Blacktop Freedom Read online

  Blacktop Freedom

  Kings of Vengeance MC

  Book 7

  Copyright © 2021 Winter Travers

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduction, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) utilization of this work without written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  For questions or comments about this book, please contact the author at [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Winter Travers | Devil’s Knights Series

  Devil’s Knights 2nd Gen

  Skid Row Kings Series

  Fallen Lords MC Series

  Kings of Vengeance MC

  Powerhouse MA Series

  Nitro Crew Series

  Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA

  Sweet Love Novellas

  Stand Alone Novellas

  About the Author

  Also by Winter Travers

  Devil’s Knights Series

  Loving Lo

  Finding Cyn

  Gravel’s Road

  Battling Troy

  Gambler’s Longshot

  Keeping Meg

  Fighting Demon

  Unraveling Fayth

  Forever Lo

  Devil’s Knights 2nd Gen

  Passing the Torch

  Riding the Line

  Royal Mess

  Skid Row Kings Series

  DownShift

  PowerShift

  BangShift

  Fallen Lords MC Series

  Nickel

  Pipe

  Maniac

  Wrecker

  Boink

  Clash

  Freak

  Slayer

  Brinks

  Kings of Vengeance MC

  Drop a Gear and Disappear

  Lean Into It

  Knees in the Breeze

  Midnight Wreckage

  Thrill Seeker

  Livin’ on the Edge

  Blacktop Freedom

  Powerhouse MA Series

  Dropkick My Heart

  Love on the Mat

  Black Belt in Love

  Black Belt Knockout

  Nitro Crew Series

  Burndown

  Holeshot

  Redlight

  Shutdown

  Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA

  Playboy

  Six-Gun

  Monk

  Sweet Love Novellas

  Sweet Burn

  Five Alarm Donuts

  Stand Alone Novellas

  Kissing the Bad Boy

  Trapped with the Bad Boy

  Daddin’ Ain’t Easy

  Silas: A Scrooged Christmas

  Wanting More

  Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool

  Tangle My Tinsel

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  Dive into the 1st chapter of Downshift

  Chapter One

  Whatever you say...

  Lynn

  I vigorously brushed my teeth with a dollop of Zephyr’s toothpaste on the tip of my finger while I avoided making eye contact with myself in the mirror.

  Lord have mercy. How in the hell did I get myself into this situation?

  I hacked a wad of spit into the sink and rinsed my hand in the running water. Because you drank half a bottle of whiskey, Lynn, and then you let your lady bits do the talking.

  Most people would tell you if you talked to yourself, and then you answered yourself that you’re crazy.

  And they were fucking right.

  I was crazy for sleeping with Zephyr last night, and now I had tipped way over the edge of crazy by having a conversation with myself.

  “Leaving?”

  I clutched my hand to my chest and spun from the sink. “Cheese and crackers!” I yelped.

  Zephyr ran his fingers through his messy hair and looked at me with only one eye open. “Come again, darlin’?” he drawled.

  Do not look at his chest, Lynn. Eye contact only. That was a hell of a lot easier said than done. I hadn’t fallen into Zephyr’s bed after taking just one glance at him. No, I had been eyeing him up for a while. Ever since he had walked into my office with Queenie and Sledge, I hadn’t been able to get the man’s piercing green eyes, chiseled jaw, shaggy hair, and tattoos out of my mind. And during the handful of times I’d been around him after that, I had to squelch my need to know how many and where all of his tattoos actually were.

  I now knew. Oh Lord, did I know. My tongue had traced the outline of the skull on his chest while his fingers had been buried in my hair.

  Was it hot in here? I waved my hand in my face and tried to think about the three loads of laundry and sink full of dishes I had waiting for me at my place.

  “I need to go.”

  Zephyr leaned against the door frame of the bathroom and opened both eyes. “It’s early as shit on Sunday. Where do you need to go?” His voice was gravelly and low.

  I could listen to him talk all day and never get sick of it.

  “I have things I need to do, and I have a meeting with a patient this afternoon.” That whole sentence was a damn lie. “And I need to check in on my dad.” That last bit was true. Not that I was actually looking forward to it, but it needed to be done.

  “You have work shit on a Sunday?”

  My eyes darted down to his hand that scratched at his stomach. How in the hell was he so sexy doing something so mundane?

  “Lynn,” he called.

  I dragged my focus from his stomach up to his eyes. “Yes?” I blinked rapidly and hoped he hadn’t caught me staring at his abs.

  “You really need to work today?”

  “No.” Before I could remember to lie, the word was out of my mouth. “I mean yes. Yes, I have to work today. Lots of work. No rest for the weary. Work, work, work.” I clamped my lips shut and fought back the words that wanted to continue to babble out of my mouth.

