Finding Allie
Chase Halloway's father is the president of Atlas, the drug dealing motorcycle gang that terrorizes most of our desert town.
My stepfather turns out to be a rival drug dealer, and I'm pretty sure he killed my mom two years ago.
I'm not supposed to fall in love with Chase. He's not supposed to know I even exist.
But when he finds me, he can't let go.
And when I find myself in his arms?
I hold tight.
I have to.
Because if I don't, I might just die.
* * *
Read all three books in the Breaking Away series:
Finding Allie
Chasing Allie
Keeping Allie
With or without him
Chasing Allie
It turns out my stepfather has plans for me.
Plans that make dying look like a walk in the park.
He’s selling my virginity to a Mexican drug lord to get out of debt.
Chase just found out and is here to take me away to safety. To the ocean. To my dreams.
But while I’m gone, a murder takes place back home.
I receive a phone call. It’s the police.
I’m the prime suspect.
And if I go back, I may become the prime victim.
They say love conquers all, but can Chase save me from this?
Keeping Allie
Help.
I'm alone, tied up, bleeding and terrified.
I'm a prisoner at the Atlas motorcycle club compound. Someone kidnapped me, and it looks like it's Chase.
No one knows I'm here. Then again, I'm no one, right? No mother, no stepfather, and my sister may have been kidnapped, too.
They can make me disappear. Or worse. It turns out there are worse things than disappearing.
I thought Chase was my only hope. Now he turns out to be my worst nightmare.
Something flickers in his eyes, though. A glimmer of love. If I can get him alone, maybe I can convince him to let me go. To let me live.
To let me go back to a time when I thought he was a good guy. Only Chase has the power to make that happen.
Everything I am is in his hands right now.
And those hands are about to touch me.
It’s so quiet out here in the desert. Hot and quiet. I don’t really need the sweatshirt out here, but I like to pretend I can still smell my Mom when I wear it. I don’t even wash the sweatshirt, not ever, because it feels like wiping away the last little bit of her I have.
A crackle of footsteps makes me jump. Then I freeze. The moon glows in the sky. The stars feel so close on this clear night that I could reach up and stroke one. Every sound thunders through my ears. I hug myself closer. Coyotes aren’t uncommon here, but I’m only a few feet from the front door. I’m not in much danger from animals.
The sound isn’t coming from an animal, though.
“Who’s there?” I call out.
I see the outline of his body as he steps into the light from the porch lamp. My heart skips a beat and my blood pounds through me. It’s Chase, and he’s walking toward me like he has all the time in the world.
Like he’s known me forever.
“Hey, Allie.” His voice is like whiskey poured over silk. My body starts to buzz and a frantic feeling takes form. It combines with my ball of anger inside and I need to move. Run away. Do something. Do anything to make this feeling make sense.
Stop myself before I jump into his arms and kiss him.
Chase decides for me. He walks so close to me that I can feel his own heat radiating out, drawing me closer. I take one step toward him. His hand reaches out to take a strand of my hair and pull on it, gently, like a line that tethers me to him. We’re connected and I’m buzzing, wanting more.
“What are you doing here?” I rasp. My voice betrays me, because even I can hear how much I like him in my words. I’m clumsy and don’t know what to say. No guy has ever come to my house before, or touched me like this. A cold chill floats down from the base of my neck to my waist.
He flashes me that half grin again. My knees turn to liquid. He lets go of my hair and reaches for my hand, the one with the worst of the glass cuts on it. When he touches me, it feels like dipping my whole body in the ocean.
“I want to make sure you’re okay.” The moon seems to shine brighter, Chase’s eyes smoldering, glittering with emotion. He penetrates me with his gaze, nailing me in place. I came outside because I needed to get away from my anger, needed to feel like I could breathe again.
And here I am with him. Like I conjured him.
Maybe saying his name three times really did make him appear.
Maybe I have more power than I thought.
When he reaches to stroke my arm, I let out a giant sigh and realize I’ve been holding my breath. “I’m okay,” I murmur.
“I’m not. I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day. Worrying about you. Wanting to see you,” he says in a husky voice.
The butterfly in my chest turns into one hundred of them. “Thank you,” is all I can think to say.
He just nods. “That was a tough scene.”
“What was that about? Jeff’s never done that before,” I ask. All my questions come pouring out. I can’t ask Jeff anything. “Why did your biker club fight with Jeff and his friends?”
He takes a long, deep breath. I regret my questions. His sigh is hard to read. Is he annoyed? Weary? Worried? Or, worse, angry? Chase’s shoulders rise, his chest expands, and he’s so muscular and intense. “I know part of the reason, but it’s a long story.”
He sounds like he’s just tired.
I smile and spread my arms upward. “I have all the time in the world.”
Chase starts wrapping his arms around my waist with a slow, strong grip. My chest is pressed against his ribs, his belt buckle digging into my belly. Every part of me is racing at light speed, all toward Chase. I have never touched a guy like this in my life. Being held in his arms feels like heaven. I never knew that so much of my skin could sing simply from being touched like this. By Chase. He makes me light up, turns on all the heat and need in me.
“I can think of plenty other things I’d rather do with all that time of yours,” he says darkly. His eyes look at me with the same expression he had back at the bar parking lot, when I licked my finger.
Like he wants to taste me.
Me? Why me? I wonder, and open my mouth to ask the question as he bends down and takes my mouth with his.
Oh!
The kiss shocks me, his lips so soft and warm. He tastes like mint and grapes, the scent of him a mixture of sweat and heat and dust and musk that I can’t name. If it had a name, it would just be Chase.
My thoughts jam up, jumbling together as his hands slide up my spine, sinking into the hair at my neck. His fingers travel from the nape down halfway through the strands, then he makes a fist. It’s like he’s using me as an anchor.
“Allie, I don’t know why I’m here,” he murmurs against my ear. “I saw you today and couldn’t get you out of my head.” His lips kiss the soft skin under my earlobe. I shiver, inhaling so sharply it’s like I’ve taken all the air in the world into my lungs at once.
Meli Raine rode her first motorcycle when she was five years old, but she played in the ocean long before that. She lives in New England with her family.
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