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“You have to touch me if this is going to work.” Luke reaches over and puts my left hand on his stomach, flexing his abs underneath my touch.Show off.I take one deep breath and then place my right hand on his shoulder and hold on to him as I swing myself onto the bike. My body naturally slides flush against his, and my hands settle on his hips.
“A couple more things before we go.” He turns in his seat, speaking to me over his shoulder. “Where do you live?” I laugh as I realize a phone GPS is not going to suffice in this situation. After I give him brief verbal directions, he says, “I’ve got it, but you can point in front of me to show me where to go if you need to. Tap my right shoulder to turn right, my left to turn left.”
“Okay.”
“When I told you to hold on, I wasn’t kidding.” Luke takes my hands off of his hips and pulls them together against his stomach, causing my chest to press tighter against his back. “It’s safer for both of us if you stay connected to me. Follow my lead, like a dance. If I lean into a turn, you need to lean into it, too. Do you understand?” he asks.
“Yes. You lean. I lean. Got it.”
“For some people, the first time the bike dips into a turn, it scares them, and they jerk up. You can’t do that. It’s dangerous. Trust me. Trust the bike. I won’t drop you on a turn, okay?” His voice is serious, and I’ve rarely experienced this stern version of him before, but it’s working. I do feel safe.
“Okay.” I nod, and my helmet knocks into his.
Luke smiles, and his abs flex under my fingertips again as he laughs. “You’re going to love this, sweetheart.” His usual teasing tone returns. He flashes me his cocky half smile one more time before he slides my visor down. Luke fires up the engine, and theentire bike vibrates underneath me.
All the nervousness fluttering around inside me shifts into excitement the moment Luke pulls forward. He doesn’t leave the parking lot immediately. Instead, he snakes around the spaces, turning left, then right, then left again, teaching me how to lean with him.He was right.It feels like the bike is going way lower than it should, but I follow his instructions even when my instinct is to pull up.
When he accelerates onto the street, the evening desert air blows against us, his body blocking the brunt of it.Are his arms cold?He shouldn’t have given me his jacket.
Luke reaches back and squeezes my knee as we pull up to a stoplight. “You’re doing so good, sweetheart,” he says, a thrill ringing through my body at his touch.
The light turns green, and the bike gets up to speed immediately. The wind blows against us harder, feeling like we’re going eighty-five miles per hour. I look over his shoulder at the speedometer, and it reads only forty. I tap his right shoulder to remind him to turn. The speed limit on this road is higher, and again, we get up to speed in an instant. I can’t help but giggle as we ride down the road.Shit. He was right.I fucking love this.
The motorcycle continues to rumble underneath us, and holy hell, between that and the brawny man wrapped in my arms, I am turned the fuck on.How does no one ever talk about how very stimulating riding a motorcycle is?
Luke reaches back and squeezes my leg just above my knee again, offering reassurance I no longer need, but the touch still sends butterflies into my stomach. I’ve finally given myself permission to stop hating him, and without that lens, I’m afraid I’m falling quickly in the opposite direction.
Standing in that parking lot was the most I’d ever heard him speak. He’s usually clipped sentences, smirks, and what Iassumed was quiet judgment.But is he just observant?He oozes confidence and self-assuredness. I try to ignore the very real possibility that he barely talks to me most of the time because it’s been my habit to shut him down.
Luke turns into my neighborhood, and when he pulls up in front of my house, I’m disappointed the ride is over so quickly. He turns toward me and slides up his visor before doing the same to mine. His cocky smirk is gone, replaced with a broad, full-mouthed smile that makes him look like a kid on Christmas morning. “I was right,” he says.
“About what?”
“You loved it.”
My smile is giving me away, but I still try to pull it down. “Maybe.”
“Bullshit. I could feel you giggling.”
“I didn’t hate it.” That’s the only admission I’ll give.
“You loved it. It’s a good thing, too.” He tugs at my chinstrap. “It’d be a damn shame for you to look so cute in that helmet if you weren’t going to wear it again.”
“What makes you think I’ll be wearing it again?”
“We parked a while ago, and you’re still on the bike. Either you like riding it, or you like holding onto me.”
Releasing my hold on him, I scramble off as quickly as possible, pressing myself fully against him once more.
He laughs, getting off the motorcycle effortlessly and taking off his helmet to set it on the seat. With one shake of his head side to side, his hair falls back into its perfectly imperfect style, dark tendrils draping across his forehead.
I pull up on my helmet, forgetting it’s still strapped on, and end up yanking hard on my chin. Luke laughs, saying something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, “Adorable,” and reaches under to loosen the buckle before sliding it off my head.My hair must look completely ridiculous between the sweat, the helmet, and the wind. I rush to smooth and tousle it into shape.How does his hair look so good immediately?
I thank him for the ride, and he follows when I move toward my front door. “You’re really on that gentleman shit tonight, aren’t you?”
He shrugs as he tucks his hands into his front pockets and chuckles. “What time should I be here in the morning?”
“For what?”
