“I don’t know you.”
“Yeah, you do. Better than most, Zarley.” He’d been different with her, because of her. He’d been less the man who lost his way and more a man who’d found a new way of being.
“I’d like to know you.”
His skin got hot. It was the way she looked at him. Her eyes traveling from his face, down his chest to his cock.
“I went too far with the.” He made a rough gesture down his body.
She closed the distance between them, dumping her bag on the sidewalk, walking her legs around his outstretched ones, till she stood across his thighs. “I liked how far you went.” She put both hands on his shoulders. “I liked it a lot.”
He kept his hands on the bike. “You need to get on.”
“Don’t I get a kiss?”
“You need to get on, or it won’t be the kind of kiss you’re looking for.”
She titled her head. “How do you know what kind of kiss I’m looking for?”
“I don’t think it’s one where I have you up against the wall in the alley, my dick buried so far into you we both see stars.”
She laughed. She didn’t object. He groaned. “You need to get on the bike.”
“We could walk to your place from here.”
“Do you know how many dark places I could drag you into along the way? Hundreds, there are literally hundreds. You said you needed sleep. This is the only way you’re going to get it. On the bike, Zarley.”
He put his hands to her arms and moved her back, coming to stand and bending to pick up her bag. He lifted the helmet off the handlebars, bought for her, the smallest size he could get, and put it in her hands.
He straddled the bike and kicked it into life, gave her his hand and helped her mount behind him. They took off with her bag at his back, her arms around his chest. With no traffic they’d be at his place in five minutes instead of the fifteen it would’ve taken to walk. He heard the siren and pulled over to let the cop car through. On the cross street he saw the flashing lights of two fire engines and Zarley pounded on his shoulder.
He raised his visor and turned his head to hear her.
“Go back.”
Her visor was up too and she was twisting around, making it hard to steer. He pulled over. “What’s wrong?”
“Go back, back there. T
hat’s my street.”
Shit. He pulled out and turned, went back to the cross and drove down it, slowing as they reached a barricade. Zarley was off the bike, helmet in her hand, running toward the engines before he had a chance to pull over again. He watched her avoid an inattentive policewoman, duck under the barrier and keep running. Another cop caught her and he abandoned the bike and his helmet, but hefted her bag and went after her. By the time he reached the barrier, Zarley had been escorted back to it. She was gesticulating wildly trying to bargain with the cop.
“My roommate, she’s inside. Cara, Cara Douglas. First floor, you have to check.”
Fuck. Her apartment above the Korean restaurant. He could smell the fire, but not see flames.
The cop held his arms wide to stop Zarley darting past her. “Everyone’s out. Your roommate is out. She’s safe. But you can’t go close, it’s not safe.”
“Where is she?”
“I’m here, Zar, I’m here.”
They all turned as another girl limped across the road. She was laden with bags, her arms full of clothing. Reid and the cop both moved to relieve her of her bundles and she fell into Zarley’s arms.
“What happened?” Reid asked the cop as a stream of other refugees from the building came around the barricade. They were all in various states of dress and carrying bundles of hastily snatched possessions. He saw a young guy wearing only pajama pants with a goldfish bowl in his arms.
“Explosion in the restaurant, started a fire, we’re not sure what the chief cause was, but the building has been evacuated. No one is allowed back in until the fire brigade give the all clear.”