Fast & Hard (The Fast 1)

“Am I still? Mallory says softly, her head down and her hands busy petting Bodach.

“My girl?”

She nods and I feel her quiver. If she starts crying again we’ll freeze to death out here, the cats will eat our corpses.

“Promise me you’ll stay away from him. I can handle anything else. Just please trust me and stay away from him.” I will find a way to fix everything as long as she trusts me on this.

“I promise you,” she swivels her hip to take my chin in her palm and looks into my eyes.

I drop my forehead to hers. “There’s something else you need to know.”

She pivots on her ass and turns to face me, her eyes swollen and bloodshot. I don’t want to see her cry ever again. I’ll figure something out, I have to. But at this moment, I can make her laugh, see her smile again. “The nearest Apple store is like, five hours away, love.”

“Oh my god, you asshole!” She smacks my chest with both hands and falls into laughter as my arms capture her and we fall back to the ground. I pull her body onto mine and drag her head down until her lips meet mine. She’s kissing me with intent, remorse, determination. Damn if I don’t take everything she has to give, her tear-drenched hair cascading over us in sheets.

She comes up for air and Bodach sticks his cold nose and fish breath right between our faces. “Bloody cockblocker,” I roll over, help Mallory up, and consider how to spend the rest of the day while the sun is out.

“Would you agree we have more trust issues to work out?” I wag my eyebrows at her.

Her eyes close and she takes a deep breath, “Oh god, what now?”

“Let’s get you changed.”

Twenty minutes later, Mallory comes out of the house in jeans, boots, and the leather jacket I instructed her to put on. I’ve pulled out my Harley V-rod, the only bike in the garage suitable for a passenger, and I’m leaning up against it in the driveway with one of my spare helmets for her.

She shakes her head at me knowingly but walks up for the challenge nonetheless. “You ever ridden?” I ask and slip the helmet on her head. Like the jacket, it’s too big but I strap the helmet down tight. The image of her as my hot biker chick is making me twitchy and hard.

She shakes her head, the helmet bobbing side to side on her neck, “No, but I trust you.” Damn it, now the helmet is on and I can’t even kiss her for that.

“All you have to do is hang on and enjoy the ride.”

“There’s a sex joke to be made here but I’m too nervous to think of it right now.”

“Hop on behind me,” I tell her as I mount the heavy iron monster. She throws one leg over and then I grab her behind both of her knees and pull her frame up close, pressed hard against me and I wrap her arms around my waist.

I fire the bike up and Mallory flinches at the loud roar and thundering idle. “I got you, love,” I reassure her and guide us out of the driveway slowly so she can get used to the sensation.

Pulling onto the asphalt road and heading east to pick up the main road that will wind us all along the north coast and past Duntulm Castle, I open the bike up a little bit. She’s squeezing me for dear life but the feel of her legs around my frame and her tits pressed into my back is bliss. With my left hand, I cover her hands on my waist and reassure her. I tilt my head back and yell so she can hear me, “Ok?” I feel her helmet nod, knocking into mine, and her death grip loosens.

By the time we’re cruising past Loch Harport, Mallory’s relaxed enough that her hands have traveled to my hips and I can feel her untucked from my back, her head held up and looking from side to side. It’s a smooth, scenic ride along the rugged coastline and she shouldn’t be too cold today in her jacket and with me blocking the wind. I still check the temperature of her hands around me every few minutes and keep an eye out for suicidal sheep. “Doing ok?” I yell back to her so she can hear me over the bike.

“Yes,” she nods, “go faster!”

I fill with pride and open the bike up, gliding over the old A863 stone bridge that crosses the Amar River and up the sweeping hills past Loch Caroy with the roaring thunder only a Harley can provide. There are a million little feeder roads that lead down to overlooks on the coast and she taps my shoulder or points to at least half of them for me to stop.

We stop to eat, make out, and maul each other near Knott where we head south along Loch Snizort Beag before we zip north again. She can’t resist the signs for Fairy Glen, a little town that’s capitalized on the unusual landscape, suggesting fairies created all the grassy topped hills and ponds in between. She leaves an obligatory coin on the stone spirals which, one of the tourists tells her, is an offering to the fairies for good luck.

At the ruins of Duntulm Castle at the northernmost point, she’s amazed at the 14th-century structures and now understands why my house is practically new construction. I take the long route home down the east coast through the capital town of Portree and by that time, a drive that should have taken three hours has taken eight. Even though she wants to keep going, it’s dark and her hands are colder than I’d like.

Back at home, I drop her off at the front door then park the bike in the garage. By the time I get two steps inside the house her sweet lips are all over mine. “Make love to me,” she whispers.

And I do.

Not like last night which was hard and rough and we extracted everything from one another over and over in a fury of pent up need. Tonight I kiss her eyelids and caress her face. Tonight she asks me to skip the condom because she’s on the pill and wants to feel my skin, all of me inside her. I ease myself into her slowly and I hold her close and let her feel my body over hers, my arms protecting her from anything and everything. When she comes, a tear rolls from the corner of her eye and I kiss it away.

I don’t sleep much tonight, but I hold her tightly against me and try to figure out what I’m going to do.

For her, for me.