by C. M. Marin
“Put that in the storage room, honey,” she says, and I shift on my stool to see Nate pushing my bike with one hand. “The door that’s facing the bathroom.” She gives him my helmet before he disappears from sight.
It takes him no more than thirty seconds to be back, and accusation is heavy in his eyes locked on me. “You paid for the both of us, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Yeah, that’s why I told you to stay put. You’re not listening much,” he grumbles.
“Not since I left for college and stopped listening to my parents,” I muse. “But if I still were doing what my mom always told me to do, I wouldn’t be about to leave with someone I barely know, you realize that, right?”
He shakes his head like I’m exhausting him, but he can’t hold back a smile. “Did she also tell you it’s safer to have properly inflated tires when you venture along deserted roads? Yours are shit, just so you know.”
“Not surprising, I haven’t used the thing in years. But aren’t you way too nervous for a guy with all these lethal muscles?”
Moving closer, he drawls, “Nothing makes me nervous, baby, believe me. It’s called being cautious. And I’m especially cautious with beautiful things.”
It’s the first time his voice carries the same sexual edge his general demeanor does. No part of his body is touching me, so I know it’s his deep voice alone that sends shivers tingling through every inch of me from the top of my head to my last toe. I wonder what his actual touch would do to me. Which brings me to the fact I tacitly agreed to hop on a motorcycle with him when I yielded to his and Dona’s nonsense about how suicidal it is to ride a few miles all by myself.
“You’ll have to drive your motorcycle to get me home,” I say, the statement coming out of nowhere.
Drawing back to lean on the counter beside me, he grins. “It usually gets you where you want to go faster than if you push it.”
“I’ve never been on one,” I worry, ignoring his humor.
He makes a tsk sound.
“I know, such an adventurous girl, riding all the way here from home and without a fluorescent jacket, who has never climbed on a bike. How ridiculous,” I roll my eyes.
“I agree. Let’s remedy this.”
He snatches his helmet from the counter as he calls out to Dona, who is already back to sauntering from tables to tables. “Thanks, Dona!”
No time for me to voice my own polite goodbyes, even from afar, because Nate engulfs my hand in his to get me to hop on my feet, and the gesture distracts me from anything else. My fingers fold around his large hand in return as he leads me out and into the warm morning. The growing heat is asphyxiating compared to the air-conditioned diner, but I barely notice the sun beating down on me. My mind is focused on the heartwarming sensation brought on by Nate’s touch.
Something hits me with a force strong enough to almost knock me down.
I missed that. Feeling someone’s touch. I missed it. I’m aware it could have been anyone triggering that sense of consoling peace enveloping me, but it doesn’t matter. I missed it too much to care who is even giving it back to me. And when Nate lets go of my hand to put the helmet on my head, my fist clenches like it knows just as I do that I’d look like a needy freak if I snatched his hand back.
“All set,” he says, letting me know he fastened the helmet while I was deep in my thoughts.
When my disproportionate emotional reaction to Nate’s innocent touch withdraws, clearing my mind, I frown. “But you don’t have a helmet now.”
“Your head is prettier than mine.” On these words, he climbs on his bike. “Come on.”
Starting to know the guy, I let go of the helmet issue, and as I throw a leg over the motorcycle, I realize I have no choice but to sit close to him. Really close. My front is grazing his back, and even though I think that the subtle contact borders on inappropriate, it also resurrects the warm sensation of experiencing someone’s physical closeness again.
“You need to hold on to me, Cam,” he prompts, his head shifting only slightly.
I stiffen. “You don’t drive too fast, okay?”
“Who’s nervous now?” He chuckles, but then he reassures me. “I won’t exceed the speed limit for the first time in my life, that’s a promise, so just relax. But you have to hold on to me anyway.”
Holding on? No problem. Relaxing? There’s no doubt I won’t waste even a small amount of energy to try that.
Winding my arms around his waist, I rest my palms against his stomach, and those are some defined lines I find there, hard under my touch. Not that it surprises me, since it just proves what I had been thinking only seeing his biceps, but proving my intuition by touch is something else.
“Ready? You’ll just have to guide me with your hands when we leave the byroad, alright?”
“Okay.”
My guts are tossed around briefly when Nate throws us onto the road. The way he gets off can most likely be qualified as smooth for an experienced biker, but I’m not an experienced biker and the grip I have on him tightens anyway. It’s mostly a reflex, though, because I’m not frozen scared like I thought I’d be. Quickly, a smile even takes place on my lips. Definitely not as scary as I thought it would be. Despite my first certitude, my body even relaxes, and my hold on Nate loosens a little, but not enough for my palms to lose their feel of his sculpted stomach.
I’m getting so comfortable on that thing despite the speed and the wind hitting my skin that when he cuts off his engine behind my car, I itch to tell him to go back on the road and drive some more.
“Was your first time on a bike so great it stunned you to silence, or are we about to see those barely eaten pancakes all over your driveway?” Nate says, a teasing lilt in his voice as he already stands by the bike, watching me only getting off it.
“That was way less scary than I thought it’d be,” I admit, letting him work to remove the helmet.
