“Are you driving?”
Saks nodded. “Picking up my bike from last night.”
“Why bother? You’ll only be back here tonight.”
Saks saluted his cousin with his middle finger. “I can take my money elsewhere.”
“Sure you can. But there’s no place else you can run a perpetual tab. When’s your next paycheck? I want to get a piece of that.”
“Give me the damn beer.”
“You’ve had enough,” Sheldon said. “So, no.” When Saks scoffed, Sheldon gave him a look. “I’d think
you’d be more concerned about meeting the Serafina girl.”
“Really? You want to go there? Now? As if my day wasn’t going badly enough.”
“It’s your life, man.” Sheldon shuffled to another customer, and Saks sighed. There was nothing to ease the irritation in his gut, his heart, or soul. He’d never let a woman get under his skin like this, and damn it, after one night Chrissy wormed her way deep inside him.
And she wouldn’t take his calls.
Wouldn’t answer his texts.
Shut him out completely.
He was chasing a ghost.
It wasn’t as if he could blame her. She had too much class for him. But, then, he could be angry with her about that, too. If he didn’t measure up, what business did she have going to bed with him?
It’s not as if you didn’t practically kidnap her, a little voice nagged at him. She sure didn’t seem to mind.
Great. Now he was arguing with himself. But he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
The softness of her skin.
How her eyes burned with desire.
The sweetness of her—
He had to stop this. His cock stirred at these memories, and now he was getting pissed. Not at her. But at himself for being a sucker for a woman who didn’t want him. “Later,” he called to Sheldon as he pushed off his stool.
Sheldon waved at him as he left. His bike rumbled under him as he started it up. A good ride would clear his head. He pulled out on the road, fishtailing because he revved the engine too fast. But it felt good to push the bike and demand control. It was the one thing he could regulate, how he drove on the road. He opened up the engine.
Even though he knew he shouldn’t.
The four-lane highway that passed through the town reservoir on the way to work was a well-known speed trap. Worse yet, it was a speed trap set irregularly by state, not local cops, so he should’ve been smarter about riding on that road. But Chrissy’s rejection burned a fire into him that only seemed to gather force as the days passed. By Thursday, he was nearly blind to everything on the road but the concrete under him and the car in front of him.
A car, limping along under the posted speed limit of forty miles per hour, annoyed him. He’d never get to work at this rate. So, he pulled around it to the left and sped up.
But the car, seeing Saks pass him, decided just at that moment to accelerate, which forced Saks to increase his speed. Finally, he pulled past the car.
And headed right into the speed trap.
Immediately a police cruiser pulled out after him, lights blazing and sirens screaming.
Saks pulled to the side of the road and cursed his own stupidity. And the driver for screwing him off. When he saw the trooper pulling stiffly out of his cruiser with his hand on his holster, he figured he was in trouble. When the officer’s eyes cased Saks’ leather Hades’ Spawn jacket and he coldly asked for his license and registration, Saks knew he'd receive no mercy.
“Sir,” said the officer in a deadly level voice, “are you aware of the speed you were traveling?”