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***
He’s given me a helmet to wear, and it sits heavy on my head. I also can’t rest my cheek on his back, as I’d have liked to do. It’s my first time on a bike, and I’m stressed that I’m going to fall off, especially on the turns.
However, I still notice that he manages to keep the bunch of roses—red roses, almost crimson, like blood—in front of him as he weaves through the city streets, and that he seems to know what he’s doing, like he’s been riding a bike for ages.
Urban cowboy, I think and snicker as I imagine him with a black Stetson and one of those tasseled leather vests, the sound lost in the wind as we speed down an avenue.
An incognito millionaire slash bad boy driving through, crossing the lives of ordinary people, and they don’t even know. When we stop at a traffic light, I catch a girl my age watching us. She smiles, and I guess she’s seen the roses.
She thinks she knows what’s going on here. A romantic escapade.
She doesn’t know what the roses signify—hard sex with no feelings attached, offered by a guy who otherwise spends his days in the offices of his family company, directing the rise and fall of commercial empires.
I cling to his strong back as he speeds down unknown streets, until he parks at the gate of an illuminated building. The street is flanked with trees, and the buildings are shiny, brand new and clearly high scale.
A guard appears from a side building, takes one look at Hawk and opens the gate with a press of a button on a small control device.
We ride into the compound, and park in a covered spot.
“Your place?” I ask after I’ve dismounted, pulled off the killer helmet and straightened my skirt as best I could.
“A friend’s.”
A flash of disappointment goes through me. I really wanted to see his place. Or one of his places, anyway. Get a glimpse into his life, into who he really is.
But then he’s climbing off, unfolding his tall frame and taking off his own helmet, and I forget what I was thinking about.
Dressed in that black leather jacket, a white T-shirt peeking underneath, with that panty-dropping grin directed at me, I’m left with no choice. Right now, I’d follow him just about anywhere for a chance to run my hands over his face and body, to kiss those high cheekbones and the hollow at the base of his neck, the line of his shoulders to his strong arms and down to his hands.
Hands that are currently grabbing my hands and dragging me close to him, so that he can brush his mouth over mine. Then with a wink, he turns and pulls me inside the dim interior of the building.
Caught up in his presence, I barely notice our surroundings, but a few things jump out—like the marble floors and wall linings, the low leather furniture forming a sitting area to the left, the mirrors and perfect polish of the elevator doors. There are three elevators, and Hawk hauls me to the one at the far left. It dings as the doors open and we step inside.
Then Hawk produces a small key which he uses to activate our ride to the top.
The penthouse.
Of course it’s the penthouse, I think, a little dazed, as we stand in the gilded cage of the elevator, classic music playing, Hawk’s hand around mine. He smells of old leather and a hint of aftershave weaves in with his natural, mouth-watering scent, turning my knees weak.
The doors slide open and I follow him into a gleaming white apartment with large black and white photos hanging on the walls and huge windows looking over the twinkling city and the lit-up boats in the harbor in the distance.
Wow.
He leads me across the enormous living room slash kitchen, through a hall wide enough to host a formal dinner in and then into another room.
A bedroom.
“Is this…” I swallow, glancing around as he walks me straight to the ginormous bed. ?
??Is it your friend’s bed? Maybe we shouldn’t—”
“It’s the guest bedroom.”
Oh, right. Just a little thing for guests, that’s all.
Hawk pushes me to sit down on the bed and shrugs off his jacket. It thuds to the floor and next he tears off his T-shirt. Muscles bunch and release, and beautiful ink ripples over his abs and pecs.
Roses done in black ink.
