Rowe (Henchmen MC Next Generation 4)

“Good choice,” I said, thinking of Reggie and his insistence that there be no lookie-loos around. I mean, I liked Brooks. But not in the way I liked Rowe. And it would almost feel akin to cheating to have to demonstrate to a class with Brooks.

Even though Rowe and I weren’t even a couple.

Hell, we hadn’t even sealed the deal yet.

But it felt like we were heading in that direction. Slowly. At a glacial pace, really. Thanks to circumstances beyond our control.

So, yeah, tantric sex with Brooks was out of the question.

Besides, things were starting to heat up with the couples in the class. And, quite frankly, if you weren’t used to that sort of thing, it could be a little uncomfortable to watch them, all the women climaxing and the men coming without the actual ejaculation. It was all just a bit much. And I wasn’t sure Brooks was quite at that level of sexual freedom yet.

Hell, sometimes it got so heated that even I got the slightest bit uncomfortable.

“I will be right here,” Brooks said after the class showed up and filed in, and I’d gone to pull the door closed.

“You might want some earplugs,” I told him with a smile as I closed the door.

And with that, the class got going, and I was lost in the lesson for a while.

By the time it was over, I swear the whole air in the class was charged with sexual energy. You could feel it sparking off the walls, igniting little flames all over your body.

Which, of course, made me long for Rowe as I went about cleaning up the mats and putting away the speakers, and grabbing my iPod.

“I know, I know. Your poor, virgin ears,” I said with a smile to the wide-eyed Brooks I met when I walked out the door.

“You’re telling me that no one was fucking in there tonight?” he asked, skeptical brow raised.

“If by ‘fucking’ you mean penetration or friction of any sort, then no. No one was fucking.”

“Listen, Bills, I know fucking sounds when I hear them,” he said, shaking his head.

“You know orgasm sounds. Orgasms don’t have to do anything with fucking.”

“If you say so,” he said, falling into step with me as we made our way toward my van.

It was weirdly quiet in the lot. Usually the woods were alive with crickets and cicadas, the rustling of wind through the trees, the occasional startled bird call.

But everything was silent.

Another chill moved through me as we each got to our doors.

I had mine half open.

Brooks hadn’t even reached for his door.

But it was too late.

For either of us to get inside.

For us even to react.

Because the shadows weren’t shadows at all.

And before I could even scream, one of those shadows was coming up behind Brooks, raising something that looked like some sort of pipe, and slamming it down into his head.

My heart sped into overdrive, leaving me reaching for my keychain where I kept the eye-gouger thing that Malcolm gave to me and the pepper spray my dad insisted I carry.

Hope’s words played around in my head in that split second where I realized they weren’t just paranoid ramblings, but the cold, hard truth.

If your self-defense item is not already in your hand when you realize you are in trouble, it is already too late to try to reach for them.

And it was.

Before I could even slip my fingers into the little holes in the eye-gouger, something was slamming into the back of my head, and that was the last I knew of anything for a few precious moments.

When I gained consciousness again, I was in a trunk, bouncing around at what felt like a break-neck pace. Whoever had me, they were in a hurry, that was for sure. Which made sense. Since Brooks would be waking up soon, if he hadn’t already. And as soon as he realized I was missing, he was going to call in the entire club to come find me.

But would they be quick enough?

I wasn’t an idiot.

People didn’t beat you and your friend over the head to have you come over to drink tea and talk about which planet was in retrograde next.

“Ugh,” I grumbled as my fingers searched for the release latch into the backseat.

See, I’d done this simulation more than a dozen times in the past. Sure, at the time, I’d been more than a little bit sullen and frustrated by the forced exercises my aunts had made me do. Stuck in a trunk, zip-tied to a chair, any situation where a normal woman would be paralyzed with fear and uncertainty, my family had thrown me into, so that if it happened for real, I wouldn’t hesitate. I wouldn’t waste precious seconds. I would stay calm and act.

I just never figured any of that would be practical for me.