“Incredible. Very thorough. Did you develop that curriculum yourself?”
“Left foot on the peg. Swing your right leg over. Sit close.”
I stopped. “Define close.”
His eyes held mine. “Close enough not to slide off when I move.”
“I’m not cuddling you.”
“It’s not cuddling if the engine’s on.”
“That is not a legal distinction.”
“Get on the bike.”
I looked at Regan, who smiled with far too much innocence. Amber was openly delighted. Savannah had her phone out, which I immediately pointed at.
“Do not film this.”
She lowered it half an inch. “I was checking the weather.”
“You were absolutely not.”
Evie called from the porch, “Lean with him or you’ll fight the bike.”
“I don’t lean with men I don’t trust.”
Mason’s mouth curved, slow and irritating. “Then trust physics.”
I hated that he had used my own discipline against me.
Fine.
I stepped onto the peg, grabbed his shoulder for balance, and swung my leg over. The second I settled behind him, several facts became immediately, offensively clear.
One: motorcycle seats were not designed with personal boundaries in mind.
Two: Mason’s back was broad, hard, and warm.
Three: there was no dignified way to sit behind a man on a bike without placing your thighs along his hips like your body had signed a contract your brain had not reviewed.
Four: my white T-shirt was still thin, still damp from the earlier heat, and now pressed directly against his back.
My nipples tightened instantly.
Not gradually. Not politely. Instantly, traitorously, with the full enthusiasm of a body that had mistaken humiliation for foreplay.
I froze.
Mason froze too.
Oh no.
He felt it.
Of course he felt it. There was a thin layer of cotton, his shirt, and absolutely no mercy between us. My breasts were pressed against the hard plane of his back, and every breath I took made it worse. I could feel the heat of him through both shirts. The steady expansion of his ribs. The tension that moved through his shoulders when my body betrayed me against him.
My face burned so hot inside the helmet I was surprised the visor didn’t fog.
