No, I thought. Hell, no. You need to turn around and get back on the bike, head in the opposite direction from her. "Yeah, it’s no big deal."
"That would be great."
I watched her from behind as she walked ahead of me into the gas station, jeans practically painted on her ass. I stifled a groan. I needed to stop thinking with my dick. Dani slid into the booth in front of me, the scarf that had held her hair back gone now. Her dark hair fell around her face, the other scarf still tied around her neck.
God, she was even more gorgeous with her hair down like that. I felt weird sitting across from her. This place didn't seem right for her- little rich girl in a shithole diner with a dirty biker. She was beauty, and I was the beast.
I felt my stomach rumble. I'd had coffee this morning, but there was nothing else in it to soak up the alcohol from last night.
"So," she said. "You in the habit of rescuing girls on the side of the road?"
"Nope. You in the habit of taking rides from dirty bikers?"
Dani shrugged. "You seem harmless."
I laughed. I'd never been called harmless in my life. This girl was either really naive, or she was completely delusional. "That's not something anyone's ever called me."
Dani opened her mouth to say something, when a waitress, a woman who had clearly seen it all, interrupted, setting down two empty cups and filling them with coffee before we had even asked.
"You two ready to order?" The waitress looked from me to Dani, her face expressionless, and snapped her gum loudly before pulling a pen from behind her ear.
"Sure," Dani said. "Three eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns, and toast. Oh! Can I get a side of pancakes too?"
"My God." I said.
"What?"
"Nothing,” I said. “Just wondering where you're going to put all that food."
She shrugged. "A girl has to eat."
I looked up at the waitress. "Same, please." After she left, I turned my attention to Dani. "So you know your way around bikes and you eat like a horse. You're different from the chicks in convertibles I usually rescue."
“Well, I have to stand out somehow, right?”
“I don't think you have any trouble standing out.” I had a hard time believing she had the ability to blend in.
“Neither do you.” She paused, reaching for the sugar container and pouring an ungodly amount of the stuff into her cup before looking up.
“You got any room for coffee in there with all that sweetener?”
“Yeah, I like a little coffee with my sugar,” Dani said. Her sugar. I could picture what having her sugar would be like. I pushed the thoughts out of my head. Behave. She’s not some road ho.
“So what's a girl like you crying about on the side of the road, anyway?” I don’t know why I asked. I sure as shit didn’t want the waterworks to start again, but she seemed more pulled together now.
Dani looked up, a flash of anger in her eyes, probably at me for butting my nose in where it didn’t belong. “Just having a shit day, that’s all.” She paused, and the anger was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “You know when you have one of those days where things just keep going wrong?”
“A girl like you has shit that goes wrong?” I smirked, unable to help myself. She was driving a fifty thousand dollar car, and I was willing to bet her clothes cost more than most people made in a week. Sure, I was going to give her a ride back to her car since, let's face it, she was good looking, but she didn’t exactly get my sympathy for her rich girl problems.
“Not really. Probably just hormones,” she said, shrugging.
She was lying. That was interesting. Maybe there was more to her than met the eye.
"What's that supposed to mean, anyway- a girl like me?" she asked.
"Come on," I said. "You’re not stupid. What do you think I mean?"
Dani looked at me, eyes hard, like she was daring me to go on, and I kept pressing forward, a bull in a china shop. I’d certainly been accused of being that in the past. "A rich girl like you? Problems? Come on."
A dark expression crossed her face, and she clenched her jaw, the muscles in the sides of her face rippling. Then the cloud passed. "First world problems, I know," she said casually.
She had more control than I had, not rising to the bait. I'd give her that. I didn't know why I cared, though, why I was baiting her.
"So what are you doing," she asked. "Sunday joyride?"
The waitress set our plates between us, and I waited until she left to answer. Meanwhile, Dani dug into her food like she hadn't had a meal in days, and I stifled a chuckle.
"Something like that," I said. "I'm headed back to L.A."
Dani looked up. "You're from L.A.?"
"Yeah, thereabouts. Headed back to my club. Why, are you going that way?"
"Farther south," she said. "San Diego."
"Why are you up here?"
"School. Stanford."
"Well la-de-dah." I whistled.
“I know, I know,” she said. “Privileged.”
“Pretty, rich, and smart, that's what I was going to say.”
“So is that your job- your motorcycle club? Or something you do for fun?”
“Both,” I said. “Something I do full-time.”
Dani's eyes lingered on my cut, and I could see her squinting at the patches, reading.
“Vice-President,” she said. "One percent." She took a huge mouthful of pancakes, and I couldn't help but think about her mouth around me instead of the fork. Goddamn it.
“Yeah, it means we’re not weekend warriors who-”
“I know what it means,” she said, interrupting.
