Ride: A Bad Boy Romance

by Roxie Noir

  Come on.

  “We should go,” Katrina whispered.

  “Kiss me again first,” Zach said.

  “What?”

  They were standing on the roof, and she looked up at him, worry and confusion in her deep cerulean eyes.

  “Kiss me,” Zach said again, letting himself smile.

  He didn’t give a shit what happened afterward, as long as he got to kiss her again.

  “Now?”

  Instead of answering, he leaned his face down to hers and touched their lips together one more time, one hand on her shoulder and one at her waist. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed herself into him, and this time her body was against his, her warmth nearly overcoming him.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he’d parted her lips with his, swiping his tongue along her lower lip. Hesitantly, she responded, touching the tip of his tongue with hers.

  Zach could barely control himself. The blue and red lights of the police car played across his eyes, but he ignored them, focusing his entire being on Katrina, on her warm, soft mouth below his. Her perfect curves pressed against his body.

  He felt like something had combusted inside him, and now a fire he hadn’t known existed was burning, desperate for more of her, no matter what happened.

  The speaker crackled again.

  “Come down, now,” the voice said.

  Katrina pulled back, but now she was half-smiling. They walked quickly to the stairwell on the roof, but the moment they were inside, Katrina stopped.

  “There was only one cop car out there, right?” she asked. She held her flashlight steady on the stairs, looking downward.

  “I think so,” Zach said.

  “I think we could get away,” she said. “If we could get them to come in here after us, it wouldn’t be hard. We’re parked around the other side. We could get to the car and get away without getting busted.”

  Zach raised one eyebrow.

  “Are you always this devious?” he asked.

  “Only sometimes,” Katrina answered demurely. “Are you coming or what?”

  Like I could do anything else, Zach thought. Not when you’re looking at me like that.

  They went down the stairs as quietly as they could, and at the bottom, Katrina turned the flashlight off, leaving them in the total darkness of the stairwell.

  Blind, Zach reached out one hand and found Katrina’s shoulder, then her neck, her chin and suddenly he could feel her mouth envelop his thumb as she bit it, but just barely. It took everything he had not to groan there, in the dark, as he felt himself stiffen.

  “We should stay here a minute until our eyes adjust,” Katrina whispered.

  Zach didn’t have to be told twice and he kissed her again.

  This time he pressed her against the door of the stairwell and her hands were in his hair, holding him to her as tight as she could. Their tongues wound together, and Zach almost felt like he was drowning in this girl, a sea of blond hair and innocent blue eyes.

  Finally he pulled away, resting their foreheads together, and opened his eyes. He could just make out the shapes of the stairs and rails, and he knew it was time to leave, put their plan into action, even though he never wanted to leave.

  He kissed her once more, stifling another groan. Now he was hard as a rock, and all he could think about was running his hands down her curves, getting her dress off of her. What she’d sound like as he pleasured her, her cries echoing around the stairwell.

  “We should get moving,” she whispered when they broke apart.

  Zach didn’t want to go anywhere, but he knew she was right. As quietly as he could, he opened the door and the two of them stepped out, into the elevator-lined hallway.

  Katrina put one hand on his arm and pointed across the lobby.

  “That side’s where the car is. There’s a room over there that’s full of mechanical stuff — I think it’s the heater or something — but there’s an exit over there. We’ll have to run maybe a hundred feet, but then we can get behind that overgrown hedge and get to the car. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Zach whispered. He remembered the hedge, but they’d gone behind the hotel first. He just had to trust her.

  They walked to the end of the dark hall and peered out the massive windows at the front of the hotel. One was broken and emptied of glass, and one was shattered, but the rest were intact.

  Beyond them, two police officers had opened a padlock and were unwrapping a chain from a gate.

  “Come on,” Katrina whispered. She walked quickly and quietly across the lobby to another hallway, this one a mirror image of the elevator bank. Outside, the officers swept the light along the broken pavement of the parking lot, getting ever closer.

  The dark enveloped them again. Katrina bent down and picked something up: a chunk of concrete.

  “How far do you think you can throw this?” she whispered, handing it to Zach.

  He frowned and looked at her in alarm.

  “Just to make a noise,” she said. “Can you get it across the lobby?”

  He hefted it in his hand. It was heavy, but not too bad.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said. “When I say go, you throw that clear across to the other hallway, and then we go.”

  “Is this going to work?” Zach hissed.

  In the dark, Katrina shrugged, close enough that Zach could feel her shoulders move.

  “Dunno,” she said. “It works in movies sometimes?”

  She had her back against the wall and peered out, around the corner, at the officers in front of the building.

  “Just come out of there,” one of them shouted. He sounded exasperated, as though this wasn’t the first time that week he’d had to chase people out of the resort. “You’re trespassing illegally.”

  That’s redundant, Zach thought, and then he heard Katrina inhale sharply.

  “Now,” she said.

  Zach hefted the rock in his hand once, getting it into position, wound up, and threw it across the enormous lobby. It crashed into a wall in the darkness on the other side.

  “Over there,” he heard one officer say, and then Katrina grabbed his arm and pulled him further into the blackness.

