"Here," he said, reaching around me to hand me a drink of who-knew-what mixed with ginger ale. Then he moved past me, going toward the deck doors and going out without a word, leaving the door open for me to follow. Hearing my heels, because he didn't turn from where he was standing there, looking around, his voice met me. "Not gonna lie, I'm finding the shy thing sexy as fuck right about now. But I figured you're not exactly in the mood for me to pounce on you yet," he said, tipping up his drink to drain, then moving a few feet to the side, bending down to pull the top off the hot tub.
He wanted to go in the hot tub?
It was ninety degrees out still.
But then he stood, pushed off his cut, and reached to start pulling off his shirt and, well, my mind got crowded with thoughts other than the temperature outside.
Because inside, I was about at boiling point as the material got lifted off and dropped onto the deck, showing me more muscle than I had maybe been anticipating. Generally, when one thinks 'biker,' their first thought didn't exactly go to 'buff.' In fact, it was more inclined to think 'beer belly' or 'greasy hair.'
But Pagan was built.
You could run fingers between his eight pack. Yes, eight. And there was this strange, completely unlike me urge to lick them. Yes, lick. Because I was a freak like that apparently.
His chest was no less strong, his shoulders wide and solid-looking. There was a small trail of dark hair disappearing into his pants which his hands were at the waist of, like he was planning on unfastening them.
My eyes shot back up slightly, finding safer things to look at- the scars making a map of his body, all various stages of age and severity. The darkest, biggest one went almost perfectly down the center of his stomach, angry-looking even though it seemed long healed.
Then I heard the zip followed by the whoosh that made it clear he was down yet another article of clothing. But before my greedy eyes could look, there was a splash, and he was in the water.
"Come on, get your ass in here," he demanded, but his tone was almost sweet-sounding.
And, well, I didn't have a bra on.
"Pagan, I..."
Then he went ahead and did the spinning motion I had done to him back in the parking lot at Hex, making me smile a little as I kicked out of the shoes that had effectively made my toes numb about two hours before. Then I turned, reaching for the hem of my skirt before I could lose my nerve, pulling it up my back, reminding myself the whole time that being in my panties was no different than being in a bathing suit bottom which I did shamelessly when I could sneak away to do so. That being said, my panties were a pale pink peek-a-boo lace and I had no bra.
It was too late to worry about that, though, as the dress fell to the deck and my arm rose to hold around my bare breasts, almost painfully aware that he had neighbors who could look over into his yard at literally any time.
Before I could even convince myself to turn, I heard a rush of water and found myself snagged around the center and hauled back against his chest, off my feet, then into the water.
I let out a small shriek in surprise.
"Couldn't wait all fucking night for you to get the nerve to turn around," he informed me, sitting back into one of the built-in seats and situating me so that I was sideways with my legs over his like we had been on the couch in Hex.
His hand immediately went to my thigh, stroking up and down, surprisingly gentle for such a brutal man. I figured maybe that had a lot more to do with my hesitance than his personal preferences which, inadvertently, gave me a glimpse at the man underneath all the things you immediately thought when you saw him.
When his fingers sank in suddenly, moving to pull me to straddle him, my hand slapped into his chest. "What's your full name?"
His head jerked back suddenly, lips twitching. "Why? You gonna run a background check? See my credit score?"
"I can't have sex with someone whose name I don't even know."
"Pagan Robert Scott."
Then, without any other preamble, dragged me up and onto him. "Wait," I said, too distracted by the information to really notice the fact that I was straddling him. "Robert?" I asked, smiling.
"It was my first name before I changed it."
"Robert?" I clarified, smiling big, realizing how much cooler it was that I called him Niro if he was actually named Robert originally.
My smile proved infectious, making his lips curve more than they usually did. "You good? We done enough of the talking shit?"