And I couldn’t think of a better one to have.
“All right,” I said as I helped her into a helmet and then jammed mine onto my head. I swung my leg over and got situated. “We’ve still got a few minutes, so why don’t we?—”
She slid. She slid down the leather of the bike toward me until her legs straddled me from behind. Her chest, pressed against the middle of my back. The heat of her body, radiating through the clothing on my back. I felt her cheek press in between my shoulder blades. Her hands sank to my abs, gripping them as if she tested out how in the world she was going to hold onto me for the ride.
“Here,” I muttered as I grabbed her hands.
She looped her arms around me completely.
“Mmm,” she hummed softly.
Oh, I could get used to this.
I sat there motionless until she got herself comfortable. And then, I kicked up the stand and walked my bike toward the rest of the guys. I heard their women asking all sorts of questions. Where we were going. How long it would take us to get there. Were we all staying once we got there? How far out would we be from Redd Valley?
They were all valid questions.
I was a bit shocked that my Liz had none for herself to interject with.
Instead of Cap holding his hand up to command our attention, or silencing us with one of Wrecker’s ear-shattering whistles, he simply cranked the engine of his bike.
And every single one of us fell into formation.
I always brought up the rear of formations. Well, no, that wasn’t true. Ghost and Brutus were almost always behind me. But I was in front of them, and everyone else was in front of us. I couldn’t help but notice that a couple of the devil’s legion guys were with us, no doubt because our secondary location was none other than one of their safehouses.
It wouldn’t have anywhere near the room my place had.
Or the amount of stolen moments.
My Elizabeth squeezed her arms a little tighter around my body, and my life fell into place. Her little arms with all of the strength her body could muster clung to me as if she were nothing but a newborn seeking out this confusing way of life, and a protective instinct I’d never known before welled up within me. I reached down with one of my hands and wrapped it around hers. I squeezed softly, hoping that she felt my devotion and my commitment to her.
I wished for nothing more than to mutter my promises to her while between her legs.
The wind rushed by us as we kept formation, the stars hanging high in the sky. The moon wasn’t as bright, but it still lit our pathway just the same. The engine rumbled between my legs as I leaned forward, keeping my head on a swivel to look out for anything that may be coming at us.
While My Liz continued to hold onto me like the good girl she was.
I enjoyed having her hang onto me. I enjoyed having her on the back of my bike. I thought my brothers were crazy to plan things like cross-country trips with these women. Not that taking trips with women was weird or anything. But on a bike? No one wanted to spend any of our hard-earned cash on, I don’t know, say, a first-class flight to the tropics for a week?
Anyone?
No?
Maybe my Liz would wish to be spoiled in such a way.
I needed to take the time to ask her.
I leaned back against her every time we came to a stop at a light or a sign. I felt her nuzzle back against me whenever we took off, like she tried to get as close as possible so that the wind wouldn’t yank her away. I did my best not to have a lead foot. The guys always complained about how my driving was too reckless when I had things on my mind. It was why I was stuck in the back of our resting formation on the road.
So I could have a pacer bike ahead of me.
Eventually, after driving around and around, switching bikes and switching girls and switching Iron Battalion with Devil’s Legion and back again, Cap felt like we played enough ‘choose which cup,’ so to speak. It was a pretty articulate plan, if I did say so myself. But Cap not filling us in until we were executing it told me how paranoid he felt at that moment.
I couldn’t blame him.
The switch-off was simple: after driving around in different circles for well over an hour, we ended up on the outskirts of one of the towns that The Devil’s Legion stomped around in regularly. There was a pitch black patch of trees that looked like it had the capability of blocking out the world, given the chance. We all huddled underneath there before the switch-off took place.
While we shed our jackets and helmets, some of King’s men came out of the woodworks, literally. They shed their jackets off their backs and we exchanged them, even going so far as to take our goddamn bikes from us.