  “Uh, okay.” He pushed off the jamb. “Let me get dressed, and I’ll give you a ride.”

  “No,” I shouted much louder than I needed to. I cleared my throat. “I don’t need a ride.”

  “You drove here last night?” he asked.

  I gnawed on my bottom lip. “Yeah, of course.” I didn’t even believe myself.

  Zephyr chuckled. “Give me two minutes, and we’ll be out the door.”

  “You don’t need to give me a ride, Zephyr.” My cheeks heated at the thought of Zephyr and the ride he had given me last night. �
�Erm, I mean you don’t have to drive me home.”

  There, that sounded less sexual. Everything seemed sexual when it came to Zephyr. Jesus. I needed to give myself a lobotomy if I was going to keep thinking like this.

  “It’s not a big deal.” He turned his back to me, ambled over to the foot of the bed, and bent to rummage through the pile of clothes. Clothes I had torn off him not even seven hours ago. He tugged on a pair of jeans and grabbed his shirt from last night to pull it over his head.

  “You don’t have to give me a ride home, Zephyr. I can get a ride from...” My mind went blank when he reached up and ran his fingers through his hair again. I snapped my eyes shut and tried to concentrate. “Cab company.”

  That still wasn’t what I was trying to say, but it was better than just staring at him like a dog in heat.

  “Cab company?” I heard him laugh. “You really think there is a cab company in Whitmore?”

  Well, no. I had lived here my whole life and knew that. “Uber!” I shouted. That was the word I had been trying to think of. I opened my eyes and pulled my phone from my pocket. “I’ll get an Uber.”

  Zephyr snatched my phone from my hand, and I tipped my head back. He stood directly in front of me, and he shoved my phone in his back pocket. “I’m giving you a ride home, Lynn. You’re not going to get into the back of some stranger’s car.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s safe, Zephyr. Go back to bed.” I needed to get away from him. But first, I needed to get my phone from his pocket. “Now give me back my phone,” I demanded.

  He stepped back and shook his head. “Not happening.”

  Uh, what? “What do you mean not happening? That’s my phone.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and put on his boots. “You let me take you home, and then I’ll give it back to you.”

  “Or you just give it back to me right now.” That seemed like a much better idea to me.

  He finished tying his boots and stood. Then he grabbed the leather cut he had tossed over the desk chair and put it on. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re not giving me a ride, Zephyr.” I tried—and failed—not to think of the ride he had given me earlier...again. Focus, Lynn.

  “You want your phone back...you’ll let me take you home.”

  “I don’t know why you are so determined to give me a ride home.” Didn’t we have a one-night stand? We do the dirty, and then we go our separate ways. Wasn’t that how this worked? I figured for sure that was how it was going to go with Zephyr. Bad boy bikers were all about the wham-bam thank you ma’am thing, right? Maybe Zephyr didn’t get that memo.

  “Because you have no way to get home, Lynn.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I have a phone and a mace keychain. I’m good to go.”

  My phone was filled with contacts. People I could call to come pick me up. Except for Dad and Glenna. I could not rely on those two to help me out. So, Robyn or Queenie? I really wished when I talked to myself that I didn’t say such hard truths.

  Queenie was more than likely somewhere in the clubhouse cuddled up with Sledge and Gunner, and I didn’t want to bother Robyn. I also didn’t want her to pick me up because I knew she would bug me for all of the details from my night with Zephyr. Details I wasn’t interested in giving up.

  “But I didn’t see you calling anyone before I took your phone,” he drawled.

  Ugh. The man was infuriating because he was right. “Fine. You can give me a ride home, but as soon as we get there, you give me back my phone, and you leave.”

  He held up his hands. “Fine. If that’s how you want it. You can hide whatever you want from me.”

  “I’m not hiding anything,” I insisted. Not like I would actually tell him if I was. And I was.

  “Let’s go. We can grab breakfast on the way.”

  I snatched my purse from the floor next to the bed and hitched it over my shoulder. “We are not stopping to get breakfast. You are taking me home, and then, you are leaving.”

  He moved to the door and held it open. “Let’s go, Lynn.” That sexy, smoldering smile slide across his lips. The same smile he had given me last night.

  That smile could crumble cities and melt panties.

  It had melted mine off.

  “Straight home, Zephyr,” I snapped.

  A deep chuckle rumbled from his chest. “Whatever you say, darlin’. Whatever you say.”

  *

  Chapter Two

  Go away...

  Zephyr

  “Take it.”

  She curled her lips and glared at the bag. “No.”

  “It’s yours, take it.”

