His mouth tightens. He sets the tool down with a careful kind of violence.
“It got me out.”
It kept him moving.
It kept him alive.He says it like it’s nothing—like the night I met him wasn’t a knife edge.
I step closer anyway, because I didn’t come down here to admire machinery.
I came down here because I’m tired of sleeping beside a man who acts like he owns me… and still won’t take what he’s claiming.
I put myself between him and the bike, close enough that I can smell oil and soap and heat. Close enough that the air turns dense.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say, simple.
His eyes darken. “I’m right here.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
His stare holds mine like a threat. Like a dare.
Like he’s deciding whether to punish me for saying it out loud.
“You’re testing me,” he says quietly.
Maybe I am. Maybe I’m tired of pretending I don’t want his hands on me the way he wants them there. I tilt my head.
“Am I?”
His hand lands on my waist; firm, immediate, not gentle enough to be mistaken for kindness.
My breath catches.
He doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t have to. The grip says it all.
“I don’t like games,” he murmurs. I look down at his hand on me and back up.
“Then stop playing one.”
For a second, his face doesn’t change. And then something shifts—tightens, like restraint turning into something else.
His other hand slides to my lower back.
The bike’s seat presses into the back of my thighs. And suddenly I’m pinned between him and the machine he resurrected like it matters. His mouth drops near my ear.
“You came looking for me,” he says.
A fact. A claim.
I swallow. “I found you.”
His grip tightens. “You didn’t come to talk about a bike, Beda.”
His breath is hot against my ear, ragged and uneven, like I’ve split him open just by stepping into his space. That bruising grip on my waist tightens, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks, sending heat surging low in my belly until I’m throbbing with it. I don’t pull away. I press back into him, deliberate, because fuck him for thinking he can starve us both and still act like every part of me belongs to him.
“You’re right,” I say, voice steady even though my heart is slamming against my ribs. “I didn’t.”
His fingers flex, yanking me flush against him. The motorcycle’s seat bites cold into my ass, pinning me exactly where he wants me—like he’s been dreaming this setup for weeks. His eyes drop to my mouth, dark and furious, the want in them so stark it looks like pain. Like craving me this badly is a personal insult he can’t forgive himself for.
