I had never ridden on the back of a motorcycle. There was never really the opportunity for me to do such things.
Our high school did not even have the quintessential bad boy who smoked, skipped class, and ruined the names of the good, quiet girls.
Our town was too fancy for that.
The bad boys were all shipped out to the next town over, where the ‘riffraff’ culminated.
Had I lived out the trajectory that my life should’ve gone in—the alternate universe where I never met or got impregnated by Preston because I myself was shipped to the next town over—there was a high likelihood I would’ve found myself on the back of a motorcycle at some point. There was also a high likelihood I would’ve got addicted to drugs and chained to some loser with a drinking problem who lived in a beat-up trailer.
I’d put a lot of thought into that alternate reality over the years. Sometimes I’d wished to be sitting in a beaten down trailer, next to my overweight, overserved, douchebag husband. It would’ve been a lot more honest than the glossy nightmare I’d been living in.
But then I never would’ve had Violet. And my daughter was worth every second of that hellish landscape I’d lived in. I would never, could never, wish her away.
I thought of her while riding on that motorcycle with Swiss. Pressed up against his warm and muscled back, my hands around his middle, holding him tightly.
The wind was cool against my skin, a welcome respite since I’d spent the day feeling damp and overheated.
It was like a form of meditation, what I’d pretended to do after the hot yoga classes I went to. My mind could never be that still, that calm, that safe for such things.
Riding on the back of a motorcycle with a man I’d just met—and slept with—the night before wasn’t exactly safe either.
But it was the closest thing to meditation I’d ever come to.
Swiss’s eyes were glowing as we got off the bike, staring at me with satisfaction.
“You’ve never been on the back of a bike before, have you, Countess?” he asked, warmth in his voice.
I didn’t trust myself to speak. Instead, I just shook my head slowly.
He stepped forward to grasp my hips, yanking our bodies flush. His hand framed my face, skimming around my neck to yank me forward.
Our mouths met easily. Hungrily.
I was surprised I was still standing when he ended the kiss. I hated that he ended it. But if he kept it going any longer, we would’ve been having sex right there in the parking lot.
His mouth hovered inches from mine. “Popped your cherry,” he observed, voice lower and throatier now.
I didn’t say anything. In fact, I let out a weird and horrendously embarrassing little moan that was mixed with a … squeak? Did I just moan-squeak in one of the hottest moments of my life?
Yes, yes I did.
“Let’s get you inside,” he said, voice still thick with sex, obviously—and thankfully—not turned off by my moan-squeak.
He slung his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to him and walking toward the club.
I’d never had someone show me affection the way he was. Not in the eighteen years of marriage with Preston had I experienced such a natural, confident and authentic form of affection such as walking together like this.
Then again, Preston’s form of affection was physical abuse.
There were good times, plenty of them, it wasn’t all terror and misery. Even I wasn’t so spineless as to stay with a man who constantly tortured and abused me. But even when things were good, they weren’t easy like this. Preston, I was discovering, was not a confident man. He played one very well, but everything he did, down to his facial expressions and the way he touched me in public, was carefully thought through, dissected. He had no idea who he truly was.
Swiss knew exactly who he was and what he wanted.
At that very moment, it was me. He wanted me, and he had no qualms about making that known. There were no games, no playing hard to get as I had seen on sitcoms as the classic way dating was performed these days.
None of that.
Just him waiting outside my motel and spiriting back to his biker clubhouse.