  Somehow, she found the door and pulled it open. Zach held his breath, trying not to make any noise as he raced after her. Even in the dark he could see her outline, tempting him from a few feet in front. He wanted to lift her in his arms and push her against a wall in the heating room and damn the policemen outside, but he fought that part of himself down.

  Get out of here first, he thought. Do that later.

  With a rush of cool air, Katrina pushed the door to the outside open, her blond hair flying back. She peeked out, then looked back at Zach.

  “You see that hedge there?” she asked breathlessly.

  Zach nodded.

  “Get to that and run along it,” she said. “The car’s kind of over that little hill and past those trees. Ready?”

  Zach took her hand.

  “I’m gonna slow you down,” she warned.

  He grinned and shrugged.

  “Go,” he said.

  They took off, Katrina running at top speed and Zach jogging along beside her. The cop car was still on the rise across the parking lot, its lights still flashing, but the two cops were nowhere to be seen.

  At last they reached the hedge. Katrina was breathing hard, one hand on her chest.

  “This is not a good running outfit at all,” she muttered. “Wrong shoes, wrong bra.”

  Zach peeked out, but the only thing moving were the lights on the cop car. The door they’d left through was still open.

  We should have closed that, he thought. They’re going to know where we went.

  Katrina was tugging at his arm again, her flushed face below his.

  “C’mon,” she said. “We’re not home free just yet.”

  Staying close to the hedge, they darted through the copse of trees and up the hill. Despite himself, Zach starte
d grinning, almost laughing.

  I can’t believe we’re doing this, he thought. I feel like a teenager trying to avoid getting grounded.

  It’s kind of great.

  Then they ran over the crest of the little hill. All that was between them and the car was the chain-link fence, and Zach figured that at worst, they could climb that.

  Parked right behind his ugly, old Escort was a second police car. Katrina slammed to a stop and Zach nearly knocked her over, taking her shoulder in one hand.

  The cop peering into his car’s windows with a flashlight looked up, and in a second, the bright light was on them. Zach turned his head and shaded his eyes.

  “Shit!” hissed Katrina.

  “Hey!” shouted the cop.

  Zach looked behind him, back at the copse of trees, the hedge, and the hotel.

  We could run back, he thought wildly.

  “Were you two in the old Grant property?” the cop asked.

  Neither of them answered. The door they’d left the hotel through slammed open, and the other two cops came out, flashlights blazing ahead of them.

  “Shit,” Katrina muttered again.

  The cop next to their car just sighed.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s get you out from behind that fence. This your car?”

  Zach nodded.

  The walk to the gate in the fence, then all the way back to Zach’s car, was dead quiet. The two cops who’d gone through the hotel gave them a quick pat down but didn’t handcuff either of them, just walked sternly behind Zach and Katrina as they trudged back down the road.

  Zach was terrified. Not for himself, but for Katrina. He didn’t have much in the world, so it didn’t matter if he lost it — but she had a job and an apartment. If she got arrested and charged, she could probably be fired, or at the very least, she’d have a hard time getting a promotion.

  I can’t believe I went along with this, Zach thought. This isn’t how you treat women. You buy them dinner and then do normal, safe things with them. You don’t go trespassing.

  Fuck.

  “You the only two in there?” the third cop asked when they finally reached him. He seemed more amused than the other two cops.

  Probably because he didn’t have to search for us in an old, creepy hotel, Zach thought.

  “Yes,” muttered Katrina.

  “Didn’t hear anybody else in there,” one of the cops behind them said. They seemed subordinate to the cop who’d been by the car.

  “You two got IDs?” Car cop asked.

  Without speaking, Zach and Katrina took out their driver’s licenses and handed them over. The cop looked at them for a second, then shined the flashlight in their faces again.

  “How about real IDs?” he asked.

  “What?” Katrina said.

  “These say you were born in 1988,” he said, very patiently.

  Zach and Katrina just stared at him, not understanding where this was going.

  “I was,” Zach said at last. He just needed to break the silence.

  The officer frowned.

  “Tell me your birthdates,” the cop said.

  “February twelfth,” Katrina said.

  “March third,” Zach said.

  “Who’s your favorite Power Ranger?” the cop asked.

  “Kimberley. The pink one,” Katrina said instantly.

  Zach frowned. Television reception in Obsidian had been nonexistent, so he hadn’t developed much of an opinion on Power Rangers.

  “Blue?” he finally said, hoping he was right.

  This seemed to satisfy the cop, though Zach wasn’t really sure why. The cop examined the licenses very, very closely. He flipped them back and forth examining the patterns on them.

  At last, he shrugged.

  “Want to tell me what you’re doing here?” he asked.

  Zach opened his mouth to say I brought her, this is my fault, but Katrina spoke up first.

  “I wanted to show him the view,” she said. “It’s really pretty from the roof when there’s a full moon.”

  “You can get a view of the lake from lots of legal places,” the cop pointed out.

  “Not as good as this one,” she said.

  He gave her a hard look, and Zach had the wild urge to punch the guy, then grab Katrina and run. Anything to protect her.

