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I followed him and stood next to his bike while he opened the garage door and went inside for an extra helmet. The shadowed garage space filled with sunlight, allowing me to see the tools and broken down bikes that were sitting on the side.
Then he was there, a black helmet in hand. I took it and tried to put it on, but it wasn’t working out.
“Maybe take your hair down?” he suggested.
I nodded, pulling my hair out of the tie and letting it fall around my shoulders and down my back. His eyes moved over my hair, following a single wavy curl over my shoulder and across my left breast.
His eyes flicked up to mine again, and he grinned before he reached out and took the helmet. His fingers brushed the sides of my neck when he put it on me, and I shivered.
“Okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. Just nervous.”
Then he climbed onto his bike and leaned forward, grabbing onto the handlebars and making his back muscles flex through this shirt.
“Just toss your leg over and climb on behind me. It’s not on. Nothing’s hot. Get comfortable and put your feet on the pegs.”
I did as he asked, straddling his bike and moving as close to his back as I could without feeling uncomfortable. Once I was settled, he directed my feet to the pegs.
“Get as close to my back as you can and put your arms around my waist.”
I slid forward and put my arms around his waist. The smell of his cologne reached through the helmet and stroked my sense of smell. Then he leaned up a bit and cranked the bike.
My nails bit into his sides when the loud engine and vibrations startled me. My anxiety reared her ugly head and poked at my chest. I couldn’t believe I was on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle. If Erik saw me, he would never forgive me, but I had to get home. I had no choice.
Aiken laughed as I squeezed him. I couldn’t hear his laughter, but I could feel it beneath my fingers.
He revved the engine, and I closed my eyes and prayed.
“Try to relax. Don’t let go of me, and when I lean, lean with me, okay?” he yelled back at me.
“What do you mean, lean with you?”
“Like, if I lean a little to the side.” He demonstrated, swaying his large frame to the side. I was hugging him so tightly that my body moved with his. “There you go, lean with me like that. You’re not going to fall off as long as you hold on to me.”
I nodded, but he couldn’t see the action because he was facing forward again. He backed us out of the driveaway and revved the engine a bit. Already I was shaking and hyperventilating. Anxiety and panic rushed up my chest and clogged my throat.
Breathe, Everly.
“Ready?” he yelled out.
“Not really, but I don’t have a choice.”
Without another word, he took off. I hadn’t wanted to be close to him, but with the movement of the bike and my fear, I latched onto him like he was my savior.
My body shook with panic, and at the first stop sign we came to, he must have felt me shivering against him because he reached back and patted my thigh as if to say, “You’re okay. I got you.”
Strangely, the action made me feel calmer.
Once we cleared the city and made it to the back roads toward my house, he let loose, and the engine screamed back at us. The wind cut across our bodies, and we sliced through the humidity like a hot knife.
I was still full of anxiety and could feel the panic attack knocking against my brain to come in, but I couldn’t let it because what I was feeling on the back of Aiken’s bike was so much more than fear—more than anxiety and panic.
I was living on the edge. As far as I was concerned, I was knocking on death’s door and begging him to let me in, but at that moment, with my arms wrapped around Aiken’s massive body while I straddled his bike, I felt something entirely new to me.
I felt freedom.
I hadn’t expected that. I expected the worst attack ever, but that’s not what happened. I could only feel so many things at once without shutting down from shock, but on the back of Aiken’s bike—latched onto The Skull himself—there was too much exhilaration to make room for fear.