“Sure you do,” I said. “I bet you've watched all the seasons of Sons of Anarchy."
She smiled, condescending. “You’re not the first biker I’ve ever met.”
I laughed. “Your boyfriends at Stanford don’t count, sweetheart.”
Dani shrugged, sipped her coffee. “The M patch there- you deal meth? Weed?” She watched me carefully for a reaction. “No,” she said. “That's not it. M is for murder, right?”
I watched her soak up her yolk with her toast casually, like it was every day she ate with an outlaw biker in a diner. She was right. Perceptive. But she probably watched a lot of television.
“So you watch a lot of Sons, then, huh? Got a biker fetish?" I asked.
“Never seen it,” Dani said, biting her toast.
“You hang around a club or something?” I knew that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t the type.
“Nope,” she said. “I've just known some bikers, that’s all.”
She was interesting, that was for sure. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d look like naked. I wanted her on my bike again, arms wrapped around me. Hand wrapped around my dick.
I cleared my throat. “It’s getting late,” I said. It was late afternoon, and it would start getting dark soon. I needed to hit the road. “You ready to roll?” Rinsing my hands in the bathroom sink, I patted a few stray pieces of hair into place. I pulled the scarf down on my neck, examining the bruises starting to form on my skin, morbidly fascinated with the marks. Damn him, I thought. Fucking Billy. I was going to be stuck wearing scarves for a week now. I looked like a forty-year-old soccer mom.
Who cared what I looked like, anyhow? It wasn’t like I needed to impress the biker out there waiting for me. Blaze.
He was sexy though, the way he looked at me like I was a piece of steak and he was a hungry dog. Ravenously. He didn't think I saw, but I caught him staring at me. He'd jerked his gaze away, a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
But I'd felt a thrill catching him staring, there was no denying that. I bet he's great in the sack. Bad boys like him usually were. Like Billy. That's what I need. Another bad boy. No, not like Billy. Billy wasn't a bad boy. Over privileged asshole, yes. Not an alpha male in the same way this guy was. Blaze.
This guy was a different kind of bad boy. More dangerous, maybe; more calculated, for sure. But interesting. He didn't exactly sound like the outlaw bikers I had met growing up, the ones who provided protection for my dad. They weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer- nice guys, but not the brightest. Blaze, on the other hand, he was no dummy.
My dad had stopped using the bikers, traded them out for some other gang for a few years, and they'd faded out of my environment before I'd gone off to boarding school. But when I was a young kid, they'd come around, all leather and grease and tattoos. One of the old guys always brought me a little stuffed animal wearing a biker jacket or a helmet. They were nice to me, and I asked a lot of questions about their bikes. So I wasn't exactly intimated by Blaze.
I hadn't expected him to be heading to Los Angeles, though. That had caught me off guard, and I'd lied about where I was headed. It was a big town, though. There would be no overlap in our lives.
He'd be a perfect one night stand. The thought rose, completely unwanted, from my unconscious. What the hell was wrong with me, thinking about sex after last night with Billy? That was some kind of fucked up, getting choked out during sex one night and even thinking about a dirty biker the next day. And this guy was probably filthy.
The thought sent a shiver up my spine. Still, it wouldn't hurt anything to think about it. He could provide some material for my fantasies for a while. I pictured him, calloused hands on my breasts, mouth pressed roughly against my lips, his hand grazing my stomach, inching its way down my belly to undo the button on my jeans, then moving lower.
Stop thinking about it, I reprimanded myself. He's going to drop you at your car and that's it.
Taking a deep breath, I left the bathroom. He was waiting for me outside, his back to the window. I set the gas can on the counter, waiting as the attendant rang me up.
Oh hell. "This too," I said, throwing a pack of condoms on the counter. So what? It doesn’t mean anything. I'd just stuff the pack in the glove compartment of the car, that's it.
"Need a bag?"
"No, thanks," I said, shoving the condoms in my back pocket. They meant nothing. Nothing.
"You sure you can take this back on the bike?" I asked, showing Blaze the gas can.
"Yeah," he said. "We'll strap it to the sissy bar. It's only a couple miles."
I felt a thrill of excitement as I slid behind him and the bike roared to life underneath me, just like on the way here. My hands were around his chest, and I was pressed up against him. Riding on the back of a bike generated an immediate sense of intimacy. It was like dancing with someone. You had to mold yourself to them, move with their body. Just like sex.
Heat rose to my cheeks at the thought of sex. I needed to stop thinking about sex with him. But it was hard not to when I could feel his chest hard under my hands. It made me want to slide my hands down farther, down his waist, then lower.
Damn it. Stop. It's not like I was going through a dry spell or something, like I’d gone without for a while. I could feel the dampness between my legs. What the hell was wrong with me? It was embarrassing. I need to just file those thoughts away for later.
