“That’s why you’re getting on the bike,” he clipped, obviously getting impatient with someone not doing as he commanded. He looked like he might murder someone who told him no.
Murder was a pretty good motivation to say yes.
“You’re trying to tell me that you’re here at eight in the morning to take me to work on your motorcycle?” I surmised in shock.
He nodded once. “Figured you wouldn’t be workin’ yesterday considerin’ fuckin’ breathing seemed to hurt you, and I would’ve made sure your ass came home if that wasn’t the case.”
I blinked. “You would’ve made sure?” I repeated, not caring that I was parroting once more.
Another nod.
“And how would you have known I wasn’t at work?”
“Told you, babe. This is Amber. I’m me. I’d know,” he said. As if that was a satisfactory answer.
It was not.
“Okay, aside from the fact that that isn’t an answer, you also don’t have the right to make sure my ass is anywhere.”
On the mention of my ass, his eyes darkened again and he stepped forward, fully inside my doorway.
I should’ve stepped back.
But I didn’t.
I was hungry for his presence, the warmth that directly contradicted the icy resolve in his gaze.
“Oh, baby, you and I both know I have the fuckin’ biblical right to say exactly where your ass is goin’ to be. Where it should be right now. Which is on the back of my fuckin’ bike. And it’ll be over my fuckin’ knee if you stand here arguing with me, wastin’ both our time and not getting your shit together so you can get to work,” he rasped, his voice pure sex.
He was talking about spanking me.
Spanking.
And my entire body responded to that prospect.
Biblically.
His entire body hardened, the cords of his neck standing out as if he was holding himself back. Then very slowly, purposefully, he took a step back. A big one. And it looked like his motorcycle boots weighed a hundred pounds as he did so. Like he was forcing himself backward.
And I just watched him, craving the promise of being across his knee. Of his hand coming down on me.
I shook myself—mentally, of course. Gage already thought I was crazy, so he might’ve had me committed if I did it physically.
“You don’t need to drive me to work,” I said, speaking slowly and making sure I didn’t say anything stupid or embarrassing. Or something stupid and embarrassing. “It’s less than two miles away. I can walk.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not walkin’.”
I narrowed my own. “Oh really? Is that your decision to make?”
“Yep” was all he said.
Yep.
“I disagree,” I said through my teeth.
“You don’t have a fuckin’ car,” he said. “And you were in an accident two days ago. Not serious, but also not minor. You’re hurt. Not as bad as you were two days ago, but you’re still hurtin’. I can’t change that, but I can make it so you’re not walkin’ when you don’t need to. Which is, unless I’m beside you, never.” There was a heavy pause. “So for the foreseeable future, you don’t go anywhere unless it’s on the back of my bike. Until your car is fixed. Which is gonna be a week at the most, since I’m the one workin’ on it and I’m the best. Even then, you need to go somewhere and I’m free—and I’ll be free for you—it’s on the back of my bike.”
I blinked.
There were a lot of things wrong with that statement.
And worse, there were a lot of those wrong things that I freaking liked.
“We don’t have time for this shit,” he clipped, voice near feral. “You’re gonna be late to work if you keep starin’ at me like that.” He paused, his hands turning to fists. “You’re not even gonna make it to work, in fact.”
Work? Who cared about work? Who cared about anything but those large, fisted, and tattooed hands opening up and coming down hard on my bare flesh?
“Lauren,” he hissed between his teeth, “get your ass upstairs and get ready for work before I lose fuckin’ control. You can’t handle that right now.”
The danger, the menace in his words had me moving, turning, and literally running up my stairs despite the fact that I was still aching. Nowhere ached as bad as the spot between my legs.
I stopped hallway up the stairs, the doorway still in my eye line. Gage still in my eye line. He hadn’t moved a muscle, his entire form like a statue, his muscles bulging around the fabric of his shirt.
“Um, do you want to come in?” I asked, feeling strange about leaving him on the doorstep.
It wasn’t good hospitality.
“No fuckin’ way,” he bit out through his teeth.
I didn’t move, because his words were rough and harsh, and the way he said them didn’t communicate that he really didn’t want to come upstairs. It was that he really freaking did.