“Right. Read that in the advert, did you?”
Rocky grabbed hold of her elbow and marched her over to the gleaming machine. “Time for you to feel the throb of one hundred seventy horsepower between your thighs, sweetheart.”
“I’m not your sweetheart,” she objected. Cocky Rocky. I bet that’s what the girls call him. For more than one reason, hopefully.
“Oh, aren’t you?” Wickedness glimmered in the depths of his sea-blue eyes. He mounted the bike and held out an arm, inviting Flipp up onto the pillion. She placed one foot awkwardly on the footpeg, unsure how to climb aboard. “Never ridden, love?” Rocky sounded surprised. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one,” she said defensively. “I don’t know any bikers.”
“I’ll bet you don’t,” Rocky said ruminatively before pulling her up behind him and retrieving his own helmet. What did he mean by that? Her heart contracted slightly. “Hold on tight, sweetheart.” He reached back and placed her hands firmly around his middle. “Get ready for the ride of your life.”
Flipp noticed gulls scattering and wheeling in the air as the engine roared into action. She dug her fingertips into Rocky’s hips, unnerved by the vibrating power beneath her. Should I be doing this? Is this safe? Who the hell is Rocky anyway, and where is he taking me?
Then her thrill-seeking heart tossed all the misgivings over the side of the pier and into the briny when the bike began to roll over the boards, purring and weaving in and out of candy-floss stalls, children with balloons, glass containers full of violently coloured cheap soft toys, all the way to the end of the pier and on to the promenade.
Rocky revved the bike into a higher gear and sent it curving and swooping along the high road out of Goldsands, up into its rolling rural backcloth. She clung to him tightly, feeling the wind beating against her skin and rushing in her ears, grateful now of the heavy jacket. She had not been this far out of Goldsands yet, and she took in with gladness the endless fields of sheep and corn, the sweeping chalk cliffs and the sea. Here she was truly free, truly herself, at last.
Rocky rode just far enough for Flipp to start having misgivings about her frozen feet and cramping fingers before veering off the main road towards the sea again, taking them along a winding single-track lane lined with hedgerow, dipping down and down, between rising sheep-dotted hills until they came to an abrupt halt at a shingly cove.
It looked like the kind of place that would be a popular picnic spot by day, but would hold little appeal after dark except to those
who needed an obscure place to conduct secretive business. On this May evening, the last picnickers had left, but the sun lingered regardless, shining down on the rocks and shale and blue-green water. Rocky kicked down the bike stand and leaped athletically off, lending a gallant arm to his less confident passenger.
“Where is this?” she asked, struggling again with the chinstrap until Rocky stepped in.
“Smugglers Cove. Popular with smugglers in days gone by, as the name suggests.”
She looked around the isolated inlet, beaming. “Really? Real smugglers? Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum?”
“Case of rum, more likely. And anything else they could lay hands on. Wrecking was the big pastime round here.” He held out a hand, which Flipp took, and began walking down the steep path to the shore. “They’d stand up there, on the outcrop, and shine lights out to sea. Sailors would mistake it for the harbour at Goldsands, head in and hit the rocks. Cue dozens of rowing boats stripping the wreck of its cargo.”
“God. People might have drowned.”
“Sometimes they did. These guys weren’t sentimental.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Oh, years ago. Not that similar stuff doesn’t happen around Goldsands now. It’s just a bit less primitive.”
She looked up at him queryingly, but he turned his face away and pretended to save her from tripping on a rock.
“Mind yourself.” His arm shot out to steady her by the shoulder. She found herself spun into him until her face connected with the warm maleness infusing his T-shirt. She knew she should pull away, straighten herself out, perhaps make some self-deprecating remark, yet she did none of these things. Instead she kept close, made no attempt to shrug his hand off her shoulder, marvelling at how she was compelled by his heat and scent and physicality.
Now they were on the beach, crunching across the pebbles to where the waves lapped ashore.
“So what’s your real name?” asked Rocky, keeping his eyes on a cargo freight vessel on the far horizon.
“Flipp. That’s my name. That’s me. Aren’t I real enough for you?” She needed to deflect him from this course.
He looked down, sniffing, seeming to register her helmet-flattened platinum spikes and her mutinously set jaw. “Oh, you’re real enough for me, all right,” he said, the words coming from a place low down in his chest. He moved his hand up from her shoulder to stroke gently at the shaved bit behind her ear. “Unless I’m dreaming you. I’m not, am I?”
“So corny,” Flipp scoffed, but her breath caught at the expression of naked intent in his gaze. “You’ll be asking if heaven’s missing an angel next.”
“The old lines are the best,” Rocky teased, tugging on a strand of ruthlessly lacquered hair. “How did you like your first ride?”
“Yeah.” Flipp smiled, recalling the elemental joy that had coursed through her all the way along the ribbon of coast road. “Nice. I’d definitely do that again.”
“I’m glad to hear it. These are pretty. Butterflies.” Rocky’s gloved fingers were fiddling with her earring, rubbing at the sensitive spot behind her earlobe in the process. She inhaled shudderingly at the sensation of leather in that special place, looking at his other arm, bare and strong until the flare of the gauntlet announced the beginnings of his wrist.