, cupping my elbows.
    He straightens from the seat, flicking the cigarette. He moves toward me like a big prowling cat.
    “I scare a lot of people, but I—” Noose comes to stand in front of me. His finger trails down my neck. Each time he finds a mark on my throat, the movement stalls. The rough caress of his skin hesitates at each spot Drake's fingers choked me. “I'm not someone you need to be scared of, Rose.”
    The way he says my nam e… I close my eyes at his touch and the deep rumble of his voice.
    Remember Charlie. I step away, and Noose just watches, his hand falling away from me.
    I take my cell from my hoodie pocket and quickly text Dad to say that I ran into a friend. My eyes move to Noose's face. Bathed in low red light, he’s sinister.
    Swallowing hard, I tap out the message, asking if they can keep Charlie a little longer.
    Their answer rises to the top of my cell screen like trapped smoke under glass.
    Yes.
    Noose is observant. “Your parents cool to watch the kid longer?”
    “Yes.”
    He holds out his hand, and after a heartbeat's hesitation, I take it.
    Noose moves toward the front door of what looks like a little homesteader's cabin. He turns at the last second, and the last piece of daylight catches his eyes just perfectly.
    They're gray, a shade so translucent they're opaque ice.
     
    *
     
    “What is this?” I ask as he stokes wood in a fireplace bordered by huge mottled river stones of beige and charcoal, with veins of black.
    “Us or the place?” Noose asks, his