But he continued to stare.
And hurt, scared, and somehow turned on, I couldn’t weather that stare.
Not in silence, at least.
So I continued talking.
“Helmets are approximately 37 percent effective in preventing motorcycle deaths and 67 percent effective in preventing brain injuries,” I said, my voice somehow clear and logical, as if I was discussing this in my offices in the middle of the day. I swallowed thickly. “And that means you’re 63 percent more likely to die if you crashed, and if you didn’t—die, that is,” I corrected, somehow finding enough sass to raise my brow at him, regardless of the fact that he couldn’t see me doing so in the low light, “you’ll most likely have serious brain trauma since I would say you’re the kind of guy who wouldn’t be driving the speed limit.”
The air snatched away all that foreign sass in my voice and my body in the seconds after I’d spoken my words. The man in front of me seemed to suck it all up, even the night itself.
And then he wasn’t leaning against his bike. He was in front of me. Like right in front of me.
“You’re right, darlin’,” he murmured, his voice raspy and rough and somehow pouring desire into my bloodstream. “I don’t drive the speed limit.” His body almost pressing into mine, only the smallest sliver of air separating us. His breath hot and intoxicating on my face, smelled faintly of tobacco and whisky.
“I don’t do limits,” he continued as I forced myself to breathe and reminded my legs of their job to keep me upright. “But I don’t crash.” He said the words with a certainty that made me forget that a man couldn’t control all the variables on the road to speak with that kind of certainty. Somehow he gave me the impression that if I were in a plane about to crash with him sitting beside me, somehow he’d make sure he’d control the outcome, and stop us from being bodies among the wreckage. He had so much power radiating off him, there was no way he could be bested by anything.
He’d keep me safe.
But there was no logic here.
Because I had a feeling my safety went out the window the second he stopped and dismounted.
Still peering at me, into me, his body almost brushed mine. “And it’s mighty interesting that you’re talkin’ to me about my safety, or the perceived lack of it, focused on numbers and shit that don’t have anything to do with me—”
“They have everything to do with you. Because statistics are made from people. You’re a person, which means you’re included.”
The air changed and there was no longer so much as a hair separating our bodies. “Oh, baby, I’m not a person,” he rasped, his voice a knife through the night. “And I’m never gonna be included in something made by the people who hold the keys to society’s prison. But this isn’t about me.” He stepped back, and once more I could breathe without his… whatever was stopping me.
Still, I found myself craving it.
Grossly illogical.
“But we’re not talking about me,” he said, folding his arms. His head moved, and though I couldn’t see his eyes clearly, I knew he looked me up and down. I felt his eyes on every inch of my body, making me feel like naked on the side of the road instead of in jeans and a sensible sweater.
“We’re talking about the woman who is spouting safety statistics at me while she’s walking down a highway, alone in the middle of the fucking night, and bleeding.” His voice was mild. Casual even. But something rumbled underneath it. Something I couldn’t catch, or couldn’t understand.
He kept speaking so I didn’t have the opportunity to do either.
“You want to know the statistics on that, Good Will Hunting?” he asked, stepping forward again.
That time I managed to have some kind of control over my motor functions, stepping back on an unsteady foot. The gravel crunched under my feet, my ankles rolling slightly, but I managed to keep myself upright.
“The chances of a beautiful woman, a fucking injured one at that, getting even more fucking injured while stumbling alone along a highway in the middle of the night are a fuck of a lot higher than me crashing a bike.” He stopped advancing before our bodies touched.
The air thickened between us.
“Is this the part of the conversation where you say I’m lucky it was you who stopped and not someone who’s going to hurt me?” I asked, my voice shaking slightly. I jutted my chin up to counteract it.
Which was a bad move because it made him all the more able to grab my chin between his thumb and forefinger. His grip was tight. Painful almost.
But I didn’t flinch away from it. Didn’t try to run. No, if anything I melted into that grip, into the pain.