Then, once he finally pulled back, he flashed me that charming smile of his.
“Your helmet’s in the storage compartment. Get it and get on.”
And he sure as hell didn’t have to tell me twice.
34
Max
The feeling of her arms wrapped around me. The way she leaned her helmeted head between my shoulder blades. The way her legs clenched on to me. It felt right, having her on the back of my bike. And the way she squealed and laughed as we banked tight corners made me smile.
I never smiled like that with anyone, except her.
I came up to the last light, the one I had to take a left at in order to get to our final destination. But I found myself staying straight instead. I wanted a few more minutes of her to myself, on the back of my bike. Clinging to me, her laughter filling the space around us as I revved the engine and blew through stop signs.
“Woo hoo! Yeah!”
I chuckled at her bombastic sounds.
You’re going soft, Max.
I pushed the thought from my head as I drove farther away from our destination. More time to get back there meant more time to spend with her all to myself, instead of allowing the general public to invade our personal time together. I had half a mind to take her back to my place, to shut her up in my room and tease her with my tongue until she begged me to take what was rightfully mine. I knew I could do it. I knew I could coax it from her. I knew I could give her the time of her life. A moment she’d never regret.
Your father’s on to something.
I growled as I whipped a U-turn in the middle of the road. I heard Dani gasp as she held me tighter, her hands fisting my shirt. I could’ve sworn I felt her fingernails rake against my abs, and it caused me to growl. Heat rushed through my body. A need for her against me rose up the back of my spine. No, I wasn’t going soft. My father wasn’t right.
Dani was exactly what I needed in my life.
This college girl was beauty incarnate for me. Untouched by the darkness of my life. Untouched by any darkness, really. She was safe. Cute. A breath of fresh air. Pleasantly ignorant to the crime that crept up into the corners of poor old Ann Arbor. A blind citizen that still enjoyed something as simple as getting coffee without having to look over her shoulder.
I liked that about her.
You love that about her.
I gnashed my teeth as I pressed onward.
Dani was everything I didn't deserve. She was everything I longed for, and everything I dreamt about at night. All wrapped up in one innocent, clumsy package. She didn’t understand darkness. She didn’t understand the underworld. She didn’t understand abuse and mental illness and all of the things that crept up into the lives of the people around me on a regular basis. To her, the worst thing im
aginable was a stormy night with no power. Or the possibility of being broken down on the side of the road.
I enjoyed her youthful ignorance and her bountiful laughter. I enjoyed everything about her, because she was mine.
Even if only for a little while.
I grinned at the thought. I’d make her mine. Even if she didn’t stick around for the long haul. Hell, even if she didn’t stick around into next week. I’d find a way to get what I wanted. To show her exactly how a man treated a woman like her. She deserved that much. She deserved to have that kind of a bar set in her life. How a man should spoil her. Kiss her. Whisk her away, and make her feel alive. She deserved a man who knew how to rile her up in bed. Who knew how to throw her over the edge until she begged for mercy. And then did it again.
Dani deserved every kind of beauty this world had to offer.
And I was determined to give as much of it to her as possible.
We rode back up to the light and I took the turn I needed to. I was still disappointed at the ride not taking longer than it had. But I tried my best not to show it. I pulled up to the curb and parked in an open space right in front of the pub. With its flickering neon sign hanging crookedly on the brick façade, I put down my kickstand and cut the engine to my bike. Even slid my helmet off to draw in the all-too-familiar scent of stale cigarette smoke and frying grease.
“Brick’s?”
I slipped off my bike and watched Dani take her helmet off.
“Yep.”