She took back her opinion that Romeo was looking out for her when he entered the interstate and the pavement blurred underneath the motorcycle. Burying her face into the back of his vest, she closed her eyes and held on tighter with her arms and legs.
They were going to die.
Her hair whipped around her. Afraid the strands would wrap around Romeo and blind him but too scared to reach up and gather her hair in her hand, she could do nothing but hold on and hope they wouldn't crash.
It would be an awful way to go.
The pavement.
Her bare legs.
Her skirt around her waist, flashing the world her vagina.
As soon as the thought came, she could feel the motorcycle slow. She raised her head, and a streetlight flashed in the distance. They'd left the interstate.
Her heart continued to race. Shacking up with Romeo wasn't her idea of a good thing. When Willow asked about her renting a room from one of the bikers, she imagined one of the younger bikers needed help paying the rent. Or even better, one of the senior men who had a grandma-type wife at home who wouldn't mind renting out a spare room.
She never imagined a sexy, older man voluntarily helping her out.
He had to be fifteen or twenty years older than her. Maybe more. He looked like he was around her dad's age, but how he looked at her made him appear younger. He still seemed interested in women—well, that was to say, he looked at anyone with breasts and an ass.
After a few more turns, she was completely lost on how to get back to the interstate. She was unfamiliar with Spokane, having grown up mostly on the west side of the state near Seattle. Only recently, during her adventure hitchhiking, had she seen the vast differences in the landscape of the state.
She'd gone from ocean and green trees to mountain zones and treeless plains and back to a beautiful area with mountains in the distance and pine trees dotting the land.
Finally, venturing off on her own, she sought cheaper rent and more freedom. She wanted to explore and experience new things. Most of all, she wanted to put her past behind her and live for herself.
All her life, her mom had dragged her from one apartment to another, sometimes taking a break and living in a rental house and even a boathouse. Then, her dad would show up, her mom would leave, and soon she was on her own again.
Romeo pulled in front of a large, two-story house. She looked up and down the street. There was a home on every lot, mostly older style construction as if they'd seen a war or two. Each one had a porch with steps leading to a driveway.
Parked between two automobiles, Romeo undid her clasped hands from his stomach. "You can get off."
She leaned far to the side, her bare ass squeaking on the leather seat. Quickly sliding off, she pulled the denim skirt over her butt. Lifting her gaze, she caught Romeo eyeing her. She straightened, daring him to comment. He was the one who told her riding on the back was possible with a skirt.
Instead, he got off the Harley and removed her bag without saying anything about her choice of clothes for riding. Maybe he understood she'd come from working at the diner. Maybe he just didn't care.
Behind her, shouting broke through the night. She looked over her shoulder, trying to find where the noise came from.
"Never mind them." Romeo appeared at her side. "Just pretend there's no one here."
She hurried to keep up with him. Others lived here?
Noises from inside greeted them halfway to the door. It sounded like a party. A mix of excitement and grumbles.
She stepped up onto the porch.
"There'll be seven of us here." He shifted her bag to his other hand. "As long as you follow the rules, we'll get along fine."
He hadn't explained the rules to her. She swallowed hard. "Rules?"
"No sex under my roof," he murmured before opening the door.
She grabbed Romeo's arm, stopping him from going inside. "Why did you volunteer to let me rent a room when you have so many living in the house?"
Visions of a wife, teenage sons, maybe a daughter or two, and an elderly father or mother-in-law residing in the house were too normal for her. She'd never fit in with her background.
All she needed was a private bedroom. She did her best alone.
"Because if I hadn't volunteered to take care of you, Slim would've had you on your back with his cock in your pussy before midnight. I know your dad. I couldn't let that happen to his daughter." He motioned for her to go inside.
She had no time to wonder about his statement because total chaos greeted her.
Two grown men passed a beer can across the living room in a game of catch. Going from the speed at which the beer traveled, it was a full, unopened can. Not knowing where to look first, she found another man lounging on the couch with his attention on the television on the far wall.
"Turner, you fucker. There's mold in the chow Mein. I thought you bought this yesterday," shouted a male from somewhere else in the house.
She stayed beside Romeo, unsure of how to navigate through the house. There were boots and sneakers littering the floor and several stacks of magazines at the end of the couch that depicted half-dressed women on the covers.
An earthy scent tinging on sweet filled her nostrils.
A bare-chested man in boxers walked down the stairs to her left. "What time is it?"
"Almost midnight." The man with a full beard caught the beer and tapped the top with his finger. "Your boss called while you were sleeping and wants you to hit the garage before meeting the others."
The barely awake man picked up a shirt off the back of a recliner, smelled the material, and pulled it over his head. She bit her bottom lip, watching his muscles ripple across his stomach. These were the type of men she'd meet if she walked into a gym a week before a bodybuilding contest.
"Everybody, listen up," shouted Romeo.
Timber's spine snapped to attention, and all eyes landed on her. The musty scent of testosterone floated in the air, making her queasy and, in some strange way, aggressive...prickly.
"This is Timber. She'll be staying at the house." Romeo put his hand on her back. "Don't touch her."
"Can we look?" Amusement flashed in the dark blue eyes of the closest man, and a dimple on his cheek winked at her, knocking the fight out of her.
"Don't start, Axel." Romeo growled and escorted her to the stairs, removing her from the room.
All she could do was go with him. Not much shocked her but coming into a house filled with men—gorgeous men, who all seemed similar to Romeo made her an outsider.
An outsider who couldn't hide and become invisible.
She stopped outside a bedroom door and looked into Romeo's blue eyes. He kept his beard shaped into a long goatee, leaving his cheeks bare. Cheeks that sported dimples even when he frowned.
"Are they your brothers?" she whispered.
He opened the door. "Yep."
"All four of them?"
He raised his arm and gripped the back of his neck as if a headache had hit him out of the blue. "I have five brothers. Caleb doesn't get home until two o'clock in the morning. You probably won't see him much because of the hours he works."
Five?
Her chest compressed as she walked into the room. It wasn't a guest room. The unmade bed, scattered clothes, and enough leather to cover a half a dozen men told her exactly who lived in the room.