  “I didn’t ask for it,” she insisted. “I told you I just wanted to come home. Stopping for breakfast burritos was not what I wanted.”

  I leaned down and set the bag on the sidewalk in front of her feet. “Well, sometimes we don’t know exactly what we want, yeah?”

  “I’m the therapist here, Zephyr,” she snapped.

  I chuckled. “Yeah, not like you can tell by looking at you.”

  The first time I had met Lynn, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and told her she didn’t look like any shrink I had ever met before. That was a damn fact.

  Her purple hair and the number of tattoos on her skin didn’t meet expectations for the average shrink look. Hell, I was even more surprised when I got her clothes off last night. Beneath her shirt and pants, she was colorful as fuck.

  She tipped her head to me. “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. Blowing up society’s bullshit mold for therapists makes me giddy.”

  “Well, you’re doing a damn good job of it, darlin’.” The only way you would know what Lynn did for a living was to actually step into her office.

  Her eyes darted down the street. A large, old Cadillac motored down the road and turned into Lynn’s driveway.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she snapped. “Now leave.” She snatched the bag from the curb and jogged up the driveway behind the car.

  “You okay?” I called. Her demeanor had changed the second she laid her eyes on the car. Sure, she was being sassy about the burritos and wanting me to leave, but this was different.

  “I’m fine. Please leave,” she pleaded.

  I wasn’t ready to leave yet. Not until I knew that Lynn was okay.

  The driver’s side door of the car swung open with a chorus of cuss words. The voice was male, deep, and gruff. “Lynn!”

  “Coming, Daddy,” she hollered. She hurried over to the open door and helped the man out.

  “Get my cane from the floor, would you?” the man asked.

  Lynn helped him stand up and then leaned into the car to retrieve the cane. “I didn’t know you were coming over today. I planned on coming to you after lunch.”

  The man huffed and grabbed the cane from her hand. “I needed some things from the grocery store, so I figured I might as well stop by to see you.”

  Lynn glanced in my direction.

  That was her mistake.

  The man, her dad, hadn’t seen me before.

  Now, he had.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  Lynn cleared her throat. “Uh, just someone who gave me a ride.”

  “Ride from where?” he questioned. “It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning.”

  “Uh, my car wouldn’t start.”

  Her dad turned and looked at the car he had parked behind. “I’m getting old, Lynn, but you’re gonna have to explain this shit to me a little bit. Your car is here, but you weren’t.”

  “Uh, well,” she stammered. “I needed to run to the store, and since my car wouldn’t start, I had to call for a ride.”

  I smirked. Lame.

  Her dad turned toward me. “Thanks for giving her a ride home from the clubhouse,” he yelled.

  “No problem,” I drawled. Maybe he had seen me when he pulled up. Hell, he had to have looked pretty closely for him to notice I was with the club.

  Lynn sputtered and struggled to get out a full sentence.


  “You want coffee?” her father asked me.

  Lynn gasped. “No!” she shouted.

  “I could go for a cup.” I knocked down the kickstand and stood from the bike. “I got an extra breakfast burrito if you want one.”

  Her dad raised his cane in the air. “Fucking deal, kid,” he hollered. “Lynn, roll up your tongue off the sidewalk and help me fire up the coffee maker.” He strolled toward the front door while Lynn stood there sputtering.

  Lynn beelined back to me with a scowl on her face. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “I told you to leave, and instead, you and my dad make plans to have coffee?” Her eyes were wide, and her nostrils flared. “Are you insane?”

  I grabbed the bag of burritos from her hand. “Last I checked, no.”

  “Then why are you coming into my house?”

  I shrugged. “Is it really that big of a deal, darlin’? Your dad invited me in. It would have been rude to tell him no.”

  She stepped toward me and had to tip her head back to keep her eyes connected to mine. “You’re a crude, rude, badass biker. You don’t go into girl’s houses to meet their dads.”

  I shrugged. “Well, no, not normally. Though, I have to admit, I’ve never been given a chance before today. Besides, he seems pretty cool.” He didn’t turn up his nose at the fact that I was part of the Kings of Vengeance. Her dad went up a few notches with that.

  Lynn dragged her fingers through her hair. “This is not how this goes. You and I do not sleep together, and then you meet my dad.” She wagged her finger in my face. “Why didn’t you tell him no?”

  “We went over this already,” I drawled.

  “And I told you that you’re rude, crude, and badass. You should have told him no and then roared off on your bike.”

  “If I’m that, then what are you?” I asked. “You like the fact that you break the stereotype for a shrink, yet you’re standing here throwing out the typical bullshit people think about bikers.” Double standard much?