About Last Night

Lexie gave up on savoring the moment. She walked her recalcitrant bike through a wide, slow turn and pushed it back toward Angry Tom.

“You ready?” She strapped on her helmet.

He put his on, too, and threw a leg over his bike.

“Let’s go.”

Ten minutes later, with a flapping sound that only ever meant one thing, the most exciting journey of her life ground to a halt.

She had a flat. Day One of the TransAm, and she had a freaking flat. She pulled over.

“Sorry, I must have picked up some glass on the beach. You can go ahead, I’ll catch up later.”

He didn’t say a word, just got off his bike and put down the kickstand. Any serious cyclist would’ve stripped that—too much extra weight. Who had a kickstand? Come to think of it, who had a bike that looked like Tom’s? It appeared to have been through several wars, in no way resembling the slick, expensive machines people usually rode when they toured. His clothes were all wrong, too. She’d been expecting someone in bike shorts and a jersey, maybe a neon-yellow raincoat to ward off the mist, and here he was wearing a faded black Nirvana T-shirt and cargo shorts.

And then there was the hotness thing, which she needed to find a way to stop noticing. She’d just have to focus on his personality. That ought to do the trick.

While she unhooked the trailer and flipped her bike over to balance on the seat, he stood there staring at her, making her as nervous as a virgin in the backseat of a prom limo. It actually helped a little that he was a complete asshole. She could handle assholes. As a high school English teacher, she dealt with them on a daily basis.

She pulled off her front wheel, uncomfortably aware of Tom’s eyes on her. This was a test, then. At least she knew she could pass it. She’d changed a lot of flats over the years. Stripping the damaged tube from the tire, she inspected it but couldn’t find a puncture. A thorough scan of the tire itself finally yielded the culprit—a small protruding shard of glass.

It was when she started rummaging around in her tail bag for a new tube that she started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach. Because this wasn’t the bike she’d been planning to bring on the trip. She’d changed her mind at the eleventh hour and switched to the Salsa, which offered fewer hand positions but was more comfortable than her designated touring bike. She’d packed the tail bag weeks ago, though, which meant she’d brought the wrong size tubes. Which meant she couldn’t change the tire.

Which meant she was going to look like a fool in front of Tom before they’d even managed to ride two miles.

“Bad news. I, uh, I have the wrong tubes. I need two-niner tubes, and I don’t have them, so I can’t change the flat. But listen, you go ahead, and I’ll find a bike shop. And after it opens”—in three or four hours—“I’ll buy another tube and meet up with you this afternoon.”

“Or you could patch it.”

Another catastrophic failure of planning. Lexie hadn’t brought a patch kit. She’d carefully considered whether she needed one and had concluded that since she was going to be carrying plenty of extra tubes, it didn’t make sense to tote a patch kit as well. Also, there was the fact that she’d never patched a tire before. The whole process had always struck her as rather arcane, and she hadn’t seen any reason to bother learning how to do it. Tubes were cheap, after all.

“I don’t know how,” she admitted, knowing he would frown and glare at her, and that he would be justified.

He did frown and glare at her. But then he took the tube from her and started looking for the puncture.

“I already did that.”

Tom ignored her. He used his hand pump to put some air in the tube, then stuck it next to his ear and turned it slowly, listening for the hiss of escaping air. Two full revolutions later, he put a little more air in the tube. And then he stuck out his tongue and licked it.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer her, just kept running the tip of his tongue slowly along the rubber tube and staring at her with those intense dark eyes. And God help her, it turned her on.

She felt her cheeks heat up and looked away, mortified. Almost thirty years old, and she was getting off on the sight of a guy licking a tube. A hot guy licking a tube, but still. She obviously needed to get out more.

When she glanced back at him, he had his patch kit open and was using the sandpaper to rough up the rubber. Apparently he’d found the leak. With his tongue. Jesus.

Thank goodness sex was already off the table. Considering how hot she was for her ride buddy right now, the fictitious Mr. Marshall might turn out to be a blessing. The catastrophe of her last failed relationship had made her more than a little wary of climbing into bed with the wrong guys, and Tom Geiger couldn’t have been more wrong if he’d tried.

Though he was patching her tire for her.

Tom smeared on some glue, applied the patch, and handed her the tube.

“Hold that on there for five minutes. Then you can put it back together and pump it up.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”