I froze, my eyes going all around the parking lot as Laric did this.
I couldn’t believe that a man like Laric, a big, strapping, alpha male of a man, was brushing my hair out. In public.
I mean, I’d lived with two alpha males since I was a baby. I knew what they did and didn’t do. And hair was one of those things that never got done by them.
Their hands were just too big and uncoordinated to allow for that.
“Give me that hair tie,” he ordered after he’d brushed it completely out.
I did, and he took the time to partition the hair in half. Half to one side, and half to the other. Seconds after that, he tied one side up, then said, “Take a seat on the back of my bike. Give me some room to work.”
I did just that, carefully maneuvering myself onto the back of his bike so that I was down lower than him.
Then, he proceeded to give me the best damn French braid—we used to call them fighter braids back in the day—I’d ever had.
It took him less than five minutes to have both completely braided.
“Wow,” I breathed, feeling each side with mesmerized fingers. “You’re awesome.”
“Used to have long hair.” He paused. “Still do on top.” He fingered his hat. A hat that hadn’t been there the day before, but was definitely there now, and sexy as hell to boot. “Liked it when it wasn’t slapping me in the face, too.”
I grinned up at him.
He returned the grin. But it quickly fell off of his face when something happened a few spots down from us. A woman getting a little too close to a light pole as she parked, causing the bumper to collide with the concrete and creating a crunching/grating sound.
“We need to go,” he admitted. “I should’ve done this up in the room where we weren’t out in the open.”
“My dad and his boys cleared the place,” I offered up. “And there’s been a heavy police presence since a lot of my friends and family are on the police department. Thor would be incredibly stupid to come here.”
Laric snorted and bent to pick up my small overnight bag which he unceremoniously shoved into the saddlebag with very little care for what was in there.
“Hey!” I said as I tapped him on the shoulder. “Take care, man!”
His brows rose as he slowly looked up at me. “Sorry. Was there something breakable in here?”
I reached for the purse, and he gave it to me.
When I dug underneath the set of clothes, I felt my fingers hit plastic.
When they did, I pulled out not one, not two, but three Swiss Rolls. The best snack cake in existence. “Yeah. I don’t want to smush these. I want to eat them later.”
He started chuckling, and though the movement of searching for those rolls had caused my arm to ache—this was going to be bad when I no longer had the good stuff running through my veins that only the hospital could give me—it still caused shivers of delight from his husky laugh to skate down my spine.
My face, if it was possible to blush, would’ve been beet red by the time that he stuffed the bag into the saddlebag and stopped laughing.
Because, holy God, when the man laughed, it was like something had transformed on him.
The man was drop dead sexy—I mean hello, he was tall, built, had forearms that would make even the most lesbian of women look—and had the voice of an angel.
I’d done my share of listening to audiobooks.
I’d heard a deep, raspy male voice say, ‘Fuck me up the ass, little girl.’ I’d heard one say, ‘bend over that table and let me fuck your little pussy.’ I’d also heard so many ‘oh, fucks’ that it wasn’t even funny.
But I had a feeling, had Laric decided he wanted to have a career in the audiobook industry, he’d be the next damn award winner of the century.
The bad thing was, he didn’t even know that he was as sexy as he was.
He was just… it.
And my God. The man hadn’t even blinked at braiding my hair, nor had he even questioned me coming home with him.
Hell, I barely knew him!
What the hell was I doing?
I should be finding a hotel and holing up until the authorities found my dumbass ex.
Yet, I wasn’t.
“You look like you’re about to bolt,” he said as he carefully took the Swiss Rolls out of my hands and placed them on top of my bag in his pack. Seconds later, he was clipping the saddlebags closed and reaching for a helmet that was hanging from the handlebars.
“I don’t need that…” I trailed off when he ignored my words, fitted it onto my head, and then strapped the chin strap down so tight that I had fat rolls on either side of the strap.