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Amusement danced in his eyes again, and shock, like people rarely surprised him. “Not selling anything,” he said. “I just want to spend the evening with you.”
“With me?” I asked suspiciously. He was gorgeous, like movie-star-level gorgeous. He could literally spend the evening with anyone he wanted.
“Yes,” he said, taking a step closer to me, the heat from his body wrapping around me like a blanket. God, that felt good. How long had it been since I’d had any physical contact with another human?
Too long.
It’d been way too long.
And now I didn’t have much time left.
I grinned up at him, my pulse spiking at the idea of sharing any kind of contact with this stranger. A thrill shot through me. “Sure,” I said, shrugging as I pointed behind me to my car. “This is me. Hop in.”
“Just like that,” he said, sliding into the passenger seat of my car.
“Just like that?” I teased, pulling out of the parking lot. “You’re the one who just got into a complete stranger’s car. How do you know I’m not going to lock you in my basement and force you to put lotion all over those insane biceps you have?”
Ajax didn’t look at me like I was crazy. He looked at me like he was trying not to laugh.
“Don’t think I could take you?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“I’d love to see you try,” he said. “Still, you’re the one whoinvitedthe stranger in. Doesn’t that make you a tad more reckless than me?”
I focused on the road despite wanting to meet that deep, churning gaze of his, and shrugged. “I mean, why not, right? It’s not like you’re going to kill me.” I laughed at the notion, a sudden rush of adrenaline soaring through my veins. There was something freeing about the three months I’d been sentenced with, something that stripped fear from my body and left me feeling nothing but free and wild and ready to experience everything I’d hidden from in my life—including taking up a complete stranger’s offer for quality time.
“I hope you like amusement parks, Ajax,” I said, taking the highway that would lead to Edgemont’s pier.
“Amusement park?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s where I’m headed. I’ve never ridden a roller coaster before because I was always too afraid of the cart flying off the rails.”
“And you’re not afraid anymore?” he asked as I drove.
Something pricked the center of my chest, a pesky pang of sadness that I batted away like the annoying fly it was. I smiled, flashing him an appreciative look where he sat dominating the passenger seat of my car. “Hard to be scared when my angel of death is sitting right next to me.”
“You’re really hung up on that, aren’t you?” Ajax asked, his tone casual as if it were the most normal thing in the world to climb into a stranger’s car and strike up a conversation like we’d known each other for years.
“Well, yeah,” I said, pulling off the highway and heading toward Edgemont Thrills. “There is no other logical explanation of why someone who looks like you would follow me around.”
Ajax huffed a laugh, and the sound buzzed along my bones in the most delicious way.
There was a part of me—a really big part of me—that fully believed my tumor-addled brain had conjured Ajax from a collection of fantasies living in my subconscious. There was likely an eighty percent chance I was laughing and talking to myself as I parked in the lot of the amusement park, but I couldn’t really find a fuck to give. If he was a manifestation, then my brain had finally done one thing absolutely right, because he was utterly magnificent, the perfect combination of protective and dangerous.
“Have you been here before?” I asked him as he walked at my side, our arms nearly touching as we headed toward the park’s entrance.
“Can’t say that I have,” he said, dark eyes scanning the place with what I could only call an assessing gaze. Like he was searching for dangers and escape routes where I was only hunting for the fun.
“Of course not,” I said, paying the attendant for my park pass then studying Ajax’s interaction with the attendant. A slight breath of relief escaped me when she spoke to him and smiled up at him as he gave her a wad of cash.
But I knew better than anyone the power of the mind. I could’ve just conjured her speaking to him to validate my manifestation.
Wow, spin down the rabbit hole much?
“What do you want to ride first, Grace?” Ajax asked once he wore his bright blue wristband, something that looked totally out of sorts with his leather look but was somehow adorable all the same.
My eyes trailed the length of his powerful body, my cheeks heating at the idea of ridinghimfor the night.
Ajax’s nostrils flared, eyes darkening for a second before he blinked it away.
