He was smiling arrogantly when my gaze finally landed on his.
“Got your fill?” he asked.
Heat flooded my cheeks.
First, I literally trip on my way to see him and then I get caught ogling him.
God, I was such a dork.
I pushed my hair back behind my ears and shrugged helplessly as I explained, “I’m a massive dork.”
I watched him throw his head back, and when I say throw, I mean he thrust it back with such force that I worried he would topple backwards over the bike, then he proceeded to laugh uproariously at me for a good thirty seconds.
Seriously, I counted.
When he was done, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and then grinned at me. “You’re easily the funniest woman I’ve ever met.”
“You obviously don’t know a lot of women,” I countered.
His lids lowered and his eyes lost their sparkle as they heated. “Babe, I think we both know that I’ve known a fuckuva lot of women.”
Yeah, I didn’t doubt that. The man looked like a Greek god. There was no way someone that good looking remained without a bedmate for long.
Still…
“You may have made your point but now I don’t really want to get on the back of your bike.”
His lips twitched but he bit his lip to hide the grin. Even though it was a poor attempt to veil his obvious amusement with me, I was glad because I’d adopted my Serious Teacher Pose, hands on hips, weight on one leg with the other extended so I could tap my high heeled toe, and chin tilted down so that I could glower through my lashes. If he didn’t take that seriously then I knew I would never stand a chance of making him listen to me.
“Babe,” he said, as if that negated all of my doubts.
It didn’t. At least, not really. I did like it when he called me babe, even if it was because he didn’t know my name.
“You don’t even know my name!” I accused, shocked that I’d only just noticed.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve been calling me babe because you don’t even know my name and here I was, liking that you called me babe,” I explained with my hands now fisted on my hips.
He cocked his head as he stared at me, still smiling. “Don’t see the problem if you like it.”
“But you probably call every girl babe,” I pointed out. “And you probably don’t know their real names either.”
His lip twitch was my only answer.
I made a noise of frustration, something between a low shriek and a growl, and turned on my heel to go back inside.
“Babe,” he called, proving that he had serious nerve. “You like being called babe by any guy?”
I hesitated, not understanding where he was coming from. “Not particularly.”
It was kind of misogynistic, I guessed, but, truthfully, no one had ever called me that before.
“Right. But you like it when I call you babe.”
It went without saying—because I had already said it to him—that I did.
“Babe,” he repeated, humor vibrant in his words as he held out a spare helmet for me. “Get over here and get on the back of my bike.”
I could feel the war raging inside my chest. It wasn’t the sane or safe choice to get on the back of a bike with a complete stranger who, while out of this world beautiful, could easily overpower me if that was his intention. My heart rallied against that logic, pointing enthusiastically at his aforementioned beautiful face and his pure, bright smile. A man like that would never take advantage of a woman, right?
Besides, my heart had longed for such romance for a very long time and here was an opportunity to literally ride off into the night with a handsome stranger. I mean, come on. How much better could it get?
In the end though, it was my gut that decided things for me. It was the same feeling I’d had when we were breathing the same air. My skin prickled, waiting for the touch of his strong hands, my nipples pebbled in anticipation of being pressed up against the cool leather of his back. The animal side of me, one that I had seen in so many other humans but never felt myself, called out to him.
I heeded that call even though I knew listening to instinct over reason would probably get me in trouble.
I knew it, and I wanted it.
So, without a word, I turned and made my way over to the bike. With an easiness that hid my unfamiliarity with motorcycles, I swung my leg over the silver and black beast and settled myself on the perch just behind him. The skirt of my dress rode high on my thighs so that only my underwear separated my core from King’s broad back.
I shivered as he tugged my arms around his slim torso and I fell flush against him.