The bike slows.
Stops.
A man gets off, and my breath catches in my throat.
He's massive. That's the first thing I notice—the sheer size of him, broad shoulders and thick arms and the kind of height that makes everything around him look small. Tattoos snake up his neck, disappear into his collar, curl around his knuckles in patterns I can't make out in the fading light. Leather cut over a dark hoodie, patches I don't recognize, and his face?—
His face looks like it's never smiled. Hard jaw, grey eyes, a mouth set in a flat line. Handsome in a way that's almost brutal—all sharp edges and shadows, the kind of face that warns you away and pulls you in at the same time.
He takes in the wedding dress. The wrecked shoes. The terror I can't hide.
I should be scared. He's huge, rough-looking, radiating danger from every pore. The kind of man mothers warn their daughters about. The kind of man who belongs in a nightmare, not standing on a desert road in front of a runaway bride.
But something about the way he holds himself—controlled, steady, utterly still—makes me feel the opposite of scared. Like the chaos inside me has finally found something solid to crash against.
"Who's chasing you?"
His voice is low. Rough. It does something to me that I don't have time to think about—a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold.
I should lie. Make up a story. Protect myself the way I've been trying to protect myself for the last three hours.
But I'm exhausted. Scared. Running on fumes and fury and the last shreds of hope. And something about the way he's looking at me—not with hunger or amusement, just steady assessment—makes the truth spill out before I can stop it.
"My fiancé." The word tastes like ash. "He's not who I thought he was. I overheard something I shouldn't have. I have nowhere to go."
Silence.
He studies me for a long moment. I can't read his expression—can't tell if he believes me, if he cares, if he's deciding whether I'm worth the trouble. The desert wind picks up, and I shiver, suddenly aware of how cold I am, how exposed, how completely at the mercy of this stranger.
Then he moves.
He shrugs off his cut, strips off the hoodie underneath in one smooth motion, and crosses to me in three long strides. Before I can react, he's draping it over my shoulders, the weight of it settling around me like armor. It's warm from his body. It smells like smoke and something else, something underneath that makes my head spin.
He pulls his cut back on over his t-shirt, and his hands brush my arms as he tugs the hoodie into place around me. Even through my panic, even through the exhaustion and the fear, I feel it. A spark. Electric and immediate, racing across my skin like a promise.
Our eyes meet.
Something flickers in his expression—there and gone before I can read it. Then his jaw tightens, and he steps back, putting distance between us.
"Get on the bike."
Not a question. Not a request. A command, delivered in that low, rough voice that seems to bypass my brain entirely and speak directly to something deeper.
I should ask where we're going. Should demand to know who he is, what he wants, why he's helping me. Should do anything other than blindly follow a stranger into the desert night.
I climb onto the bike.
He swings on in front of me, and suddenly I have to touch him—have to wrap my arms around his waist just to stay on. The solid wall of muscle beneath his t-shirt makes my breath catch.He's warm despite the cooling air, radiating heat like a furnace, and when the engine roars to life beneath us, I feel it vibrate through my whole body.
I hold on tighter.
His hand covers mine for just a second—brief, steadying—and then we're moving. The wind whips my ruined dress behind us, tears the pins from my hair, steals the last traces of the woman I was supposed to be tonight.
I press myself against his back and close my eyes.
A stranger's body has never felt this safe.
I don't even know his name.