Stretching his arm, he sets it somewhere onto the bike behind me before tidying my mussed-up hair with delicate fingers contradicting with his muscular exterior.
I should slip away from his touch, but there’s no will whatsoever in me. The touch still holds this warm comfort I hadn’t even realized I was missing so much.
“Is that the capricious car?” he asks, withdrawing his hand from my hair as he throws an eye behind him.
“That’s the one.”
“Open the hood, I’ll take a look at it. Did it make any sound at all when you tried to start it?” he asks, already walking toward the front of the car as I go and do as I was told.
“It sounded like it was going to start, but it didn’t,” I explain the best I can as he lifts the hood.
“Okay, try it.”
I crank it once, and he hums.
When he doesn’t ask again, I get out of the car and join him.
His gaze is roaming all over the engine, not stopping for long seconds before he starts fumbling with parts I wouldn’t know how to name. He unscrews and screws things back, then he lifts up cables to check out things that are deeper into the engine. Several minutes pass as I do nothing but watch him work before he speaks.
“My guess is that it’s either the spark plugs or the fuel filter. How old is your car?” he asks, absently wiping his hands on his jeans.
“It’s about seven years old.”
“Did you ever change the spark plugs?”
“I don’t think so. I admit that I didn’t do much the past three years, and before that, it was my dad who was taking care of it,” I wince.
He grins. “Which means you haven’t changed the filter for at least three years.”
“No,” I grimace again, and he chuckles. “But I’m not using my car very often in LA, since I live near the school,” I defend myself.
“If you trust me, I can take the car to my repair shop. If I have the parts I need, you can have it back by tonight.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I shake my head. “I can call―”
Impossible to hold my laugh back at that.
“Yeah, I can easily imagine myself driving all the way back to LA on a bike,” I say through my laughter. “Okay, I’ll let you take my car, but first you come in for a coffee.”
“Deal.”
Once the hood is back down and the car is locked, Nate follows me inside.
A small smile graces my lips thinking of what my mom would say about me welcoming someone I barely know into the house. She had always worried a bit about me, like any other mom, but I remember things getting worse after I moved away.
I prepare two coffees with the help of the fancy machine my dad loved so much. He’d be thrilled to know I finally figured out how to use it. There’s the same type of machine at work, that’s the only reason why. At home, I still prepare my coffee the old-fashioned way, though I drink way more teas than coffees.
“This house is yours, then?”
I nod. “My parents left it to me, but it’s the first time I’ve been back since I left after the funeral. I did some cleaning, but I’m glad I had a cleaning woman coming regularly,” I admit.
Setting both coffees on the square kitchen counter filling the middle of the room, I sit on a bar stool, and Nate does the same.
“You good? I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
Looking up to meet his eyes, concern is what stares back at me. Wondering only briefly what he’s talking about, I then realize I’ve fell quiet for the past couple of minutes.
“No, it’s not…” I sigh. “Honestly, I guess I’ll always be a bit sad thinking about my parents, but I went through the grieving process. Being back here must be messing with my head a little, that’s all,” I smile awkwardly. “The thing is, even if I kept trying to tell myself otherwise, I’m also back here because it’s time I decide whether I want to sell the house or keep it. Now that I have a permanent job, I know I’ll be staying in LA all year, and I honestly can’t see why I’d come back during my holidays. I’m glad I saw Dona again, but let’s face it, if you hadn’t stolen my table, I would probably be bored to death and brooding on the sofa right now, watching some stupid TV show. I’m not sure there’s anything left for me here anymore,” I confess. “But what about you?” I go on. “I didn’t even ask you if your family is around here?”
Something dark first springs from him, and I don’t have time to try to name it before it’s swept away almost instantly by a small smile.
“Do you think that I’m here with you just because I’m alone and bored?” he jokes.
I laugh. “If so, don’t say it, please. I’d like to keep some self-esteem.”
“Be assured I never force myself to do anything,” he says. “And I sort of live near my family. Remember the friends I told you I work with?” he asks me, and I nod. “They’re like family. My mom died a long time ago, and my father… I couldn’t even tell you if he’s still alive. If he is, I suppose he still lives in a small town in Illinois. I haven’t seen or talked to him in years.”
That breaks my heart.
“Can I ask why?”
“He’s just not a good man,” he simply prompts.
As he swallows a sip of his coffee, the shadow of a sharp sorrow is back on his face, and I decide to shift the conversation to a lighter subject.
“Illinois, you said? Did your bike bring you all the way here?”
“She didn’t,” he grins. “She became one of my girls later.”
“One of your girls? How many bikes do you have?”
“Four. And don’t tell her that,” he starts, his voice lowering to a whisper as though his bike had ears that could hear him from outside. “But she’s not my favorite. I have a Harley I usually drive. A treasure.”
I laugh at the way he says it, his tone full of exaggerated adoration.
It’s so easy to interact with him, and for the first time in a very long time, I’m happy to have a conversation with someone else than Colleen.
