There You Stand (Between Breaths 5)

Dex and I usually messed around, got loud, and played drinking games like we were freshmen in college or something. But I wasn’t feeling it and everybody noticed.

When Bennett asked me if I was okay, I told him that my back was acting up from an old injury. Dex opened his mouth to say something, but I shut him down real quick with one look. Jessie suggested her mother’s holistic health center for alternative therapies like acupuncture and massage. I promised I’d give it a try if my situation didn’t improve.

When Jessie’s boyfriend, Nate, walked into the bar that was my cue to leave. Not because I didn’t like Nate but because those two had some serious chemistry between them. It made me realize exactly what I was missing. It had never bothered me before but lately it was all I thought about.

Probably because I was so hard up and hadn’t even kissed anybody in a long while. Besides, just being that close to Jude the other night made my insides quiver. I was suddenly and consistently thinking about being intimate with somebody again. Instead of jacking off to thoughts of him every night, I didn’t know why I didn’t get my ass up to the gay bar or meet somebody online. I could even call that dude Jonathan from the Smoothie King, but it seemed that nobody else would do. Apparently I just wanted to torture myself.

I stood up and threw some money down on the bar to take care of my tab.

“Heading home before the showers hit.” I didn’t like riding in the rain. An accident could happen without warning.

I knew how to ride in inclement weather; you had to in order to enjoy a motorcycle year-round. Even kept a folded rain jacket with my gear and knew to decrease acceleration and stay off the slick yellow lines in the road. Still, none of that seemed to help the night I injured my back.

“You worried about your brakes?” one of the regulars asked me. We’d had a conversation a couple of weeks back about me changing the pads on my bike. I’d even bled the fluid and sprayed aerosol cleaner on them per his suggestion.

“Nah, just don’t feel like getting wet,” I said sheepishly, and he laughed.

But Vaughn gave me a curious look.

When he’d asked me about Jude a couple of weeks back, he was giving me a warning of sorts and I appreciated that. Just wish I knew exactly what he was swearing me off of. I was too chickenshit to ask. So I left instead. I’d go home, take a muscle relaxer, and get my ass to sleep.

I’d just rolled my bike out of the tight space in the parking lot when the back door of the bar flew open and out stormed Jude. And fuck, if I thought he was hot before, he looked dangerously sexy now, all rough with pent-up energy. Probably the hottest man I’d ever laid eyes on.

He was pacing back and forth, running his fingers over his dreads, which were tied back low on his neck.

But what the hell had he been doing in the back room of the club? Had he known I was at the bar?

I stayed motionless, watching him as he stalked the hundred feet to the Board Room’s back door. When he didn’t come out after another minute, I struggled with what to do.

Maybe he needed someone to talk to. I considered walking over there until I saw the club president, Malachi—or Mal, as he was known—step out the back door and look around, either to see where Jude had gone or who might’ve been hanging around.

Panicked, I hopped on my bike and pressed to the start position in order to get the hell out of there. When I next looked up, Malachi was staring in my direction, and our eyes met. He looked at me a split second too long and I tipped my chin at him. I didn’t want any fucking trouble.

After he went inside, my foot rested on the peg, ready to drive off, when Jude emerged from the back of his shop. I watched as he flipped off the light and locked the door behind him. His backpack was on his shoulders with his board secured in place. Right then I made a split-second decision.

I slowly motored over to him and then came to a discreet stop by placing my feet on the ground. “You okay?”

His eyes widened and he looked over my shoulder to the club’s back door entrance.

“You need to blow off some steam,” I said, shrugging. “You could climb on the back of my bike, and we could go for a ride.”

Jude shook his head, but his eyes wavered. They conveyed something different. They told me he wanted to jump on and hit the open road.

“No problem,” I said, having said my piece. I attempted to keep the disappointment off my face as I lifted my feet off the ground to rest on the pegs. “See you around.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. It was Jude’s hand shooting up to motion to me. When I looked back, Jude nodded, and his legs were already eating the distance between us.

“Hop on,” I said, my pulse skittering in my veins—either from fear of the club seeing us racing off together or because I was about to feel Jude’s body heat directly behind me. It wasn’t illegal to go for a ride, so what the fuck was I so anxious about? I offered him a chance to let out some frustration, plain and simple.

But I now knew for certain he was involved with the Disciples of the Road and I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable discerning the how or why. I just knew I wanted Jude.

Next to me. On top of me. Inside of me. So badly my chest ached.

Jude lifted his leg and climbed on the back of my bike. He tentatively scooted forward and then his fingers clutched the back of my shirt. It was intimate in a lot of ways to allow somebody on your hog, let alone a virtual stranger. Which was why I didn’t do it often. Plus dudes riding dudes around got you plenty of strange looks in certain parts of town.