“I could be at your place in thirty minutes.”
“Too long. I’m coming to get you.”
She laughed. “I’m at Kathryn’s and I can walk to—”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Reid, I.” She laughed. He’d hung up.
She met him in the street. He hadn’t bothered with his helmet. It was still clipped on the back of the bike with hers. His hair was damp and full of wind, and his shirt buttoned oddly. He made her heart turn flick flacks in her chest. The look he gave her was indecent, as if she was standing there naked, fingering herself. She wore a flirty summer dress that’d survived a good scrubbing, a pair of now off-white Keds, and her hair was piled on her head in a messy bun.
“Not bike ready,” he barked.
Bike ready meant jeans and sleeves, appropriate footwear. “I was walking, remember.”
“You’re not now.”
She almost said, you’re not the boss of me, but he was, in this moment, disheveled, intense and possessive, he owned her, body, mind and soul.
“Take me somewhere.”
“Unless you change, we’re going home.”
It was a five-minute trip to his garage door. He’d risk that. “Take me somewhere we can fuck on your bike.” He groaned. She felt it between her legs. She swung a tote bag, borrowed from Kathryn, nonchalantly, as if she wasn’t dying to climb on behind him and have her arms and legs around him while the classic old Harley vibrated under her. “Either that or I’m walking.”
He snatched her off the pavement and deposited her on the seat, thrusting a helmet at her while he grabbed for his own, and still he protested. “It’s not safe.”
What she planned wasn’t. They could get arrested for what she planned. She ignored him standing there and tucked her skirt under her thighs. “You don’t want inside me while we’re outside,” she stroked a hand over the seat where he’d be sitting if he had any sense, “with this beast as our bed?”
“You’re dangerous.”
“I’m also skipping a class and I have to work tonight. Get your ass on this bike now.”
He shoved her forward and got on behind her, caging her with his arms and legs, putting the heat of his chest at her back. She showed a lot of leg as they nipped through the city. He headed for the green expanse of Niles. They’d scare the dog walkers. She laughed inside her helmet, running her hands over his knees and shins.
At the park they ditched the bike. Where they could park was too public. They took a walking trail. Zarley skipping out front, Reid following, a look of pure terror on his face. She picked a spot. A huge tree, a broad trunk to hide behind, a stand of other trees behind it making a corridor. On the weekend there’d be hundreds of people picnicking in the clearing on the other side of that tree, throwing Frisbees, drinking beer and chasing toddlers. They had it to themselves. But now she had him here, what did she want from him? He’d go to his knees if she asked. He’d let her take him that way if she wanted it.
He walked into view and she knew she wanted it all with him, rough and smooth, lazy and dangerous.
“You’re reckless, Flygirl.” He stopped in front of her and her tree. “We can’t do it here.”
“Scared, Back Booth?”
He pushed both hands through his hair. “Fuck yeah. Imagine the headlines if we got caught. My image has taken a bashing, getting nabbed for indecent exposure might make it hard to convince Plus backers to stand with me.”
“Oh Reid.” She walked into his arms. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.” And getting caught with her, hell—it was one slightly exaggerated claim away from him doing a hooker. The thought almost cooled her ardor. “I get carried away.”
She titled her chin up and he bent to kiss her. It wasn’t an I’m worried about public decency kiss, because his hand went under her dress to cup her ass and drag her closer and his tongue was wicked. He didn’t have an I’m worried about indecent exposure bulge behind his zipper either. Nor was he especially worried about it when backing her into the tree and feeling her up. Her dress was strappy and didn’t need a bra and he made quick work shoving the shoulder strap down her arm and getting his mouth to her nipple.
“You make me crazy,” he said, spinning her so she was face to the tree, hands planted on its rough trunk, standing higher than he was in the grassy mound that covered tree roots. Her mind crash-landed into that scene they’d had on the dining table. He’d been behind her then. He’d been all over her body and deep inside her head. And afterward, he’d taken her to bed and kissed her to sleep and she’d lost a little more of her casual resistance to him. All he was doing now was bracing her, one hand at her hip, strumming his thumb over her nipple but she couldn’t stop shaking or the moan that was so loud it frightened a bird from the branches above them, startling them both.
“It’s your fault I’m like this.” No struggle left. She was in this complication of him all the way.
He pinched, while his lips went to her neck, his teeth in play. “Can’t be my fault. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m someone else with you.”
She pushed her ass back into his lap, loving her height advantage. He could be Donald Trump right now and she’d want him to take her. And he did know what he was doing. He was writing over her vow to stay detached and recoding her will to court heartbreak with him.
Hand under her dress he pulled her panties down her hip, smoothing his hand over newly bared flesh. “All these firsts with you.” He swapped sides and yanked and she heard fabric tear, but the elastic held and her panties caught on her spread thighs.