Free Rush - Blue Devils MC Book 2 (Book 1 Included FREE for a short time only!) by Ashley Rhodes

oohh’d and aahh’d over every detail of Rush’s home, which was great fun until she was struck with the painful realization that this house was the perfect symbol of why they didn’t work out after high school. She’d wanted to go to college somewhere exotic (or at least not Arizona, for God’s sakes) and then travel the world. She wanted to be a schoolteacher so she could make a difference, sure, but it didn’t hurt that she would have summers off. She’d spent the nine years since graduation traveling to every continent in the world - including Antarctica - and having a grand time. She hadn’t wanted to settle down, not even with Rush.
    But now…as she listened to him talk passionately about the differences in farm sink styles and replication lighting and refinished hardwood floors, she realized that she hadn’t had any of this…any meaning in her life.
    Meaning had come from teaching underprivileged students in rundown areas for a year or two, and then moving on to the next school in the next country over. Meaning had come from spending her summers taking outrageously exotic trips all over the world. And it had been great and fun and liberating, but in the end, what did she have to show for it? Other than having some great stories to tell around the dinner table, she hadn’t built anything lasting.
    It was depressing. How had Rush, biker in the Blue Devils MC, ended up being the stable one??
    But as he showed her the intricacies of a 1920’s flush toilet that operated by pulling on a chain, she realized that it only made sense. Rush had been raised in the largest mansion in town, built by his great-great-(whatever)-grandfather way back in the day, and the Blackburn family had passed it down from generation to generation, adding, restoring, and repairing it along the way. Unlike her father who’d wanted the best and the newest and the greatest and had built a stupidly huge house in the new trendy part of town when she was in high school, the Blackburns had held onto the tradition and the stately lines of their family home.
    In so many ways, Rush was totally different from his family but in this respect, it seemed like he’d been bit by the Blackburn bug.
    As he showed her the unfinished bathroom upstairs and the intricate backsplash he was in the middle of installing, exhaustion hit her hard. She struggled to keep her eyes open and listen to the differences between ceramic and porcelain tile, but he finally caught her elbow and said, “Oh Blue, you should’ve said something.” She slumped against him, happy to have the struggle against gravity taken from her. It was a battle she was going to lose soon anyway.
    He scooped her up into his arms and carried her down the stairs to the master bedroom on the first floor. She tried to open her eyes and admire her surroundings as they went, she really did, but her eyelids felt weighted down by heavy stones and she felt the will to even fight it slip away.
    And then he was pulling a light blanket over her and kissing her forehead and she was gone, falling into that comforting darkness.

Chapter Seven
    Rush
     
    Rush looked down at his sleeping Blue and smiled to himself. Some things never change . He was going to have to change her nickname to Sleeping Beauty if she kept this up. Although, he wanted it to be noted, he’d carried her without huffing and puffing this time, although, again, she’d been asleep and unable to notice it. Dammit . I need to carry her around more when she’s awake. It’s a little easier to impress her when she’s awake. Not that she’d seemed impressed with my muscles at the hospital, though, so maybe I need to carry her around when she’s awake and not pissed at me.
    As he watched her sleep, her flushed cheeks and wild dark brown curls giving her a cherubic air, his joy at having her back in his life began to fade.
    Rush, what the fuck are you doing?
    He could only stare down at her in silence. He really didn't know what he was