Ride Hard (Raven Riders 1)

“Well, that’s good,” she said, the words breathy.

He couldn’t fucking believe she was playing along with this. Damn if she hadn’t come a long way since they first met. It made him proud of her. It made him protective of her. It made him want to see how much braver she could be if she felt safe enough to really let herself go. “Why’s that?” he asked, leaning in and stroking his nose along the bridge of hers.

Her head tilted back, offering her mouth up for a kiss. “Because . . . I’m . . .” She swallowed thickly. “. . . getting wet now.” She’d spoken the words so quietly that it was clear they’d been hard for her to admit, but she’d still found the courage to say them.

And, man, hearing her admit that she was wet slayed him.

“Fuck, Haven,” he said, his mouth coming down hard on hers.

She moaned into the kiss, her hands grasping his neck, his hair. The kiss was immediately urgent, frenzied, and the arousal slingshotting through Dare’s body had his imagination running away with him. He pictured himself pulling her off the bike, shoving her jeans down, bending her over the seat . . .

A long, low rumble of thunder, and the skies opened up for real.

Haven gasped and flinched, pulling her lips away from the kiss. Her gaze flickered to the sky as all the playfulness bled from her expression. She tried to mask the anxiety the storm caused her, but it was crystal clear in her eyes when she looked at him again.

He wanted nothing more in that moment than to make her feel safe.

“Let’s save swimming for another day,” he said, stroking his fingers down her wet face. Even as it soaked her hair, the rain did nothing to detract from how fucking gorgeous she was.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He kissed her. “No need for that,” he said. “Now hold on tight.”

Between the wet roads, the force of the downpour, and having a novice rider in his saddle, the ride home took a little longer than the way there. He regretted that only because every time it thundered, Haven flinched against him, her face burrowing against his shoulders, her embrace tightening around his chest. She’d done the same thing that night he’d found her asleep on the porch, and it made a place deep inside of him ache with satisfaction that she sought solace in his body—and it equally made him need to know what had caused her fear of storms in the first place.

Home again, they ran up to the front porch, absolutely soaked to the bone. “Let me grab some towels,” Dare said, turning to her after he shut the door and flicked on the light. And that was when he noticed that her pale pink tank top had gone totally sheer in the rain, the white lace pattern on her bra completely visible through the fabric, and the dark pink of her erect nipples apparent, too. Jesus.

“Okay,” she said, shivering.

“Right.” He made for the second-floor full bath.

Thunder crashed loud enough to make the windows rattle.

Haven’s gasp reached him on the stairs, and he turned on a dime and went back to her. Taking her hand, he said, “Come on.”

“I’ll drip water everywhere,” she said, following him despite the protest.

He turned just before the bottom step. “You think I care about getting the floor wet over taking care of you?”

Her eyes went wide. “I . . . I don’t . . .”

Dare silenced her with a kiss, needing her to know, needing her to believe. “The answer’s no, Haven.” He led her upstairs to the bathroom that sat in the center of the hall between the house’s two bedrooms.

“Wow,” she said, taking in the room. “This bathroom is amazing.”

Dare handed her a towel from the corner linen closet and grabbed one for himself. He followed her gaze around the room, over the large all-glass stall shower, over the spa tub beneath the big picture window overlooking the woods, over all the marble, granite, and steel surfaces. When he’d built the place, he’d wanted to do the kitchen and bathroom right, even if he wasn’t sure he’d use all the bells and whistles.

“Thanks,” Dare said, watching her run the towel over her face, her hair, her arms. She shivered again. “Let me find you some dry clothes.”

“Oh,” she said, looking down at herself. “I brought extra clothes. Are they still out in the bike?”

“Yeah,” Dare said, looking at the hard rain blurring his view of the trees out the window. “You can borrow something of mine, though. Save me from getting wet again.”

When she nodded, he disappeared into his bedroom, debating what to give her. He settled quickly on an old, soft, black Harley T-shirt. Unsure what she’d be most comfortable in for bottoms, he took a pair of old blue sweatpants that would likely be miles too big on her and a pair of gray boxers. The thought of seeing her in any of this—any of his clothes—flooded all kinds of satisfaction through his blood. Because despite the myriad reasons why it wasn’t gonna happen, with every moment he spent with Haven an increasingly bigger part of him wanted to claim her for himself—in every and any way he could.