  It was stupid, of course. There were three cops and they all had guns, so he forced that urge deep down inside himself, grinding his teeth.

  “So you won’t mind if we search your car?”

  Zach shook his head. He wasn’t crazy about the idea, but if it got them out of there, so be it.

  “Go nuts,” he said.

  They stood together on the side of the road while the cops went through Zach’s old car, pulling out the blankets and granola bars he kept in the trunk just in case he broke down somewhere bad.

  “I’m sorry,” Katrina whispered.

  “It’s okay,” Zach whispered back. “I had a really good time anyway.”

  She looked up at him, blue eyes shining in the moonlight.

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I just hope this turns out okay for you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m worried about you.”

  Zach felt warm and squishy in the middle.

  “I’ll be fine too,” he said. “We should do this again.”

  “This?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “You know what I mean,” he said.

  Before he could go on, one of the cops who’d followed them through the hotel came over. He had two yellow pieces of paper in his hands, and gave one to each of them.

  It was a ticket.

  Zach’s heart soared, and Katrina looked at it quickly, then looked from Zach to the cop.

  “A ticket?” she asked.

  “We’re going easy this time,” he said. “We didn’t find any drugs, so we’re letting you off with a trespassing ticket and a warning. Next time you get charged.”

  Zach kept his face as straight as he could, even though he almost wanted to kiss the man. Almost.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Katrina nodded.

  “Next time, canoodle in your own home,” the cop said, still not finished talking. “It’s not like you’re teenagers or something.”

  “We’re sorry,” Katrina said instantly.

  “Really sorry,” Zach said, barely able to contain his glee.

  The cop nodded once, then walked back to his own car.

  Zach and Katrina barely made it into the Escort before bursting into amazed laughter.

  6. Katrina

  When Katrina’s alarm went off the next morning, she groaned and pulled her fluffy white comforter over her head, only extending one hand from her bed to bat at the clock.

  It was no use. She was already awake, her lovely dream cut short.

  Zach had been in it, of course. They’d been on her couch, pretending to watch some movie on her television, and he’d just unbuttoned her dress.

  Staring up at the comforter over her head, Katrina made a face.

  I should have invited him up last night, she thought. He’s not the kind of guy who won’t call you back when you give it up on the first date.

  Still, though. A lifetime of hearing good girls don’t from basically everyone she knew had taken its toll, and now she was alone in her bed, having pathetic sex dreams about a guy she’d just met. Katrina didn’t even think of herself as a particularly good girl — she sure wasn’t a virgin — but, no matter how badly she wanted Zach, she hadn’t been able to invite him up last night.

  She blew air out of her lungs, puffing up her cheeks, then tossed the comforter aside, swinging her legs onto the floor. Her whole apartment was a kind of controlled chaos. She had a lot of things in piles, but she knew what was in each pile, and each pile had a specific home.

  It wasn’t organized. Katrina would have never claimed that, but she more or less knew where everything was. Most of the time
.

  She pulled on her flannel bathrobe and padded to the kitchen in her slippers, turning on the kettle for tea. As she waited, she checked her phone.

  The home screen was chock full of texts and emails, and she smiled when she saw who they were from.

  The night before, she’d barely unlocked her front door when Zach had texted her: Are you free Sunday night?

  Yes, she’d texted back.

  Now he’d already texted her that morning: Can’t wait until tomorrow night.

  Katrina grinned at her empty kitchen, a slow warmth flooding through her body.

  Along with it came just a hint of guilt, but she tried to get that out of her head. Just because she’d met him on a weird mission from her boss didn’t mean she didn’t like him. Maybe this was a good thing: if they hadn’t been specifically seeking out Zachary Monson, Katrina would never have met him.

  Plus, Pete had sworn again and again that he just wanted to get the guy into the MutiGen offices. Katrina had a sneaking suspicion that they were going to try to get his DNA somehow — a hair shed onto a chair, saliva left on a water glass — and she wasn’t a big fan of that, but it wasn’t like it would hurt Zach.

  Besides, once they had it, she could do her best to get rid of it. She couldn’t talk her boss out of something he wouldn’t even admit he was going to do.

  This whole eagle thing was stupid, anyway, and Katrina couldn’t believe that a company full of scientists were so convinced it was true. It was totally insane. Humans couldn’t even regrow their own limbs, like starfish.

  The idea of a person turning into an eagle even defied basic physics. No matter how big golden eagles were — and they were big, Katrina had done her homework — they weren’t as big as people, and the conservation of mass was the most basic principle in the world.

  There was simply no way to turn something into less something, and that was only one reason that Zach obviously couldn’t turn into an eagle.

  The kettle whistled, and Katrina yawned, then turned and poured herself a cup of Earl Grey tea, slipping her phone into her pocket. While it steeped she put a few other dishes into the dishwasher, then added honey and milk, and finally went to go read emails on her phone in her living room.

  She hated that she compulsively checked her work email, even on Saturday. But she also knew that it was the only way to get ahead: always be available, particularly while you’re still a junior engineer. People higher up got to ignore their email for the whole weekend, but not her.