He stares at me for a long moment, then gives a shrug and a half smile, as if to say it doesn’t matter. He pulls on his lid, that iridescent visor masking his expression, and only then does he finally step out of my way.
I ride out of the alley and onto the road, irritated with myself as much as him.
It’s a Friday evening, about seven thirty, still light, and the bars around are beginning to fill up. I ride past a few, people spilling onto the road without a care. Pulling the clutch in and gunning the engine clears my path. They get out of the way faster for noise than they do a large pickup, like they genuinely didn’t notice until I assault their eardrums. Idiots.
What a waste of a day. I should’ve just dropped the bag off early, then gone for a ride. But now it’s getting late, I’m pissed, and stuck in the middle of the city with another twenty-mile ride home. Thetraffic is heavy as I swing onto Route 2, four lanes of slow-moving vehicles. I skim down between them, the fastest moving thing around, my focus on the road ahead, watching for that tell-tale twitch that lets me know when someone is about to change lanes with their mirrors as an afterthought.
If they hit me, they get a dent in their side, and I get to trash my bike, go over their hoods at speed, bounce off a car or two then spend Fourth of July weekend in the hospital. It hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t intend for today to be any different.
It’s another kind of challenge to switchbacks on a road across the mountains, but I still like it.
I just love being on my bike.
The sun’s low in the sky but mostly behind me, reflecting in my mirrors. It’s hot enough to have my jacket half open, and a few cars notice. They hit their horns as I go by, chirpy little greetings rather than admonishing my riding. Most people get it around here; LA has enough bikes.
Twenty minutes later, I pull up outside my apartment, feeling a little better.
Ten seconds after that, Declan pulls up too, and my mood flips from surprise through to irritation that I didn’t see him following me, through to anger that he refuses to leave me alone.
I pull my gloves and helmet off, resting them on the tank, and scowl at him. “What the fuck do you want?”
Declan takes his time killing his engine, kicking his side stand down, propping his helmet on thehandlebars, then getting off his bike and walking over. It’s like he wants me to watch him, and I can’t look away. He moves with the grace of a dancer, if not a killer. A predator, through and through, and I feel a thrill that’s more than just my response to his frustratingly good looks.
It doesn’t help that I’m faced once again with the blue eyes I can’t stop seeing, whether he’s with me or not.
“I told you,” he says, standing close to my bike. “I wantyou.”
It’s not just his words that pull at me, it’s the heat in his gaze. I wanted passion, and it’s right there. He looks at me with a hunger so raw, my body can’t help but react. It’s hard to take a breath. My nipples harden, and I wonder if he notices with my jacket half unzipped. My face heats, and I don’t know if my sun-kissed skin hides that or not. I can’t remember the last time I blushed. And I’m very conscious of my legs spread either side of my bike, the arousal that just his look has caused, soaking my panties.
I swallow, not able to find words, and my helmet slides off the tank. For the first time in my life, I’m too damn slow to catch it. It’s embarrassing, it’s humiliating, it’s the sort of mistake a fuckingrookiewould make. Drop the lid on the ground, and it compresses the safety build within it. In short, you go blow a grand on a new one. Every biker knows that.
Declan bends and catches it, fingers closing around the chin guard. Six inches above the asphalt. He hands it to me without a word, no judgment in hiseyes, then nods back down the street. “There’s a bar two blocks down that way. Know it?”
“Black Bear?” It comes out husky. I clear my throat. “Sure.”
“A beer and a game of pool.” His head tilts, and there’s a challenge in his tone. “You do play pool, right?”
“Of course I do.” What biker worth their salt doesn’t?
He nods. “Best of three. I win, you have to let me take you out to dinner.”
And that makes my stomach flip. I’m not even hungry, but I’m not sure I want to win.
Doesn’t mean I won’t. I’m not one to back down from a challenge. “And when I win?”
He grins. “I’ll have to let you take me out to dinner.”
Charismatic bastard.
But I refuse to make it so easy for him.
“How about I win, you walk away, never talk to me again, and never work for Kurt?”
His eyebrows rise, then he scratches at the week-old growth on his jaw. “Stakes have gone up,” he mutters.
“Can’t handle it?”
He gives a one shouldered shrug. “If you raise your end, I raise mine.”
