Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
It shouldn’t have been beautiful. It should’ve been ugly and unnerving. But whoever painted the image was talented. It seemed to jump off the bike itself, staring at me with almost the same intensity as the owner of the bike.
“Keys.”
I jumped at the voice, at the closeness of it. Breath was hot on my neck, the entire back of my body electrified with the presence behind me.
Turning, I found Gage in my space. Way up in it. His eyes wild.
I didn’t speak.
“Keys,” he repeated, palm outstretched.
I looked down at it.
Keys. For my apartment.
“Right,” I whispered, rummaging in my purse for the keys I’d remembered to take with me but forgotten I’d needed.
I placed them in his palm on instinct, forgetting that I was very capable of crossing the short distance to my front door and locking it myself.
He gave me his back before I could tell him as much.
And then I stared at that back. The knot of hair fastened into a messy bun at the nape of his skull. His wide shoulders that seemed like they could carry anything.
Like the world.
His muscled back, covered by that faded leather cut.
Perfect ass in his worn-in jeans. My fingernails bit into my palms as I clenched them into fists thinking about looking at all that without clothes on. About my nails raking down the bare muscled skin.
Lauren. Stop objectifying the biker, a voice inside me hissed. You don’t like it when men do that to women, and you don’t do double standards.
Extremely logical. I did find it annoying when women objectified men, like they didn’t know what it felt like themselves. Then again, men had been doing it for thousands of years, so maybe turnabout was fair play.
And this change of heart had everything to do with the biker striding toward me after locking up my apartment, twirling my keys on his fingers.
His steps were long, fluid, purposeful.
Freaking hell, even the way he walked turned me on.
He held out my keys.
I robotically took them, putting them in my purse.
“No alarm,” he said, eyes on me.
It took me a moment to figure out what the heck he meant. These bikers seemed adverse to complete sentences. “No alarm on my apartment, you mean?” I clarified. “Yeah, well, I’ve been meaning to get around it.”
“How long you been in there?”
I chewed my lip. “Almost ten years.” For someone obsessed about safety, an alarm system should’ve been the first thing I’d installed. But it wasn’t.
His face went hard. “You’re getting a fuckin’ alarm. This week.”
I wanted to argue with him, despite the fact that he was right. A woman living alone—even in a small town—needed an alarm for safety. Especially when said small town had a rather violent history. But that was mostly to do with Gage’s club, which I’d had nothing to do with.
So no alarm.
But that wasn’t Gage’s business. And I was about to educate him on that, but he was already walking toward the bike, picking up the helmet and shoving it at me much like I’d shoved the coffee at him.
I took it on instinct.
And then I frowned when I watched him mount the bike. Not just because it turned me on even more than watching him walk. No, because he shoved on Ray-Bans that had been hanging off the handlebars—and he was lecturing me about security. Someone could’ve totally stolen them, if they were stupid enough to steal from a biker—and that was the extent of his protection.
He glanced at me. “Helmet works best on your head, Will.”
I kept the aforementioned helmet clutched against my chest. “You don’t have one.”
He grinned. “Yeah, and I’m not gettin’ one. Got you one, because I’m not riskin’ the 0.1 percent chance of me crashing and you getting a hair on that head hurt.”
Okay, that was sweet. “It’s illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet in the state of California,” I continued, not knowing why I was even trying.
He was a grown man. A biker who belonged to a one-percenter motorcycle club. One that existed because they didn’t want to follow rules. Society’s. The law’s. And I was sure they thought they looked so much cooler riding without a helmet.
Another grin. “Do I look like I give a fuck about laws?” he asked, reading my mind.
I chewed my lip, standing my ground for no other reason than because I hated the thought of that beautiful head smashing against the road with no protection. And I had to think of that because I always thought of the worst-case scenario.
Life was full of worst-case scenarios.
He sighed. “You get one, baby. Either cigarettes or the helmet. One. Take your pick.”
I jerked back. Was he seriously telling me I got to choose?
His face had lost its grin and he was now watching me intently as I continued to chew my lip, his hands fisted atop his thighs.