Finding Allie Read Online Free

buckling. Just because I’m outside doesn’t mean I’m safe. The day is as dull and quiet outside as it was when I entered the bar. The landscape is beige and brown, dry dirt and trash littering the cracked asphalt road. A car whizzes by, its driver completely unaware of the drama right inside the bar’s doors. 
    As my eyes adjust I see Chase is watching me. Carefully, like I’m worth watching.
    “You okay?” he asks, his eyes floating between me and the bar’s main door.
    “I’ll be okay,” I rasp. I reach up and feel something in my hair. I pull it out.
    It’s a sliver of glass. A drop of blood forms on my fingertip as I flick it away.
    Our eyes lock. His face has a hard edge to it, with a tight jaw and cheekbones to die for. He looks determined, angry, and tender all at once. I can’t stop looking at him. He can’t stop looking at me.
    He reaches up and brushes my hair with great tenderness. “No one’s going to hurt you,” he says with a possessiveness that makes my heart leap. He pulls another shard of glass from my hair and tosses it aside.  
    “You said that already.” I slip my bleeding finger in my mouth and suck on it. He cocks one eyebrow and makes a little groaning sound in the back of his throat.
    “I mean it. And I don’t say anything I don’t mean,” he insists in a hushed voice. 
    I open my mouth to say something, even though I have no idea what to say. A light, hot breeze chills my wet finger, the pink stain of blood already fading as I slip my finger back in my mouth.
    Chase’s face turns dark, eyes filled with desire as he watches my mouth work my finger. My face turns nine shades of heat and I pull the injured part out quickly, words spilling over themselves in my head. Does he think I am mimicking...that I am implying...that I... what ?
    What makes him look at me like he wants to throw me down and kiss me until I can’t think?
    Law enforcement sirens begin in the distance.
    The door practically falls off the hinges as all thirty bikers come pouring out of the bar, holding guns and nursing cuts and broken noses. Thirty or so to six means that the odds are good Jeff and his friends are seriously hurt, but I can’t think about that.
    All I can see is Chase, in front of me, looking at me like I’m the only thing that matters.
    The air fills with the rattle and clash of boots on steel, then the roar of engines. Chase is bent over, his hands on his knees, just staring at me. A drop of sweat rolls down the sculpted bones of his face, then lingers at his chin.
    It lets go and falls to the ground.
    “Chase! Get your ass goin’!” says Galt Halloway, who frowns at me, then rolls his eyes as he gives Chase a hard look. I get the sense that Galt doesn’t like me. Then again, I get the sense that he doesn’t like anyone.  
    Chase looks up and gives me a wicked half smile. “I’ll see you around.” He winks.
    Butterflies burst inside my belly and I say, “I hope not.” Then I clap my hands over my mouth. Why did I do that? I can’t believe I said that. I want the exact opposite.
    His mouth opens with a laugh that isn’t mean. His throat rumbles and even in the chaos of thirty riders and bikes all peeling out of the parking lot, with the sheriff’s sirens getting louder, he stands in front of me and laughs. The sound is like hearing joy for the first time and feeling an endless river of it.
    Knowing you can touch it any time you want.
    “I don’t think you mean that.” He smiles and runs to his bike, a huge Yamaha that makes a thrill of electricity shoot through me. Chase is so big. His bike is power. His arms pull it up. He kicks the stand and then he swings one leg over his bike with such grace it’s like watching an athlete.
    It fits him like he was born on it. The other bikes take off, spewing gravel, and a panic fills me as I realize he’s leaving. Forever. I’ve driven him away with my stupid comment.
    I watch as he pulls a helmet over that thick, wavy hair the