He knew she was throwing his words back at him and he almost smiled. “Tough. You lost and you have to pay up.”
“Fair enough.”
“I liked kissing you, so there’s a pretty good chance if we spend more time together, I’ll try it again. Should I leave?”
She chewed her lower lip again and then shook her head. “Don’t leave like this.”
“How about...we go back to what I asked you earlier. Go for a ride with me?”
She licked her lips and then straightened her shoulders. “Yes.”
They cleaned up the kitchen and then went out to his bike and he could tell she was nervous. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to ride behind you,” she said.
She blushed again and then put her hand lightly on his arm, rubbing her finger over the raised scar tissue there. His blood ran hotter and his cock stirred. He still wanted her. He couldn’t believe he was hanging around Gilbert Corners.
He hadn’t been able to really come back to this place until she’d challenged him to. For a moment, he wished he were a different man. But he wasn’t. So fuck it. Right now he was going to take Indy on a ride. That was it.
The smell of spring was in the air and the sun shone brightly down on them, but there was still a bit of chill to the breeze that blew around them as they stood in her driveway. He noticed the tulips in full bloom around her mailbox and he remembered that his mom had planted them at their house a long time ago. He never let himself think of his parents. It was easier to keep those emotions hidden.
Indy was stirring things up that he’d ignored for a long time. He didn’t like it. Conrad had come here intent on reminding her that he was in charge, but after he’d hurt her... After he’d seen himself being the Gilbert he had always been in Gilbert Corners, he’d changed his mind. This place brought out the worst in him, but it didn’t have to.
He’d learned a lot about himself after the accident, and the most important thing was that he didn’t want to be anything like his grandfather.
He handed her a helmet and she put it on and then he got on the bike and told her to get on behind him. The helmets had microphones in them so they could hear each other.
“Your voice is so intimate,” she said.
“Yours is too,” he said as she climbed on behind him. She put one hand in the center of his back as she settled herself on the saddle.
He turned on the bike, nudge the kickstand with his foot. He felt her hands on his waist, just lightly holding him, and his cock stirred. But she wasn’t pressed against his back. Her body trembled.
“Have you been on a motorcycle before?”
“No. I’ve always been a scared of them.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I have to do it for me.”
He turned the bike and drove down Maple, away from town to the winding circular road that would lead them from the past. He didn’t want to go toward the manor and his memories there. He wanted this afternoon in the sunshine, with Indy holding carefully on to him and keeping the space she needed to feel safe, to be for them.
He hadn’t realized it, but once he’d seen her fear, he’d forgotten his own. There wasn’t room to deal with the ghosts of his past or the anger that still dogged him. He wanted to soothe her and show her that she had nothing to worry about while she was with him.
The road was winding and as he accelerated into the turn, he felt her hands soften and then she scooted closer, wrapping her arms tightly around him as he powered out of the turn. Her touch affected him as it always did, setting fire to him like a Scotch bonnet pepper, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist her much longer. But he kept it cool, focusing on making this afternoon about her needs. He wanted this adventure for her, as he had a feeling that she limited her adventures to the ones she found between the pages of her books.
They rode for forty-five minutes before he pulled to a stop at the side of the road. Near the outer edges of the land that he and his cousins owned. There was a small brook not too far from here. He wasn’t sure why he remembered it now, but he thought that Indy would like it.
Six
Indy hadn’t expected to like the bike ride, but something had changed in Conrad once he’d cooked for her. He had seemed to understand that she’d needed some quiet, and the wind blowing past them as he’d driven them along the curving road nearby Gilbert Corners had soothed her.
Her legs were still vibrating from being on the bike when he’d stopped it and gotten off. He’d offered her his hand and now that she stood next to him, she felt awkward again.
He took off his helmet and she did the same. “That fence borders the Gilbert property.”
“Y’all sure own a lot of land,” she said.