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“That’s right. I’d never been on a bike before.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yes. I thought it was great.”
“Where did you go?”
“Just up the coast a ways to have a burger.”
“Sounds fun. Jett likes to have fun. Mom says he’s never been serious about much of anything or anyone.”
Tessa gulped. “Oh?” Why did she feel like the girl was warning her? But for what—to avoid Jett because he’d break her heart, or to avoid him to save his?
Kayla gave her a thoughtful look. “Uncle Roman’s wife died years ago.”
“Did she?”
“While he was in prison. He’s been alone for a long time. Dad says he gets seriously broody sometimes.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So you’ll know. You should know because they like you a lot.”
“You don’t know that.”
The girl wanted to share something so badly she was bursting. “Sometimes, they talk around me without realizing I’m there.”
“You mean you’re eavesdropping?”
Kayla gave her a bright smile. “Nah, just strategically placed. Anyway, I overheard a conversation between my uncles. They were worried about liking you because if it went to hell, they were afraid I’d suffer for it.”
Tessa wanted to ignore her words, but they sounded authentic. “I’d never be angry with you if something didn’t work out with your uncles… one of your uncles.” God, what a discussion to be having with a student. She eyed the exit with longing.
“Oh, it’d be both of them.” Kayla was so sanguine in her confidence.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “People don’t have relationships like that, Kayla.”
The girl snorted. “Maybe not in your world, but they do in mine. Take Vanessa, Slash, and Choirboy.”
She frowned. “Who’re they?”
“Slash is the club’s enforcer and Uncle Ronan’s friend. Choirboy is an IT guy or something for the club, and he’s Slash’s friend. Vanessa is their old lady. She loves both of them, and they love her. It works.”
The sudden intrusion of the biker lingo into the conversation with a twelve-year-old startled her and brought her back to the moment.Enforcer, old lady… they were the terms she heard in the movies that made them all out to be outlaws. And the idea that Ronan had done time in prison wasn’t the kind of news that calmed her. Jett hadn’t done anything serious, but it could be he just hadn’t been caught. They were bikers, which meant they toed a line between respectability and no rules. That was scary to Tessa, who lived a life full of rules. “I like your uncles, and we had a lovely ride, but…”
“I thought you needed to know that about them. And it’s important they asked you to go on a ride with them. Mom said that’s what a guy does if he likes one girl better than another... or two guys like one girl.” Then, before Tessa could reply, Kayla grinned and darted from the room.
Tessa stared after the precocious child. Her thoughts turned to a lonely, widowed biker who might pass on an easy lay just to take her for a ride—an innocent ride down the highway, accompanied by his best friend. And what did it say about her that she’d gone off with them happily, gone riding with two bikers, one of whom was an ex-convict? It all needed thought. A lot of thought.
The second period was an administrative one for Tessa—it was a chance for her to do some of her paperwork while the class studied art with Mr. Difle. Sometimes she’d have a student or two in the room with her who were supposed to study silently for having made some infraction of minor rules, but today she was alone, staring at her paperwork and trying to shake off a strange fantasy. She saw herself on the back of Ronan’s motorcycle riding somewhere—some distant place that would take a long, long time to get to. Jett rode beside them, not easily in touching range, but not far away. She clung to Ronan and stared at Jett, and her mind summoned up all the things she’d felt on Saturday.
Because she was behind Ronan, her arms wrapped tight around him and her thighs pressed to the vibrating motorcycle, she couldn’t see his face. Speech was almost impossible, with their words torn away by the wind, although if she put her lips to his ear, she could tell him simple things. They rode along and the entire universe became one of sensation, part of it very sexual—she had to admit that. She’d come home with her panties soaking wet.
That was how it had been on Saturday—an overloading of her senses. That’s why she couldn’t honestly say if she liked Ronan and Jett. Other than when they ate, they were warm, masculine bodies she clung to as they took her to their world.
For a woman who had spent much of her life thinking things out, studying, and dealing with life through her intellect, it was as strange as if she’d spent a day on some alien planet where communication was tactile. Her feelings were certainly tactile.
She wanted them more than she’d ever wanted anything; her desire was for them to take her to bed, to undress her, to caress her and to take her, make her feel their overpowering strength. The fantasy of being shared by them was soft and beautiful, but her desire was almost violent. Ronan and Jett weren’t like the civilized men she’d dated and dismissed. They were a bit barbaric —controlled and charming on the surface but with an inner core of aggression and their own moral compass that didn’t necessarily align with society’s. They had shown her what it was like to turn off her thoughts and feel; now what she wanted was to let them know she craved for them to unleash the barbarian inside of her, to perhaps summon her own.
