California Nights (Rich Boys of California Duet 1)

I couldn’t bear to look at anyone right now. To be looked at… I couldn’t even stand to ride the bus.

I was just a stupid little girl who didn’t know a thing about men. And Professor Candel was a… a… dirty old creep!

I ran off down a darkened side street, not hearing the rumble of the motorcycle behind me.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Jace

I stared at the figure in the dark as it turned and ran. The girl was crying. Frannie was crying.

Fuck.

Not like a pretty girl cried to get her way or even the way chicks cried during movies.

She was bawling her freaking eyes out.

Fuck man, what the hell happened?

I was pretty sure she saw me before she ran off towards downtown. I was pretty sure she wanted to be alone. But I didn’t care.

Fuck me if I was going to let a girl who looked like that roam the streets alone at night. Never mind that I was pretty sure she had no cash on her. She was going to get herself into a bad situation.

I didn’t like the thought of that.

Not at all.

I started my bike and followed her at a crawl.

Fucking hell!

The chick was paying zero attention to which way she was walking. She was heading directly into a sketchy part of town. I told myself I was just keeping the girl from getting mugged, or worse.

The truth was, I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.

If you had asked me why I would have said it’s because I wanted to fuck her.

But it was more than that.

I just wasn’t sure what.

After about ten blocks she stopped suddenly, finally looking around. I guess she just figured out that she was lost. She turned and saw me.

In the darkness I could just see her eyes, big and wide and wet with tears. My heart lurched, feeling an overwhelming urge to pull her into my arms.

To protect her.

Fuck… yeah, this was about more than just sex. I had an overwhelming desire to protect her. Hell, at the moment I wanted to fucking absorb her, like some creepy sex alien.

Slowly I pulled the bike up beside her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

She looked at the ground then back up at me. Her eyes were the only thing I could see. But they said everything.

“You were following me.”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“You looked like you weren’t paying attention to where you were going.”

She just stared at me. I grabbed the spare helmet and walked over to her.

“And you definitely were not headed for the bus.”

She glanced away defiantly but when she looked back at me she was biting her lip. Trying not to laugh at herself. In that single shining moment I got her.

I got her completely.

And I got it bad.

There was nothing stuck up about this girl. Nothing phony. She was real and down to earth and fucking amazing. Smart too, and not afraid to laugh at herself.

And she had absolutely zero idea how special she was.

She was pretty much perfect.

She shook her head ruefully and lifted her chin so I could put the helmet on her head. What I really wanted to do was kiss her. Staring down at her face, lit up by the headlight of my bike.

I wanted to kiss her so bad it hurt.

Instead I pulled her hair back and lowered the helmet into place. She stared at me as I buckled the strap under her chin.

I knew it was the right thing to do. Not kissing her. The girl was clearly upset about something. It would be like stealing candy from a baby.

But I couldn’t help myself from rubbing my knuckles over her cheek.

She felt like silk.

Warm, living silk.

I stepped back quickly before I changed my mind. I climbed on, waiting for her to get into position behind me without a word.

She slid her arms around me and I took off, going faster than I had before. I wanted to put the streets behind us. I wanted to get her home.

Fuck, I wanted to go home with her.

I’d known this girl only a few hours and I already felt like we were in tempo, moving together on the bike like one person.

We rode for a half hour, heading toward her neighborhood on the far side of town. I was having trouble believing the girl lived all the way over here. It didn’t seem like a college area. Not that it was unsafe. It was just sort of… run down.

I pulled in front of the seedy looking apartment building and stopped, waiting for her to get off before I did. She handed me her helmet and I grinned, whipping off mine. She looked so solemn. But I wasn’t giving up yet.

“You’re not getting off that easy.”

Her big eyes got even bigger. Her lips opened. I was pretty sure we both had the same thing in mind at that moment. But I wanted to drag things out a bit.