Read Online Petals and Chrome: A Biker Erotic Romance (Flowers of Hell MC) by Alicia Pierce - Free Book Online

Chapter One

    “What’s the matter, Rose?”  
    I sighed and looked out of the fingerprint-smudged window of our rented RV, at the dusty road whizzing past, avoiding James’s gaze.  
    “Nothing,” I lied. “I’m just tired …”
    “Why don’t you take a nap then?” he suggested, nodding to the messy sleeping quarters at the back of our large motorhome.
    “Yeah, maybe,” I mumbled, lifting myself wearily up from the breakfast nook, where we’d been playing a halfhearted game of cards, and making my way down to the bed, glad to get away from his questions. James wasn’t a fool. It wouldn’t be long before he realized how unhappy I was: with him, with everything.  
    As I snuggled beneath the blankets, I closed my eyes and tried not to think about our holiday so far, but it was impossible. I felt so sad and frustrated, annoyed at myself that I’d wasted all my hard-earned money on a once-in-a-lifetime road trip around America, only for it to be such a washout.  
    When James had first suggested the idea: saving up all our money to buy flights from England and rent an RV to explore America with Jenny and Dave, our best friends, I’d leapt at the chance. I’d always wanted to go on an adventure, and the way James had made this road trip sound, I imagined that we’d be living it up, having wild nights and crazy experiences — really living for once.  
    But instead?  
    Instead, all we’d seen was dreary, dusty highways and dingy little dive bars, filled with narrow-eyed distrusting locals who wouldn’t even give us the time of day, let alone make us feel welcome in their country.  
    Maybe it was our cut-glass English accents, or maybe it was our fresh-faced youth … But either way, contrary to what I’d been led to believe, it seems like these rural Americans really didn’t like us and just wanted us out of their country again at the first opportunity.  
    We’d hired the top-of-the-range RV for a full six weeks and so far we’d only been out on the road for two, but I was already yearning to go back home.  
    Also, to make matters even worse, that wasn’t even the start of why I was feeling so miserable. On top of all that, I’d begun to realize just how completely incompatible James and I were as a couple. Back in England, I’d been able to ignore it, but here, stuck in this cramped motor home with just James and his two friends, it was clear as day. I’d realized beyond doubt just how annoying and wimpy he was; how unadventurous and cowardly and thin and scrawny and nervous … After a full fourteen days of it, I was about ready to scream and tear out all my hair.  
    I shuffled beneath the rumpled covers, unable to get comfortable.  
    I closed my eyes and tried to focus my attention on the soft murmur of the RV’s engine, willing it to lull me off into sleep. But cutting through these soft soothing sounds came Jenny’s shrill, piercing laugh; another thing that had been driving me crazy over the last two weeks. She was such a bimbo, she laughed at pretty much anything.  
    I opened my eyes and shifted up a little in the bed, peering down the RV to the driving seat, where Dave was driving, his girlfriend Jenny sitting next to him in the passenger seat, twisting a strand of her frazzled, bleached-blonde hair around her finger and giggling at whatever joke he was making.  
    Then the toilet flushed and out came James, glancing moodily in my direction. I quickly closed my eyes and feigned sleep, hoping that he wasn’t going to come and get into bed with me. I peered out from between my squinted eyelids for just a second and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that he’d gone off to join Dave and Jenny at the front of the van instead.  
    Once again, I closed my eyes, trying to focus just on the soft hum of the engine but this time I heard something else, a louder harsher noise — something much more ominous.  
    It sounded like other engines, a whole swarm of them, buzzing like wasps. The