5

Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run

Chapter 172 Evil

Scarlett opened the door for Jax and let him into her motel room.

"I feel bad that you made a trip all the way over here just to put my suitcase and laptop in my car."

"Scarlett, you know that if you lift them, you'll make your back worse."

"I know," she said with a sigh. "I just hate being a burden to you."

"I don't mind helping you. You need to pay the price though."

Scarlett narrowed her eyes and looked at him with one hand on her hip.

"I don't remember you mentioning payment."

"Give me a kiss."

"Well, if I have to . . ."

"Hey, I rode my bike five minutes for you."

"That was a pretty big sacrifice," she agreed.

She walked over to him, stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the lips.

"You can do better than that," Jax said.

"It was only five minutes."

Scarlett grinned mischievously at him. She was daring him to kiss her and she knew Jax Teller wasn't a man who would turn down that kind of challenge.

He kissed her hard and hungry. Scarlett felt the ground shift under her feet. She grabbed him by his T-shirt to keep her balance.

Jax lifted his head and dropped his arms from around her. She released her hold on his shirt.

"Well?"

"That wasn't . . ." Scarlett drew in a shaky breath, "bad."

Jax rocked back on his heels and studied her face with an amused smile on his face.

"Damned right it wasn't."

Jax had won that round, but losing felt so good it really wasn't losing. She enjoyed flirting with him and being with him and that was as far as she wanted to think.

"You aren't checking out of your room this time?"

She shook her head.

"No, it's too much trouble. I think I'll stay here until I can find a place to live."

Scarlett followed Jax to his house. He parked his bike inside his garage and she drove them to the outskirts of town where Fun Town had set up its traveling carnival.

The acreage had originally been purchased by a developer to build luxury homes and condos. The Charming city council had other ideas and the developer got hit with an endless sea of regulations and required studies from environmental impact reports to a study to estimate the cost a new development would have on the city from police staffing levels, to sewage treatment issues to the impact on the city's roads and other infrastructure. Just in case that wasn't enough, the city adopted huge increases in developer fees.

The owner tried to sell the land, but no one wanted to buy such a large tract of land with such restrictions on its use. Fun Town's annual visit was the developer's only source of income from the land.

As Jax helped Scarlett out of her car, he looked into her eyes.

"I forgot to tell you that you look beautiful today."

"Only today?"

"Always. I just don't want you to get conceited."

She poked him in the chest with her index finger.

"You are a hard man, Jax Teller."

"So you keep telling me. You could make things easier for me."

"Really? How?"

"Have sex with me."

Scarlett laughed.

"I probably wouldn't be able to walk for a week afterwards."

"Well, sometimes great pleasure comes with a price."

"Great pleasure?" Scarlett said, laughing harder. She groaned and wrapped her arms around her body to lessen the pain from the muscles pulling as she laughed.

"You just made my point. You've been having sex with the wrong guys if you haven't experienced great pleasure."

"You're definitely right about the wrong guys."

"We're going to be amazing together," he promised.

Scarlett caught her breath as she saw the fire in his blue eyes. Her resistance to him was especially low today. Her sexy side shut down when she left her psycho ex at the altar. Jax was starting to wake that part of her up and it scared her. Once more, she gave thanks for her back injury. It couldn't have happened at a better time.

A big bright red "Fun Town" sign was lit by spotlights despite it only being late afternoon. The north end of the field contained the rides. The west side had most of the typical carnival games from shooting metal ducks to knocking down milk jugs with a baseball. There was even a dunk tank. Food trucks and booths were confined mainly to the east side.

Jax held her elbow and guided her carefully through the throngs of people. He treated her like she was a delicate piece of crystal. She'd never been with a man who treated her with such care.

She got the irony that the man who treated her so gently was an outlaw biker from a world where women were not treated as equals but rather as property. Jax Teller wasn't like any man she'd ever met and she suspected he wasn't like the typical biker. He was a unique man.

He was dressed as usual in jeans, a T-shirt and his cut. He had this hip swinging walk that was sexy as hell. The crowd seemed to almost magically part for him and every girl that set eyes on him wanted him. Scarlett enjoyed being with a man who was so highly desired.

He found a small seating area. While Scarlett sat down and saved him a seat, he went off to get them batter fried cheese and cherry lemonade. She hadn't eaten that day. Her stomach was in knots because she kept thinking about coming face to face with Clay.

Now that she was so close to meeting her father, she could feel the cold terror run through her body. He was the monster that destroyed her childhood and tried to kill her.

Kids' faces and bodies change so much, she knew it would be almost impossible for him to recognize her. He had only caught a glimpse of her as he finished choking her mother to death.

She would never forget the look of rage and hate in his eyes as he chased her and Violet as they ran from the house. He had been determined to kill her. If Violet hadn't been home, he would have succeeded.

There was no statue of limitations on murder, so it didn't matter how much time passed. Clay could still face a murder trial. That made her a danger to him. She had a real reason to fear him.

He had a reason to fear her, she reminded herself. She and her father were going to make sure Clay paid a price for killing her mother. She wanted him to go to prison for the rest of his life stripped of MC protection.

By the time she and Jax finished their food, she was calmer.

"This is really fun. I can't remember the last time I was at a carnival."

"Pretty much everyone in town comes at least once. For Charming, this is top of the line entertainment."

Scarlett tilted her head to the side as she laughed. That's when she caught a glimpse of Clay making his way over to her.