ABOUT THE BOOK:
Through good times, bad times and times of war, Cole “Rush” Allen grew up in the Chaos Motorcycle Club. Along this journey, he watched his father, Tack, and his MC brothers fight, sweat, bleed and die to steer the Club to legitimacy.
And they’ve got one more battle on their hands.
A battle they have to win.
But when Rush meets the woman who put herself right in the thick of it, he knows he has to stop at nothing to get her out.
Rebel Stapleton has lost someone she loves to murder and she’s the kind of woman who’s going to do something about it. She puts her career on the line, and her life, to bring the man who did it to justice.
That is, she does this until Rush Allen intervenes.
Chaos is at war and they’re about to face the ultimate showdown. They’ll have to negotiate skeletons from the past, enemies becoming allies, and loved ones in the line of fire on their ride to be…
Free.
EXCERPT:
In this manner, they guided me onto 6th Avenue and all the way down that long, heavily trafficked, three-lane bastard into the foothills. I lost my side bikes on the small mountain town roads that led to back country roads, the guy to the left going forward to lead the pack, the guy to the right falling back.
It did not make me feel cozy and happy when we hit a gravel road, in the middle of nowhere, that was winding and ended at a remote cabin that did not look like it was set up to play its role as a vacation relaxation station.
More like where Jason might show with an ax.
The bikes stopped.
I stopped, cut the ignition to my Subaru, tossed open my door, hauled myself out, slammed my door and advanced fast on who I was guessing was the leader of the pack.
The guy who’d rode to my left.
He was off his bike when I got there.
He was also taller than I’d have guessed.
He definitely rocked that leather jacket.
And he had a great head of thick, dark hair that was overlong. So long one side of the front was tucked behind his ear and it was flippy messy in the back in a way that practically begged a woman to grab hold.
I did not grab hold.
I got up to the toes of my boots and shouted in his face, “You could have killed yourself, asshole!”
“Calm down,” he growled.
Oh yeah.
Growled.
His voice was deep and gravelly, rumbling up his chest and out his mouth in a way I could almost trace that shit.
I ignored this additional nugget of awesomeness that made this biker and yelled, “Calm down? Calm down? Are you insane?” I took a step back and threw out both arms. “I’m in the middle of nowhere at Jason’s Lodge o’ Ax Murdering Fun with a pack of bikers when I should right now be home, meditating or some shit.”
His head tipped to the side. “You meditate?”
I didn’t answer that.
I said, “Newsflash. When a bunch of dudes on bikes wearing leather jackets with patches surrounds a woman’s car, she’s not gonna go Thelma and Louise on their asses on the exit ramp off Speer Boulevard to I-25, which is right in the heart of the city, which means right in the heart of Denver traffic. She might hurt them. More, she might hurt herself. But most, she might hurt some unsuspecting single mom on her way home from work to feed her kids and later, lament her choice of their deadbeat dad who’s off banging his secretary.”
“It gonna sink in we’re here safe, so you can be done yelling at me?” he asked.
“Am I safe?” I asked back.
“You gotta ask that, you don’t know Chaos,” he retorted.
“Well, another newsflash, stud, I don’t know Chaos,” I shot back.
He leaned into me.
I smelled leather, fresh air, and the remnants of some sharp, tangy aftershave that I kid you not, actually tightened my clit.
Damn.
“Well, you’re about to know Chaos, so let’s get on to that,” he rumbled at me. “Get inside.”
“I want your promise right here you’re not gonna ax murder me when I go inside that cabin,” I snapped.
He sighed.
From around us, I heard a deep chuckle, actually a few of them.
“We’re not gonna ax murder you.” He sounded beleaguered.
He sounded beleaguered.
Right.
MY REVIEW:
“I wanna take you out,” he whispered.
“Do bikers date?” she whispered back.
Free is the end of the beloved ‘Chaos’ series by Kristen Ashley and features a wide cast of characters from many of her favorite series. This is definitely not a standalone book as the story is written from many different POV’s. While Rebel and Rush are the central couple in the book, this was not their story alone. I absolutely loved when the story focused on this couple, though, as Rebel is one of THE most memorable heroines that Kristen Ashley has created.
“A woman who can love that deep, who’s got that kinda steel in her spine, the man who gets it, it’ll feel good to earn that love, keep it and have it. But he’ll have to understand what makes her and that he’ll have a lifetime of puttin’ out fires, dealin’ with emotional fallout, and proppin’ her up when the loads she takes on get too heavy.”
Now THAT’S why I read and love Kristen Ashley! Cole “Rush” Allen is very much like his dad, Tack, and Rush has his eye on Rebel. She’s gorgeous, spirited, smart and loyal. She is in an extremely dangerous situation with Benito Valenzuela and the story follows the Chaos MC as they try and take down the vicious criminal Valenzuela.
As with all of Ms. Ashley’s books, family plays a big part in ‘Free.’ Rush’s father Tack is featured in this story as are the bothers of Chaos and other favorite characters form other books. The multiple POV’s did take me a little out of the story but I appreciated the appearance of so many of my favorite bossy, overprotective alpha heroes.
“He’d learned a lot from his dad. One of those things was, you find a redhead who did it for you, even if it was early in your relationship, if you knew in your gut that it was right, you didn’t let go. So yeah. He’d made his decision. He was keeping her.”
There is a ton of action, humor, sweetness and tons and tons of hotness in ‘Free.’ Although I am sad to say goodbye to the Chaos series, I appreciate how the author wrapped up many of the loose ends from this series. I hope that some of these characters will appear in later books, and felt this was a fitting tribute to one of my favorite MC romance series.
“I want it all, Dad. I want what you got, but I want it my way and I want it to be all mine.”
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