I hated driving in the dark, and it was getting late. I would get a hotel tonight rather than keep pushing through to Los Angeles, spend some time in a warm bath. Then I could think about Blaze. There was that bed and breakfast up the road where I’d stayed before; I would stay there tonight. Dad would shit a brick when he sent a guy up to school to find me tomorrow and I wasn’t there, but I’d just have to make it home before the guy called my father to report my absence.
At least fantasizing about Blaze would keep the thoughts of Billy out of my head, the thoughts about what he had done, and what he might do when he awoke. I wondered if Billy had woken up yet, or if he'd just slept the entire day. It was stupid, leaving him in my apartment like that, after tossing his wallet and phone. He would probably trash the place. I'd have to call someone, get it cleaned up. It went without saying now, of course, that Billy had a real temper.
I was almost sorry to let go of Blaze when we pulled up to the car; I wanted to stay pressed up against him. He filled the gas tank for me, trying to be a gentleman, I guess. I wondered if he was the type of guy who still opened doors for women. A gentleman outlaw biker. The thought made me smile because it was ridiculous.
I looked out at the water, the sunset painting the sky with reds and pinks, the colors reflected on the ocean. This would be a really romantic spot in other circumstances, ones that didn't involve me running out of gas and having a meltdown on the side of the road.
"Well, there you go," Blaze said, setting the container on the ground. "You should be all set."
"Thanks for everything." I tucked my hair behind my ear, a nervous habit. Why the hell was I nervous? I could feel the blood pumping in my ears.
"No problem. It's not everyday I get to rescue a pretty girl on the side of the road."
I stepped forward, close to him, and stood on my tip-toes, brushing the side of his cheek with my lips. I don't know what I was thinking, or why I did it. It seemed like the thing to do. But I lingered a moment too long, and he turned, covering my mouth with his before I could even think. Blaze kissed me hard and my body responded instantly to his touch.
This is so fucked up, I thought, after last night. I just couldn’t stop kissing him. Billy had tried to kill me last night, and I hadn’t died. I was grateful to be alive. I wanted to feel alive. I wanted Blaze's hands on my body, his heat against my skin.
I slipped my hands underneath his shirt, savoring the feeling of his firm chest, and a moan escaped my lips as his tongue pressed against mine. Then his hand was under my shirt, up under my bra, covering my breast, palm rough against my soft skin. My nipple hardened to his touch, and he silenced my moan with his mouth. I kissed him hungrily, wanting more, wanting all of him. My hands fumbled with the button of his jeans, but he pushed them away.
“Wait,” he said.
“I want-” I panted the words, barely able to speak, heady with anticipation and the knowledge that I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be running home. I should be calling a therapist to talk about my feelings. I should be crying about how Billy had tried to kill me. I shouldn’t be doing this. Not with him, a total stranger. I didn’t know why I was doing it. All I knew is that I wanted the feeling of him fucking me to obliterate my thoughts, to erase everything going through my brain. I wanted my orgasm to be all-encompassing. I needed it to be the only thing I could think about.
Blaze slid his hands under my ass, spinning me back against the side of the car. He dropped to his knees, unbuttoning my pants and pulling them down my thighs, the summer air cool against my growing wetness. I shuddered, goose pimples dotting my arms, not sure if I was shivering more because of the cool ocean breeze or because of what he was about to do. He pushed me back hard against the car, the metal pressing against my bare ass as he gripped my thighs, looking up at me with those piercing blue eyes.
Blaze let out a strangled noise, parting my legs with his hands as he angled his head to reach my pussy. Touching his warm tongue to my clit, he covered me with his mouth and I laced my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer.
I really shouldn’t be doing this, I thought. Not here, not on the side of the road with this biker. Someone could drive by and see us, out here in the open.
But then Blaze looked up at me, licking his lips, wet with my juices. “You taste so good.”
Oh God, I thought. Now it was over. I felt a gush of arousal at his words, and the misgivings I had were swept aside by my lust. I desperately wanted him, more than anything.
“Please,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “I want your tongue on me.”
Blaze let out a deep growl, returning to my pussy with a vengeance. Covering me with his mouth, he ate me like he was starving, licking me, probing between my folds. I pushed against him, not caring that I was out here on the side of the road with a biker, out here where someone could see us.
He gripped my legs, tongue flicking in and out of me, and I felt like I was losing control. I couldn’t think of anything else, not about Billy, not about the craziness from last night, not about being out here in public. All that mattered was his tongue pushing into me, the heat from his mouth enveloping me. Everything around me blurred, the sensations that washed over me taking the place of everything else. I ran my fingers through his hair, feeling its softness as I threw my head back.
“Make me come, Blaze.”