Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes and my fingernails sink even deeper into Zebulon’s cut. He isn’t going slower at all, which I should have expected. The first thirty minutes of the ride are even more painful than the first time. The highways are practically unpaved and it doesn’t miss my awareness that a slight misgroove is the only thing standing between me and God.
Trusting this man might kill me.
Zebulon stops again after three hours to smoke. We pull over at another rest stop and this time, I don’t throw the helmet at him because he jumps off the bike faster than I can and takes my helmet off himself.Smart man.When the helmet frees my head from the tight restraints and the motorcycle vibrations knocking me around, I feel immediately better. Zeb’s caring look doesn’t hurt.
“Did I knock you around too much?”
“A little.”
He reaches for my lips with his thumb and brushes them over slowly, so a shudder spreads through me. I look up at him with confusion, but Zebulon offers me a soft smile.
“Sorry,” he says. “I need a smoke. You need anything?”
“No. And smoking is bad for you.”
“So is staying up all night in the middle of the desert, but the government paid me pretty well to do that.”
“Army?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Zeb finds himself a cigarette. I don’t like smoking, but there’s something vulnerable about his need for it that makes it so that I can’t look away from him. His lips clench desperately around the tip and he offers me one, but I politely decline.
“Getting used to the bike?”
“No.”
But the next time I have to throw the helmet on so we can leave, I don’t even question doing it. It’s like I’ve already surrendered myself to the situation, but I’ll need to take some kind of action soon. I cling to Zebulon’s back with a lot less fury for the rest of the ride until we get to our first stop of the night.
Zebulon was exaggerating when he called this place Chicago because we are several miles outside of Chicago in the middle of nowhere. The only thing that I’m thankful for is the fact that this place he’s putting us up at is pretty nice.
We’re both too tired to do anything but climb into bed together. I don’t even bother to give him a warning about keeping his hands off of me. I don’t even care about the fact that I smell like asphalt, Zeb’s cigarettes, and my own adrenaline-infused sweat.
I rest my head on the pillow for a while as Zeb goes into the bathroom to take a piss, but that’s the last thing I remember after entering our small room at the Marriott. When I wake up, there’s something heavy laying across me. Like a giant column. I try to flip over so I can discover what the fuck is pinning me to the bed.
But I can’t even move. I reach out to move the giant column pinning me down and my hand comes into contact with human flesh. It’s a person. I grunt and try to push harder to get the person off of me, but he doesn’t move. I can tell from the size and the arm hairiness that this is a man, but based on how hard it is to move this arm, he’s either asleep or dead.
I grunt and shove the body part off of me, but it doesn’t work. I groan and flop back on the bed, giving up entirely. It’s Zeb. I’m awake enough to not totally freak out about it, but I can’t get his arm off of me and he’s literally pinning me down. I squirm a little and embarrassment heats up my cheeks. My ass brushes up against Zeb’s thigh and the truth hits me.We’re spooning.I can’t escape because his heavy, muscular arm pins me to the bed.
And I’m pretty sure he isn’t conscious of this. For all I know, I’m the one who started this. The worst part is that I can’t even get away from him and gain my sense of dignity and control over this. Fuck. Now I wish I hadn’t done anything to wake him.
Zeb grunts, farts loudly, then murmurs. “Good morning.”
Great. So that was an intentional fart. Zeb farts again, leaving no doubt that he iswaytoo comfortable around me. But I’m still frozen in his arms and those big, heavy, muscular arms really are quite strong. I don’t respond to his morning greeting.
“I know you’re awake,” he whispers. Then I feel his breath and the tip of his nose poking into my neck and I freeze even more. Zeb’s body wraps and curls around me like a boa constrictor. His nose and his lips are close to my neck.
“You smell incredible,” Zeb whispers. “Sorry for getting so close, but you were shivering all night no matter what I did.”
I don’t remember shivering. And I also don’t know what the hell is wrong with me for not moving away from him right now as he draws my body closer to him. My hips move seemingly without me and brush up against something more rigid than Zeb’s already muscular thighs.It’s his dick.He grunts and I know that I wasn’t imagining things. But he doesn’t move things along any further. He just keeps holding me.
“We can’t stay here all morning,” Zeb says. “But I don’t mind holding you for a little while.”
I breathe out slowly, still not saying a single word. He moves my hair away from my neck and plants a gentle kiss there. Gooseflesh spreads all over my body, and I still don’t respond to him at all. I don’t fight his arms around me, but I can’t bring myself to agree that it feels good. There’s a part of me that’s still numb over what happened yesterday and downright terrified of what’s ahead.
Zeb’s arms feel good, though, and I don’t want to snap out of the moment and force myself to face the terrifying, uncertainreality. Fifteen slow and easy minutes pass in Zeb’s arms. I can feel his dick pressing against my ass the entire time, but Zeb doesn’t make a move. He does nothing but hold me, and it makes me wonder if maybe he really is doing it for himself too.
There’s a part of him that really needs this. Before I can bring myself to ask, Zeb slowly peels his body off of mine.