Talking to anyone outside the school had become an exhausting ordeal I had made a habit of avoiding. And even at school, I mostly focused on my class and tried to avoid any social situation involving colleagues. Luckily, so to speak, they all knew things about my personal life that made most of them steer clear of me, probably because they didn’t know how to act in my presence. And with those who gave a try at breaking the ice, either out of pity or simple kindness, I kept the exchanges at their bare minimum.
And now I’m here, sitting in the kitchen of my childhood home next to a stranger, and my mind doesn’t crave to shut down while my body craves to run away. Nate’s voice flows into my ears, and I just want him to keep talking. I know it’s only due to me being back here in Texas, my mind far away from the tragedy that drove me away from a place full of harrowing memories, and I wonder if I’m bound to plunge back into the half sluggish state I had been into for almost a year once I’m back in LA.
Quickly, I push the thought away. I might only be living in an imaginary world where my smile is back and every word I say isn’t escorted by a weariness that implores me to get away from anyone and go hide out in bed for an entire week, but that world is an intake of fresh air that allows me to breathe again. And I’m determined to take in every drop of it for as long as that miracle lasts.
Chapter 4
Nate
Even from across the street, there’s no mistaking the red patch sewn on the cuts’ black leather belonging to the two bikers standing on the sidewalk, both looking relaxed as they smoke.
Fucking Spiders.
What the hell are they doing here?
Sure, Dona’s is located in neutral territory, but within the two years I’ve been coming here, I never caught a glimpse of the fuckers. These guys are most likely prospects, because I’ve never seen their faces before. And believe me, I never forget a face, especially when the guy is part of a fucked-up club ran by a fucked-up president who’d wipe my club off the map with blatant, sadistic euphoria if he ever got the chance. A chance he’ll never get, though.
As a Chaos Chaser, my first instinct is to charge at them and make them go the fuck away, but that’d be stupid since I’m alone and dressed in plain clothes. And even though Dona’s isn’t established in Spiders’ territory, it isn’t established in ours either. If they wanted to plant a tent right in front of the diner, they fucking could.
I compel myself to temper my impulsive, irate reaction, but the restraint is only rather easy until my gaze follows the Spiders’ to fall straight on light-brown hair framing slightly tanned skin belonging to a beautiful face that is softly smiling down at something.
Camryn.
My blood boils, my fists clench and my jaw tenses so hard that my muscles and bones cry out in pain. Camryn is busy looking down at what must be her phone, though I can’t see it from here. She is totally unaware of being ogled by those sick fucks I’ll rip the legs off their bodies if they even think of going near her.
This only reminds me of how fucking innocent this girl is.
Or… Is she?
Why are the Spiders watching her?
Sudden questions send my mind all over the place, oscillating between a wariness that’s been my best friend all my life and the conviction that Cam has nothing to do with men who’d slit someone’s throat just because they feel like it. Just because they enjoy watching the blood spill. The latter wins me over, and again, my instinct tries to make my feet barrel toward them, pull out my gun and shove it down their damn throats until they get the memo that this is the last time they put their sick eyes on her.
Jesus, that’s what’s sick.
The feeling of protectiveness that assaults me is choking, foreign and seriously hard to process. I just don’t feel that way. Never did, toward anyone. But that doesn’t change the fact those fuckers
will die if they get anywhere near her. Because every time I let my mind go to a place where they put one fucking fingertip on her body, I remember how I got to touch her yesterday. And I don’t care if I’m not supposed to react like she’s only mine to touch, and mine to protect. I can’t tolerate anyone approaching her and hurting her. Or touching her in any other way. I just can’t.
Her body taking up space on my bike like it was meant for it, her arms coiling around my waist as she held on to me tight, that’s some view and sensations that kept playing in my head all night. I’ve never pictured any girl on my bike, yet yesterday I wished I had come to Dona’s with my Harley even though I never did.
The weird impression of someone’s gaze lingering on me tears mine off the Spiders, and I force the lines of my face to let go of some of the tension I’m still taut with when I catch Cam’s eyes on me through the window.
Acting like any customer who would enter the diner, I force myself to walk to the door that I push open without looking back. And when I finally get to the booth, it takes everything in me not to shoot a glance at the Spiders to warn them off.
Camryn’s beautiful smile only shows itself faintly, and her eyes bore into me as I sit down.
“Are you okay?” she asks, leaving me briefly silent with surprise when I make out the worry in her tone. “You seemed upset outside,” she adds.
Oh, that’s just because some killers were watching you like they’d like to have a bite.
Yeah, that’d be the perfect thing to say if my goal was to make her freak out and run off.
“All good,” I lie, brushing off her concern. “Eat before it gets cold,” I tell her while snatching a pancake from her plate.
The Spiders’ presence is still making me bristle, but now that my mind cleared off some of the dreadful rage at seeing Rod’s―the Spiders’ president―guys leering at Cam, I realize that acting like I haven’t noticed them was a good thing. Clearly, they don’t know who I am, because they wouldn’t still be hanging out outside the diner like nothing was off if they did. Which gives me the opportunity to play this smoothly instead of charging the fuckers all guns blazing if they were actually watching Cam for another reason than her being hot as hell.