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“I don’t mind showing you a little bit of fun,” he said cryptically. “Do you own a pair of jeans?”
Twenty minutes later she was standing in his driveway as he adjusted her ponytail and set a helmet on her head. Somehow—and she could never quite figure out exactly how he did it—she ended up following him into one reckless situation after another. “Are you really asking me to ride this thing?” she asked, biting her lip, and shoving her shaking hands into her pockets.
“It’s not hard,” he assured her. “I promise you’ll be safe with me.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“I probably can’t,” he admitted, pressing a quick and surprising kiss to the tip of her nose. “But that’s what makes it fun.”
“Not fun,” she said. “Risky.”
He laughed, lines crinkling the skin around the dark blue of his eyes. “Life is risky. You can’t avoid it. All you can do is decide which risks are worth taking.”
She narrowed her eyes at the motorcycle. “But what if I hate this?”
“Then it’s not the right risk for you,” he said, all traces of humor vanishing from his face as his eyes flicked down to her lips. “You’ll know when you find something else that’s worth taking chances for.”
“Right,” she said, taking a step back and a deep wobbling breath before looking skeptically at the motorcycle with its black paint and leather seats. She’d avoided kissing him again this morning, unsure she wanted a repeat of her response the night before. “How do I get on?”
He guided her through it, showed her how to swing her leg over and settle in behind him with her hands on his hips, careful not to hurt him with the one that rested just below his bandages. The engine rumbled to life and her hands tightened until they ached.
“Just relax,” he instructed. “Let me do the work.”
“I just have to trust you not to kill me?” She had to raise her voice to be heard and winced at the panicked squeak she hadn’t been able to hide.
His chest rumbled with a laugh she couldn’t hear over the deep purr of the machine beneath her and he turned back to shout over his shoulder. “I get the feeling trust doesn’t come easy to you, but I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
“Sure,” she muttered, her breath catching in her throat when he eased them forward and crept toward the nearest stop sign. She clung to him in terror, her fingers twisting the fabric of his shirt until she worried the thin material might give beneath the pressure, but he went slowly, circling the block to get her used to the noise and the lean of the turns before he took them out of the neighborhood.
“Are we going to go very fast?” she cried, hanging on to him as they stopped at a stoplight. She glanced around at the cars, so terrifyingly close to her exposed body. The helmet was paltry protection for her head, but what about the rest of her? She doubted her arms and legs, or the soft flesh of her torso would hold up against any kind of impact with a car. Ethan had some kind of death wish to do this all the time like he did.
“Not unless you want to,” he answered. “We’ll stay on the back roads where there’s not much traffic and a slower speed limit.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “Just a short ride. I can’t take very much of this.”
She clutched at him on the turns and had to bite her lip to keep from gasping at each bump, but once they left the crowded streets behind for the empty lanes of the roads just beyond the city, she began to relax. It wasn’t something she’d choose for herself as a hobby, but the wind was cool on her face and the sun warmed her shoulders. There was a freedom in it, and a charm in the country houses they passed, each cute with their wide porches and brightly colored flower beds.
He kept them headed west until they left even those houses behind and the road began to wind through cotton fields and the dark waters of the bayou. Spanish moss hung from the trees, creating a cathedral of gossamer green. Cicadas screamed from the branches loudly enough to be heard even over the rumble of the bike, a warning that the full heat of summer was well on its way.
“You okay?” Ethan turned his head at the next stop sign, his hand coming to squeeze her thigh in case she hadn’t heard him.
“Yeah.” She squirmed on the seat, shifting her weight slightly to the side. “I think I’m ready to go back.”
He chuckled and patted her knee. “It can make your ass hurt when you aren’t used to it,” he admitted. “The seat’s not the softest.”
“Sorry.”
There were no cars or other people around and he turned around to make eye contact with her over his shoulder. “You don’t always have to apologize,” he said. “You did better than I thought you would.”
She sat up straighter, her chest puffing out a little at the praise. “Did I?”
“Well, you didn’t cry all the way here,” he teased.
“Oh, you’re hilarious.” She rolled her eyes, but there was no malice in it. He was pretty funny, and she enjoyed this softer side of him.
They arrived back just after noon and the steady beam of the sun overhead and inescapable humidity had her shirt clinging to her chest like a second skin. She’d never regretted making the move to Louisiana. Getting away from her mother had made trading the cold snap of northern winters for southern heat seem like a good decision, but summer afternoons certainly brought air that felt like hot soup. She plucked at the fabric with one hand and used her wrist to push clinging tendrils of hair off her forehead.
“Want something to drink?” She was already swinging her leg over the seat, gripping his shoulder to steady her as she dismounted. He’d explained the importance of wearing protective clothing during the ride but she was eager to get inside and trade her jeans for something cooler.
