I was about to tell him exactly what I thought of his command to ‘cover up’ considering I was an independent woman, and I was barely showing anything but my arms. But the words that followed stopped me. And I forced myself to ignore the comment about it being chilly and the underlying sentiment that he didn’t want me to be chilly.
“On the bike?” I parroted, painfully aware of the fact that I wasn’t really speaking, more like echoing his words without the smoky, firm and very masculine tone.
He nodded once, jerking his head backward, and it was then that I looked behind him—such a thing only possible if I went up on my toes.
His bike was indeed on the curb behind him, which shouldn’t have been a surprise because there was no parking on the curb in front of the gallery.
But what was a surprise was the helmet resting on the seat.
“You got a helmet.”
He shook his head. “Nah, babe, you’ve got a helmet.”
I stared at him. “I got a helmet.”
Lauren! Stop repeating words he’s already said and say something original so he doesn’t go back to thinking you’re brain damaged after the crash.
“I don’t need a helmet. I don’t have a motorcycle.”
Great one. Just great. Stating the absolute obvious.
“But I do,” Gage said, the corner of his mouth twitching as if he could hear my internal monologue. “And I meant what I said two days ago. Your ass is on the back of my bike from now on.” His eyes flickered over me, as if searching for something. They settled on the spot on my face where I’d covered my fading bruises.
“You still sore, Will?” he asked, leaning forward, brushing his thumb over the area with the gentleness of a feather. Something I would’ve thought impossible, such a soft touch from a man who was not just full of hard edges, but was a hard edge.
“I really need to stop thinking everything is impossible. Because there’s no impossible with you.”
His hand paused and his eyes turned liquid.
I froze.
I’d said that out loud.
Holy freaking heck, I’d said that out loud.
Maybe I really did need to get my head checked.
“I mean no, I’m not sore,” I said. “Well, a little, but that’s normal in the days following the trauma a body goes through after a car accident. I was actually probably lucky the airbag didn’t deploy, because my healing likely would’ve been much slower,” I babbled, trying to cover up the words I’d previously spoken with sheer volume of nonsense. “At my low speed and lack of impact against anything solid, the airbag would’ve done more harm than good. It can cause temporary blindness, or permanent in some cases. Broken bones in the chest area, damage to the soft tissue. Broken bones in the face, the nose most common. And then there’re the more serious neck and back and brain injuries.”
Are you sure you don’t have one?
I said all of that without taking a breath, which would’ve been nearly impossible regardless with the concrete that was Gage’s gaze. Plus, his fingers were still brushing my face, the touch gentle, or it had been. Now it was heavier than his stare.
There was a long, painful silence after my words, mostly filled with me sucking in an audible breath. Bad idea since I inhaled even more of his scent.
Maybe it had some kind of intoxicating quality.
Maybe he was just a totally intoxicating quality.
His hand was no longer on my face, having moved it the second his expression changed back to that vague and dangerous amusement.
“Well, since you’re not blind and you don’t have a broken nose—which I’m glad as fuck about, by the way—I’d say you’re gonna be okay on the bike now,” he said.
I gaped at him. “You want me on the bike?”
His eyes moved again. “Thought I made that pretty clear, babe.”
The way he said that told me he didn’t just mean today.
But I had to focus on today. Because that was all I had. Focusing on tomorrow was giving in to anxiety. Just like focusing on yesterdays—and the terrible yesterdays long before—was giving in to depression.
“I’m not getting on the bike,” I said, my voice sharp and strong. Because there was no way I could get on that bike. No way I could press my body against his. Imprint his scent onto my pores. I’d be well and truly lost then. My shit would never come back together.
“You are,” he replied, voice much sharper and stronger than my own.
That peeved me off. I folded my arms, but I didn’t get the same effect as he did, though I did unintentionally push my breasts upward and cause my modest top to become not-so-modest.
Gage’s eyes went there immediately and my entire body flushed.
“I’ve got to go to work,” I said through clenched teeth, both from anger and from trying to fight the desire he awakened within me.